In-depth
Image: Yoray Liberman/Getty
Turkish workers build the BTC's (Baku, Tbilisi, Ceyhan) final terminal of the pipeline in September 2003 near Yumurtalik, Turkey.
and deregulation as development policy, and critical attention over the impact of largewhich was promoted by the World Bank and scale infrastructure projects, led to an importhe International Monetary Fund—stemmed tant, though not paradigmatic, rethink within from the post-Keynesian ascendancy of ortho- development policy circles during the 1990s dox economics and the identification of the and early noughties, with the World Bank and state by neoliberals as a key impediment to the IMF the targets of high profile campaigns national development. such as the 50 Years is Enough campaign and Now well-known, the results of these perennial attention at various multilateral and prescriptions in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin intergovernmental meetings. America and the former communist states in Championed by figures such as James Europe and Central Asia often met with stern Wolfensohn (World Bank President, 1995resistance from activists and NGOs at both the 2005) and Joseph Stiglitz (World Bank Chief domestic and international levels, with groups Economist, 1997-2000, and later Nobel lauparticularly critical of the results of fiscal aus- reate), a new policy set came into focus as a terity, indebtedness to multilateral organisa- response from within development organisations, lacklustre (and worse) development out- tions to the legitimacy crisis that they faced. comes and the capture of privatised assets by Stiglitz dubbed this policy agenda the postinterests less than concerned with realising Washington consensus (PWC), clearly demarthe ostensible social benefits of market forces. cating it against what he and others derided These outcomes of neoliberal development as the ‘market fundamentalism’ of the policy’s first phase, combined with much Washington consensus. 42 · Oct–Dec 2012 ·
This new agenda remained neoliberal insofar as it was predicated on extending competitive liberal market social relations as an approach to development. However, drawing upon new institutional economics—an area of economics in which Stiglitz had played an important role—emphasis was now placed upon building the right institutions, often within the state, to ‘make markets work’. Moreover, concern over implementation of development policy agendas (in particular reform rejection and distortion) led to the promotion of participation, partnership and ownership in the policy push. This said, in classic technocratic fashion, the policy set that stakeholders were to participate in implementing and ‘owning’ had already been decided. Increasingly, the World Bank and others detailed that there were certain very specific roles that states should and should not play. For example, states were