This timely book offers the first critical examination of World Bank policy reforms and initiatives during the past decade. The World Bank is viewed as one of the most powerful international organizations of our time. The authors critically analyze the influence of the institution’s policy and engagement during the past decade in a variety of issue areas, including human rights, domestic reform, and the environment. The World Bank and Governance delves into the bowels of the World Bank, exploring its organizational structure, professional culture and bureaucratic procedures, illustrating how these shape its engagement with an increasingly complex, diverse and challenging operational environment. The book includes chapters on two under-researched divisions of the World Bank: the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. Several illuminating country studies are also included, analyzing the World Bank's activities in Argentina, Bolivia, Lebanon, Hungary and Vietnam. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, development, politics and economics.
Author(s): Stone Wright
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 304
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 6
Copyright......Page 7
Contents......Page 8
Tables......Page 10
Contributors......Page 11
Preface......Page 16
Acknowledgements......Page 18
Abbreviations......Page 19
1 Introduction: The currency of change: World Bank lending and learning in the Wolfensohn era......Page 22
Part I: Policy change inside ‘the black box’......Page 48
2 Development ethics and human rights as the basis for global poverty reduction: The case of the World Bank......Page 50
3 The art of fine balances: The challenge of institutionalizing the Comprehensive Development Framework inside the World Bank......Page 69
4 From ‘safeguards’ to ‘sustainability’: The evolution of environmental discourse inside the International Finance Corporation......Page 88
5 Explaining change in the World Bank’s forest strategy and operational policy......Page 109
6 The World Bank and pension reforms......Page 130
7 Change in international organizations: innovation or adaptation?: A comparison of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund......Page 146
Part II: Confronting the outside......Page 166
8 The poverty of amnesia: PRSPs in the legacy of structural adjustment......Page 168
9 Becoming green: Diffusing sustainable development norms throughout the World Bank Group......Page 189
10 Partnership and the reform of international aid: Challenging citizenship and political representation?......Page 210
11 The World Bank as conveyor and broker of knowledge and funds in Argentina’s governance reforms......Page 228
12 The missing link in development cooperation integrative frameworks: Revelations from Lebanon’s post-war experience in donor-assisted administrative reform......Page 249
13 Fiscal decentralisation in transition economies: The World Bank in a learning process......Page 268
Index......Page 289
