Question

Some argue that the IMF, WB and WTO are institutions of neo-imperialism. Make an argument for or against this thesis.

Answer 1

The institutions such as IMF ,WTO and World bank can be considered as the institutions of neo imperialism.Neo imperialism occurs when bigger economies uses their power and influences to dominate the smaller or weaker countries.Majority of the organizations such as World Bank ,IMF and WTO were created after the world war to help the devastated economies.These institutions were in charge of assesting the weaker economies in their reconstruction and IMF was created to provide Financial help for the member countries.Apart from these major functions these institutions perform they are also considered to be the agents of neo imperialism .The main point that support this argument is that the policies of this institutions tries to promote the neo liberal ideas and tries to impose such ideas on the borrowing countries.Eventhough the institutions like IMF,WTO and World Bank are public institutions and multilateral.Being multilateral means that all the member countries should have active participation and should be answerable to all the member countries.But in reality this is not the case.The ideas of stronger member countries is seen to dominate and influence the weaker member countries.For example World Bank is considered to be highly influenced by United States.The head quarters of World Bank is situated at Washington D.C and the policies taken by world bank is influenced by the United States.This dominance is even reflected in the voting share.US have veto power and is considered more influential.While considering the IMF it is not US who acts as monopoly but other countries such as Japan and United Kingfom exercise more power and control