In search of the Post-Washington (dis)consensus: The 'missing' content of PRSPS

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 27, Issue 8, 2006, Pages 1401-1412

  Sumner, Andrew ^a  

^a LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

FINANCIAL POLICY; POLICY MAKING;

EID: 33845528943     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: 13602241     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436590601027263     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Group of 8, Final Communiqué, Gleneagles, June 2005, p 2
2. International Monetary Fund, 'Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP): A Fact Sheet', Washington, DC: IMF, 2005, p 1.
3. Wolfensohn, cited in S Maxwell, The Washington Consensus is Dead! Long Live the Meta-Narrative!, Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Working Paper 243, London, 2005, p 1.
4. D Craig & D Porter, 'Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: A new convergence', World Development, 31, 2003, p 54
5. F Stewart &MWang, Do PRSPs Empower Poor People and Disempower the World Bank, Or is it the Other Way Round?, Queen Elizabeth House Working Paper, Oxford University, 2003, pp 19-21.
6. G Meier, Biography of a Subject: An Evolution of Development Economics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, p vii
7. E Thorbecke, 'The evolution of the development doctrine 1950-2005', paper presented at the conference on 'The Future of Development Economics', United Nations University, Helsinki, 17-18 June 2005, p 34.
8. See, for example, case studies in D Booth (ed), Fighting Poverty in Africa: Are PRSPs Making a Difference? London: Overseas Development Institute, 2003.
9. R Gottschalk, 'The macro content of PRSPs: Assessing the need for a more flexible macroeconomic policy framework', Development Policy Review, 23 (4), 2005, p 420. One notable exception is Stewart and Wang's content analysis of 30 PRSPs. Stewart & Wang, Do PRSPs Empower Poor People?
10. There is the judicative - rules, norms, what is included/excluded - which determines the rules of the discourse, and the veridicative - what is regarded as true and what is dismissed as false - which legitimises the rules of the discourse.
11. T Kuhn, The Structure of Scienti.c Revolutions, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1962, p 175.
12. M Masterman, 'The nature of paradigms,' in I Lakatos & A Musgrave (eds), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
13. T Kuhn, 'Re.ections on my critics', in Lakatos & Musgrave, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge
14. Kuhn, 'Second thoughts on paradigms', in F Suppe (ed), The Structure of Scienti.c Theories, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1972.
15. B Sutclifie, 'The place of development theories in theories of imperialism and globalisation', in R Munck & D O'Hearn (eds), Critical Development Theory: Contributions to a New Paradigm, London: Zed Books, 1999.
16. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, pp 23, 103.
17. J Williamson, 'Democracy and the Washington Consensus', World Development, 21 (8), 1993, p 1329.
18. M Naim, 'Washington Consensus or Washington confusion?', Foreign Policy, Spring, 2000, p 88.
19. M Beeson & I Islam, 'Neo-liberalism and East Asia: Resisting the Washington Consensus', Journal of Development Studies, 41 (2), 2005, p 202
20. J Williamson, 'What Washington means by policy reform', in Williamson (ed), Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened?, Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1990
21. Williamson, The Political Economy of Reform, Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1994.
22. R Kanbur, 'The strange case of the Washington Consensus: A brief note on John Williamson's ''What should the Bank think about the Washington Consensus?', mimeo, Cornell University, 1999
23. J Stiglitz, 'The post Washington Consensus, initiative for policy dialogue', mimeo, Columbia University, 2004.
24. J Stiglitz, 'More instruments and broader goals: Moving towards the post-Washington Consensus', United Nations University, Annual Lecture, Helsinki, 7 January 1998
25. Stiglitz, 'Towards a new paradigm for development: Strategies, policies and processes', Prebisch Lecture at UNCTAD, Geneva, 19 October 1998.
26. P Perraton, 'Review article: Joseph Stiglitz's globalisation and its discontents', Journal of International Development, 16 (6), 2005, pp 897-906.
27. These were corporate governance; anti-corruption; flexible labour markets; WTO agreements; financial codes and standards; 'prudent' capital account liberalisation; non-intermediate exchange rate regimes; an independent central bank and inflation targeting; social safety nets; and targeted poverty reduction. See D Rodrik, 'After neoliberalism, what?', paper presented at the conferences on 'Alternatives to Neoliberalism', Washington, DC, 23 May 2002, p 1.
28. Beeson & Islam, 'Neo-liberalism and East Asia', p 1999.
29. Maxwell, The Washington Consensus is Dead!, pp 1-2.
30. C Gore, 'The rise and fall of the Washington Consensus as paradigm for developing countries', World Development, 28 (5), 2000, p 791.
31. J Williamson, 'What should the World Bank think about the Washington Consensus?, World Bank Research Observer, 15 (2), 2000, pp 251, 262
32. Stiglitz, 'The post Washington Consensus, initiative for policy dialogue', Mimeo, Columbia University, 2004, p 1.
33. This was based on the World Development Report 2000/1 consultations, which Kanbur led until his resignation following US Treasury attempts to censor the final text after what had been a highly participatory process. See R Kanbur, 'Economic policy, distribution and poverty: The nature of disagreements', World Development, 29 (6), 2001, pp 1083-1094.
34. Ibid, p. 1085.
35. See, for example, Oxfam, From 'Donorship' to Ownership? Moving Towards PRSP Round Two, Oxford: Oxfam, 2004
36. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), The World Bank's PRSP Approach: Good Marketing or Good Policy?, Geneva: UNCTAD, 2002.
37. The Economist, 2005, p 12, available at http://www.economist.com. Additionally, in October 2005 the IMF board approved the establishment of a 'Policy Support Instrument'. This is a non-lending programme to provide advice and to signal to donors and markets about a country's economic policies. As such it could form a de facto 'judgement' under the IMF's article 4 consultations. As mentioned in the text, the World Bank's IDA provides 'score-cards' for countries under its 'Country Policy and Institutional Assessment'.
38. Given that one of the PRSP declared guiding principles is 'comprehensiveness', this would seem to be a valid form of assessment. Of course, as with all policy analysis, an issue is the nature and extent of implementation of policy. Since writing a further two countries have full PRSPs rather than interim PRSPs (Bangladesh and Nigeria) and Nicaragua has a second PRSP. Data presented here have been processed from T Jones & P Hardsta., One Size for All: A Study of IMF and WB PRSPs, London: World Development Movement, 2005.
39. For a list of policies in each PRSP, see T Jones & P Hardsta., Economic Policies in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, London: World Development Movement, 2005. Jones and Hardsta. emphasise what is in the PRSPs rather than what is missing, arguing strongly that the policies of the Washington Consensus are intact.
40. For sceptics' research on trade liberalisation, see P Agé nor, Does Globalization Hurt the Poor? Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002
41. T Hertel,M Ivanic, P Preckel & J Cran.eld, 'Trade liberalisation and the structure of poverty in developing countries', paper prepared for the conference on 'Globalisation, Agricultural Development and Rural Livelihoods', Cornell University, 11-12 April 2003
42. M Lundberg & L Squire, 'The simultaneous evolution of growth and inequality', Economic Journal, 113 (487), 2003, pp 326-344.
43. For sceptics' research on capital account liberalisation, see C Arteta, B Eichengreen & C Wyplosz, 'On the growth e.ects of capital account liberalisation', mimeo, University of California, 2001
44. M Klein, Capital Account Openness and the Varieties Of Growth Experience, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)Working Paper 9500, 2003
45. D Rodrik, 'Who needs capital-account convertibility?' in S Fischer (ed), Should the IMF Pursue Capital Account Convertibility?, Princeton, NJ: University of Princeton, 1998.
46. T Jones & P Hardsta., One Size for All: A Study of IMF and World Bank PRSPs, London: World Development Movement, 2005, p. 16.
47. J Nellis, Privatization in Africa: What has Happened? What is to be Done?, Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, 2003.
48. On privatisation, see P Cook & Y Uchida, Privatisation and Economic Growth in Developing Countries, Centre on Regulation and Competition (CRC) Working Paper 7, Manchester, 2001.
49. World Bank, Country Policy and Institutional Assessment, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003. Of course one issue is the meaningfulness of average tari.s, because of non-tari. barriers as well as tari. implementation and variance. World Bank trade tari. data for 2004 downloaded at www.worldbank.org.
50. Economic Freedom of the World, Annual Report, Vancouver: Frasier Institute, Vancouver, 2005.