A political analysis of the PRSP initiative: Social struggles and the organization of persistent relations of inequality

Abstract

The current global development project appears to be premised on the assumption that underlying political debates over development have been settled. An upshot of this is that development is reduced to the theoretical, ideological and legal framework of a neo-liberal political order. However, implicit, and sometimes explicit, political dynamics of development can be rendered from a perspective that foregrounds social struggles. I offer a political analysis of the PRSP initiative by examining its evolution and implications considered within social and political contexts, and by specific reference to the ‘poverty reduction’ interventions that emerged in the 1980s. I argue that the PRSP initiative is best understood as the formation of a comprehensive extension of neo-liberal strategic responses that emerged in the 1980s. In this context, I discuss the example of microcredit schemes in relation to the PRSP process and demonstrate the analytical significance of micro-political social relations for political analyses of development. The approach I adopt reveals social struggles as relationally constitutive of formations of a hegemonic development discourse otherwise ostensibly rendered in de-contextualized terms. From the perspective of critical development analysis such struggles are the concrete expressions of the contradictions immanent to the dialectic of development through inequality and immiseration in the (re)production of social power.

Acknowledgments

This study has evolved over the past few years. This version of the essay has benefited from discussions with, and the work of Philip McMichael, Julian Saurin and Caroline Thomas. I am also thankful to Martin Weber for comments. I thank Julian Saurin for his comments in discussing a version of this essay at the WISC Conference in Istanbul in July 2005. I also thank Barry Gills for being receptive to, and encouraging of, the argument I presented at Istanbul. I thankfully acknowledge the support of the CSGR, University of Warwick for Research Fellowships in 2001 and 2005 which enabled me to research and work on the study. I also thank participants who attended the presentation and commented on the essay at the following: the CSGR seminar series in October 2005; the CSGR/CEU sponsored workshop on the World Bank in Budapest, Hungary, June 2005 and the Political Studies Association convention, Manchester, 2001. Last but not least, my thanks to Elizabeth Pallister, the coordinator of Globalizations for making this process such a pleasant experience.

Notes

1 Cheru (2006) offers a good critical ‘insiders’ view of the PRSP process in Africa, including efforts to streamline the budgetary process in a comprehensive way according to growth projections. His overall conclusion of the PRSP process is that it does offer an opportunity to reduce poverty. Cheru (2006, p. 373) is optimistic in this sense, because for him, ‘in reality, the neo-liberal economic model can result in reducing poverty where there is a strong state’. For a more critical analysis of the PRSP initiative, see Porter and Craig (2004).

2 While there are foundational problems associated with both the idea and practical implications of the MDGs, such as for example the implicit understanding of the causes of poverty they project, they are problematic on their own terms. Thomas Pogge (2004) has provided an excellent critique of the internal inconsistencies and problems of method relating to the first MDG, to half the proportion of people of living in poverty by 2015. He contrasts this with the previous declaration made at the World Food Summit in 1996 to reduce the number of people living in poverty. He shows how the calculations of PPP among other things appear inflated in some instances and unrepresentative of actual life experiences. He does also offer a good moral critique of the perverse idea of celebrating a declaration to help only half of those who are suffering as a consequence of socially organized political systems.

3 While the discussion here draws attention to the fact that basic needs, and in some cases more, were achieved in the past through redistribution-oriented policies, it recognizes both the social and environmental costs at which these were achieved. Thus, the latter part of this essay attempts to also rethink the modernization-oriented premises of the development project, under which development is conceptualized in reductionist terms. That said, it is timely to recall the politics of ‘Third Worldism’ in the 1970s and the call for the New International Economic Order. See Thomas (1985, pp. 122–155) and Rajagopal (2003, pp. 73–94).

4 In this context, approaches that placed an emphasis on agency also began to emerge in development theory and practice. Gradually, explicit references to micro-political contexts and initiatives emerged and these were often presented in terms of the (self-)‘empowerment’ of the poor and the vulnerable. This point becomes evident in the argument that follows.

5 Some of the problems alluded to here are discussed in Mosse (2001).

6 For reasons of space I am not able to offer here a list of critical studies of microcredit schemes or a list and discussion of the premises of the advocates and sympathetic critics. But please see Weber (2001, 2002, pp. 540–542, 2004b, pp. 359–365).

7 For a detailed discussion of this see Weber (2001, 2004b esp. pp. 366–370).

8 For more on the relationship between microcredit (and microfinance) and Social Funds see Bigio (1998) and Narayan and Ebbe (1997).

9 The case of Bangladesh is illustrative of how the dual purpose of microcredit functions. For example, in 1996 the World Bank authorized a Poverty Alleviation Microfinance Project for Bangladesh. This project is also recognized as part of an overall strategy for financial sector liberalization. See World Bank (1996, p. 15). In 1995 a report on privatization and adjustment in Bangladesh cited microcredit as a strategy to overcome potential resistance to that agenda. See World Bank (1994, p. 49).

10 On the stated eligibility criteria for potential FIs, the World Bank requires assurance that FIs acting as onlenders in FIL and other investment operations are viable institutions, having, among other criteria, ‘adequate managerial autonomy and commercially oriented governance’ (particularly relevant when state-owned or state-controlled FIs are involved. (World Bank, 1988, para. 9, emphasis added).

11 This strategy can be seen as in keeping with the attempt to construct subjectivities in accordance with neo-liberal premises at the local level.

12 In the broader context of mainstreaming trade policy with poverty reduction strategies it has been stated that priority is accorded to harmonizing macro- and micro-policy on sectors. (See World Bank and IMF, 2000a, p. 6, para. 13).

13 For example, a WTO study on market access and development has stated that financial services are one of the highest commitments with reference to the GATS. (See WTO, 2001).

14 It is worth quoting at length a statement from David Booth's introduction to a special issue of Development Policy Review (2003, p. 133) on the PRSP experience in Africa. ‘It is worth underlining that the research undertaken did not involve a systematic assessment of PRSP documentation or any other aspect of the content of the strategies being developed by countries. The principal focus was on processes and institutions. This seems justified on the grounds that a substantial improvement in how governments define and manage [poverty] reduction policies is the main precondition for improving what they actually deliver in terms of actions and results’. The papers in this issue were commissioned by the Strategic Partnership with Africa (SPA), the joint forum of multilateral and bilateral development agencies on assistance to low-income Africa. These findings fed into the 2002 PRSP review of the World Bank and IMF (131). Another study on the PRSPs by Bwalya et al. (2004, p. 1) qualifies their approach in similar terms: ‘The account does not, however, evaluate the substance of the policy outcomes in terms of the their likely efficacy in reducing poverty, or their feasibility in the context of contemporary politics in Malawi or Zambia’. While these qualifications are not problematic per se, they are problematic when viewed from a perspective which does not abstract substance from process.

15 The recent World Bank and IMF review of the PRSP initiative has responded to the critical findings on the issue of participation. This report states that, for example, ‘participation does not imply final consensus or that views garnered through participatory processes will necessarily be reflected in final programmes. Instead, participation should enable policy choices to be better informed’ (World Bank and IMF, 2005a, p. 27).

16 In the case of Togo, for example, financial ‘efficiency’-oriented approaches to public services (in the absence of compensatory or transitional social security measures) resulted in retrenched civil servants withdrawing one or more children from school (see, 2002, p. 1121). Marcus et al.'s (2002, p. 1120) study also states that most of the PRSPs and I-PRSPs they examined gave ‘absolute to priority to economic growth as a means to poverty reduction’.

17. For more on the PRSPs and an initial attempt to theorize the relationship between ‘international’ development and the reproduction of inequality see Weber (2004a).

18 The analytical perspective I am using here, while not state-centred or state centric, does account for the role of ‘states’, but is based on the recognition that, as Philip McMichael (2004, p. 242) has argued: ‘The world economy is not a complex of forces outside of its constituent states. States in turn are more than just economic actors in the world market. … In short, states both constitute and in turn are constituted by the social relations of production and circulation that may be particular to a national economy but simultaneously defines its world-historical context.’ To be explicit, the ‘state’ is conceptualised not as a ‘black-box’ but as a socially constituted institution wielding both social and political power. From this perspective, ‘international’ relations is both constitutive of and constituted by sets of social power relations.