Dustin Schäfer - dissertation project, publications

Dissertation project: Institutional accountability mechanisms from a postcolonial global economic governance research perspective

In 1993, the Inspection Panel (IP) was set up by the World Bank (WB) in response to civil society protest over the negative consequences of the Sardar-Sarovar dam project. Since then, the IP has allowed individuals who are negatively affected by WB-funded projects to file complaints against the WB through an institutional process. Almost all development banks have followed this example by setting up similar Institutional Accountability Mechanisms (IAMs).

Even though the complaints are not legally binding, research on IAMs show evermore often that local project impacts are contrary to the proclaimed project goals. Moreover, IAMs proved their potential to add local project impacts on the institutional and political agenda of involved Development Banks. However, their institutional embeddedness limits their scope of action.

Based on this, the project examines the possibilities and limits of IAMs to trigger institutional action in response to filed complaints. The extent to which IAMs succeed in initiating institutional learning that goes beyond the project implementation is explored regarding potential obstacles resulting from institutional structures and processes.

Thus, the project is located at the intersections of Development Research, Global Economic Governance Research and Postcolonial Studies. The aim of the project is therefore to provide a scientific contribution to development policy practices with regard to the implementation of institutional accountability. In the form of critical policy analysis, the project addresses articulation and representation forms of liberal governance and aims to develop guidelines for a postcolonial organizational-research agenda.

Publications

Schäfer, Dustin (2019): Entwicklungspolitisch verursachter Vertreibung begegnen. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen institutioneller Rechenschaftspflicht am Beispiel des Inspection Panels der Weltbank, in:
PERIPHERIE 2-2019 (Heft 154/155) | Vertreibung durch Entwicklungsprojekte: https://shop.budrich-academic.de/produkt/peripherie-2-2019-heft-153-154-vertreibung-durch-entwicklungsprojekte/?v=3a52f3c22ed6

Teachings

Teaching in Summer Semester 2019: Seminar - The Inspection Panel of the World Bank

The introduction of the World Bank's Inspection Panel, the first complaints mechanism of multilateral development banks, was seen as a major step towards greater accountability of international organizations. Since 1994, people who are negatively affected by World Bank-financed projects and fear that this may occur have been able to submit a complaint to
demand a review of the environmental and social standards.
This two-semester project seminar focuses on independent research into complaints investigated by the Inspection Panel. For example, a complaint may relate to an infrastructure project where people have been resettled or displaced. Overarching issues to be addressed in this seminar are: can the Inspection Panel live up to expectations for greater accountability at
the World Bank? What impact do the complaints have on the World Bank's development practice? What impact has the introduction of the Inspection Panel had on other development banks? In the first semester, there will be an in-depth examination of the World Bank itself: its history, institutional structure and decision-making mechanisms, as well as the criticism and protests it has triggered. In the second semester, the focus is on the structure and function of the Inspection Panel and the complaints it deals with.

Teaching in Winter Semester 2017: Seminar - Protest and Reform in the Global Political Economy from the Perspective of a Postcolonial Political Science

Using postcolonial concepts, the seminar deals with the effects of global protest movements since the 1990s on institutional reforms in the global political economy. The neoliberal globalization of the economy led to a new global protest movement in the 1990s due to its negative social, political and ecological consequences. This manifested itself in the numerous
protests against the institutions of global economic economy, above all the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization (as in Geneva 1998, Seattle 1999, Prague 2000 or Genoa 2001), but also in the Peoples' Global Action (PGA) network, in
the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre or in attac. On the basis of intensive literature studies, we examine the effects of this protest by analyzing selected reforms in the three organizations mentioned above.