How Western states keep the lead in the World Bank: Multipolarity, Geopolitics and the World Bank's Conflicted Attempts at Shareholding Reform

Jakob Vestergaard () and Robert Wade
Additional contact information
Jakob Vestergaard: Roskilde University
Robert Wade: London School of Economics

No inetwp241, Working Papers Series from Institute for New Economic Thinking

Abstract: This paper examines the World Bank's protracted and conflicted attempts at shareholding reform from 2008 to the present, situating them within the broader context of multipolarity and intensifying geopolitical rivalries. Despite repeated commitments since the Bretton Woods conference that voting power should reflect countries' relative weight in the world economy, the Bank's governance remains strikingly misaligned. China, India, and Indonesia—three of the four most populous countries—remain markedly underrepresented relative to their economic size, while many advanced economies retain disproportionate influence.Drawing on interviews with Executive Directors, Bank staff, and external observers, the paper traces the reform trajectory across successive rounds of review (2008, 2010, 2015, 2018, 2020, and the ongoing 2025 process). It highlights how technical proposals for "dynamic formulas" and equitable redistribution have consistently collided with entrenched geopolitical interests, notably U.S. resistance to a meaningful increase in China’s voting power, European reluctance to relinquish single-seat privileges, and Japan’s determination not to be overtaken by China. At the same time, institutional design—particularly the constitutionalized principle of “preemptive rights” in capital increases—has entrenched inertia by allowing any shareholder to veto dilution of its relative voting share. The result is a widening gap between rhetoric and reality: while official discourse stresses "equitable voting power," actual reforms have delivered only fractional adjustments, often eroded in subsequent years. The paper sets out three scenarios for the 2025 shareholding review—a worst-case outcome of stalemate, a modest reform limited to symbolic gestures, and a best-case scenario involving a new institutional design based on misalignment limits, responsible shareholding, and open leadership selection. We argue that unless substantive reform is forthcoming, the Bank risks undermining its legitimacy as the world’s premier development finance institution in an increasingly multipolar world.

Keywords: World Bank reform; Equitable voting power; geopolitics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F53 F55 O19 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2025-09-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna and nep-sea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.36687/inetwp241 First version, 2025 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:thk:wpaper:inetwp241

DOI: 10.36687/inetwp241

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers Series from Institute for New Economic Thinking Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Pia Malaney ().