The thesis is about the World Bank and the political dimensions of the
new aid architecture.
The new aid agenda, which emerged out of the post-Washington
Consensus (PWC), has led to debates over its real significance. While
Joseph Stiglitz has argued that the new consensus actually marked the
end of the era of market fundamentalism, sceptics have rather concluded
that it represents nothing more than a discursive shift.
The Bank’s own ambiguous narrative on the new aid framework may
explain such divergent analysis on the new agenda: On the one hand, the
poverty reduction and participatory narrative linked to the model have
appeared to be signalling a genuine shift towards a more social policy
agenda. On the other hand however, there has been a contradictory
move towards a stricter governance model that seems to be specifically
designed to insulate policy-makers from vested interests. The overarching
objective of this thesis is to shed new light on this apparent paradox
inherent in international aid reform. It seeks to untangle the existing confusion
between narrative, assumptions and methods entwined with the
so-called PWC.
Specifically, the crux of this thesis is to address the particular contribution
of the World Bank in forging, promoting and implementing the
PWC. It focuses both on the theoretical sources that triggered the World
Bank, under the leadership of James D. Wolfensohn, to adopt a new
model and on the political objectives of this agenda. Within such a research
focus, the Bank’s narrative and its new aid allocation mechanisms
are seen as one entity under the label ‘Integrated Development Model’
(IDM). The IDM – as a main object of study – allows us to transcend
common country-based analyses of the Poverty Reduction Strategies
(PRS) experience and to re-position the new aid allocation mechanisms
within the larger reordering of power on behalf of market-oriented interests