1. ^aInternational Center for Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Steen Blichers Vej 22, Frederiksberg 2000, Denmark. E-mail: ls.cbp@cbs.dk
2. ^bDepartment of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia. E-mail: Leonard.seabrooke@anu.edu.au

¹This article was drafted while a visitor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Oslo. It was then revised during a visit to the Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS), Stanford University. My thanks go to all of the participants in this symposium, as well as to Mick Cox, for their feedback on earlier versions of this piece at both the Canberra 2005 and Bellagio 2006 workshops. My thanks also go to Jacquie Best, Anna Persson, Ole Jacob Sending, Shogo Suzuki, and Antje Vetterlein for their conversations and comments on earlier drafts. My special thanks go to André Broome for his extensive comments on earlier drafts. My thanks also go to the archivists in the International Monetary Fund Archives, Washington, DC, especially Madonna Gaudette, Premela Isaacs, and Jean Marcouyeux.

Abstract

Since the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998, the International Monetary Fund (the Fund) has been embroiled in an international crisis of legitimacy. Assertions of a crisis are premised on the notions that the Fund's voting system is unfair, that the Fund enforces homogeneous policies onto borrowing member states and that loan programmes tend to fail. Seen this way, poor institutional and policy design has led to a loss of legitimacy. But institutionalised inequalities or policy failure is not in itself sufficient to constitute an international crisis of legitimacy. This article provides a conceptually-driven discussion of the sources of the Fund's international crisis of legitimacy by investigating how its formal 'foreground' institutional relations with its member states have become strained, and how informal 'background' political and economic relationships are expanding in a way that the Fund will find difficult to re-legitimate. The difference between the Fund's claims to legitimacy and how its member states, especially borrowers, act has led to the creation of a 'legitimacy gap' that is difficult to close. However, identifying the sources of the Fund's international crisis of legitimacy allows us to explore what avenues are available to resolve the crisis.