The Paris Club, 1956-1980

Not long after the 1944 creation of the core Bretton Woods institutions--the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund--another international organization emerged to address the growing issue of sovereign debt: the Paris Club. The creditor-led international mechanism for restructuring developing-country debt was not alone at its genesis. Various creditor forums competed vigorously for dominance until 1980, when the French-led Paris Club came out on top.

This book presents a comprehensive examination of the development of the Paris Club from founding to achieving its status as an informal third "Bretton Woods Sister." Drawing from over forty country cases of arduous maneuvering and contentious negotiation, Thomas M. Callaghy details the complex factors that shaped the mechanism's formation, including the geopolitical context, the domestic concerns of the creditor states, and the opposition by debtor states. He shows how, in largely secretive processes, the creditors struggled over restructuring terms, the role of economic conditionality, and the nature of development while also creating agreed norms, rules, and procedures that left them real flexibility. Although China's rise to power on the international stage has reduced the Paris Club's share of multilateral sovereign debt restructuring, it remains a central player, making this book essential reading for scholars of postwar international political economy and the Bretton Woods system.