Recasting Neoliberal Dominance in the Global South? a Critique of the Monterrey Consensus

Abstract

The UN Financing for Development conference (FfD) was held in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002 to gain international financial and political support for the Millennium Development Goals. Various multilevel consultations were held with “equal stakeholders” ranging from the IMF and WTO to civil society organizations in order to forge a consensus-based framework for substantially reducing world poverty. However, despite the FfD's seemingly novel attempts at inclusionary and multilateral forms of negotiation, this article suggests that the Monterrey consensus is, in the first instance, concerned with reproducing and thus legitimating the growing power of transnational capital. The consensus is not so much about reducing poverty as it is about managing the ever-increasing polarization of capitalist social relations in the South.