This essay critically examines the dynamics of IMF involvement in the 2007-8 financial crisis, exploring the ramifications for its mandate and legitimacy. The argument takes a constructivist perspective, concluding that the crisis ‘resuscitated’ the IMF’s fortunes, prompting a tentative endorsement of monetarist, fiscally active Keynesian economics. Erroneous predictions that the crisis would originate outside the US further weakened the IMF’s damaged reputation, although to some extent ...

Full lecture notes for the module PO230 States and Markets. These helped achieve an overall module mark of 80. Topics covered: - Classical political economy (Smith, Ricardo) - Radical political economy (Marx) - Economic nationalism (List) - Neoclassical political economy - Polanyi - Keynesian political economy - The New Right (Friedman, Hayek) - Embedded liberalism and Bretton Woods - National models of capitalism - The offshore system