Privatisation, Partisanship and the IMF

Pressures to Privatize? The IMF, Globalization, and Partisanship in Latin America 
By David Doyle, Political Research Quaterly

Abstract 

Despite pervasive downward pressure on government policy from exogenous forces, the author argues that partisanship still exerts an effect on privatization in Latin America. When a country is indebted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and a government of the right is in power, scholars can expect increased levels of privatization. However, when a country is indebted to the IMF and a government of the left is in power, electoral incentives will prompt these governments to ignore IMF pressure and reduce levels of privatization. The author tests this argument on a data set of eighteen Latin American countries, between the years 1984 and 1998.