Protecting Power: How Western States Retain the Dominant Voice in World Bank's Governance

Two DIIS researchers, Jakob Vestergaard and Robert Wade, have published the article ‘Protecting Power: How Western States Retain The Dominant Voice in The World Bank’s Governance’ in World Development. They argue that:

“The global economic crisis raised the urgency of reforming the Bretton Woods organizations in order to get more “buy in” from developing countries. But the “voice” reforms announced in 2010, heralded as a major shift in favor of developing countries, left them severely under-represented relative to their weight in the world economy, both collectively and many individually. This paper reveals how the World Bank and representatives of western states manipulated the process to make voting power changes appear substantial. The paper then discusses alternative voting power systems for the Bank, in light of the generally accepted need to enhance the legitimacy of the organization.”

The paper is based on research undertaken jointly and co-funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Link to the article via ScienceDirect:
Vestergaard, V. and Wade, R. (2013). Protecting Power: How Western States Retain The Dominant Voice in The World Bank’s Governance. World Development, Vol. 46, 153-164.

Previous publications stemming from this research include:
Vestergaard, J. and Wade, R. (2011). Adjusting to multipolarity in the World Bank: ducking and diving, wriggling and squirming. DIIS working paper 2011:24. (pdf 376 KB)

Vestergaard, J. (2011). The World Bank and the emerging world order. DIIS Report 2011:05. (pdf 628 KB)

Information about the authors:
Jakob Vestergaard, Senior Researcher, DIIS.
Robert Wade, Professor of Political Economy, London School of Economics and Visiting Senior Researcher, DIIS.