| The introduction of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) approach by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1999 has been met with two opposed responses in academia. One the one hand, critics of the development establishment maintain that the PRSP approach does not represent a significant shift away from neoliberal policy practice, but rather amounts to an attempt to further deepen neoliberal hegemony. On the other hand, supporters of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) argue that the PRSP approach signifies a fundamental rupture in development thinking and a progressive move away from policy conditionality towards country ownership and poverty reduction. The analysis in this dissertation provides an attempt to overcome this bifurcation in the literature. In line with IFI supporters, the dissertation acknowledges important procedural and substantive differences between previous structural adjustment policies (SAPs) and PRSPs. To capture these changes, the dissertation introduces and conceptually elaborates the notion of inclusive neoliberalism, and suggests that the IFI's development approach is increasingly characterized by attempts to improve upon the social results of neoliberal restructuring processes. Yet, in line with critical IFI observers, this turn towards more inclusively oriented policies is understood (from a neo-Gramscian theoretical perspective) to be part of an effort to (re-)establish the hegemony of neoliberal development policy in the periphery. The IFIs attempt to achieve this in the PRSP process by absorbing counter-hegemonic ideas and concepts, engaging civil society actors in developing countries during the policy formulation process, and providing (even though currently very limited) material incentives to the poor through conditional cash transfers. These claims are substantiated through an analysis of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Sourcebook, and an interrogation of the experiences of Honduras and Nicaragua with the PRSP process. |
