are tensions between competing concepts of appropriate forms of government (e.g., capitalism or socialism; authoritarian or democratic) as well as tensions between domestic national economic or political policies and commitments to agencies with international jurisdiction such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank. Nelson (1990a) refers to the whole process as structural change, and the terms are frequently used interchangeably. But what is really important is the fact that the reality of economic conditions affect internal economic policies of these countries, even as internal economic policies affect the reality of conditions for specific, and usually marginal, interest groups. The priorities of nation-states versus the IMF may clash both in substance and time frame. Indeed, in the 1980s, the inflation-fighting and debt-service priorities of, say, the IMF, clashed with the social priorities of many different developing countries (Nelson, 1990a).
As Kaufman explains in the cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, external demands for economic stabilization that encouraged structural adjustment came about to the degree political power was distributed for or against private business interests. In either case, however, state policy was determined by the relationship of the regime to such interests, which "influenced the perceptions and interests of policy makers" (1990, p. 109). In Argentina and Mexico, for example, conservative business groups influenced the state regimes toward accommodation with IMF goals. To the degree Brazil flouted World Bank debt-service obligations in the 1980s, it was able to do so because its internal business interests, geared toward financing export activity generously, could favor confrontation with external institutions for the purpose of plowing capital "reserves" accumulated in foreign trade back into Brazil's domestic economy itself. On the other hand, import-substitution industries or...