scholarly journals Why Culture Matters in International Institutions: The Marginality of Human Rights at the World Bank

2009 ◽  
Vol 103 (4) ◽  
pp. 647-683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galit A. Sarfaty
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World Bank ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis ◽  
Domestic Law ◽  
Policy Setting

Why do international institutions behave as they do? International organizations (IOs) have emerged as significant actors in global governance, whether they are overseeing monetary policy, setting trade or labor standards, or resolving a humanitarian crisis. They often execute international agreements between states and markedly influence domestic law, which makes it important to analyze how international institutions behave and make policy. Conducting an ethnographic analysis of the internal dynamics of IOs, including their formal and informal norms, incentive systems, and decision-making processes, can usefully aid in understanding institutional behavior and change. This article analyzes the organizational culture of one particularly powerful international institution—the World Bank (the Bank)—and explores why the Bank has not adopted a human rights policy or agenda.

International Institutions and Political Liberalization: Evidence from the World Bank Loans Program

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 1357-1379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Carnegie ◽  
Cyrus Samii
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Bank Loans ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
Member States ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Elite Group ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Level Of Economic Development

How do international institutions affect political liberalization in member states? Motivated by an examination of the World Bank loans program, this article shows that institutions can incentivize liberalization by offering opportunities for countries to become associated with advanced, wealthy members. In the World Bank, when a loan recipient reaches a specified level of economic development, it becomes eligible to graduate from borrower status to lender status. Using a regression discontinuity design, the study demonstrates that this incentive motivates states to improve their domestic behavior with respect to human rights and democracy. Combining qualitative and quantitative evidence, the results suggest that the desire to become a member of this elite group is responsible for motivating member states to reform due to the belief that such membership brings diffuse international and domestic benefits.

Recognized and Violated by International Law: The Human Rights of the Global Poor

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-745 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS POGGE
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
World Bank ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
The World

Various human rights are widely recognized in codified and customary international law. These human rights promise all human beings protection against specific severe harms that might be inflicted on them domestically or by foreigners. Yet international law also establishes and maintains institutional structures that greatly contribute to violations of these human rights: fundamental components of international law systematically obstruct the aspirations of poor populations for democratic self-government, civil rights, and minimal economic sufficiency. And central international organizations, such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank, are designed so that they systematically contribute to the persistence of severe poverty.

Poverty, Human Rights and the Quest for Sustainable Human Development in Structurally-Adjusted Uganda

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-44
Author(s):  
J. Oloka-Onyango
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Political System ◽  
Economic Adjustment ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Sustainable Human Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Resistance Movement ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

In a bid to address the almost two decades of economic malaise and decline that Uganda had experienced in the 1970s and 1980s, Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Movement adopted radical measures of economic adjustment under the tutelage of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Although those measures resulted in significant economic growth – in GDP terms – this article argues that they failed to be conscious of basic principles of human rights relating to equality, non-discrimination and participation, and have consequently compounded the situation of poverty in the country. It further argues that the ‘non-party’ political system in existence further undermines the promotion and protection of fundamental human rights.

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