Neoliberalism, Genre, and “The Tragedy of the Commons”

PMLA ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 127 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Nixon
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Individual Good ◽  
The Commons ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

In december 1968 the journal science published “the tragedy of the commons,” a slender tract by the ecologist and geneticist garrett Hardin that became one of the twentieth century's most influential essays. Hardin's thinking resonated in particular with policy makers at the International Monetary Fund, at the World Bank, and at conservative think tanks and kindred neoliberal institutions advocating so-called trickle-down economics, structural adjustment, austerity measures, government shrinkage, and the privatization of resources. Although Hardin's paramount, Malthusian concern was with “overbreeding,” his general critique of the commons has had a far more lasting impact. He memorably encapsulated that critique in a parable that represented the commons as unprofitable and unsustainable, inimical to both the collective and the individual good.1 According to this brief parable, a herdsman faced with the temptations of a common pasture will instinctively overload it with his livestock. As each greed-driven individual strives to maximize the resource for personal gain, the commons collapses to the detriment of all. Together, Hardin's pithy essay title and succinct parable have helped vindicate a neoliberal rescue narrative, whereby privatization through enclosure, dispossession, and resource capture is deemed necessary for averting tragedy.

Adjustment with Growth: a Fragile Consensus

1988 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ravenhill
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
External Environment ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
Intense Debate

Six years of intense debate have produced a measure of agreement on a solution for Africa's malaise. This is captured by the latest catchphrase of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, ‘Adjustment with Growth’, which implicitly acknowledge past errors by African governments – or, minimally, that a continuation of previous policies is no longer tenable in a changed external environment. An emphasis on ‘growth’ recognises that ‘adjustment’ must encompass more than ‘stabilisation’, that the continent needs additional externally-provided financial resources on concessional terms if import strangulation is not to exacerbate the downward economic spiral in which many countries are currently trapped. This fragile consensus is facing its first serious practical test as the World Bank attempts to extend its Structural Adjustment Lending programme in Africa. Clearly, significant differences remain between the attitudes of African governments and external donors, and within the academic community, on the sources of the continent's problems and on the policy measures that are needed to counteract them.

From Prebendalism to Predation: the Political Economy of Decline in Nigeria

1996 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
The Political ◽  
Adjustment Programme ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Early Results ◽  
The World ◽  
Democratic Rule ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

Upon taking power in August 1985, General Ibrahim Babangida promised a decisive course of economic and political change for Nigeria. Alongside a phased transition to democratic rule, the new President outlined far-reaching reforms intended to alleviate major distortions in the economy, to resolve a lingering impasse with external creditors, and to reduce a mounting burden of debt. Within a year, a comprehensive structural adjustment programme (SAP) was launched, incorporating key policies advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and yielding significant early results in stabilising the economy and arresting decline.

Migrant Remittances

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Waddell
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Migrant Remittances ◽  
To Come ◽  
Development Outcomes ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
Positive Effect

Untapped resources are hard to come by in the realm of international development. Migrant remittances, however, represent a relatively unexploited resource bank for developing countries. Still, researchers often debate the degree to which migrant remittances actually incite community development in practice. I rekindle the this theoretical discussion by comparing the development effects of household remittances with investments made through the remittance-channeling program 3×1 para migrantes in Guanajuato, Mexico. Regression analysis demonstrates that household remittances repress development outcomes across Guanajuato's 46 municipalities, while remittances invested through the 3×1 program have a positive effect on indicators of municipal wellbeing, including healthcare, education, and income. To my knowledge, this is the first attempt to systematically compare the development effects of household remittances with the development outcomes of remittances transferred through a government-supported program like 3×1 para migrantes. This research has meaningful implications for policy makers in migrant-sending regions around the world as well as agents of international development such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The Real World Heritage Conservation and Development

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-51
Author(s):  
Rob Winthrop
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Heritage Conservation ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Neoliberal Economics ◽  
Fiscal Austerity ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

This is a troubled time for development policy, and for the institutions that define it. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization have been subjected to an unprecedented barrage of criticism. Since the disastrous 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle, the conspicuous failures of development policy—structural adjustment, the Asian financial crisis, and the unraveling of the post-Soviet economies—have become a matter of public debate. Critics of development have directed much of their fire at the assumptions of neoliberal economics, which prescribes fiscal austerity, monetary stability, trade liberalization, and a minimalist role for government. But it is less often recognized that development economics is in the midst of its own debate, which in tandem with the voices of outside critics may portend interesting changes in the practice of institutions such as the World Bank. Through such debates, and the innovative programs they may engender, anthropologists may find new intellectual and practical connections with the field of international development.

scholarly journals Modernization, Dependency and Structural Adjustment Development Theories and Africa: A Critical Appraisal

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred G Nhema ◽  
Tawanda Zinyama
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Development Theory ◽  
Dependency Theory ◽  
Development Path ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programmes ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

This article seeks to review the early development theories that have dominated the development path in Africa over a number of decades. First, the paper reviews the modernisation theory which dominated the literature on development theory in the 1950s/60s as the former colonies attained their independence. Second, the paper examines the dependency theory which was a critical response to the modernisation paradigm. Third, the paper assesses the nature and form of neo liberal prescriptions that came to be known as Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) offered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) from the 1980s to the 1990s. Finally, the paper explores the relevance and impact of the identified development theories to the development of Africa.

scholarly journals Book Review: Biplab Dasgupta. Structural Adjustment Global Trade and the New Political Economy of Development. New Delhi. Sage Publications

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-156
Author(s):  
Mir Annice Mahmood
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
International Financial Institutions ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Political Economy Of Development ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

The author has written a very topical book the relevance of which cannot be understated. At the core of the book the author discusses the concept of the new political economy of development which forms the theoretical underpinnings that lie behind the structural adjustment/ stabilisation programmes of the international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

scholarly journals Microfinance Institutions and Poverty Reduction: A Cross Regional Analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (4I-II) ◽  
pp. 371-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Attiya Yasmin Javid ◽  
Afsheen Abrar
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Regional Analysis ◽  
Microfinance Institutions ◽  
Macroeconomic Performance ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programmes

The alleviation of poverty is one of the most debated issues among the academicians and policy makers. From 1950s to 1980s the poverty reduction program has been based on increase the participation of poor into the economy by better macroeconomic performance. Though the poor part of population mostly engaged in informal sector1 is identified by researchers but has not become the part of economic models and government policy [Robinson (2001)]. Poverty reduction has been institutionalised in 1944 when World Bank was set up. The World Bank worked through governments and institutions by giving loans to developing countries called structural-adjustment programmes. These programmes were highly unsuccessful, created dependence on aid with little help to poor part of societies [Murduch (1999) and Diop, et al. (2007)].

The changing relationship between the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

1988 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. Feinberg
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Performance Requirements ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been bedeviled since their common creation over how to define their areas of specialized competence and how to interact in areas of overlapping jurisdiction. The multiple shocks that have destabilized the global economy over the last two decades have stimulated the Bank and Fund to alter fundamentally their programs and approaches, often without fully taking into account their relation to the work of the other Bretton Woods agency.The Fund's traditional focus on short-term stabilization, correcting external account imbalances, and fighting inflation, contrasted with the World Bank's provision of long-term funds for investment in capital-intensive projects. But more recently, with the establishment of the IMF's Extended Fund Facility and the Bank's structural adjustment lending, both institutions share the objective of adjustment with growth, and each claims some responsibility for an extremely wide range of policy instruments. The new Structural Adjustment Facility, in particular, has the potential to link more tightly decision-making on Fund stand-by arrangements and Bank structural adjustment lending, increasing the probability of new forms of cross-conditionality—termed here consultative cross-conditionality, interdependent cross-conditionality, and indirect financial linkage.The Bank and Fund need to find ways to better delineate and manage their new relationship. Problems that should be addressed to do so include proper modes of collaboration between Bank and Fund staff, issue specialization, the avoidance of piling on excessively detailed performance requirements, and decisions on ineligibility. Enhanced cooperation between the Bank and Fund can not only produce more coherent adjustment programs, but can also help to mobilize other sources of official and private capital.

Debt and Structural Adjustment in Africa: Realities and Possibilities

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-18
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Callaghy
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
New Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
External Actors ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

Since the middle of the 1970s Sub-Saharan African states have focused increasingly on their severe economic and fiscal crises. These involve wrestling with the burdens of debt service and the rigors of rescheduling, conducting difficult negotiations with bilateral and private creditors, bargaining over conditionality packages with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank or fending them off, distributing the painful costs of adjustment, coping with import strangulation and devising new development policies and strategies. Already highly dependent on the outside world, the intensity, stakes and levels of conditionality of these relations with external actors have increased substantially.

scholarly journals An economic system that crushes the poor

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maake J. Masango
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

The article focuses on economic structures that crush the poor, especially global economic structures that trap and keep people in poverty. The concept of poverty occupies centre stage in South Africa and many other developing countries. There is no longer a middle class. One is either rich or poor. Globalisation has created a system or program that continues to crush the poor, while also breeding greed and selfishness. The rich always accumulate resources while the poor struggle to make ends meet. These problems are created by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and Structural Adjustment Programs, to name a few. These structures have introduced a system of inequality that widens the gap between the rich and the poor because of self-interest, which continues to crush the latter. The end result is that the concept of Ubuntu or Botho among African communities is destroyed. Injustice becomes the order of the day.

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