ABSTRACT
Many observers believe that over the last decade, particularly in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, a marked shift has taken place in the international community’s vision of development. The so-called ‘Washington Consensus’ (Williamson 1990), characterised in part by a strong belief that market-friendly structural adjustment programmes (SAPS) were the only viable path to long term development, has apparently been replaced by a more socially oriented approach, one that does not separate economics from political and social needs. This chapter argues that although a change in the international development discourse has indeed occurred, the core of the previous consensus remains the same. Actors in international economic fora such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the G7 summits1 increasingly discuss social issues and political problems involved in development, but their economic beliefs remain essentially unchanged. Effectively, liberalisation is still the key to sustainable growth according to the international financial institutions (IFIs) and the G7, while internal adjustments to international pressures remain the only way out of poverty. The rationale behind this reasoning is that the external environment is fundamentally ‘good’ and countries must learn to turn it to their advantage. This conclusion should obviously not be applied to every international institution, since the United Nations (UN) and its many agencies promote a very different view of international development (Therien and Dallaire 1999). However, the dominant discourse is certainly embodied in the Bretton Woods institutions, which promote this vision, and not in the United Nations institutions (Therien 1999, 725).
