THE WORLD BANK’S STRATEGY FOR REINSTITUTIONALIZING THE POST COLONIAL STATE: AN ASSESSMENT

Authors

  • Javed A.Ansari

Abstract

Sustaining globalization as a world order requires a restructuring of the state and its relationship to capital. Capitalist order and ‘optimal’ institutions are not produced as the unintended consequences of the interaction of free agents, as Hayek and some other self styled neo Smithians believe. The World Bank has been a relatively early convert to this new institutionalism and has sought to graft a political economy which combines insights of institutional and neo classical economics. Its 2002/2003 World Development Report sets out essential changes in the institutional structure of post colonial states required for their subordinate integration within the order of global capital.The Report does not however identify the political agency for creating and sustaining this “required†institutional restructuring. This paper argues that neither donor authorities nor their client regimes possess the political legitimacy or the political legitimacy or the political resources to effectively restructure the postcolonial state. The postcolonial state can therefore be transformed into a site for resisting subordinated incorporation within the order of global capital.This paper is divided into four parts. It begins by setting out the state institutional restructuring strategy presented in the 2002/2003. World Development Report, Part Two raises the question: can the hegemon, other metropolitan states or imperialist international organizations effectively impose this form of institutional restructuring on the post colonial state? Part Three assesses the ideological and political capabilities of client regimes for achieving enhanced legitimacy and effectiveness through this form of institutional restructuring. We conclude that donor authorities and client regimes will not succeed in effectively integrating the post colonial state within the order of global capital and that this failure has the potential to create a crisis for the post colonial state and for the global project as a whole.

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Vol. 1 No. 1 (2005): Market Forces Research Journal Volume 1 No 1

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