Governance and The World Bank - a critical and comparative analysis of Mike Stevens and Shiro Gnanaselvam (1995)

Essay from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: International Organisations, grade: 2,0, Ruhr-University of Bochum (Institute of Development Research and Development Policy), 6 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The World Bank’s activities throughout the world are a recurrent object of analysis. This can be explained, in great scale, due to the importance and impact of the Bank’s policies and recommendations upon local societies and governments. The World Bank mandate is clearly restricted to the economic and financial aspects of government. Based on this, the Bank assumes an official neutral position in regard to internal politics of all countries with which it works, as presented on the article of Stevens and Gnanaselvam. However, several scholars, such as Williams and Young, argue that such neutrality is difficult, because any policy proposed by the Bank is based on pre-established premises, which are based on liberal ideals, which end up been forced upon the countries that want to receive a Bank’s loan. This paper will present both perspectives and apply the concepts discussed on an empirical case, in order to allow the evaluation of which perspective is more coherent with real cases.