Where is finance in the financialization of development?

Abstract

This article analyses the growing emphasis on mobilizing private finance for development. Previous critiques have rightly highlighted the dangers of this turn, which empowers the extractive operations of financial capital at the expense of states and populations in the global south. This article calls for a more careful examination of what is driving this trend. Many previous analyses treat the turn to private finance as reflective of the interests of finance capital. The article highlights two empirical challenges for this reading: there is demonstrably little actual interest on the part of finance in engaging with development projects, and formal development interventions have sought to mobilize private capital using broadly similar tools since at least the 1960s. I argue in the final part of this paper that we should view the private turn as the latest of many failure-prone efforts to grapple with intensifying social and ecological contradictions amid overaccumulation.