New Social Corporatism: A Discursive-Critical Review of the WDR 2000/1, ‘Attacking Poverty’

Abstract

The World Development Report 2000/1 is a major event for those concerned with global poverty. The References in WDR 2000/1 to ‘empowerment’ and ‘voices of the poor’ provide the point of departure for a combined discourse analysis and comparative policy analysis. The article looks at the process around the WDR as part of a hegemonic project, and the contents of the WDR are seen as a discursive act related to four different social policy discourses: Social paternalism, social liberalism, social corporatism and social radicalism. The main finding is that the report contributes to the rediscovery of social corporatism, and the communitarian and social- liberal sources of inspiration are outlined. The bearings on the report of liberal-democratic theory are identified, and these liberalist tenets are criticised. An alternative pool of knowledge and experiences in poverty reduction, social radicalism, is presented to point at several shortcomings of the report. The article concludes that WDR 2000/1 represents a discursive innovation, challenging the current neo-liberal hegemony from within along the lines of New Social Corporatism.