Embeddedness, inflation, and international regimes: The IMF in the early postwar period

This article explores why the International Monetary Fund (IMF) adopted a set of orthodox, anti-inflationary policy prescriptions during the early postwar period, when Keynesian thinking was predominant. Drawing on primary documents from the IMF archive and secondary literature, the author argues that these early trends were fostered by dynamics familiar to organizational sociologists. Because organizations are designed by architects possessing bounded rationality, they must adapt to circumstances unforeseen at their founding. They may also be pushed in unexpected directions by the influential actors in their environments, the power of professionals, and the propensity to routinization. International regimes, which are partly made up of organizations, may therefore be prone to internal contradictions.