Why write another book about the World Bank?

Many studies have been conducted and books have been written over the past few decades about the World Bank, which I refer to from here on as ‘the Bank’. But what has been written about up to now has largely missed a critical issue. Writers have been concerned mainly, and justifiably, with the Bank's external role within world development, that is, its political economy, its place within the process of globalization, the character of its lending, to whom it lends, what conditions it imposes, how far it accounts for socioeconomic concerns such as the natural environment, the kind of advice it gives, and, most recently, who should own it. This study, without ignoring the wealth of wider issues, looks at the Bank as an organization. That is, is it configured organizationally to do the job it is supposed to do and, if not, what should be done about it? In particular, the question is whether the reorganizations that have taken place over about the past twenty years have made the Bank more capable of doing the job it is supposed to do, as they have each laid claim. This book is thus about the problems of organization and reorganization as much as it is about the problems of assisting third-world development, and perhaps it would serve as a case study in organizational reform as much as a critique of the way development assistance is conceived and managed.