COMMUNIST STATES IN THE IMF AND IBRD: CONFLICT AND COOPERATION
According to the requirements stated within their charters, the IMF and the IBRD are prohibited from including non-economic criteria in their decisions to lend to members. Despite this restriction, political criteria such as regime type and foreign policy orientation with respect to the East-West conflict have entered into Bank and Fund lending behavior. Political criteria do not, however, dominate decisions to lend in either organization; rather, the appearance of political criteria depends on circumstances in the environment of both the Bank and Fund and the particular relationship of a member to that environment. Using the Communist members of the Bank and the Fund as examples, it appears that foreign policy orientation is the most frequent political input into decisions to lend by the IMF and the IBRD. Due to the pro-capitalist bias of both organizations, only five Communist states have ventured to join the Bank and the Fund, and by 1980 that number had dwindled to two, Yugoslavia and Romania. Mutual suspicion and hostility, coupled with the reluctance of the Bank and Fund to accommodate the special needs of their Communist members, eventually led to the withdrawal of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Cuba from the organizations. Conversely, Yugoslavia and Romania have received levels of IMF and IBRD funding which exceed the average level of members which are non-Communist, developing nations. The uneasy relationship of Yugoslavia and Romania with the Soviet Union and the need of the Bank and Fund to achieve the goal of universal membership in order to control the increasingly volatile nature of the international economy explains this seemingly preferential treatment.
Political science, International law, International relations
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