Ryan Cadry’s interest in politics and international relations began at an early age, when he read the Sunday newspapers with his father. Over time, that interest grew into an insatiable hunger for learning, one that has fueled his investigation into the underlying factors leading to global privation. Specifically, he sought to understand the roles of international organizations and financial institutions in promoting development throughout Africa and Latin America. Ryan has enjoyed the opportunity his research has given him to develop a friendship with his mentor, Professor Sandholtz, and to travel to Washington D.C. to interview officials of the International Monetary Fund and State Department.

The degree to which certain international organizations influence global economic sustainability (and to some extent, the foreign relations of various states) in the twenty-first century is unprecedented. The amplified roles of multilateral economic institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have allowed these institutions to extend their policies beyond the traditional tools for attaining economic sustainability in developing countries. In addition to its highly-controversial structural adjustment policies, for example, the IMF has adopted a tougher stance against political malfeasance, asserting that greater fiscal transparency and accountability of government finances is crucial to maintaining market confidence. Thus, the Fund has incorporated good-governance standards into its conditionality requirements for monetary assistance. Critics, however, have reproached the IMF for infringing on states’ autonomy by necessitating certain governance-related reforms. They argue, moreover, that the Fund is going beyond its jurisdiction as a purely economic institution in calling for such reforms. In spite of these claims, scholarly research has justified IMF involvement in governance issues, showing that there is, indeed, a positive statistical correlation between good governance characterized by transparency and fiscal accountability on the one hand, and economic growth on the other.

Wayne A. Sandholtz School of Social Sciences

Ryan Cadry’s article tackles an important problem in global governance. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is one of the institutions charged with maintaining international economic stability. One of its key functions is to lend money to developing countries that find themselves in severe financial difficulty. The IMF has always attached economic conditions to its loans, but more recently it has also imposed political conditions. The political conditions include, for example, government transparency and integrity, which frequently means curbing corruption. Ryan asks if the imposition of political conditions on IMF loans constitutes an unwarranted trespass on the sovereignty of developing countries. Read the article to learn what he concludes.