Policy dialogues over economic reform

This dissertation considers the policy dialogues that are supported by international institutions. These dialogues arise from the interactions between international financial advisors and financially indebted governments over the topic of domestic policy reform. By focusing on dialogues I highlight the way in which neoclassical economic ideas, which inform the policy conditions of financing, are negotiated through broader international contexts of market, debt finance, security, and sovereignty. This dialogue approach, which considers the two-way negotiation of ideas between dialogue partners, offers an alternative to structural approaches, which emphasize asymmetrical power relations in explaining how ideas are adopted into policy reforms. I argue that outcomes of conditional financing and policy reforms are products of this broader negotiation process. I consider two cases of policy dialogue between international financial institutions advisors from the IMF, and the policy-makers from debtor governments: policy dialogue with Poland, 1989-1995 and policy dialogue with Zambia, 1991-1996. The cases show how international financial institutions, which support the dialogue, are maintained within a multidimensional environment. The larger implications of this approach are first, that ideas should be studied with respect to the political and social contexts in which they are mobilized; and second, that the international environment within which international financial advisors act is multidimensional, characterized by competing contexts which organize international relations