The World Bank Lending and Non-Lending to Latin America: The Case of Argentina, 1971-1976

Abstract

Through the analysis of Argentina-World Bank (WB) relations between 1971 and 1976, this article examines how democracies and dictatorships, as well as political and economic constraints did (or did not) impact WB lending to Latin America. This period is especially revealing. Between May 1971 and September 1976, the WB did not grant any new loans to Argentina, thereby generating an exceptional and unusually long break in WB lending to the country. Drawing on previously undisclosed files from the WB Archives and additional primary sources from Argentina and the United States, this article unveils the actual mechanisms, criteria and justification that stood behind the decision to lend or not to lend to Argentina. It maintains that the WB’s self-imposed principle of «neutrality» played a crucial role in facilitating the WB’s relations with Argentina during the politically and economically unstable early 1970s.

Friends or foes? Brazil, the IMF and the World Bank, 1961–1967

“…Carlo Edoardo Altamura, Raul García-Heras and Claudia Kedar have all examined different facets of the financial relations of authoritarian regimes in Latin America. Kedar has carried out extensive analyses of the relationship between the WB and the Argentine dictatorship of the 1970s (Kedar 2019a, 2019b) and between the WB, the IMF and Pinochet's Chile (Kedar 2017, 2018). García-Heras has concentrated on the international financial relations of the Argentine military junta (Garcia-Heras 2018a, 2018b), while Altamura has focused on European commercial banks and their activities in Latin America (Altamura 2020; Altamura and Flores 2020).…”