World Bank

International institutions, such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the GATT/WTO, have shaped the global political economy for decades and continue to do so now. For this paper, I will be assessing, from the realist perspective, how the role of the World Bank in the global political economy has changed over the past four decades. The main objective is to indicate that throughout the past four decades, the United States has had a distinct influence, using its hegemonic power, on the World Bank and it’s role in the global political economy. From the origin of the World Bank, we can see that the United States, to an extent, has influenced and continues to influence the decisions made within the Bank. This type of influence ultimately affects how the World Bank functions within a global political economy.

It is essential to first understand the purpose of the World Bank and how it came to be, before assessing its role in the global political economy. The World Bank as a Transnational Expertised Institution is one of the most important sources of knowledge for development and poverty reduction. The World Bank was created by planners at Bretton Woods in 1944, together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as the public sector and intergovernmental financial cooperative (St. Clair, 78, 2006). The Bank’s purpose was to essentially rebuild post-World War II Europe. However, today the World Bank functions as an international institution dedicated to fighting poverty by providing developmental assistance to middle-income and low-income countries. Some methods the World Banks uses in eliminating poverty include “giving loans and offering advice and training in both the private and public sector” (World Bank, 2013).

Although the World Bank...

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...of the states within them.

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