著者

藤田 将史

出版者

一般財団法人 日本国際政治学会

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2021, no.204, pp.204_49-204_65, 2021-03-31 (Released:2022-03-31)

参考文献数

58

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Since the liberalization of capital accounts, huge international financial crises have resulted repeatedly and caused serious damage. This experience clearly demonstrates that the international lender of last resort is essential for the stable development of the global economy.Intriguingly, the U.S. that bore the responsibility of the international lender of last resort after World War II ceased bilateral balance of payment (BOP) support recently and commenced its delegation to the IMF (International Monetary Fund). Prior to the second half of the 1990s, the U.S. gave huge amounts of bilateral BOP support to economically or politically important countries because it is easier to reflect U.S. national interests in bilateral support than multilateral ones. However, since the second half of the 1990s, the U.S. has provided limited bilateral support however important a crisis country is, and increased contribution to the IMF instead. Why has the U.S. ceased to provide support by itself and delegated the role of the international lender of last resort to the IMF?Previous studies explained the U.S. utilization of the IMF mainly by two international factors: change in the nature of BOP support from economic stabilization to structural adjustment and a decline in the U.S. financial capacity. However, these international factors dissipated post the second half of the 1990s with no precise explanations for the U.S. delegation to the IMF during that period.Therefore, this paper focuses on the U.S. domestic decision-making process that previous studies almost ignored and presents a hypothesis that the Congress has delegated the BOP support to the IMF for the purpose of blame avoidance. That is, while integration of the U.S. economy into the global financial system increased the necessity of BOP support for the American political elites, enlarging inequality also increased discontent in the U.S. voters with the support. Consequently, members of Congress that faced a serious dilemma have delegated the support to the IMF for reconciliation between implementation of necessary BOP support and maintenance of political support from voters. This paper verifies that hypothesis both by statistical analysis and by supplementary case analysis.This paper has three main contributions to the existing literature. First, it demonstrates that the IMF has a politically important function to the U.S. that enables implementation of large BOP support through domestic blame avoidance. Second, it confirms the significant role and preferences of the Congress in deciding the means of the U.S. BOP support. Third, it hints at the general theory of international institutions that multilateral organizations can be utilized for blame avoidance because they can lower the visibility of operations controversial in domestic politics.