The World Bank and Governance. A Decade of Reform and Reaction

This timely book offers the first critical retrospective of World Bank policy reforms and initiatives during the past decade. The World Bank Group is viewed as one of the most powerful international organizations of our time. The authors critically analyze the influence of World Bank policy and engagement during the past decade in a variety of issue areas, including human rights, domestic reform, and the environment. This book delves into the bowels of the World Bank, by exploring its organizational structure, professional culture and bureaucratic procedures, and illustrates how these shape its engagement with an increasingly complex, diverse and challenging operational environment. The book includes chapters on two under-researched divisions of the World Bank Group; the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. Several illuminating country studies are also included, analyzing the World Bank's activities in Argentina, Bolivia, Lebanon and Vietnam. The collected authors seek to widen our understanding of the changing role and influence of the World Bank in the age of globalization. Students and scholars of International Relations, Development, Politics and Economics will find this volume to be of strong interest. Published by Routledge in co-operation with the Center for Policy Studies and the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at the University of Warwick