The World Bank as Social Environment: The Origins of Conditionality in the EU-ACP Relations

This article focuses on one of the most salient aspects of the EU-ACP relations, namely the conditionality of aid assistance and it traces the origins of conditionality in the influence of the neoliberal doctrine widespread within the World Bank. The analysis of the World Bank as a social environment bolstered by the use of cognitive mapping of assertions of European officials and official documents is used to appraise the functioning of the microprocesses of socialisation. Accordingly, with a structure-centred constructivist approach this article argues that the EU development policy toward the ACP countries was influenced by the conceptions and practices within the World Bank. Nevertheless, the novelty of the approach utilised here is the focus on the mechanisms of propelling of the socialised norms and doctrines rather than their content: a thorough analysis of the microprocesses of socialisation is applied to the World Bank. The acknowledgment of the origins of the conditionality, which has become typical of the EU’s development policy, is crucial in order to appreciate the history and the future of the relations between the EU and its former colonies.