Washington Consensus

'''Washington Consensus '''

discussion        “The intellectual hegemony of the ‘Washington Consensus’ crumbled in the mid- to late-1990s as several of its prominent architects – including a former World Bank vice-president – launched scathing criticisms of the impact of structural adjustment policies on the economies and living standards of the poorer countries… […] …John Williamson, who invented the term ‘Washington Consensus’ in 1989, later attempted to refine the paradigm, subtly separating the original set of policies addressed by Washington-based institutions such as the World Bank and IMF on the one hand, and neoliberal and market-fundamentalist policies on the other (Williamson 2002). Williamson (2002:252) distinguishes the so-called Washington Consensus policies from state minimalism or ‘an extreme and dogmatic commitment to the belief that markets can handle everything.’ He rejects the idea that the latter approach is effective for reducing poverty (especially for the poorest countries), and he notes that by the early 21st century, the World Bank endorsed a ‘wider array of antipoverty instruments than was able to command a consensus in 1989’ (Williamson 2002:259).” (Edelman and Haugerud 2005: 7-8).