We were asked by the Independent Evaluation Office to outline political science methods for assessing the chances of reform implementation in an ex-ante fashion. We agreed to illustrate how these tools 'work' by using Pakistan as a case study. The recent literature on IMF-sponsored reforms...

Structural adjustment programs of the IMF are often blamed for disrupting social relations by forcing austerity on vulnerable people and introducing unpopular liberalization policies. Some suggest that such interventions harm ethnic relations in developing countries because they are insensitive...

The global economic downturn has heightened concerns about intervention by global financial institutions and the maintenance of political stability. At least one, prominently-published article purports to show that signing on to an IMF structural adjustment program (SAP) increases the risk of...