Structural adjustment, state power & genocide: the World Bank & Rwanda

The Rwandan genocide of 1994 has been partly attributed by some commentators to state weakness or collapse, and the weakness or collapse has in turn been partly attributed to the policies of the World Bank and the IMF. Neither argument is valid, and to advance them is to misunderstand the extent to which state power is a persistent and potent force in Africa and elsewhere, and also the extent to which the World Bank and IMF buttress that power (despite their own rhetoric of ‘rolling back’ the state). The first section of this article outlines the centrality of state power to an analysis of Rwanda in general and of the preparations for genocide in particular, while the following section demonstrates how the World Bank lent material and discursive support to a repressive and ultimately genocidal state apparatus. The concluding section offers some explanation of why the World Bank adopts such policies.