The political economy scholarship has highlighted the emergence of the de-risking state. Daniela Gabor, in particular, has argued that the developing state has evolved to one based on the neoliberal, de-risking rationality of the Wall Street Consensus, the new logic of statecraft where the state is reimagined as a handmaiden for private capital; a ‘divine coincidence’ that subjugates developmental goals for ‘reliable private profits’. However, the literature has not interrogated whether the de-risking Wall Street Consensus has extended past the confines of the state. Indeed, the political economy scholarship has experienced a resurgent interest in the state, arguably to the exclusion of international institutions that have been seen as less relevant as our multi-polar and cosmopolitan global community appears to be in a state of precipitous decline. This paper fills this gap and analyses the work of premier international financial and development institutions, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Investment Bank, and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, and argues for their continued importance for the global political economy, and for their central role in deploying the de-risking Wall Street Consensus. The paper argues that these institutions have engaged in widespread de-risking since the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals, combining the imperatives of risk-management and that of mobilizing private capital together. These interventions have not only been confined to ‘normal’ development paradigms, but have expanded across the full gamut of Global Public Goods that the international financial institutions have eagerly expanded into, such as in climate change, conflict, and health. Indeed, the foundational Bretton Woods sisters (the World Bank and IMF) have been particularly focused on the de-risking of private investment in conflict-affected and climate change contexts, by instituting the ‘Cascade Approach’ that prominently catalysed ‘downstream’ reforms to actively de-risk any context for private business, via guarantees, Public–Private Partnerships, concessions, and subsidies. This paper aims to add to the political economy literature on the Wall Street Consensus, by studying the de-risking work of prominent international financial institutions and urge for the continued relevance of multilateral institutions.
