Perfect Scapegoats? Blaming and Defending the International Monetary Fund

• In Event: International Cooperation, Domestic Politics, and Public Opinion

Abstract

International organizations (IOs) are often considered ideal scapegoats for member state governments that seek to avoid blame for contested IO policies. Yet we know surprisingly little about whether and when governments indeed shift blame onto IOs. We argue that IO scapegoating is not as pervasive as commonly assumed because blaming IOs is costly. Blaming IOs undermines governments’ credibility and threatens their cooperation gains. To reap cooperation gains, governments can instead defend the IO and bear public discontent. We suggest Cooperation-Contestation Trade-Off to explain when governments blame or defend IOs: Governments that rely heavily on international cooperation are more likely to defend IOs while governments that expect costly domestic contestation are more likely to blame IOs. We assess our theory by examining governments’ communication about the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – an IO commonly assumed to be a perfect scapegoat. With an original dataset of over 800 hand-coded IMF statements by heads of governments in major IMF borrower countries, we find supportive evidence for our expectations. Crucially, we observe that whilst governments do frequently blame the IMF, they in fact defend the Fund more than they blame it. Our findings yield important implications for international cooperation in times of heightened politicization.

Authors

• Tim Philipp Heinkelmann-Wild, LMU Munich

• Tom Hunter, Univeristy of Zurich

• Sujeong Shim, New York University Abu Dhabi