Good Hegemon - Us Power, Accountability As Justice, Multilateral Development Banks

The Good Hegemon analyzes how and why the norm of "accountability justice"--the idea that when development IGOs were responsible for negative outcomes in developing countries, they owed restitution--for international organizations emerged and spread. Tracing its development after the introduction of the Work Bank Inspection Panel in 1993, Susan Park explains the norm's creation and how it functions and investigates whether it holds the Multilateral Development Banks to account.

List of contents

• Chapter 1: The Good Hegemon: Demanding Accountability as Justice for the Multilateral Development Banks


• The Argument: the US, Accountability as Justice, and the MDBs


• The Research Approach


• Outline of the Book


• Chapter 2: US Norm Entrepreneurship and the MDBs


• Introduction


• The US as a Norm Entrepreneur


• Three Strategies for Change


• MDB Responses to Change


• Conclusion


• Chapter 3: US Hegemony for What? From Accountability as Control to Accountability as Justice for the MDBs


• Introduction


• The US in the MDBs


• From Accountability as Control to Accountability as Justice


• Constituting Accountability as Justice for the World Bank


• Accountability as Justice for the Inter-American Development Bank


• Accountability as Justice for the Asian Development Bank


• Accountability as Justice for the World Bank Group


• Accountability as Justice for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development


• Accountability as Justice at the African Development Bank


• Conclusion


• Chapter 4: Bank Resistance to Institutionalising Accountability as Justice


• Introduction


• Rigid but Functioning: The World Bank's Inspection Panel


• Turbulent Non-Growth of the Inter-American Development Bank's Accountability Mechanism


• Ruptures and Change: the Asian Development Bank's Accountability Mechanism


• From Strength to Strength for the World Bank Group's Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman


• Making Accountability as Justice Work at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development


• The Slow Emergence of the African Development Bank's Accountability Mechanism


• Conclusion


• Chapter 5: Accountability as Justice in Practice: Challenging the Banks?


• Introduction


• The Accountability as Justice Norm in Practice


• Conclusion


• Chapter 6: Changing the Banks and Strengthening Accountability as Justice?


• Strengthening the Accountability as Justice Norm


• Does Accountability as Justice Influence Bank Behavior?


• Conclusion


• Chapter 7: Norm Diffusion within the MDBs and Insights beyond the Banks


• Bibliography

About the author

Susan Park is Professor of Global Governance in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. She is the author of Environmental Recourse at the Multilateral Development Banks (2020) and Global Environmental Governance and the Accountability Trap (2019, with Teresa Kramarz), among others. She is a Senior Hans Fischer Fellow at the Technical University of Munich (2019-2022), a Senior Research Fellow of the ESG, an affiliated Faculty member of the Environmental Governance Lab at the University of Toronto, and an external associate at Warwick University.

Summary

In 1993 the World Bank created the revolutionary World Bank Inspection Panel and, with it, a precedent under international law that allowed people to seek recourse for harm resulting from the projects the Bank financed in developing countries. This was the first time that a universal international organization recognized and responded to its impact on individuals. Within a decade of the Inspection Panel, other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) created similar accountability mechanisms. These mechanisms embody a norm of "accountability as justice" that provides recourse for environmentally and socially damaging behavior through a formal sanctioning process.

In The Good Hegemon, Susan Park analyzes the "accountability as justice" norm: its creation, how it functions, and whether it holds the MDBs to account. Park tackles all of these issues using three central arguments. First, the book explains how the United States promoted this norm during debates over how to maintain MDB efficiency and effectiveness in the 1990s. Building on its history of using "accountability as control," the US sought to establish a norm of "accountability as justice" for all the MDBs, even when pressure from activists was absent or muted. Second, Park traces how the MDBs resisted conforming to the norm, leading the US to exert its influence and demand that the Banks reformulate the mechanisms. Third, the book demonstrates how the MDBs have institutionalized the norm over time: improving the accountability mechanisms' accessibility, transparency, independence, responsiveness to affected people, and the effectiveness of compliance investigations and MDB monitoring. Park also shows that, despite these gains, the "accountability as justice" norm is still corrective rather than preemptive; it tends to only come into effect after a transgression by the Banks.

A rigorous analysis of how institutions react to norm creation and diffusion--The Good Hegemon sheds new light on the responsibilities of international institutions and tells the story of how the US uses its influence for good on the global stage.

Additional text

This very detailed and heavily referenced book discusses the role of the US Congress in the process and also addresses how individual banks have responded over time to this push for accountability.

Product details

• Authors: Susan Park, Susan (Professor of Global Governance Park, Susan (Professor of Global Governance in the Park, Park Susan
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.06.2022
• EAN: 9780197626481
• ISBN: 978-0-19-762648-1
• No. of pages: 328
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business > Individual industrial sectors, branches; BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Banks & Banking, Banking