Grabel: Policy Coherence or Conformance?

Grabel, I. 2007. Policy Coherence or Conformance? The New World Bank International Monetary Fund World Trade Organization Rhetoric on Trade and Investment in Developing Countries. Review of Radical Political Economics 39, no. 3: 335.

Policy coherence is explored in this article. It is argued that the term has been abused, and that much of what it is referred to would be better suited by the term "conformance".

"This article has three objectives: (a) to define the concept of coherence and trace its usage in policy debates historically and up to the present; (b) to explore how the concept is being institutionalized or codified through cooperation among the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade organization...and through recent bi-and multilateral trade agreements; and (c) to offer the beginnings of a critique of what I see as the use and abuse of the concept. I will argue that the concept of coherence today is code for another and altogether different goal: policy conformance" (336).

These three institutions have worked together to promote trade liberalization in such a coherent way that they may end up working against their original mandates. This is completed partially through the at least tacit, if not explicit, approval of the US.

Coherence should be a concept with no explicit telos, but the policies implemented by these institutions have all ended up moving in a very explicitly direction. "Properly understood, policy coherence should entail an understanding of the uniqueness of diverse national contexts; of path dependence, institutional embeddedness, and stickiness; recognition that there exists multiple paths to development; and respect for national policy space" (340).