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Papers from Public Seminar 'Whose Rules Rule? The IMF
and World Bank at 60'
Organised by Debt and Development Coalition
Dublin, 22nd June 2004
Depoliticising Development: Promoting Choiceless Democracies [1]
Andy Storey (Afri, and Centre for Development Studies Centre, UCD)
Revised version of paper presented at the Debt and Development Coalition seminar 'Whose Rules Rule? The IMF and World Bank at 60', 22nd June 2004.
'the power of the status quo was greatly reinforced if the prevalent teachings of the social sciences were presented, not as politically based and oriented views, but as eternal truths discovered with no purpose other than the pursuit of truth by a class of men, working in certain institutions which guaranteed both impartiality and authority'
(Hobsbawm, 1998: 180).
Introduction
I want to talk today about the way in which the World Bank 'discursively constructs' debate, how it determines what policies are acceptable and what policies are not acceptable; how it seeks to de-politicise development, presenting development as a neutral technical exercise, particularly in relation to economic development; and by so doing, how it creates 'choiceless democracies.
Habermas and Critical Discourse Analysis
Many commentators, especially those who locate themselves within the field
of critical discourse analysis (see van Dijk, 1993), pay attention to
the role played by discourse in sustaining systems of inequality or oppressive
power. For example, Lincoln (1989: 4) notes how 'In the hands of elites
and of those professionals who serve them (either in mediated fashion
or directly), discourse of all forms… may be strategically employed
to mystify the inevitable inequities of any social order'.
Some of the work of Jurgen Habermas has focused on this issue of the mystification
of inequities through discourse, in particular the way in which 'political
decisions.. have increasingly been transformed into technical ones' (Barry
et al, 1996: 12). Writing in Towards a Rational Society in 1968
Habermas distinguished between public opinion - in the sense of citizens
critically discussing state policy - and 'publicity' - whereby dominant
groups push or persuade the public towards certain conclusions. He saw
'publicity' as in the ascendant, as evidenced by, for example, the fact
that, as one of his interpreters puts it, 'The same public servants…
who speak reverently about the public, the public interest, and public
opinion will spend a good deal of time manipulating public opinion through
public relations work' (Outhwaite, 1996: 25-6).
As Habermas himself wrote:
'The depoliticisation of the mass of the population and the decline of the public realm as a political institution are components of a system of domination that tends to exclude practical questions from public discussion. The bureaucratized exercise of power has its counterpart in a public realm confined to spectacles and acclamation' (Habermas, 1996c: 51).
Note that Habermas is here using 'practical' to denote moral-political
issues. To maintain this system of domination, it is imperative that the
public does not debate matters of import because 'public discussions could
render problematic the framework within which the tasks of government
present themselves as technical ones' (Habermas, 1996b: 60). And to make
the system acceptable (or legitimate) in the eyes of most people, this
notion of technocratic, non-public decision-making must take on ideological
properties i.e., become part of the way in which people think, part of
'the consciousness of the depoliticized mass of the population' (Habermas,
1996c: 62).
There are parallels here with the work of discourse analysts Norman Fairclough
and Ruth Wodak. In an analysis of the rhetoric of New Labour, Fairclough
describes the Labour government as being about 'governance' - a regime
for the management of public affairs - rather than being about politics,
where politics is defined as 'the domain of struggles amongst groups of
people over substantive aspects of social life, including, centrally,
struggles over the distribution of "social goods" in the widest
sense' (2000: 172). Whereas politics is characterised by 'disagreement,
dissent and polemic', governance tends to 'exclude, marginalise or suppress
disagreement' (Fairclough, 2000: 172). This suppression works through
the denial that there is even a political choice to be made, by insistence
on the existence of one, single technically correct solution to any given
problem. Fairclough cites welfare reform as an example of where 'the Government's
policies are sold as merely technical solutions to an agreed problem…
[as] managerial problem-solving' (2000: 180).
This is, arguably, part of a wider phenomenon through which the 'room for real political change has been displaced by a technology of expertise' (Edkins, 1999: xii). Analysis of decision-making in the European Union (EU) provides several examples, including Wodak's dissection of the formulation of an EU policy paper on employment (Wodak, 2000). Her linguistic study reveals a strong emphasis on the part of the paper's drafters of the need to persuade people of the merits of a more or less agreed (amongst the 'experts') position regarding flexible labour market responses to globalisation. Within this discourse, 'experts act rationally, whereas the "European citizens", the non-experts, act irrationally' (Wodak, 2000: 191). The role of the citizens is simply to be persuaded of the arguments of the experts, and the only role of politicians is to better engage in that task of persuasion.
Apolitical Development? The World Bank, Economics and the State
Turning now the field of 'Third World' development, the central elements
just listed - the propounding of a 'technically correct' solution, depoliticisation,
the suppression of disagreement, the emphasis on managerial problem-solving,
the need to persuade people of the correctness of the experts' agreed
'rational' solution - are also the ones that characterise much development
discourse. The World Bank provides many good examples.
The Bank's General Council in 1991 affirmed that 'Technical considerations of economy and efficiency, rather than ideological and political preferences should guide the Bank's work at all time' (in Abrahamsen, 2000: 12). This is disingenuous because the Bank, as Stremlau and Sagasti make clear (1998: 15), has regularly taken an implicit or explicit stand on political issues and, specifically, has acted as an arm of US foreign policy, including vis-à-vis Indonesia, Zaire and Nicaragua (see also Wade, 1996).[2] Nonetheless, however, disingenuous it may appear, this depiction (and self-portrait) of the Bank as an apolitical actor is a vital element of its discursive construction of itself, and of its representation of itself to others.
Economics as a Neutral Science
Equally vital is the recurrent emphasis on the claim to a type of economic knowledge that is technically 'correct', universal and apolitical. Bank (and other) economists often take a perverse professional prise in how little they know of a specific economy. Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the Bank, has commented as follows on the economists who oversaw Russia's transition to a 'market economy':
'These economists typically had little knowledge of the history or details of the Russian economy and didn't believe they needed any. The great strength, and the ultimate weakness, of the economic doctrines on which they relied is that the doctrines are - or are supposed to be - universal. Institutions, history, or even the distribution of income simply do not matter. Good economists know the universal truths and can look beyond the array of facts and details that obscure these truths' (cited in Keen, 2001: 3).
Within Bank discourse, economic policies are described not as 'good' but rather as 'natural' and 'necessary' (Middleton and O'Keefe, 2001: 24-5). The Bank, as Cammack (2002: 132) puts it, sees itself as being in the business of 'benign and ideologically neutral pragmatism'.
'To a significant extent, this claim to neutrality relies on the commonplace perception of economics as a value-free science. Economics is perceived as a "realist", empirical discipline that can provide a neutral and true representation of the world. In this way correct economic policy becomes a question of objective facts and data, devoid of political and cultural preferences' (Abrahamsen, 2000: 12).
Or, to use the words of Beatrice Hibou, 'political economy is, for international organisations, a purely technical science which contains truths as well as good and sometimes bad precepts; it is a science of neutral and politically incontestable concepts' (Hibou, n.d.: 9).
The Technocratic State
At one level, this phenomenon is part of a generalised depoliticisation of development: 'the myth of development as an apolitical, technical process' (Nelson, 1995: 112).[3] This neutrality is then extended also to conceptualisations of the state as an agent of development: 'When the state acts it does so ideally in the interest of all its citizens in order to provide the best services possible' (Bryld, 2000: 701).
International aid agencies - including the World Bank - tend to portray states as apolitical, technocratic implementers of policy, with social divisions within a country downplayed or ignored. To put it slightly differently, states have not been explicitly analysed as representing certain sectional interests - instead, they have been seen as representing (or, at least, trying to represent) society as whole.
James Ferguson (1990: 225) describes how such an analysis worked to the government's advantage in Lesotho: the governmental bureaucracy, heavily supported by the Bank, was portrayed as a 'machine for delivering services' rather than as 'a device through which certain classes and interests control the behaviour and choices of others.' As a result, the Lesotho régime - representing the interest of a particular élite - was able to use World Bank projects to reinforce its bureaucratic state power over rural areas while the World Bank, in turn, was better able to justify the maintenance and extension of its own interventions (on the grounds that they were merely promoting overall societal welfare).
Peter Uvin has also analysed this process at work in Rwanda, when he talks of a 'development ideology' that the Rwandan state promoted and to which international agencies subscribed:
'[This] basically consists of an argument that the state's sole objective is the pursuit of economic development for the.. masses; as a result,... [everyone] interested in promoting development should work with the state to make that possible. This ideology legitimises the government's intrusive presence in all aspects of social life, and diverts attention from the very real differences that exist between different classes and social groups. In other words, it diverts attention from all things political, replacing them with a discourse of technicity and collective progress... [T]his discourse has come to serve as a powerful tool for Third World élites, in their dealings both with their own populations and the international system' (Uvin, 1997: 99-100).
Thus, while this depoliticisation of the state lends implicit support to the agenda of state-based ruling élites, it also allows the Bank to better justify business as usual - shifting vast amounts of money (Caufield, 1997), to agents claimed to be committed to the uplift of society as a whole. This stratagem 'situates the World Bank [and the Rwandan state] in a technocratic realm above or outside of politics' (Uvin, 1998: 43). Though as Uvin (1998: 155) goes on to note, 'this blindness to politics by project planners and managers does not make their political effects disappear; it just renders them unrecognised and undiscussed, to the pleasure of those who stand to benefit'. This echoes Habermas' observation that 'The substance of domination is not dissolved by the power of technical control. To the contrary, the former can simply hide behind the latter' (Habermas, 1996a: 43).
Insulated Bureaucracies: Marrying Neoliberalism and the Technocratic State
However, an obvious query arises here: how could the Bank continue to justify so strongly supporting state structures when it itself is committed to 'rolling back' state power under the neoliberal economic reforms characteristic of the 1980s and 1990s?[4] The compatibility of the World Bank's discourse with the interests of governments such as those of Lesotho and Rwanda might have been expected to decline, given the anti-statist thrust of the neoliberal adjustment policies embraced by the Bank. There is certainly a deep distrust of state intervention embedded in the political economy approach currently favoured by the World Bank (Fine, 1999). However, the adoption of the adjustment discourse has not fundamentally altered the extent to which the state is still seen as a neutral force, whose role is to implement policies in a rational, technocratic manner (Hildyard and Wilks, 1998).[5] Bank hostility to state intervention must be reconciled with the ongoing need to work with states: this circle is squared by envisaging a state structure that is committed to its own rolling back, staffed by technocrats who recognise the validity of the Bank's economic nostrums. Referring to the experience of adjustment in Africa, Gordon notes:
'Ironically, despite their critique of the African state, donor strategies in practice complemented the apolitical rhetoric and hierarchical nature of the existing African regimes: and, in fact, sought to shift from one narrow focus of decision making, i.e., top politicians, to another, i.e., top technocrats' (Gordon, 1996: 1529).
The architects and proponents of structural adjustment often see the implementation of their programmes as requiring skilled (in terms of neoliberal economics) ministers and civil servants 'detached' and 'insulated' from those 'interest groups' who would otherwise derail the necessary process of reform (Gibbon, 1995: 137; Gordon, 1996: 1528). This attitude is clearly apparent in the work of influential (vis-á-vis Bank policy) writers such as Robert Bates and Richard Sandbrook.[6] Bates (1994) exemplifies the tendency when he speaks of the desirability of creating 'strong economic bureaucracies... able to resist distributive claims and to minimise economic distortions' (Bates, 1994: 25). [7]
As Goldsworthy (1988: 511) notes, 'The decisions and actions of development bureaucracies will commonly reflect either bureaucratic self-interest or the interests of friends, clients and class allies'. Given that such an observation constitutes simple common sense, it poses a significant challenge to technocratic conceptions of the state. The challenge is partly met by Bates' recognition that while élite groups do use the resources of the state for private ends, and this is a view occasionally recognised by the Bank also (Williams and Young, 1994: 92), this tendency, it is claimed, can be overcome by insulation of policy-makers from wider societal interests (though how they can be insulated from their own interests is never obvious). Sandbrook (1996: 8) talks of the desirability of 'technocrats and administrators… [obtaining] the requisite insulation and competence'; for Sandbrook, the task of government is to 'mediate the many conflicts within society', which is a matter of enhancing 'technical and administrative skills'. There is an implicit assumption that technocrats - once safely ensconced in what Mkandawire (1998: 27) describes as 'authoritarian enclaves' such as independent central banks - will neutrally administer the tenets of detached economic wisdom.
The above themes - the correct and incontestable nature of economic advice, and the depoliticisation of the state - are well summarised by Bryld (2000: 703):
'Technocrats view the state in a technical way, as a rational actor with a narrow focus on how to improve economic effectiveness and efficiency. Little attention is paid to non-economic factors, and the political aspects are overlooked. Thus, the complex political, social and cultural landscape in which the state operates is grossly oversimplified. Economic efficiency equates with development, and the role of the state is primarily to put in place the appropriate institutional settings for providing the best services for the public… In a technocratic sense there is little room for political parties or élitist states. A political issue such as development is addressed, with state involvement, through the use of economic techniques… Hence politics is not seen as part of the state. When the state is identified as a rational actor guided only by the common interests of all its citizens, the definition becomes unrealistic… The state can never act apolitically, as the technocratic label would imply'.
Manufacturing Consent
However, there has been a recent turn in this discourse, especially from the mid-90s on, recognising that while it is necessary to get insulated bureaucracies practicing correct policies, this may not be enough because of popular opposition to these policies. So how do you overcome that? You have to put some effort into persuading people that these are in fact the correct policies'.: The technocratic state can better implement rational economic policies if technocrats devote time and effort to persuading the rest of society that the 'correct' policies are both necessary and desirable. The art of politics is reduced to being about persuading people to recognise and support the 'truth'.
Thus, insofar as Bank personnel analyse political issues in the context of adjustment, they tend to do so from the perspective of 'strengthening the domestic constituency for reform', promoting 'country ownership' of reform programmes, and creating the conditions through which governments can 'build consensus' for reform.[8] The actual content of reform - based as it is on 'objective facts and data' - is assumed to be beyond argument, and the task of politics is simply to persuade people of the merits of implementing reform. As Mkandawire (1999: 125) notes, 'many believe that free debate will ineluctably lead to a political consensus in favour of' neoliberal economic reform.
A Universal Problem
Elsewhere in the field of development policy, similar tendencies are evident in the EU Commission's April 2000 communication to the EU Council and Parliament entitled The European Community's Development Policy, which includes (not untypical) phrases such as 'our objective must be to integrate these countries in the world economy and encourage sound domestic strategies', and which speaks throughout of the desirability of 'sound domestic governance' and 'macroeconomic stability and structural reforms'. Note that policies are justified on the basis that they are 'sound' or promotive of stability, as though no further justification were required. There are no political choices to be made, merely the implementation of technically correct policies. The Commission goes further:
'In order to be truly effective, these strategies must be fully "owned" by the [recipient] governments and civil societies…. Ownership can only be promoted in the framework of balanced partnerships, at all levels, including policy dialogue, capacity building and adequate implementation systems. Ownership also implies local availability of knowledge and the ability to analyse the complex problems of society and to design policies and strategies accordingly. Research policy and capacity building therefore need sustained attention'.
The implication of this last passage is that failure on the part of recipients to 'own' policies must be due to their limited knowledge and their inability to analyse complex problems. Policy dialogue may be about the sequencing of policy reform but not about its basic content. Those who disagree with the Commission about that basic content must be ignorant.
The perspective is not confined to development, as Greider's discussion of technocratic representations of the US Federal Reserve Board makes clear:
'The central bank is described as an island of disinterested technocratic expertise - sober thinkers who are surrounded by the federal government's messy, sometimes barbarous political swamp. The Fed, it is said, must be cloistered from the usual pressures - the accountability and openness required of elected government - so Fed governors are free to focus on the long-term consequences. Thus, the core conceit sustaining this institution is the claim that good government requires the absence of politics' (Greider, 2001).
Crucially, Grieder goes on to note, as Uvin does vis-à-vis Rwanda (see above), that the Fed is a deeply political institution, and cannot be otherwise. It is not only politically influenced (through the socialised value set and personal interests of its administrators, and through the lobbying of corporate agents), but of course its 'neutral' policies have distributional implications. It is, for example, more than a matter of mere technical correctness that major financial institutions should be bailed out by the Fed when threatened with liquidation, while indebted farmers and homeowners are allowed go to the wall. The appearance of apolitical technocracy is just that: an appearance, not a reality.
Conclusion
But in at least one crucial respect the appearance is massively important. If there is a presupposition that there is only one possible set of policies - and that the only thing to be talked about is how best to 'own' and implement those policies - then it is very difficult to oppose those policies. How, for example, can one be opposed to 'soundness'? Who wants to be thought of as being of unsound mind? Middleton and O'Keefe (2001: 24-5) also highlight the difficulties posed for effective opposition when policies are described not as 'good' but as 'natural' and 'necessary', thus rendering opposition as apparently 'unnatural', 'inconceivable' or 'insane'. By these means legitimate political debate and protest, debate around alternative development policies, is stifled - which is very convenient for those who benefit from existing policies.
What campaigning implications can we draw from all this? As campaigners, firstly, I would argue, you need to be attuned to those discourses. There are various economic policies, each of which can be weighed up, discussed, analysed and debated on its merits. Secondly, the state is not necessarily committed to the uplift of society as whole. The state usually represents the interests of elite sections of society, whether that is in Europe or in Africa. Because we have been aware, as campaigners, of the devastating effects of the erosion of state services we tend to be supportive of state functions in many regards, and rightly so. But we also need to go deeper than that and adopt a political analysis of who controls the state and whose interest it serves. Thirdly, we need to be very cautious about consultative procedures in which the Bank, in particular, engages. The poverty reduction strategy process is an important example where what is taking place very often is not real consultation or debate. Coming back to Habermas, it's not about the public realm, it's not about trying to find out what policies people want. Very often what you have is a strategy of persuasion, a way of getting people to buy into an already predetermined set of what are seen as correct economic policies. As campaigners we need to be aware of the way in which a certain vision of reality is being constructed, whether it is in the realm of social participation, whether it is in the realm of political analysis of the state, or whether it is in the realm of the conception of economics itself. We need to try to deconstruct this vision as a building block in our campaigning strategy for alternative economics and alternative polices.
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FOOTNOTES:
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[1] The title is an amalgamation of phrases coined by White (1996)
and Mkandawire (1999).
[2] The same is true of the International Monetary Fund (IMF):
'movement towards the United States within a defined international political
space (like that measured by UN voting patterns) can significantly increase
a country's chances of receiving a loan from the IMF' (Thacker, 1999:
67). Thacker (1999) concludes that the US has been able to very effectively
influence IMF policy, and that this ability has been heightened since
the end of the Cold war.
[3] Development discourse claims to be 'an innocent vehicle of
neutral knowledge' (Abrahamsen, 2000: 2) and the leading development agencies
commonly engage in 'the representation of development as a neutral enterprise'
(Abrahamsen, 2000: 11; see also Nelson, 1995).
[4] On the reasons why the Bank embraced neoliberalism at this
time, see Gibbon (1995), Storey (2000) and Wade (1996).
[5] On the similarities - especially in terms of the role assigned
to technical expertise - between past emphases on state intervention and
the current emphasis on liberalisation, see Preston (1999).
[6] For a cogent critique of the approach, see Leys (1996: 80-103).
[7] This approach mirrors a broader tendency - evident in Thatcher's
Britain and elsewhere - for a commitment to 'free market' principles to
be accompanied by an equal commitment to a strong, sometimes almost authoritarian,
state (see Callinicos, 2001: 62).
[8] The phrases in quotation marks are taken from a talk by Paul
Collier, a senior economist at the World Bank, at a conference on Poverty
in Africa - a Dialogue on Causes and Solutions held at the Centre for
the Study of African Economies, Oxford, 16 April 1999.
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