The Creeping Politicisation of the World Bank: The Case of Corruption

This paper looks at the increasing politicisation of the World Bank through its work on corruption. Historically, the Bank's Articles of Agreement, which forbid it from involving itself in the politics of its recipient countries, have excluded work on corruption. In the 1990s, internal and external demands grew for the Bank to address the problem of corruption, despite earlier reticence. Much research done over the past decade, often commissioned by the Bank or done in-house, has worked to turn corruption into an economic and social issue, rather than a political one, in order to conduct anti-corruption work while evading accusations that it is violating this non-political mandate. Now this pretence is gradually slipping away and the Bank is becoming overtly political, despite its Articles and a lack of international consensus that this is the direction in which it should be heading.     

Chrik Poortman: A World Bank Professional

Chrik Poortman, an international civil servant, worked for the World Bank for more than three decades. This profile uses his career and experiences to illustrate the functions and roles played by World Bank staff at each level of its "flat" hierarchy and the capacities needed to face challenges that are unique to their ilk. Each section explores a different range of functions, including working as a country director, working as a vice president, and working as a member of the World Bank's senior management team.     

World Bank Support for Public Financial Management and Procurement: From Theory to Practice

The advice provided by the World Bank on improving public financial management and procurement is influenced by debates on theory and practice in developed and developing countries. This article touches on some of the highlights of these debates, drawing from the indicative literature mainly since 1990 from scholars and practitioners. It goes on to examine the Bank's diagnostic work, design, and implementation of project and policy support in this area. It also assesses evidence of outcomes and attribution, and ends with questions for further research.     

THE OPERATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF RESULTS‐BASED FINANCING

As part of a growing focus on the effectiveness of development assistance from the World Bank and other agencies, new efforts are being made to relate development finance more closely to outcomes achieved rather than to inputs used, through the results‐based financing approach. We provide a framework for analyzing the operational dimensions of results‐based financing, including the conditions that suit this approach, and how best to define, measure, and report results. We review some of the early World Bank experience with this approach. Noting that this approach is as yet not fully tested, we suggest evaluative issues for future research while highlighting strengths and challenges in the range of techniques adopted so far. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

DILEMMAS OF MEASURING PERFORMANCE IN A GOVERNMENT TRADING ENTERPRISE: THE STATE BANK OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Abstract: In 1990, the State Bank of New South Wales was incorporated as a company, with a view to its eventual Privatisation (which occurred formally on 31 December 1994). Key to the Privatisation process was the attainment of improved organisational performance so that the bank would be seen as an attractive proposition by potential purchasers. Its annual reports in the period 1990-93 suggested this improvement had indeed occurred. However, a recent case in the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW, involving the bank and the Australian Bank Employees Union, has highlighted the apparent difficulty of measuring organisational and employee performance in the bank. This paper examines performance measurement in the State Bank of NSW in light of the accountability framework established by the NSW government, and highlights the dilemmas facing it and other government trading enterprises (GTEs) in the wider use of their performance data.     

Freedom and peace at the shopping centre: the politics of consumerism in Israel/Palestine

ABSTRACT

Shopping centres are products and indicators of consumerism. In the case of Israel/Palestine, where shopping malls have spread since the mid-1980s, they have acquired political meanings beyond the widespread conception of consumer-choice-as-freedom, as they also claim to advance coexistence in a context marked by ethnic segregation. We perceive shopping centres as ‘non-places’, following the work of Marc Augé, and analyse two overarching ideologies that coalesce in the shopping centre, in alignment with the political economy of Israel/Palestine. The first is liberal peace, which underpins the remnants of the Oslo process, but in an individualized form. The second is securitism, which presents shopping centres as a secure island in a sea of inter-ethnic violence. This image is taken apart throughout the article on the basis of ethnographic and discourse-analytical research on four sites in Israel, Jerusalem, and the occupied West Bank, focusing on the ways Palestinian consumers experience Israeli shopping centres.     

The World Bank as Knowledge Bank: Analyzing the Limits of a Legitimate Global Knowledge Actor

The World Bank has always sold ideas, not just loans. Starting in 1996, then president James Wolfensohn rebranded the Bank by articulating a formal vision of a “Knowledge Bank”—a provider of state‐of‐the‐art expertise on development. After a number of internal changes and assessments, the Bank is acknowledging that it needs to be more humble, pluralistic, and practical. Why do some regard the Bank as a legitimate knowledge actor, whereas others contest that authority? We offer an analytical framework that can explain stakeholders' uneven recognition of the Bank's knowledge role. When stakeholders define knowledge as products, the Bank generally obtains recognition for the quality and quantity of the information it generates. This is the output dimension of legitimacy. On the other hand, when knowledge only counts as such to users who have been part of the process of creating it, the Bank finds itself with limited recognition.     

In the Aftermath of Earth,Wind, and Fire: Natural Disasters and Respect for Women’s Rights

Though much research has been devoted to a range of socioeconomic and political consequences of natural disasters, little is known about the possible gendered effects of disasters beyond the well-documented immediate effects on women’s physical well-being. This paper explores the extent to which natural disasters affect women’s economic and political rights in disaster-hit countries. We postulate that natural disasters are likely to contribute to the rise of systematic gendered discrimination by impairing state capacity for rights protection as well as instigating economic and political instability conducive to women’s rights violations. To substantiate the theoretical claims, we combine data on women’s economic and political rights with data on nine different natural disaster events—droughts, earthquakes, epidemics, extreme temperatures, floods, slides, volcanic eruptions, windstorms, and wildfires. Results from the data analysis for the years 1990–2011 suggest that natural disasters have a detrimental effect on the level of respect for both women’s economic and political rights. One major policy implication of our findings is that disasters could be detrimental to women’s status beyond the immediate effects on their personal livelihoods, and thus, policymakers, relief organizations, and donors should develop strategies to prevent gendered discrimination in the economy and political sphere in the affected countries.     

Analyzing the progress and prospects of financial inclusion in India

Taking data from Financial Access Survey, Global Findex and Reserve Bank of India bulletin, this paper tries to analyze the progress occurred and the future prospect of financial inclusion in India. Our analysis depicts that India has witnessed a quick progress in financial inclusion. Though there is long way to go to achieve the dream of universal financial inclusion, there is no doubt that tremendous progress has been achieved in the recent time. Specifically, after the implementation Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana in August 2014, much improvement has happened in opening of bank deposit accounts. Similarly, the post‐dimerization period has seen a rapid growth of digital finance in India. Despite high growth of digital transaction, digital payment among the women, rural people, elderly people, and less educated people is much less than other groups of people. The provision of good digital infrastructure to the remote area, opening of more financial literacy centers and extension of credit to the marginalized people can help to fulfill the true essence of financial inclusion in India.     

Israel and the West Bank Palestinians

Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs in the region west of theJordan River have, in effect, constituted a bicommunal polityfor much of this century. Little academic attention, however,has been given to a bicommunal perspective on Israeli-Palestinianrelations. Three theoretical models for understanding bicommunalpolities are suggested at the outset of the article: dual authority,control, and shared rule. Within the control model, two variationsare identified: the joint control system that describes the1967–1976 period and the competitive control frameworkthat has replaced it. The failure of both systems of controlto provide stability and the likelihood that a dual authoritywill be unable to provide stability suggest a need to considera special version of shared rule in the West Bank.     

Citizenship,identity and transnational migration: Arab immigrants to the United States

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the changing relationships between identities, citizenship and the state in the context of globalisation. We first examine the ways in which scholars discuss changes in the ways in which citizenship and political identity are expressed in the context of international migration. We argue that much of the discussion of transnationalism and diaspora cling to an assumption that citizenship remains an important—though not defining—element of identity. Our position, by contrast, is that migration is one of a number of processes that transform the relationship between citizenship and identity. More specifically, we argue that it is possible to claim identity as a citizen of a country without claiming an identity as ‘belonging to’ or ‘being of’ that country, thus breaking the assumed congruity between citizenship, state and nation. We explore this possibility through a study of Arab immigrants in the US. Our findings, based on interviews with activists and an analysis of Arab American websites, suggest that concerns with both homeland and national integration are closely related to each other and may simultaneously inform immigrants' political activism. These findings indicate a need to identify multiple axes of political identification and territorial attachment that shape immigrants' sense of political membership. We argue for the importance of thinking about transnationalism as a process—and perhaps a strategy—as migrants negotiate the complex politics of citizenship and identity.     

Core Concepts and Key Ideas for Understanding Public Sector Organizational Networks: Using Research to Inform Scholarship and Practice

This article provides an overview of the key research findings and core concepts on the topic of organizational networks. The primary focus is on goal‐directed “whole” service delivery networks, which are prevalent in the public and nonprofit sectors. The findings and ideas presented are especially salient for helping public managers build, maintain, operate, and govern multiorganizational networks in ways that will enhance their effectiveness. Because research and theory on networks extend well beyond the boundaries of public management and administration, the authors draw on thinking from a number of fields, providing a broad understanding of public networks and network functioning. The article is intended to provide usable information on networks for both practitioners and students, as well as to suggest directions for future research for the many public management scholars who now study organizational networks.     

Banking on Accountability? Strengthening Budget Oversight and Public Sector Auditing in Emerging Economies

This study reviews a decade of support by the World Bank and the Inter‐American Development Bank to parliaments and external audit agencies in Latin America. It underscores recent developments in development finance reflecting a broader understanding of the determinants of fiscal credibility and financial integrity. It reveals a learning curve in multilateral assistance to budget oversight institutions. It argues that there exists unexplored potential to improve the effectiveness of multilateral assistance to budget oversight institutions, including in the choice of strategies and instruments. More fundamentally, it underscores the need to tackle the underlying political economy of public finance accountability.     

How Can Subnational Governments Deliver Their Policy Objectives in the Age of Austerity? Reshaping Homelessness Policy in Wales

This article explores how a devolved government in a small country, faced with external constraints beyond its immediate control, can deploy policy resources to shape a distinctive approach to public services. We analyse recent homelessness policy in Wales using the NATO (Nodality, Authority, Treasure, Organisation) typology of tools of government proposed by Hood and Margetts, and show how this can be applied usefully to understand the choices that governments must make in conducting relationships with other institutions. We conclude that a combination of Nodality and Authority provide powerful resources for a subnational government which has only limited formal powers and fiscal autonomy.     

Torn in translation: An ethnographic study of regulatory decision‐making in Turkey

There is much literature on the diffusion and translation of regulatory agencies from the perspective of formal political models. Ethnographic research of regulation process is, however, much less common. This is even more evident with regards to the study of regulatory agencies established outside the “West.” This article analyzes the translation process of the Turkish tobacco regulatory agency, which was established in 2002, under commitments made to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Based on an ethnographic analysis of two controversial cases, the study shows that tobacco regulation was being shaped and pursued in an environment of ambivalence and uncertainty. The study concludes that the decision‐making process of the agency is context‐specific and constructed within the perpetual struggles and interactions among the actors involved in this process.     

Public Administration in Troubled Waters: Organisations, Management and 'A New Oceania'

The crux of this article is that public administration is indeed in troubled waters in terms of the threatened legitimacy of the modern state: that many of the organisational and managerial reforms of recent years have had the effect of debasing parliamentary politics by ushering in a much more definite form of executive imperialism than has ever been witnessed in previous eras. More specifically, the reforms have changed, or are changing, the configurations of power and authority in and beyond government in ways that appear to enhance neither the processes of democratic rule nor the individual and collective well-being of many sections of society. It is thus surely time to stand back, to take stock of the situation, and to question whether the reforms are in fact achieving goals and objectives to which governments and communities ought really to be committed.     

Institutional development in World Bank projects: Analytical approaches and intervention designs

This article examines a random sample of World Bank projects in order to identify the methods of institutional analysis (IA) and resulting institutional development (ID) strategies employed. The findings confirm impressionistic data which indicate that IA in World Bank projects is highly standardized, and concentrates on factors internal to the organization at the expense of external environmental factors, particularly as these are reflected in the needs of stakeholders and customers. ID is an integral part of most Bank projects, and the trend is shown to be towards increasing attention to ID. The nature of ID in World Bank projects reflects the inward orientation of IA, with strong emphasis given to training and development as a standard solution. It is concluded that IA and ID which are broader in scope will improve project design and impact.     

Creating an enabling environment for housing: Recent reforms in Mexico

Abstract

A recent World Bank policy statement on housing advocates the reform of government policies, institutions, and regulations to enable housing markets to work more efficiently. The policy statement identifies several instruments that governments can use to address housing market constraints, and to improve the performance of the housing sector as a whole, while paying particular attention to the needs of the poor.

In recent years, the government of Mexico has employed many of the enabling instruments described in the World Bank's housing policy statement. This article reviews the role of housing in the Mexican economy and the major reforms that the Mexican government has implemented to improve the operation of the housing market so that private lenders and home builders can play an expanded role in addressing the country's housing needs. The World Bank has supported the government's reform program, and since 1985 it has lent more than $1.2 billion to Mexico for low‐income housing projects.     

Political and institutional environment and privatization prices

We study the link between the political and institutional context and privatization sales prices. The latter serves as a measure for assessing the extent to which privatization goals have been met. Whereas this link has been studied theoretically, there are very few, if any, empirical papers on this relationship. We use data from 308 privatizations around the world and apply a cross-country approach, including instrumental variables. We find that while the overall political regime does not matter much for prices, the political processes beyond the basic regime do matter. Institutional context also produces a significant impact on prices. Both results are robust to changes in specification.     

Understanding Public Support for British Membership of the Single Currency

There has been much public debate about whether a referendum on British membership of the European single currency could be won despite opinion polls showing a widening gap between those opposed to membership and those in favour. However, academic research provides little insight into why British attitudes towards the Euro vary at an individual level, and hence what factors might be crucial in a referendum campaign. Existing studies suggest, among other things, that British political parties can shape voters' preferences on important public policy issues. We explore this and other explanations using data from recent Eurobarometer and British Elections Study surveys. We find that general evaluations of the EU, British national identity and concerns over the democratic character of EU governance are stronger predictors of support for the single currency than which party a person supports. However, we also find that the influence of these factors varies with a citizen's level of information about the Euro, which suggests that the supply and use of information might be crucial in a referendum campaign.