Heather Marquette

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 Banks 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.

Corruption, democracy and the World Bank

In this era of political conditionality and good governance, anti-corruptionhas emerged as a top priority (at least in theory) for all major donors. Thisis almost always linked to support for democratisation efforts, with onenotable exception – the World Bank. The Bank is constricted by anon-political mandate which forbids it supporting one particular politicalsystem through its lending and other activities. Nonetheless, the languageit uses (e.g., accountability, transparency, participation, etc.) and theprojects it supports seem to endorse the spirit of liberal democracy. I arguethat the Banks mandate is in conflict with a politically sensitive issue likeanti-corruption, and that it is impossible to separate economic issues frompolitical ones in this instance; however, given the lack of consensus on therelationship between democracy, development and corruption, this may bethe best state of affairs for now.

State Building, Security and Development: state building as a new development paradigm?

State building is currently experiencing a renaissance of sorts, cutting across disciplines such as international relations, political studies, anthropology, economics, international development an...

Donors Doing Political Economy Analysis™: From Process to Product (and Back Again?)

This paper refocuses current debate on political economy analysis (PEA) by firstly critiquing existing scholarly tendencies to analyze donors through a particular lens, as a unique analytical category, which does not adequately capture donor officials as the civil servants they are. Current donor debates which move the purpose of PEA away from ‘thinking politically’ towards ‘managing risk’ may thus not reflect failure to mainstream PEA, but instead reflect a logical response from civil servants when faced with a product that exists to flag up risks or potential failure. Informed by Hood’s work (2010) on risk and blame, the paper argues that by understanding donors as blame-averse civil servants, we can better comprehend their continued ambivalence towards PEA. Secondly, the paper responds to a second critique of PEA, which highlights its politically sensitive nature. The paper argues that this sensitivity is not simply an operational matter but instead presents a significant challenge to donor commitments to country ownership. The paper explores how both of these issues have played-out in the World Bank’s evolving work on PEA. Drawing on interview data and participant observation, it is suggested that the Bank may be better placed to navigate these complexities given its apolitical mandate.

Corruption, Religion and Moral Development

Lacking in much of the current research on religion and corruption is a sense that there may be alternative ways that people view corruption, which in their minds may be moral, and that if we are to truly develop an understanding of how religion influences people’s attitudes and behaviour towards corruption, we must start from a critical and interpretive perspective at the individual level of analysis. This paper argues that the methodologies used in many current studies are not adequate to study what is ultimately an individual decision, and one that is at least in part informed by a person’s own ethical and moral standpoint. As such, starting research with the mindset that particular types of activities are corrupt, and thus ‘wrong’, may prevent researchers from uncovering why people develop particular attitudes to corruption, or why they choose to behave in a way labelled by some as corrupt. If corruption research is to explore some of these issues at the individual, as well as the regional and national levels, it is important to learn from existing work that examines how attitudes are formed, both on religion and the impact that religion has on attitudes to moral issues and on moral reasoning. A number of studies, few of which deal specifically with corruption, are reviewed in order to establish useful ways forward for corruption researchers. Research on religion and attitudes towards deviant behaviour shows that individuals’ interpretation of messages on moral behaviour is significant in determining their acceptance or rejection of deviancy. However, there is little evidence to suggest that the religious reject behaviour that is ‘anti-social’ any more than the non-religious. Indeed, there is little evidence to suggest that religion, in terms of religious content, impacts upon individuals’ attitudes to public morality. Membership of a religious community that rejects behaviour seen as being ‘corrupt’ seems more likely to have an impact, but a lot depends upon whether members of the community are encouraged to use religious principles to think through moral issues, or to interpret religious teachings literally.

Drilling down to the detail: A case study into anti-corruption project records and record-keeping

This article complements one written in2001 for Crime, Law and Social Changethat underlined the importance of recordsand record-keeping in developing countriesin combating corruption and promotingparticipation. This article addresses thesame theme as the basis on which twodevelopments intended to promote moreefficient and effective anti-corruptionfunding could be assessed. These concern:the value of donors coordinating andcooperating over donor funding (byinstitution and country) and theidentification of particular expertise ofspecific donors to diversify the range ofcomplementary strengths (the comparativeadvantage approach). To do that, effectiveevaluation of past projects is necessary –and is in itself dependant on the quality,accessibility and usability of the recordsheld. The article uses the case-study ofcorruption prevention projects fundedbetween 1995–1999 by the EuropeanUnion to consider the importance of records andrecord-keeping to the evaluation processand thus to any assessment and developmentof coordinated funding and the comparativeadvantage approach.

Religion and attitudes towards corruption in India: a collective action problem?

This paper argues that religion influences the ways that people think and speak about corruption, typically leading to condemnation. However, it is also argued that, in a systemically corrupt country, such condemnation is unlikely to influence actual corrupt behaviour. Based on fieldwork in India, the paper finds that existing anti-corruption policies based on a principal-agent understanding of corruption, even if they incorporate religious organisations and leaders, are unlikely to work, partly because people consider “religion” to be a discredited entity. Instead, the paper argues that if corruption were to be seen as a collective action problem, anti-corruption practice would need significant rethinking. Despite its current lack of influence, revised policies and practices may see a role for religion.

The UK, the Commonwealth and corruption: Assessing the potential for joined-up development assistance

Donors currently place emphasis on the need to address corruption in an increasingly coordinated fashion as part of their support for the wider development and democratisation agenda. Findings from country study reports which used the National Integrity System (NIS) approach for assessing types and levels of corruption indicate both that corruption persists and that donor coordination is evidenced in developing the resultant anti-corruption strategies within recipient states. This paper adopts a different perspective on the issue of donor coordination, specifically considering the potential for the integration of activities of agencies or institutions from within one specific donor country involved in work overseas in the anti-corruption field. The article uses the UK as the case study, looking at the activities of one transnational agency located in the UK (the Commonwealth Secretariat), at the UKs development agency (the Department for International Development) both as a single donor and as part of a partnership with other development agencies, and at two UK agencies, the National Audit Office and HM Customs & Excise. The article draws two conclusions. First, the individual organisations pursue their own agendas although the specialist agencies are aware of the need for contextual reform to make their work effective. Second, and despite this awareness, there is at present little evidence of a common purpose or approach for offering to recipient countries more integrated forms of assistance agreed between agencies from one donor country.

“Empowered patient” or “doctor knows best”? Political economy analysis and ownership

ABSTRACT Efforts to incorporate “political thinking” into policy-making and practice in OECD-DAC development agencies have increasingly focused on the use of “political economy analysis” (PEA) frameworks and tools. While recognising the fundamental value of promoting politically informed programming, this article nevertheless highlights how contemporary efforts to this end have largely ignored another central development agenda: the ownership paradigm. Emphasising the highly donor-centric nature of PEA design and methodology, we explore critiques and justifications of this state of affairs, ultimately arguing that donors would benefit from embracing a more flexible and context-specific understanding of ownership.

The World Bank’s Anti-Corruption Programme

Previous chapters have built a theoretical and historical context for the Bank’s anti-corruption programme. The complexity of the Bank’s approach also means that one has to have a full understanding of how the Bank works in order to evaluate its anti-corruption programme: its lending programmes and products, its evaluation processes, interactions between regions and sectors and its external relations. However, the size of the project undertaken means I must restrict myself to the Bank’s key four-pronged strategy. As Operations Evaluation Department (OED) points out, ‘the menu of potential actions to curtail corruption is very large so a framework is needed that provides guidance on ordering potential actions’.1 I have used the Bank’s own strategy to guide my evaluation and recommendations, following the logic of Bade Onimode, editor of the 1989 text IMF, the World Bank and the African Debt, who stated, ‘To evaluate the World Bank’s programmes, we should … use their own figures, their own language, to see whether what they set out to do has been done.’2