Addressing the WTO Membership Challenge

Abstract

The proceeding chapters have touched on several reasons why the GPA might have remained plurilateral, along with the associated, history of ongoing efforts to promote procurement reforms across different levels of government and governance. Many of the lessons to be derived from these activities suggest contradictory paths of action, or are at least difficult to reconcile, especially across levels of governance. For example, the IFIs’ early ‘liberal-rationalistic approaches’ to containing the problem of corruption — including but not limited to unethical conduct in public procurement — have proven some merit in terms of promoting more efficient use of public funds, but, by failing to address the social and historical contingency of the institutions and norms they seek to reform, may miss a deeper set of political challenges relating to the locus and legitimacy of authority in a given society (Bukovansky, 2006).