Incompleteness of Post-Washington Consensus: A Critique of Macro-economic and Institutional Reforms

In: International studies, Band 44, Heft 2, S. 103-122

Abstract

The processes associated with the inevitability of globalization are patently not market-driven; there is a social dimension to the so-called economic compulsion. Therefore, neither the globalization discourse nor the general equilibrium model acknowledges the institutional differences and social determinants of markets, because they are presented as homogenous and convergent. The inadequacy of the first generation of economic reforms associated with the Washington Consensus and also of the institutional emphasis of the second generation of reforms of the post-Washington Consensus highlighted a missing social and political dimension. Though their emphases vary and complement each other, no set of reforms acknowledges the vital political character of the situated agents in context, as both generations of reforms are oriented towards the harmonization of policies.