Download Framing the World? The role of ideas in multilateral institutions

2nd MULTI-conference
3rd session: Ideas in Development
The CANDID Project1
Desmond McNeill, Morten Bøås et al.
SUM (Centre for Development and the Environment), University of Oslo
Presentation by Desmond McNeill
“Framing the World: the role of ideas in
multilateral institutions”
“CANDID: The Creation, Adoption, Negation and Distortion of Ideas in Development”. Most participants are
acquainted with the project which was presented for the first time at last year’s conference.
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Vettre, 18-19 January 2001
2nd MULTI-conference
3rd session: Ideas in Development
ABSTRACT:
Framing the World? The role of ideas in multilateral institutions
Desmond McNeill, Centre for the Development and the Environment - University of Oslo
e-mail: [email protected]
The relationship between power and ideas is challenging. Do ideas have power in themselves?
Or only to the extent that they are actively taken up by powerful individuals or groups? And
what sort of power do ideas have: to motivate, or to alter the actions of individuals or groups?
Clearly, their power must be tied up with the institutionalisation of social action and the
material capabilities that such kind of institutionalisation is built upon. What then is the nature
of this relationship? To what extent do ideas change institutions; or do institutions change
ideas?
The main objective of this volume is to increase our understanding of how ideas
contribute to bring about new policies and institutional change, but also new challenges
within the multilateral system at large. For multilateral development institutions, it is
important to achieve consensus, both internally and externally. However, rivalry is common,
and institutions gain international prestige (and funding) by having good ideas and new ideas.
The aim of this volume is therefore to contribute to the improvement of our understanding of
the relationship between ideas and development assistance policy. How are ideas taken up by
multilateral institutions, how are they interpreted and subsequently translated into policy, and
then modified, in response both to debate (within and between the academic community and
the policy community) and to feedback from implementation experience.
The contributors come from a range of disciplines - political science, economics,
philosophy, sociology and anthropology - and a number of different countries. They have
thoroughgoing knowledge both of the issues and the institutions concerned. They represent a
mixture of very senior and experienced academics, and younger researchers at an earlier stage
in their careers, who have been involved in different ways with a range of multilateral
institutions.
Vettre, 18-19 January 2001
2nd MULTI-conference
3rd session: Ideas in Development
This presentation will consist of two parts:
- the outline of a forthcoming book to be edited by Bøås and McNeill, based on the CANDID
project, but containing contributions from a number of other researchers also, who attended a
workshop at SUM in September 2000.
- ‘work in progress’: some preliminary thoughts linking the work so far (and largely contained
in the forthcoming book) and the next phase, in which we will go more in-depth in relation
both to the key CANDID ‘ideas’, and to the conclusions that may be drawn from these.
1. Phase I. Book outline: Framing the World: the role of ideas in multilateral institutions2
The relationship between power and ideas is challenging. Do ideas have power in
themselves? Or only to the extent that they are actively taken up by powerful individuals or
groups? And what sort of power do ideas have: to motivate, or to alter the actions of
individuals or groups? Clearly, their power must be tied up with the institutionalisation of
social action and the material capabilities that such kind of institutionalisation is built upon.
What then is the nature of this relationship? To what extent do ideas change institutions; or do
institutions change ideas?
The main objective of this volume is to increase our understanding of how ideas
contribute to bring about new policies and institutional change, but also new challenges
within the multilateral system at large. For multilateral development institutions, it is
important to achieve consensus, both internally and externally. However, rivalry is common,
and institutions gain international prestige (and funding) by having good ideas and new ideas.
The aim of this volume is therefore to contribute to the improvement of our understanding of
the relationship between ideas and development assistance policy. How are ideas taken up by
multilateral institutions, how are they interpreted and subsequently translated into policy, and
then modified, in response both to debate (within and between the academic community and
the policy community) and to feedback from implementation experience?
Vettre, 18-19 January 2001
2nd MULTI-conference
3rd session: Ideas in Development
The contributors come from a range of disciplines - political science, economics,
philosophy, sociology and anthropology - and a number of different countries. They have
thoroughgoing knowledge both of the issues and the institutions concerned. They represent a
mixture of very senior and experienced academics, and younger researchers at an earlier stage
in their careers, who have been involved in different ways with a range of multilateral
institutions.
What is special about an ‘idea’ as dealt with in this book is that it operates in both academia
and policy domains. It arises and is developed in the interplay between these two domains, but
it derives its credibility for policy-making largely from its basis in academia. An important
idea is therefore one, which is widely used by policy-makers and has significant influence on
them. Legitimacy in the making of development policy is often sought from grounding the
proposals in a theoretical base and in supporting empirical analysis. In multilateral
institutions, whose constituency is relatively ill defined, this is especially important.
Moreover, originality in ideas seems to be highly valued – whether because of the beauty of
new ideas or the hope that new policies will be more successful than old ones; hence the often
heard critical comment on "fashions" in development assistance policy.
The ideas that we are concerned with in this book fall under the category of collective
images of social order. The ideas put under scrutiny here differ both as to the nature and
legitimacy of prevailing power structures, and with respect to the meanings of issues such as
justice and the question of distribution of and access to collective public goods. There can
therefore be several competing collective images off, for instance governance, each strongly
opposed to the others.
Given that the focus of this book is on institutions, and the relationship between power
and ideas, it is not surprising that the disciplinary focus of five of the authors is that of
political science. But insights from economic sociology, anthropology, economics and
philosophy are also much in evidence. It is our view that important contributions to the study
of institutions can be gained by incorporating insights from for instance, economic sociology
(the new institutionalism and the old institutional economics), anthropology (not only in
relation to small and informal social groups, but also formal institutions such as development
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For proposed list of contents see Annex.
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2nd MULTI-conference
3rd session: Ideas in Development
agencies), and from philosophy (certainly to the extent that the power of ideas derives from
their moral content). In studying similar topics, these different disciplines also find
themselves confronting similar issues and questions. These include issues such as
embeddedness and autonomy; the agency-structure question; and the issue of mutually
constitutive phenomena. All these issues are currently common concerns in several
disciplines.
This leads us to suggest that the perspectives of Gramsci and Cox; the former for his
theories of hegemony, and the latter for the application of such theory specifically to the field
of international political economy, but also the so-called realist-constructivist debate within
international relations theory are concerned with issues and questions that have implications
far beyond disciplinary borders. In fact, we will argue that most of the authors in this book
(political scientists or not) explicitly or implicitly seek to establish a middle ground in the
realist-constructivist debate: not merely because the extreme positions in this debate are not
sufficiently nuanced, but more specifically because neither perspective is well equipped to
cope with the central issue: the relationship between power and ideas in multilateral
institutions.
A perspective in the sense that the word is used here connotes a set of values, beliefs and
assumptions. Thus, when we talk about the constructivist, neogramscian and realist
perspective we are thinking about intellectual frameworks rather than specific theories. This
implies that adherents to these three perspectives are linked by a common set of assumptions
concerning the objects of study and the methods to be employed in seeking answers to the
intellectual puzzles generated by the perspective
2. Phase II. Work in Progress
The workshop was fruitful both in terms of the papers presented and discussions that were
generated. This was especially satisfactory given that several different disciplines were
represented, and a range of different ‘ideas’. An important factor was that those attending had
a common interest in the major issues, and (hopefully) a sufficiently common approach.
The concept of ‘framing’ appears to be central, and this needs to be further elaborated and
explored, in relation to the interaction between researchers and policy-makers in multilateral
development. Our central claim is that in this arena there are powerful, and to some extent
Vettre, 18-19 January 2001
2nd MULTI-conference
3rd session: Ideas in Development
conflicting, forces influencing how and why ideas are used and abused. It is an arena in which
overtly political issues tend to be avoided or at least downplayed – for example by blurring
them, by concentrating on more technical aspects of an issue, or on those aspects which are
least controversial. This gives rise to the legitimate question whether the ideas which survive
longest are those which are clear and strong in their implications for policy, or those which
are most pliable.
To give a preliminary, and sketchy, indication of the forces and how they operate, consider
the following four ideas each of which has been adopted in an attempt to break out of the
mould of development thinking in a different way; to address issues which I characterise as,
respectively, invisible, unresolvable, inadmissible or intractable.3
Invisible: the informal sector:
The term ‘the informal sector’ was used to describe a whole set of activities that were
invisible: they escaped attention because they fell outside the standard perception, outside the
standard categories – of economists and statisticians, of western/modern planners. The
biography of this idea shows how it was indeed taken up by both researchers and policymakers, and exerted significant influence. It also shows how the idea was, to some extent,
distorted. I suggest that it is a good example of an idea which made a difference, although it
did not radically alter development policy.
Unresolvable: sustainable development:
The perceived conflict between economic growth and environmental sustainability found a
resolution in the concept of sustainable development. But it remained to be seen whether the
idea had empirical content and analytical clarity. In the years that have passed since the report
of the Brundtland Commission, some progress has been made in determining to what extent,
and in what respects, there is or is not conflict between these twin aims. The ‘idea’ has been
hugely successful in putting the environment issue on the agenda, but there are differing
views: has the term has in fact been refined conceptually, resulting in enhanced knowledge
In an earlier presentation I argued that these ideas had in common that they all sought to ‘bridge’ gaps: between
theory and policy, between different disciplines, and/or between conflicting positions. I believe this is a valid
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3rd session: Ideas in Development
and better policies, or has consensus been reached at the cost of blurring the conceptual issues
and side-stepping some controversial decisions?
Inadmissible: governance
The realm of politics was, formally, outside the scope of multilateral development agencies
such as the World Bank. This situation has, however, changed; not least with the debates
surrounding structural adjustment4. The agenda has therefore been expanded to include what
has been known as ‘governance’. This is, of course, an old concept, but it has taken on a very
particular meaning – because of the constraints, both formal (such as the legal mandate of the
multilateral institutions) and informal (the beliefs and practices of those involved). As a result
governance has often been interpreted in a rather narrow and technocratic manner.
Intractable: social capital
Although issues such as community participation have long been a concern of multilateral
development institutions, they have often been regarded as intractable - at least by
economists. The ‘idea’ of social capital has proved attractive to many in the World Bank, and
elsewhere5. It has also been criticised – from both ends of the methodological scale
(economists and anthropologists), though for very different reasons. It is too early to tell what
will be the ultimate fate of this idea, but it does serve to illustrate how an idea can be
promoted, and the power of economists in setting the agenda in an institution such as the
World Bank.
In each of these four case, the idea was, in a sense, an attempt to break out of the mould¸ to
respond actively to the limitations of the existing frame or structure. Each therefore tells us
something about that frame: in what respects it was seen to be wanting. But the subsequent
and useful observation. At this stage, I am not sure whether the analysis that follows is an alternative or a
supplementary approach.
4
An important external factor here was the end of the Cold War. In the case of the other ideas it is also possible
to point to exogenous factors which were significant in creating acceptance for them in policy debate, though
this is perhaps the most clear example.
5
A number of key individuals were important in this process, and Wolfensohn himself surely played an
important part in creating a space for this idea.
Vettre, 18-19 January 2001
2nd MULTI-conference
3rd session: Ideas in Development
biography of each idea – the fate of each apparently novel concept - also tells us something
about the nature and strength of the frame; how and to what extent it resists such change.
The next stage of the research - which is intended to result in the publication of a co-authored
volume by myself and Bøås - will be concerned with seeking to build on the case studies
undertaken, so as to establish some more general claims about power and ideas in the very
special arena which is constituted by the multilateral development institutions; an arena in
which the drive for consensus may lead not so much to the rejection, but the distortion of
ideas.
It is too early yet to give more than an indication of what themes are likely to be further
developed. One issue concerns the dominance of ideas emanating from ‘the North’ - and
perhaps even more specifically from USA and Britain. These ideas may range from quite
limited ones such as the informal sector to far more wide-ranging perspectives and policies on
development.
Another central issue is the hegemony of economics as a discipline. Economics (here
understood to refer to what is commonly called ‘the mainstream’) enjoys both high status and
influence within the multilateral institutions. But it is not well equipped to take account of
social and historical context, and indeed social phenomena generally. As noted above,
opinions differ as to the merits of recent attempts to develop the ‘idea’ of social capital in the
World Bank, but there can be little doubt that the efforts made to do so are evidence of the
hegemony of economics within that institution. Economics seeks to be value-free, and derives
much of its strength from its claim to analytical rigour. But many economists either ignore
power or deal with it in a way which, arguably, distorts comprehension. This relates to a third
important issue: the technocratic approach to the use of knowledge.
The technocratic approach implies the application of ‘expert knowledge’ for the resolution of
problems. It implies also an ‘apolitical’ approach. It is a central paradox of multilateral
institutions that they deal with issues which are unavoidably political – poverty and
inequality, governance and empowerment – and yet seek to do this in a way which is drained
of political content; and this is one of the major reasons why ideas become distorted (or
resisted). The research referred to above supports this hypothesis; for example, how the
debate about sustainable development has focussed so largely on technological solutions on
Vettre, 18-19 January 2001
2nd MULTI-conference
3rd session: Ideas in Development
the environmental side. Or to take a more extreme example, the ‘idea’ of governance. Here it
is interesting to consider, for example, the experience of the Asian Development Bank, where
‘governance’ has been translated into ‘sound development management’.
These issues are linked, and the relationship between them merits further study, in relation to
the different ideas and institutions, to test and elaborate on our central claim that in the
discourse on development policy, ideas are ‘framed’. That the development policy debate is
structured and constrained in certain specific ways - without anyone necessarily intending
this, or even being aware of it. As a result, the capacity of ideas to bring about substantive
change is powerfully modified. The processes whereby ideas from the world of academia and
of policy-making interact are subtle and difficult to comprehend, but we hope that by the
careful study of selected cases we will enhance understanding; and hence perhaps also the
capacity for knowledge to bring about change.
Framing the World? the role of ideas in multilateral institutions
Part I
1. Introduction
Morten Bøås & Desmond McNeill (Norway)
Part II
2. The Informal sector: biography of an idea
Desmond McNeill
3. Reproductive Health: Using "Policy-stories" to Unwrap the Cairo-process
Ole-Jacob Sending (Norway)
4. Environment and the World Bank:
Robert Wade (Britain)
5. Sustainable Development and the WTO:
Jonas Vevatne (Norway)
6. Social Capital and the World Bank:
Desmond McNeill
7. Governance and the IMF: A Gramscian Perspective
Ian Taylor (South Africa)
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8. Governance and the Asian Development Bank:
Janne Jokinen (Finland)
9. Governance and the OECD DAC:
Ken Masujima (Japan)
10. Poverty and the World Bank:
Alice Sindzingre (France)
11. Poverty and the UNDP:
Asuncion Lera St.Clair (Spain)
12. The Idea of Development
Knut Nustad (Norway)
13. Comments on the Case Studies
Peter Evans (USA)
Part III
14. Anthropological Perspectives:
Norman Long (Holland)
15. Political Science Perspectives: Ideational and Material Explanations
James H. Hentz (USA)
16. Conclusion:
Morten Bøås & Desmond McNeill
Vettre, 18-19 January 2001
3rd session: Ideas in Development