The second of two volumes written “in and against development” meticulously criticizes the World Bank’s scholarship and assesses alternative approaches to development studies.
Long self-proclaimed as the “Knowledge Bank”, the World Bank is as active it is criticized for being in its endeavors to promote US interests in the the age of globalization, neoliberalism and financialization across its scholarship, ideology and policy in practice. Its analytical framing draws upon economics imperialism in general, and its evolution through three phases. Corresponding phases of new, newer and newest development economics are identified, with the World Bank taking a leading role in each, with implications for the expanding scope of development economics and its contestations with development studies.
Publication date: July 1, 2026
Contents
Preface vii
1 Locating Development Economics 1
Postamble: Locating the World Bank 14
2 Beyond Bureaucrats in Business: A Critical Review of the World Bank
Approach to Privatisation and Public Sector Reform 23
Postscript as Personal Preamble 23
1 Introduction 28
2 Privatisation Theory: The New Synthesis 29
3 Bureaucrats in Business: Context and Outline 31
4 A Critique 32
4.1 Narrow Analytical Framework 34
4.2 Selective Use of Evidence and Bias in Interpretation 36
4.3 Narrow View of What Constitutes Industrial Policy Leading to
Over-Generalisation of Conclusions 40
5 Concluding Remarks 43
Appendix: Debating the Provision of Basic Utilities in Sub-Saharan
Africa: A Response to Nellis 44
3 The Developmental State Is Dead – Long Live Social Capital? 47
Postscript as Personal Preamble 47
1 Introduction 48
2 The Microeconomic Foundations 50
3 The Forward March of Social Capital 52
4 Neither Washington nor Post-Washington Consensus 59
5 Concluding Remarks 64
4 Flattening Economic Geography: Locating the World Development
Report for 2009 67
Postscript as Personal Preamble 67
1 Introduction 68
2 neg as ei 69
3 From Pre- to Post-Washington Consensus 80
4 Fixing the wdr09 84
5 From Finance to Climate by Way of Conclusion 90
vi Contents
5 Nudging or Fudging: The World Development Report 2015 93
Postscript as Personal Preamble 93
1 Introduction 93
2 wdr 2015 and the Knowledge Bank 95
3 Situating the Turn to Behavioural Economics at the Bank 99
4 The wdr Approach to Behavioural Economics 103
4.1 The wdr’s Mental Model 103
4.2 Behavioural Economics and Development: The Conquest of
Another Frontier? 106
5 From Behavioural Economics to World Bank Policy in Practice:
The Case of hiv- Related Cash Transfers 111
6 Concluding Remarks 115
6 A Paradigm Shift that Never Will Be? Justin Lin’s New Structural
Economics 117
Postscript as Personal Preamble 117
1 Introduction 121
2 From Comparative Advantage to Development: Lin and the nse 125
3 Lin and the Bank 141
4 Conclusion 148
7 Locating the Developmental State and Industrial Policy
after the Crisis 152
Postscript as Personal Preamble 152
Foreword 154
1 Introduction 162
2 Lessons from the Developmental State Paradigm 167
3 Industrial Policy 191
4 South-South Cooperation by Way of Conclusion 209
8 The Continuing Enigmas of Social Policy 223
Postscript as Personal Preamble 223
1 Introduction and Overview 226
2 From Welfare Regimenting … 232
3 … to Convergence through Path Dependence to Crisis 245
4 This Time (Social Policy) Is (and Was) Different(iated) 252
5 Social Policy – It’s Financialisation, Stupid 259
6 Towards Alternatives 272
7 Conclusions as Starting Points 290
References 293
Index 344