"The World Bank's Risk Management Approach to Poverty as a Form of Neoliberal Governmentality? The Case of ""The Social Risk Mitigation Project"" in Turkey"

I aim to go beyond describing the unintended consequences of the project and answer the question of why these unintended consequences matter. I argue that outcomes that might appear as side effects of an intervention to alleviate poverty might, according to another perspective, be considered as unintended but instrumental elements in the formation of a configuration that exerts a depoliticizing effect. These outcomes, although not planned or intended, have all been instrumental in depoliticizing poverty and the poor in the country. However, my study of the case of the SRMP also demonstrates that while there is depoliticization at one level, we can also see repoliticization taking place at another level. While the consequence of the project at the level of the recipients has been a depoliticization, what happened at the level of the state officials can be considered as an instance of repoliticization. Both the officials working in the central government institution, SYDGM, but especially the officials working in the local SYDVs became resistant against the World Bank and the upper level administrators who make the decisions to borrow from the World Bank. I also consider what the unintended consequences of this project mean for the World Bank. Although to the general public, the project was presented in a very positive light, if we consider the millions of people who were actually involved in the project whether as implementers or recipients, for many of them, this is either money coming from a source that they do not identify or money they receive irregularly after going through a burdensome process. Not only for these recipients, but also for the local implementers of the project and the state officials who are working in the related state agencies, this project certainly has not created a positive image of the World Bank. This will, without doubt, have negative consequences for the implementation of other World Bank projects in the future.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Yilmaz-Sener, Meltem

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gille, Zsuzsa

• Political Science, International Law and Relations

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3430915

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/86234