Protecting Power: How Western States Retain The Dominant Voice in The World Bank’s Governance

SummaryThe global economic crisis raised the urgency of reforming the Bretton Woods organizations in order to get more “buy in” from developing countries. But the “voice” reforms announced in 2010, heralded as a major shift in favor of developing countries, left them severely under-represented relative to their weight in the world economy, both collectively and many individually. This paper reveals how the World Bank and representatives of western states manipulated the process to make voting power changes appear substantial. The paper then discusses alternative voting power systems for the Bank, in light of the generally accepted need to enhance the legitimacy of the organization.