The World Bank and the Cold War in Latin America

The Argentine Challenge

Established at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, the World Bank soon emerged as a central pillar of the postwar order, and the world's leading development institution. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the World Bank's pivotal role in the Cold War in Latin America through an examination of its interactions with Argentina—one of Latin America's largest economies, and a heavy borrower of the World Bank. In doing so, it unveils the surprisingly complex interplay between the World Bank's bureaucratic goals, US administrations, and Argentina's efforts to serve its own national interests.

Drawing on a multi-archival corpus of primary sources, including newly declassified documents from the World Bank archives, the author examines the Bank's often-counterintuitive responses to major economic and political challenges posed by Argentina, including populism, developmentalism, economic nationalism, authoritarianism, human rights violations, and the "Lost Decade" of the 1980s. Showing how the World Bank ranged from full alignment with US interests to neutrality and subtle dissent, the book reveals the integral influence of the Bank as a Cold War actor. Raising vital questions about the role of international organizations in developing countries, this book reframes our understanding of the economic Cold War in Latin America and beyond.

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