Dominique Strauss-Kahn apparently wants to reform
the process which is used to choose the IMF’s managing director –
the very process which has just landed him in that job. It’ll be interesting
to see whether he’s able to do so. The IMF’s managing director is powerful,
and the IMF’s shareholders are likely to give him quite a lot of leeway in terms
of how he runs the organization. But it’s far from clear that those shareholders
will happily give up their right to install a European at the top of the Fund.
In other words, this isn’t a decision which is up to the managing director:
it’s a decision which needs to be made at summit level in Europe and in the
US.