The New Global Order of Poverty Management

全球正在为减轻贫困而作出巨大努力。从联合国的千年发展目标（Millennium Development Goals），到世界银行（World Bank）将自己重塑为一个“更友善、更温和”的机构的努力，再到“让贫困成为历史”（Make Poverty History）等各种运动，一个全球贫困政策体系正在形成。该项目将研究全球贫困议程，重点研究三个问题：1)什么是扶贫的主导思想，为什么是扶贫的主导思想？这些形式的专业知识是如何复制或改变全球权力地理的？2)新的发展模式是否构成与以往发展模式的决裂？扶贫框架如何处理市场、资本主义和财富积累？3)新的全球贫困管理秩序如何维持或重新配置地缘政治，特别是主要设在美国的发展机构与发展中国家之间的关系？该项目采用个案研究方法，重点关注小额信贷部门，这是目前在全球流行的最受欢迎的扶贫和性别赋权政策之一。为了调查这一全球部门，该项目使用了“全球政策链分析”，即分析华盛顿特区发展机构产生的知识和实践如何通过援助交易在全球范围内获得权威和传播。该项目将这些流通和交易建立在三个主要的地理位置：华盛顿特区是发展资本和权力的节点；孟加拉国是小额信贷理念的起源地，现在是挑战华盛顿产生的理念的大型非政府组织（ngo）的所在地；以及中东战略国家，如埃及和黎巴嫩，在9-11之后，美国花费了大量的发展资源，以确保该地区的穷人融入全球经济。通过访谈、小组研究、非参与性观察、档案研究、制度历史和政策分析，该项目将展示全球贫困议程是如何确立的以及如何受到质疑的。在此过程中，它将通过“发展资本”的独特视角研究全球化，即通过世界银行、非政府组织、基金会、游说团体、咨询公司、公司慈善事业等国际发展机构进行积累的循环。该项目将对有关全球贫困议程的公开辩论产生更广泛的影响。在终结贫困呼声高涨的今天，本项目分析了扶贫理念之争，指出了不同扶贫模式的优势和局限性。此外，虽然该项目是对权力地理的研究，但它也揭示了发展机制中存在的可协商性空间。这些问题对于以实践为导向的社区，如全球倡导团体、决策者和议程设置基金会来说，具有迫切的重要性。这些问题在全球化与发展的教学、培养新一代的全球公民以及鼓励他们与强大的机构接触方面也具有重要意义。

A great global effort is underway to alleviate poverty. From the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations to the World Bank's efforts to recreate itself as a "kinder and gentler" institution to various campaigns such as Make Poverty History, a global regime of poverty policies is taking shape. This project will study the global poverty agenda with an emphasis on three research questions: 1) What and why are the dominant ideas of poverty alleviation? How do these forms of expertise reproduce or alter global geographies of power? 2) Does the new paradigm of development constitute a break with previous models of development? How does the framework of poverty alleviation deal with markets, capitalism, and wealth accumulation? 3) How does the new global order of poverty management maintain or reconfigure geopolitics, notably the relationship between development institutions, which are mainly based in America, and developing countries? The project uses a case-study methodology, focusing on the microcredit sector, one of the most popular poverty alleviation and gender empowerment policies now in vogue across the world. In order to investigate this global sector, the project uses "global policy chain analysis," i.e. an analysis of how knowledge and practices produced in the development institutions of Washington D.C. are rendered authoritative and disseminated globally through transactions of aid. The project grounds these circulations and transactions in three primary geographical sites: Washington D.C. as a node of development capital and power; Bangladesh, from where the microcredit idea originated and which is now home to massive non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that challenge the ideas produced in Washington D.C.; and strategic Middle East countries like Egypt and Lebanon where, after 9-11, the US is expending considerable development resources in order to ensure integration of the region's poor into the global economy. Using interviews, panel study, non-participant observation, archival research, institutional histories and policy analysis, the project will demonstrate how the global poverty agenda is established as well as contested. In doing so, it will study globalization through the unique lens of "development capital" the circuits of accumulation that run through international development institutions such as the World Bank, NGOs, foundations, lobbying groups, consulting firms, corporate philanthropy.The project will have broader impacts that relate to the public debate about the global poverty agenda. At a time when there are calls for an end to poverty, the project analyzes the battle of ideas over poverty-alleviation and indicates the strengths and limitations of different models of poverty-alleviation. In addition, while the project is a study of geographies of power, it also brings to light the spaces of negotiability that exist within the apparatus of development. Such issues are of urgent importance to practice-oriented communities such as global advocacy groups, policymakers, and agenda-setting foundations. Such issues are also of significance in the teaching of globalization and development, in training a new generation of global citizens, and in inspiring them to engage with powerful institutions.