Transnational discourse coalitions and monetary policy: Argentina and the limited powers of the 'Washington Consensus'.

Why, in the era of neoliberalism, Argentinean monetary policymakers rejected the kind of flexible monetary exchange rates recommended by the 'Washington Consensus' remains a puzzle. The literature has mainly contrasted external and internal factors of influence and constraints to explain the country's peculiar road to neoliberalism. In this paper, discourse coalition theory is developed further to more fully capture the transnational configuration of the transnational discourse coalition behind the policy mix chosen under President Menem. In the course of deconstructing the Washington Consensus alliance and reconstructing the particular agents and agencies behind the currency board, apparently contradictory positions turn out to constitute a specific combination of neoliberal agents and agencies that are firmly embedded in the larger universe of the hegemonic discourse coalition of the Washington Consensus era, which has to be considered more heterogeneous than has been recognized by most observers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]