what they are. Formally, ‘a relationABmay be
defined as internal if and only ifAwould not
be what it essentially is unlessBis related to it
in the way that it is’ (Bhaskar, 1998 [1979]).
Internal relations are of two kinds:
(1) The relation between landlord and ten-
ant is an internal relation, for example: in
this case, each presupposes the other, so
that the relation issymmetrical.
(2) The relation between the state and
local authority (or ‘social’) housing is
also an internal relation: the latter pre-
supposes the former, but the converse is
not true, since it is perfectly possible to
think of a state that makes no provision
for social housing, so that the relation is
asymmetrical.
These distinctions are important for the
process ofabstractionthat is the mainspring
of the philosophy ofrealism, because they
guard against so-calledchaotic conceptionsthat
‘combine the unrelated and divide the indivis-
ible’ (Sayer, 1982).
Sets of internal relations may be termed
structures. Thus Harvey (1973, pp. 286–314)
defined a structure as ‘a system of internal
relations which is in the process of being
structured through the operation of its own
transformation rules’. In his subsequent writ-
ings, Harvey provided a more developed ac-
count of the structures ofcapitalismas a
mode of productionand, in particular, of
thedialecticwithin which ‘each moment is
constituted as an internal relation of the
others within the flow of social and material
life’ (Harvey, 1996, p. 81; see also Jessop,
2006). Harvey was following Marx, and his
project was directed towards what he termed
historico-geographical materialism (seemarx-
ism;materialism). In his exploration of the
philosophy of internal relations, however,
Olsson (1980) elected to follow a radically
different direction. For Olsson, echoing
Hegel in a transposed key, thought, language
and action are internally related to such a
degree that ‘the world and our ideas are so
entangled in each other that they cannot be
separated’. Hence, so he claimed, ‘social re-
lations between people [are] like logical rela-
tions between propositions’ and vice versa:
they are all internal relations. This prompted
Olsson to make a linguistic turn and embark
upon a series of linguistic experiments that
took him into the realms of surrealism
and beyond, but always circling around the
internal relations that skewer thought-and-
action through the logics of ‘cartographic
reason’ (Olsson, 2007). dgInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) One of
the two international financial institutions cre-
ated at the meeting of national leaders held in
Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, shortly be-
fore the end of the Second World War – the
other being the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development, better
known as the World Bank. A third proposed
Bretton Woods institution, the International
Trade Organization (ITO), was stillborn be-
cause of opposition from the US Congress,
and a body with the powers to be accorded
the ITO did not come into existence until the
founding of the World Trade Organization
(WTO) in 1996.
The IMF was created with the task of pro-
moting internationaltradethrough facilitat-
ing monetary co-operation, and it was
allocated funds for the specific purpose of
helping countries get past short-term
balance-of-payments crises. This made its
tasks complementary to the longer-term
development funding undertaken by the
World Bank. Both institutions had a somewhat
Keynesian mandate. The Articles of Agree-
ment of the IMF included among the pur-
poses of the organization to ‘facilitate the
expansion and balanced growth of inter-
national trade, and to contribute thereby to
the promotion and maintenance of high levels
of employment and real income’. This was to
be accomplished by promoting exchange rate
stability among national currencies and avoid-
ing ‘competitive exchange depreciation’
(Holborn, 1948, p. 172).
With the breakdown of the fixed exchange
rate regime in the early 1970s, however, the
IMF began to take on new and distinctly anti-
Keynesian roles that mark the beginnings of
neo-liberalism. The IMF is today more fa-
vourably inclined towards floating exchange
rate regimes, even when this results in com-
petitive devaluations, and its favoured policies
ofstructural adjustmenthave frequently
sacrificed goals of high employment and
wages in favour of ensuring international
financial investors against the consequences
of inflationary government policies such as
domestic price supports (Payer, 1974; Kolko,
1988, pp. 265–9).
In its role as the dispenser of short-term
funds to countries undergoing balance-of-
payments crises, the IMF has increasingly
demanded as its price for loans conformity by
recipient governments to neo-liberal policiesGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_I Final Proof page 390 31.3.2009 7:05pmINTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)