(Economic) Development and the Rule of Law

Abstract

<p>The “rule of law” is a relatively recent addition to the development project.1 Only after the end of the 1980s, when the Cold War was over, history had ended,2 and three worlds had putatively become “one,” did it also become commonsensical for law, institutions and “governance” to be understood as integral to “development.”3 Since that time, not only have developmental institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and regional development banks explicitly taken up promotion of the rule of law as a core aspect of their mandates, but a significant marketplace of international, transnational, government, and domestic actors has emerged.4 The result is a multi-billion dollar industry that is centrally concerned with “the rule of law” as instrument, end, and indicator of “development,” positioned at the heart of state-making more broadly.</p>