ABSTRACT
Since the late 1980s, a new orthodoxy has dominated much of the theory and practice of development governance. Generally (and incorrectly) referred to as “The Washington Consensus,” the regime which it entails has often been associated with theoretical and philosophical positions such as “neoconservatism,” “neoliberalism,” and even “market fundamentalism” (Williamson, 1997, 2000). In terms of the governance of economic matters, this new orthodoxy has meant a commitment to more rather than less free markets. It is also usually associated in political terms with a strong preference for representative liberal democratic politics as the institutional means whereby governments and bureaucracies are held accountable for the residual and facilitating role allocated to them in some versions of the neoliberal theory, usually the provision of the institutional and infrastructural framework for economic activity and growth (World Bank, 1997: 111). In short, at the heart of this current (2004) and continuing (though modifying) orthodoxy is the claim that the economic and political institutions of liberal democratic capitalism, with a limited, noninterventionist but efficient state, deploying a competent and noncorrupt bureaucracy, is (and always has been) the most effective model of development governance.
