The Evolution of the Anti-Washington Consensus Debate: From ‘Post-Washington Consensus’ to ‘After the Washington Consensus’

Abstract

The term ‘Washington Consensus’, as Williamson the father of the term conceived it, in 1989, was a set of reforms for economic development that he judged ‘Washington’ could agree were required in Latin America. However, the Washington Consensus has been identified as a neoliberal manifesto and as a consequence an anti-Washington Consensus was initiated, as calls were made for the establishment of a different set of policies, such as the ‘Post-Washington Consensus’, ‘Washington Contentious’ and ‘After Neoliberalism’. Lately, even Williamson has come up with a new set of policies, ‘After the Washington Consensus’. The aim of this paper is to investigate the different interpretations and alternatives of this controversial set of policies, and to reveal that the evolution of the debate conceptualizes the evolution of economic thought regarding the required policies for economic development.