Re-upping this point, with another thread below.
https://twitter.com/nils_gilman/status/1149002215102849024
“Structural adjustment” is usually understood narrowly to mean the conditional lending programs, imposed on poor countries (usually amid debt crises) in order to get them to agree to the reforms which by 1990 became known as "the Washington Consensus."
But a fuller understanding of the global history of "structural adjustment" would have to go well beyond this, to include three additional crucial stories.
First, it would need to also include a chapter on the various “shock therapy” regimes that were imposed on post-communist countries (especially in Eastern Europe) in the 1990s, which were also meant to impose "structural adjustment" on these governments, economies & societies.
Second, it would also need to cover the “austerity” programs that were imposed (especially on Southern European countries) by the ECB in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Third, this history would need to be framed as absolutely central to the China’s development strategy -- which, in a nutshell, has been above all designed to ensure that outsiders would *never, ever* be able to impose "conditionality" on it.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
