The Politics of Hypocrisy and Change: The Rhetoric, Reality and Reform of the World Bank

1. The Politics of Hypocrisy and Change: The Rhetoric, Reality and Reform of the World Bank Catherine (Kate) Weaver Assistant Professor, Political Science University of Kansas cweaver@ku.edu

2. Beyond Polemics: Towards a Theory of World Bank Hypocrisy Driving Questions: 1. Who or what is responsible for the observed hypocrisy of the World Bank? 2. Why is hypocrisy so difficult to resolve, especially after it is exposed and becomes a critical threat to the legitimacy and political & financial support of the Bank?

3. Paradox of Hypocrisy IO Hypocrisy is a Double-Edged Sword: • Hypocrisy shields IOs from conflicting environmental demands: “lip service employed as a strategic survival tool” • Exposed hypocrisy can wound IOs by undermining legitimacy, authority, and political & financial support. Exposed hypocrisy leads to pressures for reform. But resolving hypocrisy is an arduous process of organizational change that is subject to the same environmental and bureaucratic constraints that compelled hypocrisy in the first place.

4. Theoretical and Empirical Goals Two Goals: • Explain the pressures & conditions for hypocrisy by unpacking the external and internal environments of the World Bank 2. Explain how hypocrisies endure even when IO principals and management seek to eliminate it through reform. This entails examining how the Bank’s complex external environment and internal bureaucratic politics and culture affect behavioral change in the Bank.

5. What is IO Hypocrisy? General def’n: “the disconnect between organizational talk, decisions, and actions” Two Types of Hypocrisy Observed in the Bank: 1. Mandate / Policy Incompliance 2. Mainstreaming Gaps (failure to make good faith efforts to act in accordance with espoused ideals)

6. Why Hypocrisy? Sociological Theory on Organizational Hypocrisy(Brunsson; Meyer & Rowan; Argyris & Schön): When demands imposed by the external material and normative environment conflict with internal structures and culture, organizations will “decouple”, “building gaps between formal structures and actual work activities,” “disconnecting espoused theories from theories-in-use” and developing dual roles as “political” versus “action” organizations ** Presumption: Hypocrisy is a rational and strategic response to contradictory environmental pressures.

7. Why might IOs be especially susceptible to hypocrisy? • Ios are particularly dependent upon externally conferred legitimacy and public funding • Complexity of task and political environment increases likelihood of antinomic delegation (infeasible goals) and conflicting marching orders.  Increasing number of incongruous goals inconsistent with pre-existing internal structures, SOPs and norms create conditions for hypocrisy

8. Sources of Goal Incongruence • Preference Heterogeneity of Multiple and Collective Principals (PA analysis) • Non-State Actors: • NGOs/ CSOs (Transnational Advocacy Network analysis) • Private Capital Markets • Epistemic Communities • Other IOs • Internal Sources of New Development Agendas

9. (Un)Intentional Hypocrisy? • Underlying presumption of the theory is that hypocrisy is an intentional and strategic act by Bank management and staff to “dupe” the organizations’s many political masters and critics • Flaw: wrongly assumes that those who control the “talk” of the Bank can effectively control organizational actions and choose when and whether to connect or disconnect the two. • This neglects critical sociological insights about the complex nature of change in organizational behavior.

10. Changing Organizational Behavior • Aligning talk and action requires deep-level behavioral change within IOs • Behavior change results from the transformation of formal and informal structure, including deep-seeded ideologies, norms and habits, and thus may not quickly or fully respond to principal-driven reform • Behavioral Change affected by: • Continued Goal Incongruence (conflicting reform goals) • Bureaucratic Politics • Organizational Culture

11. Notes on Methodology and Empirical Scope of Book • Methodology: • 1.5 years of qualitative, ethnographic fieldwork in World Bank headquarters and in Moscow, Russia. • > 100 interviews, extensive non-participant observation, content analysis of official and unofficial Bank documents, reports, and internal correspondence • Empirical Scope: • detailed historical and contemporary description of the external and internal environments of the Bank; • case studies of the origins and dynamics of hypocrisy in the Bank’s good governance and anti-corruption agendas and the Strategic Compact Reform period (1997-2001)