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Jakob Skovgaard

Jakob Skovgaard

Associate professor | Senior lecturer | Principal investigator BECC

Jakob Skovgaard

Economisation as boundary work: Integrating climate change into IMF surveillance

Author

  • Jakob Skovgaard

Summary, in English

In 2021, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) moved to integrate climate risks into its Article IV surveillance of member states. While the IMF has not traditionally been at the forefront of climate change efforts, this decision involved defining climate change as a risk to macro-economic stability. I argue that the integration of climate change into IMF surveillance can be understood as a case of international organisation (IO) boundary work taking place via the mechanism of economisation: an economic institution addressing a (traditionally non-economic) issue as an economic issue. The study identifies crucial factors shaping this boundary expansion, particularly the agency of IMF staff, as well as preferences within the IMF Executive Board, and institutional ideas. The straightforward integration of physical and transition climate risks is in contrast to the contestation surrounding the integration of mitigation policy. The findings contribute to the literature on IOs and their boundaries, change within the IMF, and the environmental political economy. The analysis reveals the role of IMF staff in this boundary work and, in addition, that institutionalised ideas and the heterogeneous preferences among member states acted as scope conditions limiting how far this economisation could go.

Department/s

  • Department of Political Science
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate

Publishing year

2024-12-10

Language

English

Publication/Series

Review of International Studies

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Topic

  • Political Science

Status

Epub

Project

  • Financing industrial decarbonisation: Managing risks and uncertainties to promote green investments in energy intensive industry

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0260-2105