| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines the political processes that gave rise to the antipoverty norm—the normative principle that poverty is morally wrong and must be eradicated. It traces the origins of this norm to a critical juncture in the 1990s when the end of the Cold War ushered in a euphoric moment. Despite proclamations of the “end of history,” crises loomed large on the international stage where governance structures of an earlier era seemed like ancient relics no longer capable of managing problems of a new world order. As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were attacked for conditionalities attached to their structural adjustment loans, the UN was overwhelmed with competing peacekeeping missions. Declining foreign aid and increasing conflicts relegated development to a lower rung of importance. As official development assistance fell, donor countries found themselves debating the future of development assistance and their role within it. Thus, international organizations created after World War II found themselves reflecting on their relevancy in a world that differed from the one that had given rise to them. In this moment of reflection, poverty was deployed as a strategic response to international institutions' varying crises of relevancy. In that process, instead of seriously critiquing and reforming extant global governance structures, the convergence of international institutions on poverty resulted in a reinvention of development orthodoxy while maintaining the status quo.
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