The World Bank as a Transnational Expertised Institution

The World Bank has become an expertised transnational institution and thus subject to the problems of expertise identified by social studies of science. The legitimacy and credibility of the Bank's expertise is drawn through a circular process between the knowledge it produces and the audiences that legitimize that knowledge. Untangling such circularity is crucial because global poverty and development are not simple social facts awaiting to be described or predicted. Given that processes of knowledge formation and the institutionalization of expertise are in themselves political exercises, the Bank's knowledge shapes global governance. This article calls for constructive engagement of academics on the way knowledge is produced and distributed by global institutions.