The politics of multilateral debt rescheduling, 1956-1984: Testing for regime change favorable to the Third World's political and economic interests

The eruption of the 1982-4 Third World and East European debt crisis led to the prospect of global financial panic, if not collapse. As this scenario failed to unfold, the task became twofold: (1) to determine the extent to which these debtors, absent default on these loans, did renegotiate these debt repayment obligations on terms more favorable to their political and economic interests, and (2) to explain how and why the Developed Country governments, banks and international organizations such as the IMF managed to avert this outcome.;The first task is accomplished by applying the international regime framework with 6 norms detailing the behavioral obligations that guide these First World creditors and Third World debtors in renegotiating this debt, resolving this balance of payment (BOP) crisis. Regime change is then operationalized and measured by coding all rescheduling agreements between 1956-84 in terms of transformation in 4 of these 6 norms favorable to the Third World's political and economic interests. The level of compliance with these regime norms was quite stable, with Third World debtors unable to negotiate concessionary financial terms and economic adjustment programs.;Given this conclusion, the second task is addressed: testing theories which explain this regime stability. Six hypotheses are tested. Three of six hypotheses are derived from the Hegemonic Stability Thesis, with the remaining three derived from interdependence, collective goods, and neo-Marxist approaches to explain this regime stability. Through evaluation of qualitative and graphic evidence, five of the six hypotheses were falsified, with the neo-Marxist hypothesis being the only thesis which could not be rejected. It was concluded that this latter thesis appeared to capture the array of interactions of the governmental and non-governmental actors and politico-economic processes involved in the international debt rescheduling regime.;The final chapter of the thesis addressed the possibility of changes in the rescheduling regime since 1984, the termination of data collection efforts. It is concluded that the Third World debtors made some progress in negotiating concessionary terms and adjustment packages, but this concessionary treatment is limited, not characteristic of widespread normative regime change favorable to the Third World's political and economic interests.