An institutional perspective to international development

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to develop an alternative scheme and recommendations for international development based on the institutionalist tradition. Such an exercise of contrasting the institutional tradition with the Washington Consensus and the After the Washington Consensus (AWC) has not been endeavoured. Students of international development would benefit from these findings that distinguish between mainstream and institutionalist perspectives on international development programs. A classification strategy is adopted using the WC and AWC as starting points. The alternative institutionalist development program is scrutinised according to how it varies from the WC and AWC features. The original WC and the AWC are both based on the prevailing mainstream discourse on the relationship between institutions and economic development that requires only institutions that maximise market freedom and protect private property rights. As well, the Washington Consensus and the AWC have a poor understanding of evolutionary character of institutional change, habitually being either overly optimistic or pessimistic about the feasibility of institutional change.