Appraising a post-Washington paradigm: What Professor Rodrik means by policy reform

This essay critically reviews an important new school of thought in the 'post-Washington' era, that of Professor Dani Rodrik and his collaborators. The review first provides some background on the substantive differences between the Washington Consensus and more heterodox development paradigms, such as Robert Wade's East Asian revisionism. The paper then outlines Rodrik's own developmental vision, which could be termed a third way inasmuch as it borrows elements from both orthodox and heterodox schools of thought, yet disagrees with some of the central underpinnings of both. The remainder of the paper then critically assesses some key elements of this alternative vision, especially Rodrik's institutionalist revision of the existing growth evidence, his call for greater democratization as a universal institutional reform and his proposed changes to the way in which technocrats should formulate policy advice in a post-Washington era.