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The bureaucratic autonomy of international financial organizations: a comparative study between the World Bank and International Monetary Fund

The main goal of this article is to understand why the World Bank has reached more bureaucratic autonomy than the International Monetary Fund regardless the fact that both have similar institutional structures. We believe that the reason for such difference is a more diverse expertise of the World Bank compared to the IMF. We claim that a more diverse bureaucracy increases the likelihood of coalition formation with NGOs. Such coalitions aim to support policies that are important for both the bureaucracy and the NGO's. Consequently, they increase the costs for both State intervention and State control over the organization. The higher costs of intervention and control allow bureaucrats to act more freely according to their interests. Hence, our hypothesis is the following: the more diverse the bureaucratic expertise, the more likely is the formation of coalitions between bureaucracy and NGOs, and the greater the costs for State control and intervention. Higher intervention and control costs, in turn, increase bureaucratic autonomy. We use mainly qualitative research methods with some descriptive statistics.

International Organization; Bureaucratic Autonomy; World Bank; International Monetary Fund (IMF)


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