Introduction: Delusions of Development — the World Bank, the post-Washington Consensus and Politics in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Encountering orthodox development practice and discourse today, two defining linguistic trends are immediately apparent. The first is the plethora of acronyms (PRSP, PRA, HIPC, CAS, SwAP, etc.) that litter the reports and websites of ‘development’ organisations such as the World Bank (not to mention the conversations of ‘development’ organisation staff). The second is a now well-established language rich with progressive-sounding words such as ‘participation’, ‘partnership’, ‘ownership’, ‘harmonisation’ and ‘empowerment’. Such entries in the new development lexicon are regularly complemented by references to ‘institution building’, ‘civil society’ and ‘social and human capital’. This is the language of a new way of ‘doing development’ — a hegemonic approach driven in no small way by the World Bank, and one rather ambitiously tasked with freeing the world of poverty.