Introduction

The World Bank established a set of stringent environmental policies for international development lending after environmentalists challenged its environmental impact in the 1980s (Gutner 2002; Park 2005b; Rich 1994; Wade 1997). Collectively these policies and the ideas underpinning them constitute a global safeguard policy norm that conveys legitimized, institutionalized practices for international development lenders. This chapter traces the arc of the Bank's safeguard policy norm through three stages: from its emergence in the 1980s, through to its stabilization in the 1990s, to possible decline in the 2000s. First, the chapter examines how and why the World Bank established the safeguard policy norm through internal innovation, policy sharing and, catalytically, from environmental non-governmental organizations' (NGOs) and industrialized member states' pressure. Second, the chapter details how the policy norm stabilized in the 1990s even as each individual policy was modified as a result of environmentalist, industry and member state engagement. Third, the decline of the safeguard policy norm is posited as a result of the Bank's 2005 Middle Income Strategy and shift towards a Country Systems Approach (CSA).