The World Bank and the political construction of structural adjustment programs in the 1980s

Abstract

The article discusses the administration and operation of World Bank structural adjustment programs during the 1980s, contextualizing the theme in a framework of on-going broader changes in the international political economy. The work questions the relationship between the World Bank and its most powerful member-state, the United States, showing the tensions between the executive and Congress in relation to the definition of US policy for the institution. A set of pressures on the Bank are shown to have helped constrain its field of action. Also discussed is how the set of structural adjustment programs developed alongside the administration of the foreign debt crisis and which interests the World Bank's actions served.

United States; Reagan government; foreign debt