Bulletin n. 2/2007
October 2007
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Weaver Catherine
    The World's Bank and the Bank's World
    in Global Governance , n. 4, vol. 13, october-december ,  2007
    ABSTRACT: Who or what shapes and drives the policy and operational behavior of the World Bank? The objective of this introductory essay is to lay the conceptual and empirical framework for this special issue. I begin by constructing a synthetic theoretical model¾drawing from principal-agent models and sociological institutionalism¾to delineate the set of external and internal factors shaping Bank behavior. I then lay the empirical groundwork by exploring the most salient characteristics of the “world’s Bank,” taking special note of the Bank’s relationship with the United States, borrowing states, and nongovernmental organizations. In the second half, I focus on the “Bank’s world,” investigating the internal bureaucratic politics and culture of the Bank. Specifically, I examine the sources and nature of the Bank’s “intellectual culture” (characterized by its economistic, apolitical, and technical rationality), its “operational culture” (portrayed as driven by approval and disbursement imperatives), and the dynamics of bureaucratic politics that pervades the hierarchy of the Bank.
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