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Good Governance, Neoliberalism, Inequality within the International Organizations Discourse: a Critical Approach

Draft Paper – Comments are Welcome

Author: prof. Lidia Lo Schiavo

University of Messina, Italy,

Co-Author: prof. Pierre Vercauteren

Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium,

Both from REGIMEN1

ABSTRACT: The analytical and critical investigation on the concept of good governance is the topic of this paper. The main lines of inquiry singled out here regard the theoretical analysis of the concept, the exploration of its the semantics and ‘evolution’ within the “discourse” of the main international political economy institutions (that is the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, along with the OECD and the UN as forums of discussion, specialized agencies and, above all, as policy-makers), the assessment of its normative principles and empirical consequences, the critical deconstruction of its ‘ideological’ connotations. A critique of the concept, considered as a main tool in the “neoliberal consensus’ according to some scholars, and the assessment of the possible opening of a window of opportunity for the paradigm shift away from the ‘hegemonic ’neoliberal consensus, engendered by the entry of the concept of inequality within this discourse, are dealt with in particular in the last part of this essay.

Keywords: good governance, discourse, neoliberalism, inequality, development.

1. Good Governance, Development, Inequality, Neoliberalism: Paradigm Maintenance or Paradigm Shift? Setting the Scene.

No other linguistic event has been so influential as has been the advent of the vocabulary of ‘global governance’ in the lexicon of International Relations (cf. Commission on Global Governance, 1995; Rosenau, Czempiel, 1992). A lexicon which has signaled the deep ‘epistemic’ change in world politics along with its consequences in the ‘real’ world. Thus, “words make worlds”, as it may be the case for both the terms, global(-ization) and governance, if analyzed in a constructivist perspective.2 Then “global governance appeared the very same moment that the Cold War receded from view” (Barnett, Duvall, 2005, 5). Similarly, when it is qualified as good, the concept of good governance has had a remarkable impact as well, since it has been used in different yet related semantic fields: from the lexicon of democratization theory,3 to the development policy frameworks. Thus, it will be possible to address the ‘semantic’ impact of the concept of good governance, as

1 REGIMEN: Réseau d’Etude sur la Globalisation et la Gouvernance Internationale et les Mutations de l’Etat et des Nations; Research Network on Globalization and International Governance and the Transformation of the State and Nations. 2 We can suggest here a representation of this semantics, imagining a concentric circles structure, wherein the outer circle defines the broader ‘epistemic’ phenomenon that is globalization, the second circle depicts governance, whilst the third exemplifies good governance. 3 Good governance has been promoted by both bilateral donors and IFIs, within the framework of the economic and political conditionalities which accompaigned loans. The ‘normative’ endowment of good governance reform within development polices have asked for significant reform as far as the rule of law, accountability and transparency of the public sector, the consultation of the stakeholders in decision making processes are concerned, as we shall clarify. Since the “third wave of democracy” (Huntington S. P. The Third Wave, 1991) from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, has taken shape, and then with the end of the Cold War (i. e. the ‘globalization of democracy’), the democratic transitions have become a significant part not only of development policies but also within the dynamics of power politics, due to the important ‘geoopolitical dimensions’ involved in these processes of transformations of political regimes; cf. Kamrava (2005) and Whitehead L. (2002) Democratization. Theory and Experience, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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it has been used in the last decades within the lexicon of the multilaterals of international political economy, namely, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (henceforth IFIs).

Both terms (“good” and “governance”) have descriptive and normative endowments, since they have been devoted to ‘describe’ and ‘prescribe’ a different way of managing international policies.

In this sense, the lexicon of global governance and of good governance as well, seems to be inextricably linked to that of development and growth. It is worth noting here that “by the 2000s, a significant portion of the development agenda was related to good governance, international development agencies created departments of governance, employed a small army of governance advisors and researchers, included governance components in their assistance packages, and increasing funding for good governance initiatives” (Grindle 2008, 1). However it does not suffice here to rely on an ‘inductive’ approach of that sort. The theoretical approach on which this paper is based, makes reference to a discourse analysis of the concept of good governance as a main signifier in a specific “chain of equivalence”, namely within a specific ‘network’ of signifiers, related to each other and to certain signifieds (cf. Cornwall, 2007; Ziai, 2011).

The “chain of equivalence”4 which we are referring to is that defined by the concept of development and growth. The analytical hypothesis from which we move, can be outlined as follows: which is, if any, the place of the concept of inequality in this chain, or, better, does the concept of inequality have any role in the semantic of good governance which, in turn is related to the concept of ‘development’? And, consequently, is it possible to ascertain whether or not the increasing use of the term inequality in the multilaterals’ parlance in the aftermath of the Global Recession, can be considered to be an indication of a significant change in the ‘governance’ of global economy? In other words, we can try to ascertain whether or not and if yes to what extent the ‘epistemic’ impact of the global economic crisis has been effective in boosting a paradigm shift in the global macroeconomic policy orientations.

Then, let us walk the last stretch of road in our ‘trip’ around the conceptual construction of our analytical grid (cfr. Death, Gabay, 2015; Sundaram, 2016). Herein, the “stone guest” in our argument is the neoliberal ideology,5 or rather the intrinsic rationale of the governance of international political economy and of developmental policies and the good governance program as well, according to a flourishing literature on these topics (cfr. Craig, Porter, 2006; Drake et al, 2001; Gould, 2005; Haynes, 2005; Palumbo, 2015; Saith, 2006). According to some scholars, as far as the ‘neoliberal’ rationale of ‘good governance’ is concerned, it is possible to claim that:

The [World] Bank’s adoption of the good governance agenda raises critical questions about the organisation’s role in the development process and in the system of global governance as a whole. Aside from the rhetoric, what sort of governance has the Bank promoted in practice? Does the good governance agenda mark a real break with the neo-liberal policies of the 1980s, or is good governance merely the old ‘Washington Consensus’ in new clothes? (Drake et al, 2001, 1).

Based on these premises, the ‘raw material’ on which our analysis will be drawn, is constituted by the main and most significant documents of the above mentioned organisations, those which can be considered to be

4 This definition can be considered to be a core concept within the theory of radical democracy which has been designed by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, who are two of the main contemporary political theorists. Within their theory, the concept has emerged in the framework of the ‘discourse theory’ which has been developed by eminent philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Austin, Searle, Habermas; cf. Laclau E., Mouffe C., Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Verso, London, 2001. 5 The origins of the ideological power of neo-liberalism can be traced to the last decade of the 1970s; it raised at its zenith in 1989-91 when the Cold War came to an end and the Eastern European communist bloc collapsed.The New Public Management reforms, the privatization of public sector economic interventions, on the one hand, the liberalization of international commerce and of the financial instruments on the other, have defined the neoliberal reform programme.. The dominant neoliberal development strategy that is the “Washington Consensus”, reflected the pre-eminence of the superior power of liberal democracy and capitalism over communism along with a programme of reform devoted to curtail the State competencies, establishing the centrality of the market considered as a model of organization of economics, society, politics. The “Washington Consensus” embodied the neoliberal ideology and was the preminent idea among influential think tanks and the main international organisations such as the IMF and the World Bank (Hayes, 2005, 315). The Washington Consensus focused upon economic and budgetary issues, the dominance of a managerial approach to dealing with social and political issues and the withdrawl of the State (Vercauteren, 2015, 5).

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the building blocks in the construction of the ‘neoliberal’ discourse, or rather of both the Washington and the Post-Washington Consensus as well.

2. What Governance and Good Governance are made of: the ‘Epistemic’ Essence of Governance and the Evolution of the Development Discourse

There is an almost unanimous consensus on the added value of the critical, constructivist approach in the analysis of global governance.6 It addresses what is really at stake whenever the question of ‘governing’ global social life emerges, that is “how the articulations of particular discourses come to predominate” (Barnett, Duvall, 2005, 22). In this sense the social construction of international politics stems from the intersubjective process of interaction between social actors. At the foundation of these processes there is ‘power’, namely ‘social power’, in its different forms: compulsory, structural, institutional, productive. Thus power is twofold: on the analytical ground it is possible to distinguish the social relations of constitutions, the interactions between specific actors and the diverse effects of ‘power’ which impact not only the actions but also the very identity of the social actors, their opportunities to act and being and their capabilities and interests. In this framework, not only power but also the ‘knowledge’ is the decisive resource in the construction of ‘social reality’. To clarify the concept: “epistemes are the background intersubjective knowledge – collective understanding and discourse – that adopt the form of human dispositions and practices that human beings use to make sense of the world” (Adler, Bernstein, 2005, 295).

What is important to consider here is that an episteme “provides the fundamental categories in which thinking and acting take place” (Ivi, 297). Global governance thus may emerge as the “bubble within which people happen to live” or, more specifically, the episteme wherein power and discourse constitute the good governance of development. Material capabilities and knowledge, legitimacy and fairness define the perimeter of this ‘bubble’. In this vein, it is possible to investigate along these different dimensions: “who makes collective decisions that command authority over political communities and on what authority those decisions are made? […]” (Ivi, 302). And how does the ‘legitimate knowledge’ emerge, namely the knowledge that is regarded as valid by a collectivity of subjects? The productive power is also at work in defining the “good practices”, that is the normative components of global governance, the ‘moral’ dimensions of ‘good governance’. The intersubjective practical reason is at work whenever knowledge and social interactions define the ‘structure of opportunity’ for social actors, who commit themselves to a ‘truth seeking process “on the basis of open communication and persuasion” (Ivi, 308). The developmental regime and its correlate agenda of good governance can be considered to be the epitome of this dynamics of social construction of knowledge. In this sense:

In documenting the evolution of [good practices] in the World Bank, [it is possible to note] the close connection between the emphasis on rule of law and particular assumptions about its links to economic growth and the importance of protecting private property rights (epistemic validity), as well as how it informs notions of fairness (good practices) and proper forms of dispute resolution (practical reason) (Ivi, 309).

Briefly anticipating here a part of our conceptual analysis, it is possible to focus on some relevant dimensions of the episteme of good governance. With the words of some scholars:

Normative issues cannot be easily escaped if global governance is to be viewed as good and moral […]. The episteme’s normative components, therefore, play a critical role with regard to the type of global governance system and processes that will end up developing. […]. The explosion of the recent attempts to define good practices and to introduce notions of accountability, responsibility, transparency, and representation to the study of international institutions and global governance is not simply academic. Equally, national, international, and transnational “global governance practitioners” are using similar epistemic materials to make sense of their world, the result of which can be manifested as institutional power (Adler, Bernstein, 2005, 305).

6 In this context, moving within the theoretical reference framework of the reflectivist constructivist approach and using the Foucauldian analysis of power, these scholars are able to reconstruct this concept in complex terms by restoring its multifaceted physiognomy: material elements and cognitive and normative resources shape the plot. In particular, they dwell upon the concept of episteme, and on the close interconnection between ideational, cognitive and material elements in the structuring of the different forms of power (cf. Barnett, Duvall, 2005).

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3. Good Governance: History of the Concept It is possible to trace the history of the concept of good governance along with the evolution of the rationale of international macroeconomic public policy. This geneaology of the concept, may provide fruitful opportunities for the heuristics of the global macroeconomic policies, that is the ‘politics’ of good governance and development. We may start by saying that “something of an intellectual cottage industry has arisen around over the past two decades. Since the early 1980s, ‘governance’ and increasingly good governance have permeated development discourse and especially research agendas and other activities funded by public and private banks and bilateral donors” (Weiss, 2000, 796). Since its inception then, the concept seems to have suffered from a recurrent pathology: the inflated usage of the term, paired by the conflation with other ‘over-stretched’ concepts such as that of ‘development’. It is worth pointing out here that “development” is not only a venerable and longstanding concept, one of the most blazoned indeed, but it may aspire also to be considered a foundational ‘myth’ in the international political discourse. As a cornerstone in the modernization theory, from which any other term in Post- Second World War international political lexicon has been born (cfr. Haynes, 2005; Rist, 2010; Weiss, 2000). Based on these premises, “it is fair to say that until the later 1980s ‘governance’ was not heard frequently within the development community. Yet today it is difficult to find a publication on development issues put out by the United Nations, multilateral and bilateral agencies, academics or private voluntary organizations that does not rely heavily on its use” (Hewitt de Alcàntara, 1998, 105). Thus in reconstructing the trajectory of the idea, it is possible to review contextually the main passages in the evolution of the regulatory regime of international political economy. In other words, the genealogy of good governance is woven with the same thread of the international economic fabric. Thus “good” governance is a “good” idea. The one which has allowed major pillars of the Postwar economic system, that is the World Bank and the IMF, to establish themselves as the building blocks of the new international economic order. The sound management of the ever-growing ‘challenges’ that emerge in international politics is strictly related to the evolution of the concept of governance. It is possible then to draw an enlightening overview of the main stages in the evolution of the international political economy of the ‘First World’7 in its definition. Thus it is also worth underlining the two ‘watersheds’ in the politics of macroeconomic policies of the multilaterals; a trajectory that can be summed up here as follows: the paradigm shift has taken place in the 1990s when the World Bank changed its orientation. From the "getting the prices right " to ‘getting the institutions right” (Drake et al 2001, 4), that is from the moving away from a visceral dismantling of the State as an ‘economic’ actor, to what can be considered to be its, at least a partial rescuing. And the good governance agenda is strictly connected to that, in which it embodies the recovery, albeit restricted, of the State and institutions, “in contrast with the pro-market stance of the 1980s” (Ibidem).

A further clarification here is needed. The first watershed, or rather chronologically speaking, the point of departure in narrating the evolution of the rationale of international political economy from Keynesism to Neoliberalism,8 has to be traced back to the settlement of the Post-Second World War macroeconomic order, when the “Golden Age” of mixed economies (that is the liberal tripod of the Bretton Woods Multilaterals i.e.

7 Within the lexicon of the developmental studies this term is used to define the western ‘developed’ countries, against the grouping of the less advantaged ones, that is the second world of the ‘developing countries’ and the third world of the undeveloped countries (cf. Haynes, 2005). 8 The poststructural critical inquiry of Foucault about the topic of (social) power is widely known and acknowledged. The same may be said about his analytical account of Neoliberalism, defined by the philosopher within his theory of governmentality and biopolitics. It was therein that he “presciently observed in 1978” the main features of Neoliberalism whose concerns regard the “remaking and redeployment of the State” (Mirowski, 2014, 54); see Foucault M. (2010), The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978--1979 (Lectures at the College de France).

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IMF, WB, GATT-WTO) was shaped by the American Hegemon, namely the Liberal Leviathan at stars and stripes. This was the “constituent” moment in which the multilateral “Constitution” of the Keynesian-fordist macroeconomic international framework, was put into place. Along this line of reasoning then, the Neoliberal revolution occurred in the late 1970s, and it engendered the legitimization of the privatization of the State-controlled economy and the substitution of the market for the social provision of welfare (Talyor, 2005, 269). This deep reorientation of the coordinates of the Keynesian-Fordist “Constitution” of the “sovereign” State, is what the agenda of “governance without government” consists in, namely a sort of seismic change which has also been defined as the “Washington Consensus”. The second watershed has taken place in the second half of the 1990s (see herein quoted the document of the World Bank titled “The State in a Changing World” ). In responding to the critics about the failure of the Structural Adjustment Programs (as we will explain below), it entailed a new agenda, a more demanding model of institutions along with the idea of a more effective State, that is the rescuing of the State.

In other words, insofar as “from the late 1970s onwards, the policies of these institutions were increasingly shaped by a free-market ideology that easily degenerated into economism” (Hewitt Alcàntara, 1998, 106), and, subsequently consequently, against the failures of the Structural Adjustment Policies wherein the above mentioned ‘free-market ideology’ has been performed9, a change of pace did not seem to be postponed. Thus, the fine tuning of the concept of good governance, provided at the same time the reinforcing of the role of the World Bank and of the IMF in the sound management of global macroeconomic policies, and the re-legitimization of their global regulatory function.

Thus, on the one hand good governance has been designed to reinvigorate State institutions, reinstating the role of "the State in a changing world", according to the World Bank dictum, so to say removing obstacles to its reform in order to improve its performances. On the other hand good governance can be also seen as the solution to the crisis of legitimacy of the IFIs after the contested results of the Structural Adjustment Policies,10 an opportunity then to recover a shared framework for the “smoothly functioning” of the global market. In this sense,

By talking about ‘governance’ – rather than ‘state reform’, or ‘social political change’ – multilateral banks and agencies within the development establishment were able to address sensitive questions that could be lumped together under a relatively inoffensive heading and usually couched in technical terms, thus avoiding any implication that these institutions were exceeding their statutory authority by intervening in the internal political affairs of sovereign states (Hewitt Alcàntara, 1998, 107).

Therefore,

[…] the good governance agenda has led the World Bank into previously uncharted territory, such as the issues of participation, corruption, and democratic reform. Although the exact direction of Bank policy in these areas remains ambiguous, the good governance agenda has undoubtedly stretched the Bank’s traditionally ‘technocratic’ character to a greater extent than ever before (Drake et al 2001, 4).

4. Buzzwords, Fuzzwords and the Discourse of ‘Institutions’: Sketching the Analytical Grid

Nobody trying to be influential can afford to neglect the fine art of buzzwords…images conveyed by simple terms are taken as reality, and words are increasingly loaded with ideological symbolism and political correctness. It may seem innocuous. It surely is not. Why make a fuss? The reason is that the terms we use help to shape the policy agenda…the linguistic crisis is real, and is not going to go away? (Standing, 2001, 13).

9 For instance, it is possible here to make reference to the decade collection of the annual Human Development Reports, wherein it is possible to read about “the aggravation of poverty and the growing divides between rich and poor, within societies as well as among them, the increasing unemployment, a disintegrating social fabric and exclusion, and environmental damage” (Weiss, 2000, 802). 10 According to some scholars, “there where no spectacular success in SAPs and outcomes have ranged from the moderately successful to the disastrous. […]. There was also acceptance that adjustment policy might be sequenced better […] and there was acknowledgement that premature financial liberalization negatively affects economic performance” (Sen, 2005, 108).

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Buzzwords and fuzzwords play an important part in the process of framing policies.11 A critical analysis of the ‘metaphors’ and the concepts, of the semantic qualities and performative effects of words in the policy frames, may provide fruitful instruments in the ‘deconstruction’ of good governance discourse.

“Taking the lead in shaping the lexicon, burying outmoded jargon authorizing new terminology and permissive slippage, and indeed generating a constant supply of must-use terms and catchphrases” (Eade, 2010, viii); this can be considered to be an emblematic representation of the hegemonic influence of discourse in framing policies. Both the World Bank and the IMF, along with the OECD, can be recognized in that role and good governance in its turn can be acknowledged as the main field of the game of buzzwords and fuzzwords is played.

Out of metaphor: “buzzwords get their buzz from being ‘in-words’, words that define what is in vogue […] that dip in and out of fashion, some continuing to ride the wave for decades, others appearing briefly only to become submerged for years until they are salvaged and punt to new uses” (Cornwall, 2007, 472). They encode universal values, and as code-words they “sound intellectual and scientific, beyond the understanding of the lay person, best left to experts” (Ibidem).

The hegemonic character of the ‘buzzwords’ in their usage, make them be taken for granted, that which offers them the ability to “move beyond contests over meaning to unquestioned acceptance” (Cornwall, Brock, 2005, 1056); at least until a linguistic crisis occurs, when people come to regard “words that were once taken for granted as something about which to be a little more circumspect” (Ibidem). Is that the case for good governance and for the developmental lexicon in which it is implied?

In order to address this question it is worth observing another constitutive feature of the buzzwords: their trans-ideological character, which “allows them to be appropriated by a variety of political and policy actors” (Cornwall, 2010, 11). The denounced inflation of the concept of good governance, or rather its conceptual weakness (to which we will come back soon), seems now to appear under a new light. According to the buzzwords-fuzzwords semantic combination, lateness and weakness, are part and parcel of their rationale. In this sense their “propensity to shelter multiple meanings makes them politically expedient, shielding those to use them from attack by lending the possibility of common meaning to extremely disparate actors” (Cornwall, Brock, 2005, 1056).

Their trans-ideological character can be regarded as one of the main properties of buzzwords, alongside the ability to incorporate and dissimulate the challenging meaning of other opposing terms, that is the counter-ideological terms which at least potentially, if in condition to preserve their original meaning, may contend the ‘consensual’ nature of the buzzwords (Leal, 2010).

The predicted mantra-like quality that good governance has attained in international policy circles, has decisively contributed to confer it the status of “the mother of all buzzwords”, somewhat like the “structural hole” which attracts and connects all the others nodes in a wider network.

Thus, “the more words that become part of the chain, the more that meaning resides in the connections between them” (Cornwall, Brock, 2005, 1047).

The ability to rework concepts formerly part of different chains of equivalence with different semantic qualities and performative effects, seems to be the main endowment of the Multilaterals: “the World Bank has such propensity to appropriate and rework terms” (Cornwall, Brock, 2005, 1056), which have been part of ‘counter-discourses’, such as participation and empowerment, sustainability and decentralization, accountability and transparency, human rights and civil society.

This minimal list can be enriched further, and this is what we are going to do in the next paragraph in order to account for the main dimensions which design the composed picture of good governance.

11 “Frame analysis” is a specific approach to policy analysis which maintains that the positions and perceptions of actors involved in the decision making processes, mainly consist in cognitive elements which define the epistemic structures of the process of social and political interaction among the actors themselves; a perspective which is consistent with the analytical grid defined here by the concept of episteme; see Schön D. A., Rein M. (1994), Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of Intractable Policy Controversies, New York, Basic Books.

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But, before, it is worth noting a methodological caveat. We may say that it is still possible to play the buzzwords’ game in its own terms. Herein consists the advantage of thinking words in constellation (i.e. the chains of equivalence) rather than in the singular. It is possible then “reclaiming ‘lost’ words as well as salvaging some of the meanings that were never completely submerged" (Cornwall, 2007, 482).

In this context of reference, we may consider whether or not and if yes to what extent it will be possible to play inequality as the pivotal word, the one that may change the meaning of the chain of equivalence, the buzzwords-fuzzwords constellation wherein good governance, development and growth have been taking the center stage. Under this heading, it will be feasible to reconfigure the terms of the ‘neoliberal’ framework of good governance in the developmental discourse (cfr. Craig, Porter, 2006; Freinstein, Mahlert, 2016; Sundaram, 2016).

And finally, what are then the opportunities for a ‘radical change’, or, at least, for a fundamental reconsideration of the developmental policy framework within the international community, namely the multilaterals of the regulatory regimes of global economy? The issue of knowledge management carried out by these international organizations (that is WB and IMF mainly, and the OECD and the UN) and of the paradigm maintenance consequentially can be regarded as the quintessential manifestation of the ‘epistemic’ essence of governance and of good governance as a policy paradigm (cf. Adler, Bernstein, 2005; Broad, 2010; Saith, 2006; Ziai, 2011).

5. Good Governance as a Concept: a Critical Deconstruction of a Policy Framework

Since for the major ‘developmental’ institutions, good governance can be considered to be an important part of their own policy agenda, or, more significantly, it can be regarded as inextricably bound up to development objectives which reflect their own institutional identity as it is the case of the World Bank, it is worth introducing here a descriptive overview of the main ‘definitions’ of the concept. But it is also noteworthy to observe that “not only [do] definitions vary across organizations, but they also vary within organizations” (Guisselquiest, 2012, 3).

It is possible then to identify some core and recurrent elements, which then will be specified, reporting literally a list of the most influential definitions. Thus, according to the scholars three constitutive features of good governance convey a broad understanding of the concept, that is good governance can be intended as “the process (or manner) through which power (or authority) is exercised in order to manage the collective affairs of a community” (Ivi, 4).

To provide here a snapshot of the normative components of the concept, regarded in its internal variability across and within the different organizations discourse (which has been underlined above), it is possible to maintain that “at least seven core components” emerge, that is: democracy and representation, human rights, the rule of law, effective and efficient public management, transparency and accountability, developmentalist objectives [that is mainly growth] and a varying range of particular programmes, policies, institutions” (Ivi, 8).

Going deeper into details of the working definitions, the World Bank relies on four core elements of good governance12:

Public sector management emphasizing the need for effective financial and human resource management through improved budgeting, accounting and reporting, and rooting out inefficiency particularly in public enterprises; accountability in public services, including effective accounting, auditing and decentralization, and generally making public officials responsible for their actions and responsive to consumers; a predictable legal framework with rules known in advance; a reliable and independent judiciary and law enforcement mechanisms; Availability of information and transparency in order to enhance policy analysis, promote public debate and reduce the risk of corruption (Ivi, 10).

12 Worldwide governance indicators have been designed, based on fundamentals operational empirical dimensions; for analysis and comments on this topic, see Kraay A., Mastruzzi M. (2010) The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Methodology and Analytical Issues, Global Economy and Development at Brookgins, pp. 1-29.

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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development focuses on the following good governance items:

Accountability: government is able and willing to show the extent to which its actions and decisions are consistent with clearly-defined and agreed-upon objectives.

Transparency: government actions, decisions and decision-making processes are open to an appropriate level of scrutiny by others parts of government, civil society and, in some instances, outside institutions and governments.

Efficiency and effectiveness: government strives to produce quality public outputs, including services delivered to citizens, at the best cost, and ensures that outputs meet the original intentions of policymakers.

Responsiveness: government has the capacity and flexibility to respond rapidly to societal changes, takes into account the expectations of civil society in identifying the general public interest, and is willing to critically re-examine the role of government.

Forward vision: government is able to anticipate future problems and issues based on current data and trends and develop policies that take into account future costs and anticipated changes (e.g. demographic, economic, environmental, etc.).

Rule of law: government enforces equally transparent laws, regulations and codes’.

Analytically looking into this list of ‘core’ elements it is possible to highlight the complexity of the concept, its ‘essentially contested’13 nature. Considering the denotative and connotative dimensions of the concepts, it is worth addressing the ‘weaknesses’ of the concept of good governance, or rather both the constitutive features and the ambiguities of the normative ‘goodness’ of governance. Thus what emerges is that it lacks parsimony (since different attributes of the concept connote its scope); then comes a deficit of differentiation, given that “it is not distinguished from other related concepts” (the lexicon of the public management stands along with that of democratic theory, and with the neoclassic economic theory).

The third weakness of the concept of good governance allows to emphasize that it also lacks coherence in that its different elements overlap with different frameworks of reference: from a sound market economy even in an authoritarian state, to a liberal democratic14 State, that is from a less demanding to a more demanding normative concept. With the words of the World Bank: examining the evidence “on the relative performance records of democracy and authoritarian regimes” what seems to have emerged is that “the democratic-authoritarian distinction itself, fails to explain adequately whether or not countries initiate reform, implement it effectively, or survive its political fallout” (World Bank,1992, 11).

As a result, the concept of good governance also lacks of theoretical utility in that it seems not to be able to exert its ‘fact-gathering’ capability. In this sense the “causal link between the quality of governance growth” seems to be not so plain as it was expected. According to some scholars then, “whatever black box of institutions, norms, and practices promotes economic growth and development” this conceptualization assumes that good governance leads to development by definition” (Guisselquiest, 2012, 18).

To overcome this theoretical pitfall,

researchers have become interested in using statistical techniques to tease out cause-and-effect relationships. The work of Daniel Kaufmann and others on the impact of corruption on growth, for example, has been important in arguing that the relationship between governance and development is more than correlational, it is causal; good governance makes development possible (Kaufman and Kraay, 2002). This strand in the research is notable for lively methodological debates about issues of measurement and inference. It is also a literature that is frequently cited to argue for the importance of governance interventions as preconditions for development. Thus, for example, a World Bank (2000) review of 40 different studies concludes that there is ‘overwhelming evidence that good 13 For this seminal definition, see Gallie W. B. (1956), Essentially contested concepts, Proceedings or the Aristotelian Society, 56, 167-9. 14 Convergences and divergences are analytically debated in an illuminating contribution wherein the compatibility or incompatibility between “the very idea of global governance and the principle of democracy” are assessed. The main lines of divergence between the two are recognized in the criterion of efficiency and in the principle of consultation; also the principle of equality seems to define an area of tension between the two, whilst at least some convergences can be found in the articulation of the principles of transparency and accountability; for further considerations, see Vercauteren P. (2015), Global Governance and Global Democracy? Convergence or Divergence?, University of Louvain.

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governance is crucial for successful development, as measured by high per capita income. Per capita income is a strong predictor of poverty rates, infant mortality and illiteracy, suggesting that good governance improves the well-being of the poor’ (p. 175) (Grindle, 2007, 6).

Furthermore,

As concluded by the World Bank in a review of 40 studies, there was “overwhelming evidence that good governance is crucial for successful development, as measured by high per capita income. Per capita income is a strong predictor of poverty rates, infant mortality and illiteracy, suggesting that good governance improves the well-being of the poor. Increasingly, then, the idea of good governance became a way not only to assess the role of the state in development and invade safely the minefield of domestic politics, it became a defining quality for development and a necessary condition for it. The normative ingredients of the definition of good governance were shown empirically to be not only conducive to development but also necessary to it (Grindle, 2008, 8).

An alternative way of assessment of the predicted causal link between good governance and development can be outlined as follows: as donor agencies tend to highlight “good governance may promote or cause development”, or, conversely, development may be conducive to good governance. Therefore it is also possible to say that “some component of good governance may cause development, or it may be exactly the other way around, that is development may cause some component of good governance. Finally, in this hypothetical even speculative framework, a third factor may cause both, or rather,

To complicate the story still further, it could also be that some component(s) of good governance causes development (or some component(s) of development), while others contribute to economic stagnation, but that the effect of those that cause development is stronger. Alternatively, it could be that the interaction of several components of good governance causes development (Guisselquiest, 2012, 19).

In order to make an attempt to solve this conceptual dilemma, it is possible to disentangle these different conceptual relations, by distinguishing the political and the economic dimensions. What needs to be tested is the scope of the ‘causal’ relation between economic growth and social transformations, that means to call into question the core of the modernization theory, as it has been maintained by the ‘classics’, from Tocqueville and Weber to Lipset, from Marx to Barrington Moore. Alongside the classics, the question has been tackled recently in the theories of the democratic transitions. Thus, “In a more recent line of critique, Przeworski et al. (2000) maintains “that it is not that development leads to democratic transition, but that countries at higher levels of development are less likely to experience democratic reversals once they adopt democratic institutions for other reasons” (Ivi, 20).15

5.1 Good Governance: the ‘Voice’ of Institutions

The concept of good governance, as the new ‘kid’ in development discourse, rose in popularity by the 2000s. It has described and ‘prescribed’16 a specific relationship between the state, the market and civil society, viewed as the main ‘conditionality’ to be met by the loan receiving countries. Therefore, it marked the transition of the IFIs institutions from the commitment to the model of the “minimalist State” to that of a more “effective” State, which is expected to play a critical role in the regulation of the market. Here lies the ‘tension’ between the normative dimension of good governance and the ‘functional’ idea of State that it also conveys.

In this context it is worth considering the huge impact of the concept of governance and of good governance in world politics. Indeed, a new orthodoxy emerged, which sanctioned a twofold, deep change: with the advent of governance and of the structural adjustment programs, the “reluctance to intrude in domestic politics” in the

15 On this topic, a classic contribution is: Schmitter P. C., Karl, L. (1991), What Democracy is...and is not, “Journal of Democracy”, pp. 1-15. 16 A valuable analysis views critically the hypothesis according to which the concept of governance is almost at its exhausting as a normative concept. In Vercauteren view, governance has become an ideological battleground wherein by definition no area of ‘consensus’ can be find without confrontation. One side to the fight that the author takes into account, pertains to the economic domain (wherein the confrontation is among the bearers of the free market economy on one hand, and the sustainers of the regulatory intervention of the State). The second aspect of the ideological battle is embodied by the ‘globalisers’ and those who claim the re- entrenchment of the State; the third facet pertains to different representations of global society.

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field of regulatory interventions of the market by the State (something which was at odds with world politics during the cold war), was eroded (Weiss, 2000, 799).

However, the area of this ‘intrusion’ has been further extended by introducing the ‘democratization’ agenda in world politics, whilst the balance between the State and the market, public sector and private sector, once defined within the compromise of the embedded liberalism (according to the rule ‘Smith abroad, Keynes at home’), has been dramatically transformed by the realization of the neoliberal17 macroeconomic policy agenda of the IFIs.

But, before going ahead with the illustration of our analysis, it is worth letting the institutions speak their own ‘speech’. The first quotation is from the World Bank Development Report of 1992, wherein a paradigmatic definition of good governance is given:

Governance is defined in the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development management. Good governance, for the World Bank, is synonymous with sound development management (World Bank, 1992, 2). Four areas of governance may be identified that are consistent with the Bank’s mandate: public sector management, accountability, the legal framework for development, and information and transparency (Ivi, 2).

Another watershed definition is provided by the IMF in its Report of 1997:

Good governance is important for countries at all stages of development our approach is to concentrate on those aspects of good governance that are most closely related to our surveillance over macroeconomic policies – namely, the transparency of government accounts, the effectiveness of public resource management, and the stability and transparency of the economic and regulatory environment for private sector activity (IMF, 1997, 1).

The IMF contributes to promoting good governance in member countries through different channels. First, in its policy advice, the IMF has assisted its member countries in creating systems that limit the scope for ad hoc decision making, for rent seeking, and for undesirable preferred treatment of individuals seeking and for undesirable preferred treatment of individuals or organizations. To this end, the IMF has encouraged among other things liberalization of the exchange, trade, and price systems, and the elimination of direct credit allocation (Ivi, 1,2).

By historicizing and contextualizing these definitions we can maintain that they have manifested the fundamental rationale of the neoliberal structural adjustment policy program which has been authoritatively defined by the World Bank as follows: “Building Institutions for Markets”.

Herein the World Bank maintains that “successful provision of […] institutions is often referred to as good governance. Good governance includes the creation, protection and enforcement of property rights, without which the scope for market transactions is limited. It includes the provision of regulatory regime that works with the market to promote competition. And it includes the provision of sound macroeconomic policies that create a stable environment for the market activity. Good governance also means the absence of corruption, which can subvert the goals of policy and undermine the legitimacy of the public institutions that support market” (World Bank, 2002 a, 99).

One of the main tenets of the World Bank approach to institutions has consisted in stigmatizing corruption considered as the quintessential example of poor governance, counterpoised to good governance. Since its report of 1992 (and then constantly, for example in the Report of 1997, and in 2002) WB claimed that the “overregulation” of market by State constitutes the main cause of corruption.

The diagnosis formulated underlines that “failure to make clear separation between what is public and what is private, hence, a tendency to divert public resources for private gain […]. Excessive rules, regulations, licensing requirements, and so forth, […] impede the functioning of markets and encourage rent-seeking” (World Bank, 1992, 9). Thus, “there is evidence that excessive regulation undermines economic growth. There 17 One of the most valuable contribution to the analysis of neoliberalism brought about in the last years, explains how “neoliberal ideas and policies have found support among institutional and political actors” who engaged a sort of ideological and political battle about their respective power positions. “In other words, market solutions must be perceived as part of the policy weaponry used in the ongoing power games unfolding within the public realm” (Palumbo, 2015, 41). The aims of this battle concern the transformation of the relationship between state, market, and society, the redefinition in a more competitive and formal way of the institutional and functional mechanisms of representative democracy, a depoliticisation of politics, that is the curtailing of the space of dissent and conflict in the public sphere.

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is also evidence that poor macroeconomic policy and restrictive trade regimes adversely affect a country’s growth performance” (World Bank 2002 a, 99).

According to the Bank, the “abuse of public office for private gain” is one and the main causes of corruption. But, “despite the fact that corporations regularly bribe officials”, the Bank rarely takes this into account. According to Drake et al – among others – the Bank “has turned a blind eye to corrupt firms, especially powerful international business” (Drake, 2001, 15). Coherently, the different ways “to reduce corruption according to the World Bank include the contracting-out of services to private companies, “making rules more transparent, introducing market-based schemes that limit the discretion of regulators; and adopting administrative reforms that introduce competitive pressures into the government” (Ivi, 13).

In the same years, the WB addressed the topic of “poverty reduction” with the aim of promoting opportunity (expanding economic opportunity by stimulating overall growth), facilitating empowerment, enhancing security (reducing poor’s people vulnerability)18. Therein the institutions have been designed as the most important strategic asset for poor people, and conceived in the most strict adherence to the (neoliberal) paradigm of the Rational Choice Institutionalism, to which we have made reference above.

This World Development Report is about building market institutions that promote growth and reduce poverty, addressing how institutions support markets, what makes institutions work, and how to build them. Effective institutions can make the difference in the success of market reforms. Without land-titling institutions that ensure property rights, poor people are unable to use valuable assets for investment and income growth. Without strong judicial institutions that enforce contracts, entrepreneurs find many business activities too risky. Without effective corporate governance institutions that check managers’ behavior, firms waste the resources of stakeholders. And weak institutions hurt the poor especially. For example, estimates show that corruption can cost the poor three times as much as it does the wealthy. Addressing the challenge of building effective institutions is critical to the Bank’s mission of fighting poverty. […]. By understanding how institutions interact, we can identify priorities. Innovate to identify institutions that work—and those that do not. Sometimes this requires experimentation. Even in countries with similar incomes and capacities, innovation can create stronger institutions because of differences in local conditions, differences that range from social norms to geography. Countries can gain from expanding successful public innovations and adopting private innovations. [...] Promote competition among jurisdictions, firms, and individuals. Developing country market actors often face too little competition, and changing this will significantly improve institutional quality. Greater competition modifies the effectiveness of existing institutions, creates demand for new ones, and increases choice for consumers. Competition among jurisdictions highlights successful institutions and promotes demand for them. Competition among firms and individuals does the same. These broad lessons, as well as the detailed analysis and many examples throughout this Report, will help us and policymakers build institutions that ensure stable and inclusive growth and thus improve people’s incomes and reduce poverty (World Bank, 2002 a, III, IV).19

6. Good Governance, Poverty Reduction Strategy, Development: Main Critical Findings Governance and human development the two are indivisible. Human development cannot be sustained without good governance […]. Governance […] is a neutral concept comprising the complex mechanisms, processes, relationships and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their rights and obligations and mediate their differences. Good governance – addresses the allocation and management of resources to respond to collective problems; it is characterized by participation, transparency, accountability, rule of law, effectiveness and equity. […]. Governance has three legs: economic, political and administrative. Economic governance includes decision-making processes that affect a country’s economic activities and its relationships with other economies. It clearly has major implications for equity, poverty and quality of life (Undp, 1997 passim). Good governance has increasingly been recognized as a crucial prerequisite for development effectiveness and the growth that it fosters. It is critical for ensuring a positive investment climate, and it has a two-way

18 This dimension is strictly related to the problem of fragile or failed states which the World Bank addressed in the World Development Report about Attacking poverty; see The Fund for Peace, Failed States Index, 2015, pp. 1-40. 19 Emphasis added.

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relationship with empowerment – that is good governance promotes empowerment, and empowerment further enhances good governance (World Bank, 2002 b, 2). These definitions of the concept of good governance represent in a very effective way the institutional ‘conditionalities’ posed by the multilaterals within developmental policies framework Their statements, based on “analytical findings”, “broad lessons” and “benchmarks”, describe and prescribe – accordingly to their institutional concern with developmental policies – effective policy frameworks devoted to the attainment of the ‘consensual’ objective of the “growth”, globally extended. The “multidimensional” nature of poverty along with the “poor people” in their basic needs have been a constant topic addressed in the process of “knowledge management” which is at the core of the policy framework designing of the WB. Indeed, the World Bank together with the IMF, the UN and the OECD is one of the most influential ‘epistemic community’ in the context of global policy making. The designing of the concept of good governance, as explained above, emblematically represents the epistemic essence of global governance (Adler, Bernstein, 2005). Good governance and the Poverty Reduction Strategy are then part and parcel of the same policy framework. As the WB and UNDP dictums above maintain, good governance, development and growth coincide insofar as their synergetic and mutual relationship, makes good governance at the same time a precondition and a result of development. The mutuality of their relationship is further emphasized by the WB, establishing the equation between good governance and empowerment: “a growing body of evidence is showing the linkages between empowerment and good governance and growth, growth that is more pro-poor” (World Bank, 2002 b, v). Good governance and the Poverty Reduction Strategy are then part and parcel of the same policy framework. As the WB and UNDP dictums above maintain, good governance, development and growth coincide insofar as the synergetic and mutual relationship between them, makes good governance at the same time a precondition and a result of development. The mutuality of their relationship is further strengthen in the WB standpoint on the subject matter, which establishes the equation between good governance and empowerment: “a growing body of evidence is showing the linkages between empowerment good governance and growth, growth that is more pro-poor” (World Bank, 2002 b, v). In other words, good governance is the best way to make economic growth pro-poor. In this sense, good governance can be considered to be both an instrument and an objective. The good governance template then is conducive to attain the goal of “attacking poverty”, namely to tackle the longstanding challenge constituted by the persistent existence of the ‘under-developed’ part of the world. Access to opportunity in the market, economic and security, and empowerment are key to the attainment of this aim. Consequently, good governance encompasses a broad reform programme which involves state actions, devoted to “create the conditions in which poor people and other actors make decisions” (Ivi, vi). The three-legged Poverty Reductions Strategy formula (i. e. opportunity, empowerment, security), pertains to the three-pronged policy framework, and “good governance seemed to be “a forth leg in the Poverty Reduction rubric” or rather “an elaboration of the empowerment dimension” (Craig, Porter, 2006, passim). The meaning of empowerment within this rubric is identified by the World Bank programmatic discourse: “empowerment is the expansion of assets and capabilities of poor people to participate in, negotiate with, influence, control and hold accountable institutions that affect their lives” (World Bank, 2002, vi). The main components of the concept of good governance, as we have learnt to use so far, converge towards this short but normatively demanding definition. As soon after specified, the four elements of empowerment consist respectively in the “access to information, the inclusion/participation in decision-making process, accountability to which state officials, employees and private actors must be “held answerable for their policies, actions, and use of funds” (World Bank, 2002 b, v). The good governance framework devoted to ‘poverty reduction’ is further explained by the WB as follows: an empowering approach to state reform can be viewed as strengthening the demand side of governance for greater public effectiveness, and procedures that enable citizens and poor people’s organizations to interact effectively with their government. Such an approach also invests in educating and informing citizens and in enabling the emergence of strong poor’s people organizations and citizens’ groups. This is

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particularly relevant for investment projects and budget support loans that focus on improving local and national governance (Ivi, vii). As we saw in the definition above, which claims the potential for attacking poverty as inherent to the ‘good’ functioning of the State, the “move to institutions” of the Bretton Woods multilaterals have been put in place against the shortcomings of the Structural Adjustment Programs. These globally spread policies, imposed economic and political conditionalities for loan, and boosted neoliberal macroeconomic reforms, featuread as programs of strict observance of the neoclassic economic theory. According to some scholars, two decades of development failure and zero net growth on whole continents had produced alarming peripheries of insecurity, disaffection and risk. Neoliberalism’s trust in free markets and self-regulation were brought back into critical review. As the millennium loomed, critics of the Washington Consensus were raging in the streets of Seattle and Genoa to press home questions about the basic legitimacy of International Financial Institutions (IFI) - the World Bank, the regional development banks and the International Monetary Fund - IMI). Prominent figures within the IFIs were publicly conceding that structural adjustments of radical neoliberal reform had often delivered more shock than therapy: it was all too narrow, too IFI- led, too banker driven (Craig, Porter, 2006 passim). Roughly speaking, one may say that the very succeeding of these reforms consists in the ‘dissemination’ of the neoliberal blueprint which has prescribed deregulatory macroeconomic policies, privatizations, lowering taxes, free trade policies, (i.e. SAP, Structural Adjustment Programs) even at the cost of serious shocks, notwithstanding, or rather, due to the therapy itself. In this context, the Good governance/poverty reduction strategy package, has been intended to soften the burden of the political and economic conditionalities of the SAPs20; then “beyond the raw neoliberalism of the SAP”, the program of good governance within the poverty reduction strategy moved to an inclusive and participatory version of the SAPs. In this sense, Now collaboration around IFI-led Development would be pinned to national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) ‘owned by’ recipient governments themselves. Poverty Reduction Development would from 2000 roll out on broad, three-legged agenda of promoting economic opportunity through global market integration, and enhanced social and economic security and empowerment through innovative governance arrangements for local delivery of health, education and other poverty-reducing services. None of those alone would reduce poverty: but together, the consensus concurred, they should. Indeed, progress would be monitored against a range of poverty related targets and goals. Poverty Reduction’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were birthed within the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), adopted by 189 nations in the Millennium Declaration […] and then reaffirmed by all Unites Nations (UN) members in the Monterrey Consensus and in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation of 2002 (Craig, Porter, 2006, passim). Decentralization of services delivery, consultative participatory frameworks, stakeholdership and civil society organizations involvement, have been aimed to perform the neoliberal institutionalist governance programme. Going deeper in the description of the policy framework at issue, it is noteworthy describing the tripartite design in which it consists: “Inform (consumers), Enforce (contracts and law), Compete (make multiple agencies compete for contracts to deliver services)’ was presented as an Accountability Triangle, wherein (in one corner), consumer’s informed voice and choice, together with (in corner 2) policy-maker’s contracts and compacts with service deliverers (corner 3) would deliver more accountability for service delivery” (Ivi, passim).

20 Structural Adjustment Programmes, were the response to the macroeconomic shocks and the indebtedness crisis of the developing countries in the 1980s and had been prescribed by the IFIs. They involved: “fiscal contraction, higher prices for products supplied by state agencies, and tax increases. A revision of exchange rate was required, and monetary policy was tightened. Curtailment of State intervention in domestic markets, including public investments and planning, lowering of trade barriers and easing of exchange controls were all recommended. Finally, wage restraint and revision of subsidy and transfer programmes are thought desiderable” (Haynes, 2005, 106).

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Thus, accountability, transparency, rule of law can be considered to be the building blocks of good governance within the poverty reduction strategy device.21 In any evaluation programme which deserves to be considered as such, both strengths and weaknesses are to be regarded. Hence, on the one hand, harmonization of donors’ requirements has favored a huge reduction of transactions costs in accessing aid, enhancing the efficiency of aid management, but has fostered at the same time the establishment of a transnational technocratic elite on the other hand, whilst “crowding out”, as a consequence, genuine, spontaneous social movements, ruled out from the participatory processes. With the words of a scholar: The prevailing domination of creditor interests (streamlined disbursement, guarantees of repayment) without increased controls on lending policies; the empowerment of cosmopolitan middle-class positions in the policy elite […] at expense of deepening popular democratic influence and oversight; the abuse of ‘consultation’ to legitimize predetermined policies (and duplicity in the portrayal of the process as participatory); the one-dimensional focus of public policy on social investments without parallel attention to productivity; the affinity between the productive social forces excluded from the policy process (the domestic middle class, small-holder producers) and the absence of corresponding economic elements in the policy framework (agriculture, manufacturing); the reinforcement of quasi-feudal political relations at the grassroots as a result, in part, of the depoliticization22 of public policymaking (Gould, 2005, 63). To recap, it is possible to say that the Poverty Reduction Strategy and its imperative of good governance has introduced a form of inclusive neoliberalism that, while “retaining core conservative neoliberal macroeconomic and pro-market policy settings […] adds ‘positive’ liberal approaches emphasizing empowerment to enable participation (and ensure ‘inclusion’) of countries and people in global and local markets. These include: institution building and an enabling state ensuring global market integration; building human capital via services (health, education); empowering and protecting the rights of the vulnerable through participatory voice and legal access; engendering moral obligations to community and work” (Craig, Porter 2006, passim).

A shallow re-embedding of markets in institutional context, the embracing of the soft ‘institutionalism’ of community participation and NGOs partnership, are considered to be the soft version of neoliberal reforms (that is the SAPs), a way to the preservation of market priority under the heading of participatory policy and consultation of civil society stakeholders.23

7. From Poverty Reduction to the Assessment of Inequality in the (post-)developmentalist

discourse: the rendition of Neoliberalism? Development is a concept which is contested both theoretically and politically, and is inherently both complex and ambiguous…Recently [it] has taken on the limited meaning of the practices of development agencies, especially in aiming at reducing poverty and the Millennium Development Goals (Thomas, 2004, 1, 2). The abovementioned definition, is just one of the many, selected here in order to introduce the subject and to design the perimeter of the last part of our analysis. Perhaps, no other concept has been so eager to claim a unanimous consensus and deeply contested at the same time – a case in point indeed of the

21 The good goveranance agenda is concerned with the relationship between the State, the market and civil society. According to a ‘liberal’ model of democracy, the triangle defined by the rule of law, accountability of decision makers and of elected personal, the transparency of rule settings and decision making processes, constitutes the building block of democratic politics. In the good governance framework, these setting is devoted to foster a positive investment climate, that is good institutions for market economy; see Kmarava (2005); World Bank (2002 a,b). 22 Among the most effective techniques for the capacity building programs that the governance epistemic framework includes, there are those devoted to the augmentation of human capital of individuals and groups. As far as the conceptual resonance of this element with the foucauldian theory of governmentallity and power (that is disciplinary, pastoral, governmental power) see Dean (2010) and Gould (2005); the latter in particular with reference to the top-down tailored participatory framework in the policies of poverty reduction. For an overview of the different contributions in the field, see Lo Schiavo (2014) and 23 For the huge amount of literature on the topic of governance legitimacy fostered by the transnational civil society actors, see Rosenau J., N. (2003), Distant Proximities. Dynamics beyond Globalization, Princeton University Press, Princeton-Oxford.

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eminently contested nature of social concepts – as the concept of development, since its onset. It is noteworthy to say that, the radical post-developmentalist critique notwithstanding (Ziai, 2004), the inherent complexity of this concept is to be addressed the very moment that one may decide to come to grips with it. So to say, overly compromised with the imperialistic substance of the western modernization theories and politics, betrayed in its universalistic commitment by its bearers, i. e. Western countries, this concept as a sort of “malignant myth” must be abandoned in order to allow its victims to free themselves from its longstanding and perverse influence. However, it is not necessary to assume this radical position in criticizing the concept, showing its shortcomings. This cautious analytical stance is recommended if one would like to firmly avoid the risk of remaining entrapped within a fallacious standpoint. According to Ziai in particular, a perverse confluence may occur between the critique of developmentalism in the post-develpmentalist theories, and the neoliberal policy programs which aim to exclude redistributive policies devoted to extend the scope of universalizing standards of living beyond the western domain to the advantage of all ‘humanity’.24 Be that as it may, it is worth focusing here on the critical potential of reworking the concept of development, since the topic of inequality seems to be back. Comparing this renewed attention to the issue of inequality to the NIEO moment25 in the history of international political economy (or rather to the McNamara-Chenery programme of “redistribution with growth prescription”) (Mosley, 2011, 19) the question can be posed in these terms: is there any room to maneuver to bring inequality back within the framework of developmental and macroeconomic international policies, from which it has been ruled out in the decades of the neoliberal hegemony? And, further, are the IFIs making efforts to achieve paradigm maintenance against this alleged change, or are they open to the paradigm shift in response to the challenge of Global Recession? The question can be briefly tackled here as follows: we can try to deconstruct the narrative of the Millennium Goals discourse bringing out how the dimension of inequality, according to the scholars, has been neglected or subordinated; then an attempt will be made to assess the potential of the renewed interest in global inequality, supported by the international development community in the design of the Sustainable Development Goals. That which the critical studies point out is that the MDGs narrative “tends to ghettoize the problem of development” locating it “firmly in the third world”; consequently, the “rising levels of inequality and accompanying socio-economic exclusion find no reflection at all in the goals or target or indicators. Mostly, poverty is regarded as absolute, neglecting the rising inequalities within and between different countries, making even less tenable the ghettoizing of poverty to the “third” world. In this context then no wonder “there is no mention at all in any form of redistribution whether of income or assets” (Saith, 2006, 1185). The storyline of the MDG framework has been designed considering poverty reduction as “detached from the constraints imposed by structural inequality and anti-poor and anti-labour policy biases. The answer is held to lie in the simple equation: external assistance + technological fixes + good local governance = poverty reduction” (Ivi, 1189). Historical comparisons with the first decade of development programs, during the thirty years of the Keynesian embedded liberalism, allows the scholars to make some differences emerge. According to Ziai, comparing the UN International Development Strategy of 1970 and the Millennium declaration, it is possible to see how A chain of equivalences is established between the signifiers ‘development’, poverty reduction and economic growth […]. Conflicts of interests are hardly mentioned, resulting in a depoliticized view of the problem of global inequality. A global harmony of interests is seen as a consequence of increasing global interconnectedness and the ensuing mutually reinforcing relationship between development, security and human rights, leading to a re-conceptualisation of interests and identities […]. The most conspicuous element identified in the comparison is the predominance of efforts to regulate global trade as a strategy

24 However, it is also noteworthy saying that current features associated with globalization undermine development, as the growing polarization of incomes, the increasing amount of precarious jobs, the undermining of social cohesion and the debt crises in many countries during the Global Recession, have hugely demonstrated. 25 Here the reference is to the New International Economic Order, the partnership between the States of the South that in the 1970s in the aftermath of the decolonization and during the Cold War, demanded necessary reforms of the world economy along North/South lines, raising concerns on international economic disparities; cf. Falk R. (2005), On Humane Governance, Polity Press, Cambridge.

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to promote development in the [International Development Strategy], something which has almost disappeared in the MD. The numerous differentiations between ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ states as actors and their corresponding needs and obligations have also disappeared. The propose measures [in MD] are far more concerned with free trade than with intervening in the market mechanisms of the global economy in favor of peripheral countries or with reforming world order (Ziai, 2011, 41). Confronted by the Global Recession, the IFIs, the donor community, the OECD countries, start at least to interrogate themselves about the question of inequality, a topic that has been almost suppressed in the mainstream policy frameworks of these organisations during the nearly three decades of the neoliberal hegemony. Scholars argue that it is possible to assess three different hypothesis: a radical break, a smooth incorporation or a fundamental reform can be considered to be the possible result of the alleged paradigm shift away from the neoliberal hegemony. According to some scholars, there seem to be reasons to support the third hypothesis of a fundamental reform, starting from the Sustainable Development Goals declaration, wherefrom it is possible to extract the following program: Goal 10: ‘Reduce inequality within and among countries’ 10.1 By 2030 progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40% of the population at a rate higher than the national average. 10.2 By 2030 empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status 10.3 Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including through eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and actions in this regard. 10.4 Adopt policies especially fiscal, wage, and social protection policies and progressively achieve greater equality. 10.5 Improve regulation and monitoring of global financial markets and institutions and strengthen implementation of such regulations. 10.6 Ensure enhanced representation and voice of developing countries in decision making in global international economic and financial institutions in order to deliver more effective, credible, accountable and legitimate institutions. 10.7 Facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies (see Freinstein, Mahlert, 2016, 7). What is worthy pointing out here is that the opportunity to “improve regulation and monitoring of global financial markets and institutions”, figure within the objectives of the SDGs, marking a significant discontinuity in the face of the previous statements and program of the international development community. Furthermore, it is possible to say that: Against this background it is significant that the SDGs not only make inequality but also sustainability a central concern. Interdependencies are recognized to exist between the universalism of the goals, “their recognition of the finite nature of ecological resources and the salience of inequality issues. When development is perceived as development of the world, common resources may be understood as scarce and time for solutions as limited (e.g. with regard to climate change). As a consequence, development may not be realised by improving the situation of the have-nots without the haves losing their relative status. Thus formerly taboo topics such as global redistribution or relative deprivation in wealthy countries may now be addressed more systematically (Freinstein, Mahlert, 2016, 11). In this context, one may wonder whether or not the maintenance of the term ‘sustainable’, already ingrained in the ‘chain of equivalence’ constituted by the signifiers of good governance, development and, in the last decade, also of poverty reduction strategy, can be coherent with the alleged hypothesis of the fundamental reform. For instance, a leave from the narrative of MDG can be found as far as poverty ‘reduction’ is concerned, since the SDGs require to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere” whereas the MDGs were aimed to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty. The two scholars conclude that:

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Thus, even though we do not find unity in the understandings and assessments, there seems to be a new momentum in debates about inequality that is both already mirrored in the SDGs and which could, prospectively, support reform of underlying development ideas. Some of the earlier dissatisfaction with the MDGs has been addressed in the SDGs process, also with regard to prioritising inequality as an issue. With recent campaigns of ‘shared prosperity’ and ‘inclusive growth’, to name only two examples of concepts used by global development organizations to tackle economic inequalities, and many other initiatives on the agenda, there are chances for collective action (Ivi, 12). In this sense, it sounds promising the way in which the UNDP has addressed the question of inequality in a recent report on Inequality in Developing Countries wherein it seems to be a comprehensive view of inequality addressed both in its economic, social and cultural dimensions.26 It is noteworthy here to assess the alleged paradigm shift in the IFIs discourse, that is the World Bank (2013), the IMF (2014), along with the OECD (2011) (and the latter seems to be the more ‘sensitive’ to the ‘reasons’ of inequality). Let us here quote some relevant statement in an important OECD document.27 Starting from an awareness that: In OECD countries today, the average income of the richest 10% of the population is about nine times that of the poorest 10% – a ratio of 9 to 1. However, the ratio varies widely from one country to another. It is much lower than the OECD average in the Nordic and many continental European countries, but reaches 10 to 1 in Italy, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom; around 14 to 1 in Israel, Turkey, and the United States; and 27 to 1 in Mexico and Chile. The Gini coefficient, a standard measure of income inequality that ranges from 0 (when everybody has identical incomes) to 1 (when all income goes to only one person), stood at an average of 0.29 in OECD countries in the mid-1980s. By the late 2000s, however, it had increased by almost 10% to 0.316. Significantly, it rose in 17 of the 22 OECD countries for which long-term data series are available (Figure 1), climbing by more than 4 percentage points in Finland, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United States. Only Turkey, Greece, France, Hungary, and Belgium recorded no increase or small declines in their Gini Coefficients (OECD, 2011, 22). Then it maintains as follows: However, redistribution strategies based on government transfers and taxes alone would be neither effective nor financially sustainable. First, there may be counterproductive disincentive effects if benefit and tax reforms are not well designed. Second, most OECD countries currently operate under a reduced fiscal space which exerts strong pressure to curb public social spending and raise taxes. Growing employment may contribute to sustainable cuts in income inequality, provided the employment gains occur in jobs that offer career prospects. Policies for more and better jobs are more important than ever. […]. The new OECD work presented in this report shows that there is nothing inevitable about growing inequalities. Globalisation and technological changes offer opportunities but also raise challenges that can be tackled with effective and well-targeted policies. Regulatory reforms can be designed in such a way that they make markets more efficient and encourage employment while reducing inequalities at the same time. Labour market and social policies also need to be adapted to changing household structures. Policies for inclusive growth are required in the current situation. Any policy strategy to reduce the growing divide between the rich and poor should rest on three main pillars: more intensive human capital investment;28 inclusive employment promotion; and well-designed tax/transfer redistribution policies (Ivi, 22, 40, 41).

As far as the IMF is concerned, it is maintaining a position which can be considered in some way to be more ‘conservative’:

26 For a critical comment about the relationship between these dimensions, see beyond. 27 One of the most influential analysis on the topic of inequality, on which OECD relies on in its Report, has been carried out by Piketty, in a seminal work; see T. Piketty (2014), Capital in the 21st Century, Harvard University Press; cf. Stiglitz J. (2014), The Great Divide. Unequal Societies and What we can do about them, W. W. Norton & Company, New York-London. 28 Emphasis added.

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The equality seems to drive higher and more sustainable growth does not in itself support efforts to redistribute. In particular, inequality may impede growth at least in part because it calls forth efforts to redistribute that themselves undercut growth. In such a situation, even if inequality is bad for growth, taxes and transfers may be precisely the wrong remedy (IMF, 2014, 4).

Then it concludes:

Our main findings are: First, more unequal societies tend to redistribute more. It is thus important in understanding the growth-inequality relationship to distinguish between market and net inequality. Second, lower net inequality is robustly correlated with faster and more durable growth, for a given level of redistribution. These results are highly supportive of our earlier work. And third, redistribution appears generally benign in terms of its impact on growth; only in extreme cases is there some evidence that it may have direct negative effects on growth. Thus the combined direct and indirect effects of redistribution—including the growth effects of the resulting lower inequality—are on average pro-growth. While we should be cognizant of the inherent limitations of the data set and of cross-country regression analysis more generally, we should be careful not to assume that there is a big trade-off between redistribution and growth. The best available macroeconomic data do not support that conclusion (Ibidem).

Particularly remarkable is the contribution of World Bank on the topic of Inequality. In a detailed programmatic report, it provides a series of policy advices and ‘lessons’ to be learnt, to policy makers and researchers, whilst it entrusts to the public debate its findings on the subject matter of “exclusion”. The rationale of the document is positively defined, hence it asserts that “inclusion matters”. Social inclusion is then devoted to settle the foundations for “shared prosperity”.

What seems to emerge is that: inclusion and exclusion are defined in a very broad and comprehensive way (taking into account the problems of cultural, sexual, identity, ethnic discriminations), shifting the focus away from the question of income and economic redistribution, consequently; the connection between redistribution and regulatory policies has not been taken into account, since the word regulation is used only within the semantic of environmental policies (still very important) and the self-regulation and creativity (!) of individuals.

No place has been found to host the adjective macroeconomic (which is implied in the regulatory interventions). Instead, the semantics of human capital is given central stage in the WB discourse about social inclusion. Policy frameworks, knowledge-management (episteme), dissemination are considered to be the main asset in driving dramatic changes in contemporary world politics, otherwise, the World Bank warns, change will come anyway, if not “by design” but “by stealth”.

As far as outstanding ‘political’ and ‘social’ changes in world politics are concerned, the World Bank states that: “The Arab Spring may have been the most costly recent reaction to the exclusion of educated youth—from labor markets but also, and perhaps mainly, from political decision making and accountability. […]. Social inclusion matters for itself. But it also matters because it is the foundation for shared prosperity and because social exclusion is simply too costly29. There are substantial costs—social, political, and economic—to not addressing the exclusion of entire groups of people” (World Bank, 2013, 2).

Overall, the landscape wherein these findings and analysis are taken into examination, is ‘confined’ in the ‘third world’, partially neglecting the increasing degrees of social and economic exclusion ongoing within the western countries.

In this framework of reference, in the aftermath of the Global Recession it is possible to raise the following questions: what are the opportunities for the principles of equality and social justice to be realized, within a ‘globalized world’ wherein the hegemonic position of the Western countries is contested, new powerful actors have emerged and processes of fragmentation along geopolitical and geo-economic fault lines have been constantly growing? What will be then the potential to contest the neoliberal hegemony and to what extent, if ever, the episteme of neoliberalism is losing ground?

To us, there seems to have been some attempts by the multilaterals to address the overwhelming evidence of inequalities in OECD countries by managing paradoxically at the same time a move to paradigm shift within

29 Emphasis added.

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the macroeconomic and development policy framework, that which the concept of good governance exemplifies, and some, we may say (to date) stronger efforts to maintain the previous neoliberal paradigm.

In this sense, we can assert that the challenge to the neoliberal ‘chain of equivalence’ which includes good governance, poverty reduction, development, considered as the main ‘nodes’ in the conceptual network, has been launched with the entry of the topic of inequality within the neoliberal hegemonic narrative, but neither immediate nor broad seem to be the consequences on the rationale of the neoliberal policy frameworks of the IFIs .

7.1 Reclaiming Meaning through Reconfiguration: Is the Concept of Inequality Back in? Intention Denied?

By the way of picking up the threads of reasoning, we can start to reconsider, respectively, the main features in the discourse of our analytical ‘targets’, that is the WB and the IMF.

“In particular, can we find evidence that, on average, the negative growth effects of inequality outweigh any positive growth effects of the resulting reduction of inequality? (IMF, 2014, 6).

Along this line of reasoning, the IMF is drawing a sort of Pareto Frontier to establish the ‘rationality’ of the introduction and the implementation of redistributive reforms in view of reducing the impact of inequality on growth. In other words, the subject matter consists in assessing strengths and weaknesses, namely the costs and benefits of ensuing redistributive policies that is interventions within fiscal policies. We could argue that we confront here more or less the same underlying logic of an evaluation drawn in terms of the rational choices (we may say ‘business as usual’). For instance whenin the IMF maintain that “redistribution that takes from the rich and gives to the poor is likely to reduce the labour supply of both the rich (who are taxed more) and the poor (insofar as they receive means-tested benefits that reduce incentives to work)” (Ivi, 11), well then, does this means that the rationale of the neoliberal reform of the welfare states since the 1980s in the OECD countries and through SAPs elsewhere in the world, is still in act? Thus, some clues seem to emerge here in this regard.

We can re-read the text under a specific point of view, that allows us to shed lights at least on one point: ambiguity seems to underlie the rationale of the positions expressed by the IMF on the question of “redistribution, inequality and growth”, that is an outstanding manifestation of the fine art of “paradigm maintenance” against relevant socio-economic challenges.

Also, the catalogue of goals which are listed in the Sustainable Development Goals Declaration can be read in some way under the heading of ambiguity or at least some of its components parts, which are supposed to represent a way out from the ‘ghettoizing’ logic of the MDGs; a logic which confined the problem of poverty mainly in the Third World, neglecting the existence of inequalities within the First.

According to the critics there is a lack of “unity in the understandings and assessments” in this list, even if it can be considered particularly ambitious wherein it projects the adoption of fiscal policies and of wage and social protection policies with the aim to achieve greater equality, or to improve “regulation and monitoring of global financial markets and institutions” (see Goal 10.4 and 10.5 above). The case in point is that it lacks “any significant increase in the needed means of implementations”, that is “there are now so many goals and targets that developmental prioritization and focus may get lost […] [along with] a strong technocratic bias” (Sundaram, 2016, 32). The premise of sustainability on which the declaration is based on, figures emblematically as a buzzword of the sort. The “simplistic managerialism of many initiatives labelled ‘sustainable development’ left much to be desired […]” (Scoones, 2010, 158). And also, the “endless repackaging old initiatives as ‘sustainable” reveals at least the lack of progress on major targets, whilst in the case in point it calls into question the feasibility of the prospected fundamental reform of development objectives in force of the reinstatement of inequality instances within the discourse of international organizations.

OECD programmatically focuses on the policy remedies to social and economic challenges. The case in point is that of four main areas of intervention identified, that is “women’s participation in economic life, the employment promotion and the good quality job, skills and education, the tax-and-transfer systems for efficient

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redistribution” (OECD, 2015, 22). No misplaced claim here to address in a few words all the analytical trappings about that, but it is still possible to make a few comments. First, as far as the good quality of job, to lean on the “activation policies” is a way to restore the same policies which accompanied the austerity programmes during the Great Recession, that which is “more concerned with cutting welfare benefits, increasing conditionality for social benefits and pushing […] people toward workfare-type programmes”30. These concern policies of “job search assistance, labour incentives for employing the unemployed” (Ivi, 210) mainly in precarious or time labours. Secondly, even if it is programmed to tax “capital gains on bequeathed assets” in order to “effectively pursue the objctives of intergenerational social mobility and equality of opportunity” (OECD, 2015, 49), it is emphasized that “more generally, while effective social protection requires a strong and sustainable resource base, it does not necessarily mean that governments need to push up spending level.31 Ensuring the tax revenues are used efficiently means that social support measures need to be well targeted and implemented” (Ibidem). These positions seem to fit the rationale of the New Public Management reforms of the public sector that took form at the times of the onset of Neoliberalism almost thirty years ago.

Last but not least, herein figures also the World Bank with a remarkable instance of its mastery in the art of ‘epistemic’ management. The “intersectionality” of social exclusion, that is the lack of “recognition”,32 in the societal relations within different domains, that is social and cultural spheres, then not only or rather not mainly in the economic field. And it is here, we may say, that the specificity of the epistemic policy framework emerges. In that, the World Bank points out:

[…] even social exclusion is often lumped with the related concepts of poverty and inequality. Social inclusion may well be about reducing poverty – but it is often about more than poverty, and in some cases, it is not about poverty. Take the case of a homosexual man living in a rich neighborhood in any of several African countries. He may not be poor, but he is certainly excluded—and in some countries, at risk of death. Exclusion can intersect with poverty, deriving from a set of multiple, interrelated disadvantages that result in both economic and social deprivation […] Understanding that “the poor” are not one homogeneous mass but are rather differentiated on the basis of occupation, ethnicity, place of residence, or race is central to developing effective inclusive policies (World Bank, 2016,4).

And then continues as follows:

Social inclusion is also not the same as equality. The term social inclusion can add to the idea of equality, but much more importantly, it can explain why some inequalities exist or why some are particularly durable […]. There are many ways that people can achieve fuller participation and inclusion, even if they lack an equal share of resources. At the same time, even people at the higher end of the income distribution may face social exclusion through political persecution or discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation, or disability (Ibidem).

The economic dimension of inequality or, rather, of social exclusion substantially is not focused or, better, is disguised under the broader rubric of 'exclusion'.33 Based on these observations, we can raise here a salient 30 Cf. France A. (2016), Understanding Youth in the Global Economic Crisis, Policy Press, University of Bristol. 31 Accordingly OECD also maintain as follows: “Relying on taxing more and spending more as a response to inequality can only be a temporary measure. The only sustainable way to reduce inequality is to stop the underlying widening of wages and income from capital. In particular, we have to make sure that people are capable of being in employment and earning wages that keep them and their families out of poverty. This means that developed countries have to do much better in getting people into work, rather than relying on unemployment, disability and early retirement benefits, in keeping them in work and in offering good career prospects” (OECD, 2013, 3). 32 Herein the WB seems to refer to the politically correctness and even critical awareness in contemporary philosophical and sociological discourse, according to eminent authors such as Butler and Honneth who consider the intertwining of different dimensions of discrimination, cultural, sexual, racial but also economic, the latter being, we may say, neglected by the WB. This cannot be blamed, of course, but, as Nancy Fraser underlined, redistribution in turn cannot be displaced by “recognition”; cf. Lutz H., Vivar M., H., Supik, L. (eds), Framing Intersectionality, Routledge, London-New York; Fraser N. Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition, and Participation, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values,,Delivered at Stanford University, April 30–May 2, 1996, pp. 1-68. . 33 In the outline of the Report of the World Bank of 2006, significantly titled Development and Equality, we may read: “What is meant by equity? Equity is explicitly about normative concerns of fairness and social justice. There are many moral approaches to this. We currently plan to organize primarily around a conception of equality of opportunities, or, more broadly, equality in the capability (or freedom) of different individuals to pursue a life of their choosing.2 This will also take us to consider inequalities in recognition, where different groups (women, ethnic, caste etc.) face different opportunities owing to differences in their status, power and influence within a society. Equity in this sense generally does not imply equality in

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question: to which extent if ever, the Great Recession has had a ‘revolutionary’ impact on the IFIs discourse towards a reconfiguration of this discourse and then towards a paradigm shift in the policy orientation of the IFIs? Is it at least possible to think of a fundamental reform in the making?

According to some authors, what has emerged instead is the resilience of neoliberalism. “What remains of neoliberalism?”, claims Crouch, one of the most relevant scholars who coped with the concept of neoliberalism; “the answer must be”, he argues, “virtually everything” (Crouch, 2015, 179). In this sense, according to Mirowski, the resilience of neoliberalism can be considered to be the manifestation of the “systematic attempts to pump doubt and confusion into the public discourse; in other words, some ‘explanations’ of manifestations of the crisis and its aftermath have been launched as trial balloons not expressly for purposes of further test, judicious development, and elaboration by sanctioned professional economists or other intellectuals, but rather as calculated interventions in public discourse in order to buy time and frustrate any shared impressions of a few sharply delineated positions on a contentious issue”, in order to “stymie action” (Mirowski, 2014, 226, 227). “Agnotology” is recognized to be according to Mirowski this effective way of knowledge management apt to ensure the resilience of neoliberalism. And think tanks, influential scholars, politicians are deemed to be the bearers of this kind of epistemic knowledge- management.

8. Final remarks

Governance can be considered to be a “paradigm-generating concept”. It has been used to mark the onset of a new era of international politics, by identifying the rationale of globalization of macroeconomic policies. Also it has provided the conceptual instruments to designate and describe the watershed transformations of the State in the global age. We have reviewed here the evolution of the concept, the epistemic underpinnings on which is based on. The focus has been in particular on the normative features of good governance, as it is implied in the developmental discourse, which can be considered to be at the same time a pivotal and essentially contested concept. “Theory is always for someone and for some purpose”, according to the postmodern view of society and politics; no exception for the concept of governance, which quintessentially exemplifies the ‘positionality’ of knowledge and ‘theories’ in social life. In this sense, we have explained how the concept has been engendered within the episteme of the post cold war politics, marking a profound change in orientation in defining the relationship between the different social domains. According to our analytical focus on the lexicon of institutions, we have analysed the main features of the discourse of international financial organizations in defining governance and good governance.

Our focus on the performative features and the semantics of the concept, have lead us to problematize its usage and to regard it both as a tool and an objective of analysis. The complexity of the concept has emerged, since it is an ample signifier with different declinations, along with the attitude to overlap with other concepts such as the State, democracy, participation, market and civil society. The epistemic, normative and political implications of the concept have been explored under the rubric of the developmental policies. Within this semantic field, we have tried to assess the impact of the recovery of the concept of inequality considered as a dissonant signifier within the discourse of neoliberal good governance.

outcomes (such as in incomes or consumption)”. Thus equality of opportunity, capability and of recognition, no place for redistribution.

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