Leonard Seabrooke & Alexander Kentikelenis publish an article in American Sociological Review

Intergovernmental organizations are largely responsible for policies on how to trade goods, transfer money, and tax incomes. The content of these policy scripts is an outcome of conflicts and tensions between the science of in-house expert staff and the politics of board members that govern these organizations. While many explanations focus on how policies spread across the world, Kentikelenis Seabrooke (K&S) examine how policy scripts are made within intergovernmental organizations. Their cases map the process of script-writing for capital controls and consumption taxes in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization known for economic policies that change billions of lives. To trace tensions between science and politics in script-writing K&S dig into the IMF’s archives, through board minutes and staff papers, as well as personal interviews with key staff. They develop a model for understanding how fights between science and politics are crucial for policy development not only in bodies like the IMF but also for international civil society organizations and regional institutions.

 

Kentikelenis, Alexander E. & Leonard Seabrooke: The Politics of World Polity: Script-writing in International Organizations,  28p in American Journal of Sociology 2017, Sage Publications, Article first published online: September 6, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122417728241.