Abstract
Drawing on literature on critical constructivism, historical institutionalism and philosophy of law, this chapter identifies that customary discursive narratives on the idea of “modern development” at the World Bank and the IMF, entail severe flaws that can only be grasped by suggesting a theoretical framework to address the sociological background, power structure, and the fundamental historical biographical periods of these organizations. In this approach, the task of defining the meaning of discursive interventions on the public debate must merge the role that settings, interests, cognitive abridgments, and overall perspectives overlap conflictively in asymmetric structures of authority. The attempt to present this framework is to make use of a theoretical standpoint from which narratives entrenched on normative interventions at the Bretton Woods Institutions can be grasped coherently in the public debate.