When Crises Are Failures: Contested Metrics in International Finance and Development

Abstract

What happens if we look at events like the 2007-2008 financial crisis not just as crises but also as failures? This shift is a productive one, opening up new ways of understanding the debates and policy responses that followed the recent crisis. For this was not just a crisis: it was also a spectacular failure. Moreover, it was a contested failure: the kind of failure that made key actors question the metrics through which they measured success and failure. Through a comparative analysis of recent failures in international development and international finance, this paper argues that looking at these crises as contested failures provides us with a better understanding of the epistemic underpinnings of certain crises and the politics of the responses to them. Focusing on failure also allows us to see that policymakers have become more preoccupied with the possibility of failure in the aftermath of these crises—and that they have become increasingly cautious in response. This paper concludes by exploring the implications of the increasing prevalence of “fail-safe” approaches to policy, a cautious approach to policymaking that may in fact increase the odds of future failures.