Influence and Design: The (Geo)Political Economy of International Financial Surveillance

International financial governance increasingly operates under conditions of disruption by transnational crises, domestic political shifts, and intensifying geoeconomic rivalry. At the center of this evolving landscape are international financial institutions (IFIs) whose primary governing tool, surveillance, is both more important and more contested than ever. Yet different surveillance bodies vary greatly in institutional design, authority, and vulnerability to political pressure. This paper examines how these design differences shape the conduct and content of international financial oversight by comparing two influential but distinct monitoring instruments: the IMF’s Article IV consultations and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s Regulatory Consistency Assessment Programme (RCAP). The IMF represents the highly formal end of the institutional spectrum. Its Article IV reports offer broad macro-financial assessments and policy recommendations, written in narrative, evaluative language that allows for interpretive discretion. By contrast, the BCBS, an informal transgovernmental body, produces RCAPs that are narrow in scope, template-based, highly standardized, and largely technical. While both instruments aim to promote adherence to international standards, they differ substantially in political sensitivity, rhetorical flexibility, and the degree to which powerful states might influence their content. This comparative structure frames the core empirical contribution of the paper: an examination of whether and how major powers, particularly the United States and China, might shape the tone of IMF Article IV surveillance. Using a qualitative sentiment analysis informed by financial sentiment dictionaries (particularly: Kaya & Reay 2019; Loughran & McDonald 2011), the project codes the evaluative language of IMF Article IV reports and BCBS RCAPs to identify systematic patterns of leniency, criticism, and rhetorical caution. The analysis is designed to uncover subtle forms of political influence that operate not through overt rule-breaking but through the modulation of tone, emphasis, and narrative framing. These findings highlight how institutional formality and informality structure susceptibility to geopolitical pressure. Whereas Article IV surveillance, embedded in a formal IO with political governance structures, may face strong incentives to accommodate powerful member states, RCAP assessments, due to their narrowness and minimal interpretive language, offer far fewer channels for influence. This comparison illuminates how regime complexity produces differentiated monitoring environments in which great powers can strategically engage with, or leverage, particular institutions. The paper contributes to workshop themes by conceptualizing surveillance as a site where disruption is negotiated within institutions. It shows how geopolitical rivalry can reshape the tone and perceived impartiality of formal surveillance while prompting informal bodies to reaffirm their technical and standardized character. Finally, the project demonstrates that institutional design conditions not only how IOs respond to crises but also how they withstand pressures from powerful states, revealing both vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities within global financial governance.