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Holding Intergovernmental Institutions to Account
- Ngaire Woods
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- Journal:
- Ethics & International Affairs / Volume 17 / Issue 1 / March 2003
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 28 September 2012, pp. 69-80
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How can governments and peoples better hold to account international economic institutions, such as the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF? This article proposes an approach based on public accountability, advocating improvements in four areas: constitutional, political, financial, and internal accountability.
The argument for more accountability is made with two caveats: more accountability is not always good–it can be distorting and costly; and, enhancing the accountability of international institutions should not justify increasing their jurisdiction for the sake of reducing the role of national governments. Constitutional accountability poses limits on how the institutions expand their activities, requiring the active consent of all members and particularly those most affected by their activities. Political accountability requires that those who make decisions in the organizations are directly answerable to all member governments and not just to the most powerful ones. The institutions' uneven record and structure of financial accountability is addressed through a model of mutual restraint. Finally, the internal accountability should ensure that technical decisions are distinguishable from political decisions. A better matching of the right kinds of accountability to the activities of the organizations would improve both their effectiveness and legitimacy.
Part I - Public accountability: participatory spheres from global to local
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- By Ngaire Woods, Fellow in Politics University College, Oxford
- Edited by Alnoor Ebrahim, Harvard University, Massachusetts, Edward Weisband, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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- Book:
- Global Accountabilities
- Published online:
- 22 September 2009
- Print publication:
- 06 September 2007, pp 25-26
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Summary
The following chapters explore accountability in public institutions, with special attention to intergovernmental or multilateral organizations. Ngaire Woods leads the section by introducing the reasons for public disaffection with multilateral institutions. The challenge of accountability, as she sees it, is twofold: how to make global institutions more effective and more legitimate. She is critical of reform efforts that seek to increase effectiveness by insulating the institutions from politics (by strengthening the roles of independent experts). Instead, her analysis suggests that political pressures are inescapable, and that a more legitimate process – built on carefully structured forms of participation and representation – could also improve effectiveness and implementation. For participation to have impact, however, it must also be buttressed by enhanced forms of transparency, monitoring, and judicial-style accountability.
In the ensuing chapter, Randall Germain builds on this argument, examining a “hard case” of accountability: the highly specialized agencies and networks that constitute global financial governance. He proposes a rethinking of accountability away from a core emphasis on monitoring and compliance and towards mechanisms that “internalize accountability” within key governance institutions in ways that ensure “dissent and a critical engagement across a range of politically contentious issues are allowed to occur within these institutions themselves.” He calls this a “logic of participation” rather than a “logic of compliance.” While this is no small task among the tight expert circles of central banks, treasuries, and regulators, he provides evidence that the basis for such a rethinking already exists.
2 - Multilateralism and building stronger international institutions
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- By Ngaire Woods, Fellow in Politics University College, Oxford
- Edited by Alnoor Ebrahim, Harvard University, Massachusetts, Edward Weisband, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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- Book:
- Global Accountabilities
- Published online:
- 22 September 2009
- Print publication:
- 06 September 2007, pp 27-44
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Summary
International institutions are facing a double challenge of effectiveness and legitimacy. Many dissatisfied or disenfranchised governments and groups are deeply affected by global governance yet feel governance is poorly executed and that they themselves are inadequately represented. As global governance expands, few can hold those who exercise power to account. The implications for democracy are profound. Within the boundaries of the state people enjoy at least a potential to hold their governments to account through elections, ombudsmen, court actions, nongovernmental agencies, and the media. Yet increasingly, governments are delegating or ceding control over such decisions to international organizations, networks or other actors. This means that even in democracies, governments cannot be held to account for a widening range of decisions.
The institutions of global governance are mostly intergovernmental. They are constructed to represent member states and to provide a forum for discussion, agreement, and multilateral cooperation. In global governance, no actor can claim to have been directly elected by voters. Nor are many institutions subject to the normal restraints or checks and balances of public office. Multilateral organizations grapple with an unwieldy structure of government representation behind which most decisions are made by a small group of powerful states using a combination of formal and informal influence. As a result, accountability in global governance is complex and difficult to achieve.
The most deeply affected or disenfranchised are peoples in developing countries.
6 - Making the IMF and the World Bank More Accountable
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- By Ngaire Woods, University College, Oxford
- Edited by Ariel Buira
- Foreword by José Antonio Ocampo
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- Book:
- Reforming the Governance of the IMF and the World Bank
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 05 March 2012
- Print publication:
- 01 November 2005, pp 149-170
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Summary
Abstract:
Accused of being secretive, unaccountable and ineffective, both the IMF and the World Bank are seeking to become more transparent, participatory and accountable. Yet, few attempts have been made to dissect the existing structure of accountability within the International Financial Institutions (IFIs). This paper critically examines the existing accountability of the institutions and offers some recommendations for making them more accountable. It also warns that the limits of their accountability should limit the legitimacy of their activities.
Introduction
During the 1990s, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (the Bank) found themselves accused of being secretive, unaccountable and ineffective. Not only radical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) but equally, their major shareholders are demanding that the institutions become more transparent, accountable and participatory. Accountability became the catch cry of officials, scholars and activists in discussing the reform of the institutions. However, few attempts have been made to dissect the existing structure of accountability within the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), to explain its flaws and to propose solutions and is the aim of this paper.
The first section examines the structure of accountability planned by the founders of the IMF and the Bank. The second section discusses the defects in this structure. Section three analyses the recent attempts to make the institutions more accountable. The conclusion offers some recommendations for improving the institutions and a warning about the limits of accountability at the international level.
14 - Accountability, governance and the reform of the IMF
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- By Ngaire Woods, Director of the Global Economic Governance Programme and Fellow in Politics and International Relations, University College, Oxford.
- Edited by David Vines, University of Oxford, Christopher L. Gilbert, Universiteit van Amsterdam
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- Book:
- The IMF and its Critics
- Published online:
- 04 December 2009
- Print publication:
- 26 February 2004, pp 396-416
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Summary
Introduction
To be effective, the IMF and its activities must be transparent to the public, accountable to its members, and responsive to the lessons of experience and outside evaluation.
(G7 Communiqué, 15 April 2000)Over the 1990s, in an effort to improve both its effectiveness and its public image, the IMF began to take steps to make itself more transparent, more accountable and more participatory. This chapter investigates how accountable the institution has become and what ‘accountability’ might and should mean for an international institution such as the IMF. Curiously, although great strides have been made in improving transparency and in better understanding concepts of participation and ownership in the implementation of the institution's programmes, a rigorous definition and concept of ‘accountability’ has been slow to emerge. Indeed, most contemporary proposals for the reform of the institutions use the term regularly without ever developing who should be accountable to whom and for what.
Section 2 of the chapter discusses why accountability is now so prominently on the agenda and why the traditional structure of the IMF no longer meets expectations as to how accountable the institution should be. Section 3 examines the demands of new actors to hold the institution better to account, focusing in particular on the rise of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and their engagement with the IMF. Section 4 critically examines the role of the United States in reforming the Fund and evaluates the recommendations of the Meltzer Commission.
5 - The challenges of multilateralism and governance
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- By Ngaire Woods
- Edited by Christopher L. Gilbert, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, David Vines, Balliol College, Oxford
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- Book:
- The World Bank
- Published online:
- 12 October 2009
- Print publication:
- 27 July 2000, pp 132-156
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Summary
Introduction
From the ‘Wapenhans Report’ (World Bank, 1992b) to the Strategic Compact of 1998, the World Bank has over the past decade closely examined how to achieve its development objectives more effectively. This is more difficult for the World Bank than for many private sector actors since the Bank is more than a development agency (see Hopkins et al. chapter 11 in this volume). It is also multilateral institution which must represent and implement the will of the governments who are its members. For this reason, the Bank's ability to undertake and fulfil its economic purposes depends on a number of political forces. The institution requires the ongoing support of its most powerful members, while yet satisfying ‘an increasingly vocal and demanding senior shareholder’, the Bank must also retain its status as a technical and multilateral agency which requires the support of all its other members (see Feinberg et al., 1986).
This chapter examines the relationship between political pressures exerted on the Bank and its independence. In particular, the chapter analyses the characteristics of the Bank which enhance its autonomy so as potentially to counter-balance the Bank's reliance on the support of its largest shareholder. The characteristics examined include the Bank's financial structure, its research and expertise and the rules governing its lending operations. The chapter notes that by the end of the 1980s all the above had become subject to political influences, thus challenging the Bank's status as a multilateral and technical agency.