Where do they speak from? Positions about the new IMF contractual proposal for ordering sovereign debt restructurings/?Desde onde falam? Posicoes em torno da nova proposta contratual do FMI para ordenar as reestruturacoes da divida soberana.

AutorManzo, Alejandro Gabriel

I--Introduction

Discussions about the correct ordering of Sovereign Debt Restructurings (SDRs) are once again at the center of the global economic political agenda (Bohoslavsky 2016). The cases of Greece and Argentina had wide international impact. In 2013, the IMF issued a report which pointed out failures in the manner of currently conducting these processes (IMF 2013a). Then, together with working groups of the USA Treasury and the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), the Fund began updating its framework for dealing with restructurings. The main advancement of this process was shown in a 2014 report which basically introduced new models of collective action (CACs) and pari passu clauses (IMF 2014b).

The proposal generated an intense debate, which became more complex with the entrance of new players in the discussion that promoted the creation of an SDR statutory mechanism at the UN (UNCTAD 2015; A/RES/68/304 2014; Gelpern 2016). In this scenario, it is possible to find not only different but also opposite opinions about the new contractual clauses: some commentators qualify the IMF initiative as pro-debtor (PIIE 2014, 31, Hung Tran) and others as pro-creditor (Alvarez and Adelarde 2015; PIIE 2014, 33-34, A. Gelpner); many analysts argue that this proposal intervenes in a nonexistent problem (Mooney 2015, 68), while others hold it does so in only one of the multiple SDR existing problems (J. E. Stiglitz et al. 2014); some observers present the initiative as the result of a particularly democratic process (Hagan 2014, 1) and others see it as part of an essentially exclusionary one (Brooks et al. 2015, 8; Stichelmans 2015, 9-10); finally, some commentators believe that the changes proposed by the IMF are superficial (Alvarez and Adelarde 2015, 17), while others consider that it has taken a "big step forward" (Gelpner 2014, 3). How can such different positions coexist concerning the same social fact? Or more specifically: where do these observers speak from?

This article analyzes the potentialities and limits of the new IMF proposal--(IMF 2014b)--by means of a > (Bourdieu 2008; Bourdieu 2000). In this sense, scholars specialized in international political economy have stated that the definition of how, when and to what amount should sovereign debts be restructured is an essentially > issue (Brooks and Lombardi 2015, 7; PIIE 2014, 34, Anne Gelpner). In this paper, the image of the academic field as a neutral and ascetic space of inter-individual relations--the idealized image of the "academic community"--is replaced by the image of a space in/of dispute, in which different social agents compete to impose their own worldview as the legitimate worldview. This field, relatively autonomous of the rest of the social universe, is organized around positions which are structurally and historically defined one in relation to the others (Bourdieu 2008). Each position lies on diverse interests and has a relatively distinctive way of thinking about the financial market (its agents, institutions and relations with other social spaces) without which its visibility--it is believed--is impossible to understand the SDR debate in a comprehensive way.

The literature shows this debate in dichotomous terms. Indeed, the debate appears organized around two antagonistic positions which are defined according to the > that they promote in order to organize SDRs; this is to say, a debate between "contractualists vs. statutorists" (Hofmann 2014). Thus, the new IMF proposal is seen as a triumph of the first over the second position (Makoff and Kahn 2015, 3), as represented in a concrete way by the referred UN Committee, whose work ended in 2015 without having drafted the planned statutory mechanism, but listing a set of SDR guiding principles (A/RES/69/319 2015).

This dichotomous image of the debate is judged incomplete. Bolton noted, in this sense, that among the opponents to the statutory approach coexist two positions with different but not easily reconcilable perspectives (Bolton 2003, 49 and 60). While some agents support the contractual approach because of its efficiency at the time of ordering SDRs, others do so because of its inefficiency: in effect, whilst--Bolton observes--the contractualists of the former position argue that this approach already delivers most of the benefits of a statutory approach, the contractualists of the latter position believe that, under its influence, SDRs will be highly costly, something which they deem as positive and desirable since it imposes discipline on Debtor States (Bolton 2003, 60). The former position became hegemonic at the IMF in the early twenty-first century, so we call it > position. The latter position is still active and maintains a critical perspective with respect to the Fund SDR framework (> position).

Among the statutorists there are also conflictive opinions about this framework. While some pro-statutory approach agents argue that an SDR process supported by an IMF financial program is the best option for a country and the world at the time of avoiding a crisis (A. O. Krueger 2002; A. Krueger 2013), for other statutorists such kind of programs not only do not prevent crisis but, on the contrary, cause them (J. Stiglitz 2009). The former, around which we built the > position, acquired greater visibility in the Anne Krueger proposal about setting a statutory mechanism, named as SDRM, at the IMF (A. O. Krueger 2002), whilst the latter were dominant in the aforementioned UN Committee. These latter ones--which we locate in the > position--, hold a heterodox conception of the economy (Guzman and Stiglitz 2015).

Thus, the article introduces a new map of the SDR debate. Its originality derives not only from adding new positions to this debate but, mainly, from its own logic of construction. This paper starts with an objectifying process of the academic field directed to analyze the discourse of academicians in the space of the sovereign debt market in order to discover the criteria by means they themselves > or > in this space of the field. The analysis of these criteria helps, on the one hand, to justify the dimensions chosen to create the four positions shown in Table 1; on the other, it helps to define these positions with the depth required to address the purpose of the study.

The objective of this article gives centrality to the IMF framework to deal with SDRs. The works which criticize the contractual approach > the Fund do not explain in depth the main aspects of the proposal they criticize, which has been its evolution nor how it is connected to the rest of the policies and practices that the IMF promotes to organize SDR processes. (2) The works that promote or criticize this approach > the institution preserve these limits but at the cost of sidelining the contractual nature of its approach or, in more general terms, the assumptions which the framework is based on. (3) This paper attempts to offer an improved picture of the debate by incorporating the strengths of both research groups. In effect, the article defines, firstly, the IMF SDR framework by using IMF official documents and updates it by showing its recent reforms. Secondly, the paper inserts the new models of clauses proposed by the 2014 IMF report in this framework and, summarily, traces their origin and evolution. Only then, thirdly, does the article introduce the criticisms associated to this report--its limits and potentialities--not from only one perspective but from the range of perspectives arising from the referred positions.

It is argued that these limits and potentialities cannot be thought of in absolute or abstract terms. Explaining from where the commentators speak in the SDR debate supposes understanding that their opinions on the 2014 IMF report only make sense: a) in the context of their relations with the other positions that structure this academic field; b) considering the assumptions their positions rest on and the interests that guide them. This article shows that the four positions agree in observing that the new models of clauses proposed by the IMF: a) are better than the existing arrangements concerning the ability to manage SDR collective action problems; b) do not have the power to promptly and fully remove the degree of uncertainty that currently exists in the SDR context. Excluding this basic coincidence, it is observed, the four positions offer different narratives about the recent Fund developments in the area of restructuring processes.

II--Classificatory and defining criteria of the positions in dispute at the SDR debate: justification and conceptualization of the chosen criteria

The academic discourse, materialized in different academic works, is a power discourse. Culture producers have the ability to spread their own viewpoint of the world to other sectors of society since their knowledge is perceived by those sectors as legitimate. In the contemporary world, scientific knowledge is exhibited as > as it possesses attributes of objectivity and universality held more accurate than the attributes recognized to other intellectual creations (Bourdieu 2000). In the particular case of the new contractual models, the impact of the academicians who promote such models on the sovereign debt market is magnified because their academic contributions are supported and translated to the international economic policy field by the central players of the global financial governance.

The academic discourse is a discourse of power. While in the preceding paragraph the emphasis was laid on the effects of this discourse on the actual world, it is here focused on the conditions which produce it (Torres 2011). The academic field is understood as a field of dispute, where different agents mutually compete in a context of structurally unequal social relations. Unlike the visions that show the homo academicus as a disinterested observer, and his work as the result of purely...

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