By Miles Kahler; The Institute for International Economics; December 2001 

Leadership selection in the major global economic organizations produced unprecedented levels of public conflict during the 1990s. The convention that awards the IMF managing directorship to a European and the World Bank presidency to an American sparked conflict between the United States and Europe as well as growing discontent on the part of Japan and the developing countries. At the WTO, successive conflicts demonstrate deeper shortcomings in governance as membership expands rapidly and consensus decision making fails. Protracted efforts to choose new heads of these increasingly important organizations have undermined their legitimacy and distracted members from their core agendas.

This selection process and its flaws provide a central theme for the analysis and prescriptions presented in this study, which focuses on the major international financial institutions (IFIs) and other global and regional multilaterals. Author Miles Kahler looks at the sources of conflict and presents recommendations for reform: in the short run, changes in the process, such as the use of search committees; in the long run, the dismantling of the US-European convention at the IFIs and changes in representation at the WTO. The author's diagnosis and policy recommendations have important implications for leadership selection in other regional and global organizations.

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Book Contents (PDFs):

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Conflict Over Leadership Selection

1. The Objectives of Leadership 130.4KB

2. Selection at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank 121.5KB

3. Diagnosis: Selection at the World Trade Organization 159.5KB

4. Solutions: How Much Reform 216.3KB

5. The Powers and Their Interests: the Feasibility of Reforms 62.6KB

Appendix A 113.6KB

Appendix B 122.8KB

References

Index

About the Author:

Miles Kahler is a Rohr Professor of International Pacific Economics at University of California San Diego. From 1994 to 1996 he was Senior Fellow in International Political Economy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a member of the editorial board of International Organization and a member of the Executive Committee of the Program for International Studies in Asia. Kahler taught at Princeton University and Yale University before joining the UCSD faculty in 1986. Recent edited and authored publications include Capital Flows and Financial Crises, Liberalization and Foreign Policy, Regionalism and Rivalry: Japan and the U.S. in Pacific Asia and International Institutions and the Political Economy of Integration.

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