Neoliberal idealism, State Building, and the Washington Consensus: A Story of Underdevelopment

Abstract

The paper links some of the major events and changes in international relations thinking over the last 30 years – such as the ending of the Cold War, the growing intolerance in the West of human rights abuses and the emerging doctrine of conditional sovereignty, and the recognition of trans-national threats by states – to demonstrate i) that the Washington Consensus list of development principles originally identified by John Williamson has been co-opted into an ideological vision for reshaping and homogenizing the behavior of states (both internally and externally); and ii) that doing so has resulted in a failing attempt at “securitizing” international development, which has led the US and its allies into a security and development “dead end”.