The International Politics of Legal Reforms: Hard Bilateralism, Soft Multilateralism and the World Bank’s “Doing Business” Indicators

Yi Shin Tang

doi:10.1590/0034-73292017001017

Abstract

Abstract The Law and Development literature still debates on the role of international institutions in promoting legal reforms as a means of inducing economic growth. This article takes one step further by arguing that incremental circumstances compelled such institutions to change from bilaterally-binding pressures to soft-based multilateral strategies, by analyzing the gradual rise of the World Bank’s “Doing Business” initiative.Keywords: legal reforms, international development, World Bank, Doing Business, Latin America, Asia Received: December 13, 2016 Accepted: May 4, 2017 Introduction W hat has been the role of international institutions in the promotion of legal reforms across developing countries? The debates concerning market-oriented legal reforms and their effects on economic growth have long been a central subject of interest in global development studies (World Bank 2015; Krever 2011). However, while much of the literature discusses how these efforts may have significantly changed their approach and theoretical assumptions over time, there has been less attention to how international institutions (and particularly international law) have had specific functions in order to reflect those continuous developments.This article argues that, while the deliberate promotion of reforms in laws and judicial procedures is not a new phenomenon in development policy, the role of international institutions in this process has varied in both scope and intensity. In this context, we provide a critical assessment of the legal reform policies that gained momentum since the 1960s, by explaining the origins of the

Highlights

What has been the role of international institutions in the promotion of legal reforms across developing countries? The debates concerning market-oriented legal reforms and their effects on economic growth have long been a central subject of interest in global development studies (World Bank 2015; Krever 2011)
We argue that the influence and purpose of international institutions have been dynamically shaped by the experiences of success and failures of legal reforms in the countries where they have been implemented
By explaining the factors behind the changes in legal reform policies in the last five decades, this article provided an analysis of why international institutions increasingly have embraced a more prominent role in these initiatives

Summary

Introduction

What has been the role of international institutions in the promotion of legal reforms across developing countries? The debates concerning market-oriented legal reforms and their effects on economic growth have long been a central subject of interest in global development studies (World Bank 2015; Krever 2011). It allows the measurement of such effects over a fundamental indicator of economic growth – the health and conditions of private businesses and their role in the reduction of poverty (World Bank 2003, ix) – and provides a clear common ground for performing a meaningful comparison between macro-regions of the world that seem oppositely different, such as Asia and Latin America It is in this context that the measurement of the impact of legal reform projects notably has adopted a soft law-based method developed under this framework: the so-called “Doing Business” project.

10 The International Politics of Legal Reforms

Findings

Conclusion