Abstract

The political economy literature on international bailouts has repeatedly shown that the domestic politics of rescued countries influence international bailout compliance. However, we know less about the domestic politics of bailout negotiations, and especially the type of conditions negotiated by governments of more developed countries with strong ties to international lenders. This paper puts forward an argument about the role of a government’s partisanship in shaping the conditions stipulated between international lenders and developed countries when crises confront the latter. Consistent with political cover theories, we argue that governments of crisis countries seek to scapegoat international institutions in order to push domestically unpleasant reforms. However, when crises affect countries significantly close to international lenders, international institutions may tolerate the scapegoating attitude and accept to emphasize governments’ reforms in the direction of their core ideological constituencies. Focusing on bailout negotiations during the Eurocrisis (2008–2016), we maintain that while important and painful reforms were discussed at the negotiation tables, the involved international lenders also accommodated the policy preferences of both left and right governments of crisis-ridden countries, everything else constant. So, conditionality came with duress, but governments were also able to emphasize reforms on the opponents’ policy issues, hence systematically obtaining fewer measures on their voters’ main policy areas. Regression analyses of an original country-quarter dataset of EU bailout conditionality measures provide support to our hypothesis. The findings are relevant to the analysis of partisan politics in economic negotiations and of democratic deficits in international organizations. Furthermore, this study contributes to understanding the political accessibility and ideological dynamics of international lending beyond the Eurocrisis.

摘要

关于国际救助的政治经济学文献一再表明，受援国的国内政治影响国际救助合规性。然而，我们对救助谈判的国内政治知之甚少，尤其是与国际贷方关系密切的较发达国家政府谈判的条件类型。本文提出了一个论点，即政府的党派偏见在塑造国际贷方与发达国家之间规定的条件中的作用，当危机面临后者时。与政治掩护理论一致，我们认为危机国家的政府寻求将国际机构作为替罪羊，以推动国内令人不快的改革。然而，当危机影响与国际贷款人关系密切的国家时，国际机构可能会容忍替罪羊的态度，并接受强调政府朝着其核心意识形态支持者的方向进行改革。关注欧洲危机（2008-2016）期间的救助谈判，我们认为，尽管在谈判桌上讨论了重要而痛苦的改革，但相关的国际贷款人也适应了危机缠身国家左右政府的政策偏好，一切否则不变。因此，条件性伴随着胁迫而来，但政府也能够强调对反对者政策问题的改革，从而系统地在其选民的主要政策领域获得较少的措施。对欧盟救助条件措施的原始国家/地区季度数据集的回归分析为我们的假设提供了支持。这些发现与分析经济谈判中的党派政治和国际组织中的民主缺陷有关。此外，本研究有助于了解欧洲危机之后国际借贷的政治可及性和意识形态动态。