Technocratic Drama: How the IMF Leverages Academics' Capital for Legitimacy

International organizations (IOs) have increasingly relied on collaborations with experts and academics to strengthen their legitimacy and autonomy in the 21st century. While these interactions are often framed as neutral, the literature on the politics of expertise highlights their deep entanglement with power dynamics and strategies to project a technocratic image. Despite the growing importance of such collaborations, the mechanisms underlying these relationships remain insufficiently explored. Existing research primarily examines IO legitimacy through recruitment practices or the role of internal staff, often overlooking the influence of academics and editorial gatekeepers, such as editors of high-impact journals. This study seeks to fill this gap by analyzing how these external actors contribute to the construction of IO legitimacy. Using the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a case study, this research applies Goffman’s dramaturgical framework to examine how the organization strategically enhances its credibility in global financial governance. On the front stage, the IMF collaborates with elite academic institutions and publishes in prestigious journals to create an image of technical expertise and intellectual authority. This positioning strengthens the IMF’s status as a leading technocratic institution, drawing legitimacy from its scientific outputs and alignment with the academic community. However, this outward presentation conceals a significant backstage reality: the production of non-peer-reviewed research, policy papers, and issue analyses that escape academic scrutiny and are tailored for immediate application by policymakers, local governments, and central banks. This study argues that this dual strategy not only reinforces the IMF’s technocratic credibility but also sustains a framework where knowledge serves practical ends, distancing IO policymaking from broader accountability and critical analysis. Data from the Dimensions AI citation database, bibliometric and mediation analyses, and 15 interviews conducted with IMF staff and academics reveal the strategic use of academic networks to project transparency while obscuring transactional knowledge practices. By discussing these findings, this research challenges conventional depictions of IOs as unbiased providers of expertise. Instead, it frames their reliance on academic authority as a deliberate response to their legitimacy crisis. This study also contributes to critical International Relations scholarship by demonstrating how IOs construct legitimacy through the appropriation of scientific authority, embedding power within structures that claim neutrality.