Rethinking the Emerging Post-Washington Consensus: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to provide a critical assessment of the emerging post-Washington Consensus (PWC), as a new paradigm in the development debate. The paper begins by tracing the main record of the Washington Consensus, the set of neoliberal economic policies propogated foremost by key Bretton Woods Institutions like the World Bank and the IMF that penetrated into the economic policy agendas of many developing countries since the late 1970s. The paper then outlines the main tenets of the PWC, emerging from the shortcomings of that record and the reaction it created in the political realm. The paper, while accepting that the PWC provides a significant improvement over the Washington Consensus, draws attention to its failure to provide a sufficiently broad framework for dealing with key and pressing development issues such as income distribution, poverty and self-sustained growth.