Is the Washington consensus dead ?

Résumé du document

Sometimes the messenger of the content assumes more significance than the content itself. One such instance is that of the Washington Consensus. According to the World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, "The Washington Consensus has been dead for years. It has been replaced by all sorts of other consensuses. But today we are approaching our discussions with no consensuses." Wolfensohn said this at the opening of a conference on Scaling up Poverty Reduction in Shanghai on 25 May, 2004. More surprising than the content of the message is the messenger. Indeed the Washington Consensus has been the core of many debates and a controversial subject for a few years. So the fact that, once again, it has been condemned is not that surprising. Yet the fact that the President of the World Bank himself declaring the death of the Washington Consensus is much more remarkable. In fact, this is what gives value to this declaration. The implications are twofold: first, it means that he acknowledges that the Washington Consensus did exist, and more, that it is no longer significant. However, there seem to be more insights into this statement and it seems that the current situation is less obvious than James Wolfensohn presumes.

Extraits

[...] They are now considered as the major implementers of the Washington Consensus and of its neo- liberal policies. The neo-liberal measures applied by the IMF and the World Bank were primarily a response to the debt crisis. Actually, the oil crises in 1973 and 1979, which triggered a severe recession in the North, also precipitated the ‘debt crisis' in the developing world. After Mexico, soon followed by other countries, announced in 1982 that it could no longer service its official debt, Northern creditors feared that, if rapid counter- measures were not taken, there could be a ‘domino effect' among developing countries, one that could undermine the whole financial system. [...]

[...] The international community is keen to reform the business of delivering foreign aid, tries to redefine targets in order to enhance efficiency of aid and claims its continuous internal evaluation. However, one must admit that, in actuality, few things have changed and we are still the spectators of the domination exercised by the liberal elites of the North. Finally, one of the majors reasons why the Post Washington Consensus is not fully attained is because no clear alternative theory has emerged. [...]

[...] The principles included: a civil sector wage freeze in order to cut the inflation, a decrease in subsidies to reduce public expenditure, and a devaluation of the currency to restore the competitiveness of the economy by making exports cheaper and deterring imports. As a second phase, more deeper and structural reforms had to be taken through the adjustment procedures. Since they were more profound, these actions had a more long-term impact and aim at restructuring the economy as a whole. There are several recommendations. [...]

[...] - Garritsen de Vries, The IMF in a Changing World, Washington DC, IMF - Gordon, Gwin, and Sinding, What Future for Aid? Occasional Paper 2 (Overseas Development Council, November 1996), pp. 11- 13. - Hollis, Chenery and Strout, Foreign Assistance and economic Development, American Economic Review - Kapur, Lewis and Webb, The World Bank: its first half century, Brookings Institution Press - Krueger Anne, Whither the World Bank and the IMF, Journal of Economic Literature 36, December 1998. - Pastor Manuel, The effects of the IMF programs in the Third World, World Development - Todaro Michael, Economic Development, Addison and Wesley, 8th edition - Human Development Program, the U.N, Oxford University Press - Reforming Foreign Aid, African Studies Quarterly, Volume Issue spring 2004. [...]

[...] Indeed, the questioning surrounding these factors culminated in the post Washington Consensus policies. The rebellion from the outside and from the inside One of the more significant symptoms of a post neo-liberal era is the increasing rebellion from the ‘outside' as well as from the ‘inside.' The first strong criticism was an external one since it has come from the Third World. Not surprisingly, it is from the developing countries, in which neo-liberal policies were implemented, that the first condemnations have come. [...]