ABSTRACT
At first glance, U.S. relations with the International Monetary Fund provide an ideal test of both the hypothesis that the pattern of American relations with international organizations has changed and of the alternative explanations advanced for that change. There can be no question that the IMF was principally an American (or Anglo-American) creation or that the Bretton Woods institutions did more than simply serve a legitimating function (they controlled substantial resources). More than any other postwar international organization, the International Monetary Fund was viewed by successive American administrations as a linchpin of the international economic order.
