Why the World Bank?
The Bank is a critical case for the study of organized hypocrisy and change if only because its “talk” and “action” have a profound influence on the theory and practice of global development. Since its rather humble beginnings sixty years ago, the World Bank Group27 has grown from an original staff of seventy-two people, all located in Washington, D.C., to a current staff of over ten thousand located at the Washington headquarters and in over one hundred country offices. In its first six years of lending (1947–52), the Bank issued loans totaling less than $1.4 billion (approximately $12.6 billion in 2006 dollars),28 whereas in the last fifteen years the Bank has averaged nearly $22 billion per year.29 Furthermore, in the first ten years of its existence, the Bank issued loans almost exclusively for reconstruction in Europe and other infrastructure projects, including sector lending in electrical power, transportation, industry, and agricultural and forestry. By the 1990s, the scope of
