“The Vicious Circle”: The Creation of the Economic Development Regime In A Realist Context

1259 Words3 Pages

The Second World War was, without doubt, the most destructive conflict in world history.
According to some estimates, anywhere from sixty to eighty million people, civilian and combatant alike, were killed. Through its carnage, the international community, long divided and discordant, emerged to combat expansionist and genocidal ambitions. As the immeasurable devastation of the war became omnipresent, those concerned with its administration turned their attention to the question of its aftermath. How must a world so thoroughly shaken by war rebuild? As no conflict before it compared in its scope or its brutality, no solution for reconstruction and development dreamt of before it would suffice. The international community as it existed would be tasked, be challenged, with developing an ambitious and viable solution to the difficulties that Western Europe and parts beyond would face. What was resolved was the need for an international system capable of handling economic and monetary regulation and development. What has yet to be resolved, however, are questions of that development, its intentions, and its lasting effects. In the case of the latter, the question is fixed upon international institutions, whose past acts shaped international norms and whose continued presence engenders deep mistrust and resentment among some in the community of states.
Of all the institutions envisioned as the Second World War waned and ended, few are considered as marring and as pervasive as those of the international economic development complex. By the international economic development complex, I mean not only the organizations meant to provide said aid, but also the governments financing those organizations as part of their international commitm...

... middle of paper ...

...nd.
Krasner, S. D. (1968). The International Monetary Fund and the Third World. International Organization, 22(3), 670–688 CR – Copyright © 1968 University of . doi:10.2307/2705715
Krasner, S. D. (1982). Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables. International Organization, 36(2), 185–205. doi:10.2307/2706520
Krasner, S. D. (1991). Global Communications and National Power: Life on the Pareto Frontier. World Politics, 43(3), 336–366. doi:10.2307/2010398
Mikesell, R. F. (1994). The Bretton Woods Debates: A Memoir. (M. Riccardi, Ed.). Princeton, N.J.: International Finance Section, Dept. of Economics, Princeton University. Retrieved from http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/30068013.html
Office of Development Aid, O. (2008). Is It ODA?
Radelet, S. (2006). A Primer on Foreign Aid (Vol. 92). Center for Global Development.

Open Document