Name: ​Soler Jerez, Ana

SOAS ID: ​618859

Degree Programme: ​MSc Development Studies

Course: ​Gender and Development

Assignment no 2

Seminar tutor: ​Colette Harris

Has microcredit been beneficial or harmful for women?

Has it empowered women in Bangladesh?

Submission date:​ 5th January 2015

Word count: ​49​19

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1a. Introduction: Bangladesh more than thirty years of microfinance

In order to examine the impact of microcredit (MC) and its potential benefits or damages for

women this paper will consider the case of Bangladesh. From 1990, this country has seen a

tremendous increase in MC as a policy to alleviate poverty, empower women, increase

economic growth and improve other development indicators. In 1999 thirteen million of people

participated in these programmes, 81% of them women. The quantity disbursed by the

Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) was US$400 million. Surprisingly, in 2008 there were thirty

million of Bangladeshi enrolled in one of the 576 MFIs existent, which dispensed around US$1.8

billion in total. In this context, one might think that the incredible rise of MCs in Bangladesh

would be justified by the undeniable efficiency of MC as a powerful empowerment tool.

Accordingly, there is an extensive literature around MC which claims its advantages and

positive effects on the population of this country, particularly for women. Nevertheless, there are

also critical voices which heavily criticise MC outcomes and its inability to empower women.

The intention of this essay is to examine to what extent MC has been beneficial for women in

Bangladesh regarding the level of empowerment achieved by women. This paper will argue

that, although microfinance has improved women’ conditions in absolute terms rising their

opportunities to access to economic resources and improving their self-respect, it has not

empowered them. MC neither has fostered a change in gender relations and social

constructions in the Bangladeshi society, nor has it enhanced an improvement in women’s

decision-making level. Moreover, this essay will discuss that the lack of policies to include men

as necessary agents of social change is one of the main weaknesses of MC. On the other hand,

neoliberalism and its relation with microfinance will be analyzed, claiming the utilization of MC

by this ideology to empower women as a way to address problems created by neoliberal

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policies. This paper will proceed as follows. Firstly, it will briefly describe the concept of women’s

empowerment and its main ideological underpinnings. Secondly, it will analyze the reasons of

women’s adherence to traditional norms in Bangladesh and the need of MC. Thirdly, this essay

will address a critical analysis of the level of empowerment achieved taking into account the

change in gender relations and the degree of women’s decision-making fostered by MC.

Fourthly, it will criticise the lack of inclusion of men in empowerment policies. Lastly, it will

analyse the link between MC and neoliberalism.

1b. ​Definition of empowerment

The concept of empowerment was born in the 1980s when feminists advocated for a

transformation of patriarchal societies. Empowerment implied a process that would challenge

patriarchy itself together with other structures such as class and race (Kabeer, 2005). It was

considered to be a participatory and collective process where individuals and social groups of

women could change the dominant power relations. As determined in 1992 by South Asian

women and development organizations, three main aspects defined empowerment: “challenging

the ideologies that justify social inequality [...], changing prevailing patterns of access to and

control over economic, natural, and intellectual resources, and [...] transforming the institutions

and structures that reinforce and sustain existing power structures” (Batliwala, 2007, p. 115).

Nevertheless, the idea of empowerment has undergone an unfortunate shift in meaning

throughout the years. As a result of its instrumentalization, it has been applied as a miraculous

prescription to end poverty. As claimed by some authors, it has evolved into a buzzword that

has embedded the narrow idea that empowerment is the end itself, rather than a goal to fulfil

other objectives (Batliwala, 2007; Anyidoho and Cornwall, 2010). As asserted by Prügl and

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Lustgarten “treating gender as a cross-cutting issue has become a threat to organizational

spaces that have made women’s empowerment their primary goal” (2006, p. 59). Generally

speaking, the current international trend of prioritising women’s and girls’ through empowerment

actions in gender mainstreaming neither has shifted social constructions nor it has incorporated

men and boys as vital agents to change the essential foundations of gender inequalities. In the

case of Bangladesh, the level of empowerment of MC will be analyzed along this study.

1c. ​Women and microcredit in Bangladesh

Women in Bangladesh are constrained by social, cultural and economic norms under the rules

of purdah and other and practices based on patrilineal inheritance and “patrilocal residence”

(Hashemi et al, 1996). As a “complex institution” purdah includes a series of limitations which

foster patriarchy and subordination to men ​(​Kelkar ​et al​, 2004). It restrains women in the

productive and reproductive realm of their lives. Not only does it rules aspects of women’s

everyday lives as clothes, their appearance in public spaces and their mobility, but it also

determines economic aspects of their lives, preventing them from getting involved in market

transactions and producing their own incomes (Hashemi et al, 1996). In addition, these social

constraints determine gender relations, conferring power and authority to men, who have to

procure women’s needs, and assigns a subordinated role to women (Kelkar ​et al​, 2004).

Women are “protected” at the same time that access to resources is denied to them in favour of

men. The restrictions and control of these norms isolate women and impede them exerting a

real agency over their lives (Mahmud, 2003).

In this context, MC was designed as a tool to alleviate poverty and achieve equality between

men and women in the Bangladeshi society, especially among women who, due to their low

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status, were rejected by formal credit organizations (Hunt and Kasynathan, 2001). Grameen

Bank, one of the largest microfinance non-governmental organizations, is internationally

renowned. According to his founder, giving loans to women is an efficient mean to empower

them (Yunnus, 1994 cited in Rahman, 1999). Women’s ​empowerment is one of the objectives

informing the bank’s lending policy of offering small loans to groups of women in the community,

in return for small interest repayments (Kabeer, 2001). ​It is grounded in the ​assumption that

enhancing women’s access to credit will drive social change and transformation (Hashemi ​et al,​

1996).

Nevertheless, ​this tenet assumes that the empowerment of rural women in Bangladesh has

direct outcomes in their families and children (Rahman, 1999). Women’ priorities are household

necessities other than themselves (Masud Ahmed, 2001). It can be argued that this assumption

perpetuates gender stereotypes which consider women as careful and responsible mothers and

men as individualist beings. It appears that women are targeted in MCs as the solution to

poverty due to her reliability and capacity of sacrifice, burdening them with one more

responsibility: releasing their family from poverty. Thus, are microfinance empowering for

women if it assumes that the responsibility of alleviating poverty in the Bangladeshi society

correspond exclusively to women?

2a. Microfinance: an undeniable benefit but is empowerment one of them​?

Even the most critical scholars recognize that generally speaking, MC has improved women’s

autonomy, reducing their level of dependence of men as providers (Goetz and Gupta, 1996;

Hunt and Kasynathan, 2001; Rahman, 1999)​. Goetz and Gupta, accepted in an exhaustive

study that although microfinance did not imply a change in gender relations and women still

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lacked control of household incomes, MCs had undeniable benefits (Goetz and Gupta, 1996).

On one hand, it has often been observed that the increase of incomes benefits not only women

but also their children in “​health, nutritional, and educational” aspects (Ibid.). Besides, there can

be no doubt that women’s self-respect and self-confidence is widely improved when their

incomes rise and so does her contribution to their family well-being. ​On the other hand,

Hashemi, Schuler and Riley, remark that women’s access to loans has led to them making a

higher economic contribution within the household, a higher level of independence in terms of

mobility and public exposition and a major engagement in the decision making process (1996).

Income-generating opportunities have certainly improved women’s well-being, leading even to a

higher use of contraceptive methods (ibid.)

It is generally accepted that there is a direct connection between women gaining access to

credit and the improvement of their status (Hunt and Kasynathan, 2001). In words of

Mohammad Yunus, Grameen Bank’s founder, “low income, more credit, more investment, more

income” (cited in Datta, 2004, 56-57). Therefore, it might be suggested by microfinance

advocates that microcredit unquestionably empower women thanks to improving their economy.

However, as posed by Goetz and Gupta, does it mean that women are empowered because

their “demonstrated capacity to invest loans profitably”? (1996, p. 47). Women’s empowerment

seems to be automatically achieved when women have access to economic opportunities.

However, although some authors claim that access to credit undoubtedly empowers women,

this assumption should be analyzed carefully. Empowerment as a multi-faceted process has to

imply not only a substantial change in the access to economic resources, but also the challenge

of gender and social norms that foster inequality in society. Empowerment entails “the ability to

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make choices” (Kabeer, 2005) not only in the productive sphere but also in the reproductive

realm of women’s lives.

Therefore, the analysis of MCs’ efficiency ought to address the level of improvement in women’s

ability to “gain{...} power over strategic life decisions” (Ibid.). An improvement in the level of

empowerment means that a shift in gender relations and the division of labour has been

achieved as well as an increase of women’s agency level. In that case a decrease in the degree

of submission to men will be observed. The next section will analyse if any of these indicators

has been achieved as a consequence of MC programmes.

2b. ​Have gender relations and the level of decision-making changed due to MC?

It has often been claimed that microfinance has led to a shift in gender constraints in

Bangladesh, due to the fact that women have a major access to economic resources (Kelkar ​et

al​, 2004). It could be also argued that subordination to men has been reduced. For microcredit

advocates, access to credit means that women are able to invest in their own businesses and

therefore it “automatically increases their status within the household” (Hunt and Kasynathan,

2001, p. 44). However, there is actually some evidence that proves that this hypothesis is quite

simplistic. Mayoux, named a series of difficulties faced by women who participate in credit

programmes which do not contribute to their empowerment, such as limitations in the control of

the loans, the low impact of women’s incomes and restrictions for their participation (1999, cited

in Mahmud, 2003).

Indeed, some investigations remark that the enrolment in MC might create a higher dependence

of women, due to the intensification of the patriarchal system (Mahmud, 2003). Women’s lack of

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agency still remains present in a society where social norms leaning towards men remain

uncontested. Women continue to need the protection of marriage, thus letting men controlling

their loans is “an important survival strategy” (Goetz & Gupta, 1996). The necessity of women’s

security and their sense of self-value related to patriarchal principles leads men using and

controlling women’s credits, strengthening the level of women’s dependency and increasing

their chances of being manipulated. Nonetheless, women must face the consequences in case

of inability or refusal of men to pay. Both, the microcredit organization and the whole community

will pressure the woman to repay the loan with other incomes or even properties (Ibid.).

On one hand, microfinance as a development policy has not incorporated a social change in the

challenge of gender norms. Instead, MC limits their scope to women’s inclusion into the

economy and there has been no strategies that question and challenge gender constructions in

the Bangladeshi society. Besides, there has not been an attack to patriarchal power relations.

Kelkar ​et al.,​ recognize that there is no direct relation between MC and a change in gender

relations (2004). Women in Bangladesh are still limited and constrained by traditional gender

norms which restrain their mobility and confine them to private spaces. As source of inequalities

have not been challenged women have to face the restriction of purdah, which prevent them

from having access to the marketplace in order to carry out marketing duties of their business

(Kabeer, 2001). Despite the fact that this adherence to purdah could be seen as women’s ability

to make a strategic choice (Ibid.), it can be argue that the main reason why women still adhere

to these values is because of the hegemony of unequal gender norms which apply a strong

pressure over women.

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Moreover, as claimed by Kabeer, “there was little evidence of any radical change in the gender

division of labour as a result of women's access to loans” (2001, p. 71). Hence, women continue

being completely in charge of both domestic work and the new workload coming from the

productive sphere. Scheduled meetings, household obligations and income-generating activities

need to be met at the same time that repayments have to be reimbursed. Sometimes even

several members of the family must be involved in the business in order to be able to refund the

weekly instalments (Masud Ahmed ​et al.,​ 2001). Although it is often believed that the price

women have to pay in order to achieve a better well-being and control in domestic matters is the

rise in their tasks (​Ibid.)​, there is significant evidence that remarks that sometimes girls have to

be withdrawn from school in order to help their mothers with their amount workload (Kabeer,

1998 cited in Hunt and Kasynathan, 2001). In a country where gender norms have not been

challenged, girls are the ones who drop school in order to help their mothers.

On the other hand, it is widely accepted by the MFIs that a great number of MC are dispensed

to women even though men will be the ones who will control and use them (Rahman, 1994;

Goetz and Gupta, 1996; Hashemi ​et al​, 1996; Kabeer, 2005; Kelkar ​et al,​ 2004). Household

members, especially by men, take the decision of how, who and what for MC is used.

Admittedly, the fact that women make their own decisions in an independent way does not lead

inevitably to better outcomes (Mahmud, 2003). However, there can be no doubt that this is the

consequence of a division of labour in Bangladesh based on men as breadwinners, preventing

women from accessing to markets. The established gender norms prescribe subordination to

men, therefore it is commonly acknowledged that males should control the credit and take

charge of the marketing tasks. This has a direct effect over women’s agency. Women who want

have a crucial role in the use of loans have to face several tensions in order to have a higher

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degree of decision, not only within the household, but also in the society. Hunt and Kasynathan

suggest that “providing loans for traditional women income-generating activities does not by

itself guarantee that women will control loan use and income” (2001, p. 45). It could be added

that not only in does not guarantee that women control their loans but also it does not guarantee

a higher level of decision within the household.

Apart from not having a determining role to decide how to invest their loans, the lack of change

in the gender division of labour enhances that men and women continue performing the

traditional roles in the businesses created with the economic support of loans. It is evident that

women still adopt the subordinated duties while male partners are the ones who work in the

management areas (Kelkar et al., 2004). Therefore, apart from having a bigger burden,

Bangladeshi women continue to perform dependent works controlled by men. In this scenario it

is difficult to justify that MC have led to a shift in women’s empowerment (Goetz and Gupta,

1996). As Kabeer points out, “access to credit had not obliterated gender asymmetries in

decision-making” (2005, p. 72-73).

Lastly, women’s absence of power can be seen in some of the manipulating strategies

performed by MFIs in Bangladesh. Karim in 2008 coined the concept of “the economy of

shame” (p. 10), referring to the coercive methods used by Grameen Bank as well as other

microfinance organizations in the country, in order to assure a high rate of loans refund (Karim,

2008). These organizations have a high level of reimbursement, illustrated by the incredible 98

percent of restitution rate. Nonetheless, ​what is missing in the “happy” story of MC is the fact

that microfinance associations have extended the use of peer pressure and shame among

women in order to achieve a high level of repayment (Karim, 2008, Rahman, 1999). It might be

argued by MFIs that social collateral is the only guarantee necessary to be eligible for a loan

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(Rahman, 1999). In fact, this point is a source of pride for microfinance NGOs. Nevertheless, the

use of peer pressure by communities has been heavily criticised for promoting patriarchal

values as the existing code of honour and shame. Especially in rural areas, shaming has been

used as an instrument to control women, who are the objects of constant judgments due to their

role as “​traditional custodians of family honour” ​(Karim, 2008, p. 10). Women unable to

reimburse their weekly instalments as well as their families are harassed, dishonoured and even

punished for the rest of the community, who will have to repay the debt as individual loans are

tied to the group responsibility. Although some scholars claim that women being conduit of

loans might be beneficial and empowering for women due to the increase in their level of

influence, yet it is clear that women still suffer the absence of power was well as the use of

manipulating tactics.

According to White (1997, p. 20) “empowerment has usually been conceived in terms of

women’s growing self-confidence and ability to act rather than women taking power from men.”

It is clear that this is the case of microfinance in Bangladesh. It has often been claimed that

thanks to their participation in credit programmes, women gain social appreciation (Kelkar ​et al.​ ,

2004). There is, undoubtedly, some truth in the idea that when the product of women’ work

produces incomes, they acquire a greater status within the household (Ibid.). In addition,

women’s self-esteem augments due to the recognition of their value. Nonetheless, that is not

enough evidence to assert that MC empowers women. Only through the renegotiation of gender

roles and redistribution of burdens in the productive and reproductive spheres women who have

not the capacity of making choices yet will be able to acquire this ability (Kabeer, 2005).

Admittedly, there is some evidence in the argument that claims that rural women who totally

depended on their husbands’ incomes have improved their situation when they have been

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acknowledged for their work. Nevertheless, women will not be able to recuperate their own

power without men’s questioning “their personal practice and the ideologies of masculinity which

it embodies” (Ibid.).

Apart from overlooking the transforming process necessary to challenge patriarchy and the

established gender norms, the absence of improvement in women’s decision making and the

use of coercive methods to manipulate women, MC have been criticised for leaving aside the

important role of men in order to promote gender equality and change the dominant social

constructions (White, 1997; Goetz and Gupta, 1996). If MC is intended to achieve gender

equality, why is it only targeted to women? In addition, if empowerment is based in social

change, the shift of gender roles and power relations and the transformation of institutions, is it

possible without taking into account the role of men?

2c. ​Is women’s empowerment possible without men?

Prügl and Lustgarten in 2006 argued that as empowerment became one fundamental

instrument of gender mainstreaming it forgot the gender perspective. Despite the fact that unlike

WID, GAD paradigm “welcomes the potential contributions of men” (Rathgeber, 1990), the

prevailing gender interventions in development have omitted men’s role. It appears that

women’s vulnerability and the notion of gender as a women’s concern led to the idea that efforts

to achieve gender equality had to be directed to women and girls (​Greig et al.​, 2000).

This is also the case of women’s empowerment in Bangladesh. It seems that the role of men

has been totally ignored by microfinance. MC have given economic opportunities to women to

perform income-generating activities in a society where traditionally men have been considered

12
as the breadwinners within the household. Even a part of the Bangladeshi traditional society

consider that the men’s role as the money earner in the family corresponds to a religious

mandate (Haque and Kusakabe, 2005). Thus, according to Bujra “since the identity of a

{married} man is conferred through his being the household provider” the impact on MC is a

crisis of masculinity (2002, cited in Ibid., p.188). Although it can be associated to patriarchy, it

appears that masculinity has to be won and defended by men (White, 1997) Thus, women

challenging masculinity might result in tensions within the household.

One might argue that the fact that women contribute with their own income to the household

economy could reduce the stress of the whole family (Kabeer, 2001). However, there is some

evidence to assert that in Bangladesh a great number of men feel challenged by women

generating earnings (Goetz and Gupta, 1996; Schuler, Hashemi et Riley, 1996; Ahmed, 2005).

As stated by Haque and Kusakabe (2005, p. 188), the fact that women have economic

opportunities in the labour market can be regarded in some societies as “a threat of

masculinity”, being a source of domestic violence. This violence represents the desire of men to

maintain their position and power. Due to the rise of microfinance as a development tool in

Bangladesh, nowadays men have to face the lack of access to credit as women suffered once

(Goetz and Gupta, 1996). However, the difference is that when men feel threatened they

struggle to maintain women under the traditional norms, preventing them from accessing to new

opportunities and perform non-traditional roles.

Accordingly, MC as a development instrument should consider men as agents playing a

decisive role in both alleviating poverty and shifting gender relations. As stated by White, “if

women alone work for greater equality in gender relations they will face an uphill struggle”

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(1997, p. 15-16). Empowerment is not a fight against genders, but a participatory process where

gender roles and relations of power are renegotiated. Consequently, the inclusion and

implication of men is vital to accomplish with the arduous goal of eliminating gender inequalities

and empowering women.

Despite the fact that MC has tried to benefit and empower Bangladeshi women in various

aspects, it can be argued that the strategy has totally failed. Not only women have not been

empowered, but also MC has created a bigger burden for them. In this sense, there are

critiques to MC which not only refer to its inability to increase the level of agency of women, the

lack of a shift in power relations and the absence of men. Authors like Lamia Karim (2008,

2011), heavily criticize the very foundations of the concept of MC, because of the heavy

responsibility assigned to women by neoliberalism.

3. ​Microcredit and neoliberalism

It is often believed that the current international trend of women’s empowerment has increased

their capacity to drive a social change and to originate new social and economic conditions for a

fairer world (UN, 1995). Nevertheless, as stated by Jackson, the instrumentalisation of women’s

empowerment internationally has been a general procedure. Women have become the most

successful mean to achieve goals as “controlling population, achieving sustainable

development, of poverty alleviation” (Jackson, 1996, p. 490) rather than essential agents to

address the real causes that conform gender inequality. Thus, instead of expanding women’s

capabilities to make strategic choices, for example the Word Band (WB) and the United Nations

(UN) have defined empowerment in terms of economics. According to the WB “investing in

women can be a cost-effective route to economic efficiency [...] can increase output and

14
efficiency by enabling women to find their true comparative advantage” (WB, 1989 cited in Ibid.).

Additionally, the UN 3​rd MDG has promoted gender equality and women’s empowerment as a

synonym of women’s participation in the job market. Consequently, there is strong evidence to

suggest that empowerment policies in gender mainstreaming have primarily focused on the

economic approach.

MC in Bangladesh has followed the same pattern as the international trend of women’s

empowerment. The spread of neoliberalism and the imposition of macroeconomic stabilization

measures which ​advocated for ​macroeconomic stability, liberalization and privatization in

developing countries ​during the 1980s and 1990s coincides with the growth of MC as a

development instrument. During those years, the World Bank and IMF imposed Structural

Adjustment Programs (SAPs) on developing countries undergoing a financial crisis through

conditional loans, heavily influenced by the Washington Consensus ideals, in order to spur

economic growth. These policies that advocated for market competition, flexibilization of the

labour market, a laissez faire state and a curtailment of the public expenditure. It was often

claimed by their advocates that SAPs would enhance growth and development promoting

exports, producing private investment and reducing fiscal deficits (Moreno-Brid ​et al,​ 2004).

Nevertheless, the result achieved was bigger infrastructure gaps, higher indexes of poverty and

higher vulnerability of workers (Ibid.).

Consequently, MC was presented in development circles as a silver bullet for poverty

alleviation, especially to achieve women’s empowerment and to solve their lack of access to

economic resources. However, it can be argued that MCs has been used by development

institutions to introduce globalization and neoliberal policies into the rural Bangladesh (Karim,

15
2008). Karim, accuses Grameen Bank and other NGOs providing MCs of representing the “new

economic sovereignty” personified by neoliberal institutions which want to empower women

through the market (2008, p. 6). It is clear that for neoliberalism the alleviation of poverty is not a

question of strengthen the damaged welfare state and the contestation of the prevailing social

order. On the contrary, it is based on the free market, rolling back of the state and

entrepreneurship and self-employment (Karim, 2008). Therefore, as affirmed by Isserles, MC

was the proper solution for neoliberals to solve all the problems created by SAPs (2003). As the

public expenditure was reduced and the state had been “rolled back, the number of economic

opportunities in the country diminished. The neoliberal solution was self-employment through

microfinance programmes, a formula which usually lacks of state benefits and labour protection

(Ibid.). As suggested by Yunus “when people lived in caves they went out to help themselves.

There was no state to ask for help” (Karim, 2008, p. 24).

Therefore, MC has tried to integrate women into the global economy but it has not recognized

the exploitation produced by neoliberal measures, which have diminished the scope of the state

and its resources to address social policies. ​MC has been used as a neoliberal strategy which

has turned women’s empowerment policies into economic strategies to achieve prosperity and

economic stability. Hence, microfinance is based on the neoliberal idea that the role of the state

as development enhancer is futile and that the market has to address policies to end with social

inequalities.

Conclusion

The intention of this essay has been to analyse if microcredit has been beneficial or harmful for

women in Bangladesh, taking into account the level of empowerment generated. Originally

conceived as a socio-political process, empowerment was born with the aim of transforming

16
gender relations of power, ideologies and social and institutional structures in order to achieve

gender equality. However, microcredit programmes in Bangladesh have been unable to achieve

women’s empowerment due to their lack of contestations of the prevailing gender norms and

traditions which exclude women. Although women’s absolute well-being has been enhanced,

increasing their economic opportunities, augmenting their social inclusion and in some cases

producing an amelioration of women’s position within the household, it has also created some

undesirable effects such as the increase in women’s burden and the use of shame and peer

pressure. This essay has claimed that the lack of challenge in the division of labour has

undermined women’s relative ability to make strategic choices. The inclusion of women in the

labour market under women’s empowerment actions in Bangladesh has not contested any of

the social constructions indispensable to end up neither with gender inequalities nor with social

inequities. In any case women´s empowerment through MC has involved the renegotiation of

power relations in society. Conversely, there can be no doubt that microfinance principles have

been grounded in accepting the current social structures. Furthermore, this paper has proved

that ignoring the vital role of men in order to shift gender power relations and tackle patriarchy

can be the source of tensions within the household. Lastly, this thesis has argued that MC has

been used as a neoliberal policy which has converted women’s empowerment into an economic

strategy to alleviate poverty and achieve prosperity based on the assumption that the market

has to address problems such unemployment, underemployment and the causes for gender

inequality. Microfinance has tried to integrate women into the global economy although it has

not recognized the exploitation produced by globalization. The outcomes of microcredit are far

from being satisfactory for different reasons. Maybe it is time to undertake projects that

incorporate not only the access of the whole to economic resources, but also which address the

real causes of economic inequalities, far from neoliberalism. Although it will be necessary to

17
perform “a fundamental re-examination of social structures and institutions, and, ultimately, the

loss of power of entrenched elites {...} a commitment to structural change and power shifts

which is unlikely to be found either in national or international agencies” (Rathgeber,1990,

p.495).

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