Change and stability at the World Bank: inclusive practices and neoliberal technocratic rationality

Sondarjee, Maïka

doi:10.1080/01436597.2020.1838893

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Regarding organizational change, cynicism as a well-known "barrier to change" (Reichers et al 1997, 48; see section 2) is particularly problematic in IOs because reforms and substantive change are generally already quite difficult in these organizations (Weaver 2008;Sondarjee 2021). Many IOs are engaged in constant reform loops -"perpetual reform" in the words of Brunsson (2009, 1) -that produce little actual change.…”

Section: Consequences: a "Cynicism Trap" In Iosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working for World Peace: Between Idealism and Cynicism in International Organizations

Christian

2023

Swiss Journal of Sociology

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In International Organizations (IOs), noble ideals often clash with harsh realities on the ground. It should therefore come as no surprise if IO employees become cynical over time. However, while there is a large body of work on “organizational cynicism” in sociology and management studies, a systematic examination of cynicism is lacking in IO research. The article addresses this gap and explores the causes and consequences of cynicism among IO staff based on insights gained in 50+ in-depth interviews with staff members at the UN Secretariat from 2020 to 2022.

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Section: Consequences: a "Cynicism Trap" In Iosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working for World Peace: Between Idealism and Cynicism in International Organizations

Christian

2023

Swiss Journal of Sociology

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“…Increasing data collection may only serve to perpetuate the same cycles of linearity, even if the indicators change (Fuentes and Cookson, 2019; Fejerskov, 2017). As Sondarjee (2020) explores, inclusive knowledge—potentially radical new knowledge—has previously been ‘translated’ through dominant neoliberal technocratic rationalities by development organisations such as the World Bank and others. Such translation of initiatives to increase inclusion has often seen their subsumption into continued technocratic practices, continuing instead to reify the dominant development status quo.…”

Section: Gendered Indicators Colonial Logicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dominant Development Indexes’ Construction of Gender and Challenges for Recognizing Everyday Activism for Peace and Security

Luttrell-Rowland,

Rhee,

Okujagu

2023

Progress in Development Studies

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Developed organizations have increasingly garnered numerous indicators to measure gender and development outcomes. Yet, measurements themselves reflect a logic of the arenas where development occurs and can be captured, and therefore reflect where women are imagined to predominantly exist. Based on the analysis of 1,298 indicators across 15 major development databases covering African countries, this article argues that mainstream development organizations predominantly understand gender in terms of institutional sites. Sometimes these were sites for intervention, or a place for institutional ‘betterment’ (a hospital, a work place, and a school). Other times, these sites were conceptualized as natural places where women would be (the family and the nation state). We identify the spatial logics underpinning these development indicators, and link them to larger historical gendered and racialized colonial logics organizing diverse social, economic, and cultural lives, where economic and institutional sites are promoted, a more nuanced and relational one is displaced. Ultimately, these spatial imaginings extend to the larger context of where debates about peace and security are situated—namely in largely individual, state-driven, and institutional-centric ways.

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“…Trnka and Trundle (2014, 137) note how it is bound up with social and political forms of neoliberalism: 'a set of ideals and practices that involve a shrinking state mandate, deregulation and privatisation, a faith in markets to govern social life, and an increased emphasis on personal choice and freedom' . This kind of neoliberal responsibilisation has for some time been fostered amongst governmental and non-governmental organisations through the work of the World Bank (Sondarjee 2021).…”

Section: From Social Capital To Human Capitalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 1980s and 1990s marked a zenith for World Bank influence in development, when its central mediating role between cash-poor governments and financial capital provided significant influence over domestic social policy agendas in those countries (Gavin and Rodrik 1995). Ideas and practices that dominate within the institution have become embedded in domestic policymaking and have displaced the historical emphasis on achieving reforms through conditionalities on financing (Sondarjee 2021). The organisation has out-muscled United Nations (UN) organisations in areas such as education (Mundy and Verger 2015) and health (Brown, Cueto, and Fee 2006) with its unmatched ability to mobilise financial and technical resources and its central role in epistemic communities supporting market-oriented policy reform (Goldman 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human capital, risk and the World Bank’s reintermediation in global development

Hunter

Shaffer

2021

Third World Quarterly

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This article examines an attempt to reconstitute global development governance in a context of growing influence for private finance. We focus on the World Bank's Human Capital Project (HCP) and Human Capital Index (HCI), which have stated aims of promoting economic growth and accelerating progress towards achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Informed by a review of publicly available World Bank materials, we argue that, through its HCP and HCI, the World Bank is responding to its own institutional sidelining in development financing and governance with a strategy of reintermediation. Its leaders have pursued a system of governance in which the World Bank creates and instrumentalises knowledge on human capital -an asset to be accumulated through judicious investments in markets for self-betterment. Through its HCI the World Bank has expanded its global benchmarking practices, encompassing new domains and quantified predictions of future productivity, in the hope of shaping domestic policy processes. Its leaders propose to use HCI scores to signal risk to investors and political leaders, triggering political shocks that will spur policy reform. Crucially, these efforts seek to reassert the World Bank's epistemic authority and financing clout as the influence of its own lending wanes.

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Change and stability at the World Bank: inclusive practices and neoliberal technocratic rationality

Cited by 11 publications

References 24 publications

Working for World Peace: Between Idealism and Cynicism in International Organizations

Working for World Peace: Between Idealism and Cynicism in International Organizations

Dominant Development Indexes’ Construction of Gender and Challenges for Recognizing Everyday Activism for Peace and Security

Human capital, risk and the World Bank’s reintermediation in global development

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