Description
Book Synopsis'The World Bank needs India more than India needs it.' So goes an emerging consensus on both sides of the relationship between the Bank and its largest borrower. This book analyzes the politics of aid and influence. The Bank, struggling to remain relevant amid India’s recent rapid growth and expanding access to private capital, has been caught up in a complex federal politics of reform and development. India’s central government - far from being in retreat - has been the main driver of dramatic changes in the Bank’s assistance strategy, leading toward a focus at the sub-national state level.
Trade Review‘Since the World Bank’s inception in 1944, India has been its largest borrower. Jason Kirk’s lucid study charts the dynamics and evolution of this relationship, focusing on the period after 1991, when India’s economic reforms firmly took hold. […] Kirk’s careful and well-written account will profit scholars of South Asia, the political economy of federalism, and international financial institutions. Policy-makers should also find much to ponder.’ —Gareth Nellis, Yale University, ‘Contemporary South Asia’
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Understanding the Bond between the World Bank and its Largest Borrower; The First Half-Century: From Bretton Woods to India's Liberalization Era; Remaining Relevant: The World Bank's Strategy for an India of States; Reasserting Central Government Control, Reorienting Aid toward "Lagging States"; A Bittersweet "Graduation" from Aid: can IDA Hold on to India, and Will India Let It? Commencement: India's Changing Relationship to Global Development Assistance; Notes; Bibliography; Index
