Redesigning the business of development: the case of the World Economic Forum and global risk management

Abstract

Global risk management (GRM) has become a central organizing framework in global development governance, yet despite its ubiquity, it has received little attention. Relatedly, few scholars have explored the connection between GRM and what has become an influential private international organization, namely: the World Economic Forum (WEF). Contributing to this Special Issue on managerialism, we explore GRM as an emerging development paradigm linked tightly to the WEF. Drawing on a historical materialist lens, we examine how the WEF employs GRM to encourage the role of businesses in the sustainable development goals (SDG)s. We focus on SDG 11, safe, inclusive and resilient cities, or what the WEF refers to as well managed cities. We argue that GRM is as a dynamic, uneven and incomplete strategy that serves to consolidate and normalize the role of business as an active development agent, whilst depoliticizing the social and environmental disruptions tied to this arrangement. In pursuing this argument, we historically trace the rise of GRM within the wider backdrop of global political economy of development before exploring the mismanaged urbanization trope employed by the WEF in the global South, and its proposed managerial solutions embodied in GRM.

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