The Debt Dilemma : IMF Negotiations in Jamaica, Grenada and Guyana

As the recent Mexican crisis has demonstrated, Third World debt remains a silent virus in the global economy and not knowing when and where it will explode next should prompt questions about the nature and process of how debt is negotiated.

This text is an attempt to understand the ways in which indebted Caribbean states and the IMF negotiate debt.

Issues raised attempt to discuss the following questions: how do small dependent Caribbean states with limited resources negotiate debt with a powerful international agency such as IMF?; what are the various bargaining tactics and leverages that Caribbean governments and the IMF utilize in the negotiation of debt to shape the conditionality outcomes of economic adjustment?; and how does US hegemony in the Caribbean impact the process and outcome of negotiating debt?