Reti di esperti e attori politici nelle missioni della Banca Mondiale : l programmi in Colombia e i loro effetti globali sull’assistenza allo sviluppo (1940-1966).Networks among advisers and political actors in World Bank’s missions : the programs in Colombia and their global consequences on the foreign advising to development (1940-1966).

Summary The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development was founded in 1944 and began its operations in 1947. Among the first activities the Bank carried out in the 1940s, the missions and loans in Colombia represented a key moment in the evolution of this institution towards the form of organization, the articulation of procedures and the definition of the objectives that characterize the Bank still today. Our research focuses on this process, focusing in particular on the General Survey mission organized in 1949 and its implications for the evolution of the Bank, as well as Colombian economic policy. Through this mission, we examined the practices related to the evolution of the World Bank's policies during the first years of activity, highlighting in particular the emergent nature of this organization. These missions, analyzed as a moment of interaction between international experts and local experts, are fundamental to understanding the evolution of the World Bank's work. Based on this assumption, one of the main challenge of the research was to develop a method of analysis to capture the strategies and practices developed during the World Bank missions and to relate them to the results of these missions. In order to understand these strategies, we analyzed the links established among the actors, local and international, and observed their evolution over time. Crafting and studying these links allowed us to better understand the emergence of certain institutions related to the demand and management of the loans, as well as the criteria the Bank established for the evaluation and intervention of international experts in developing countries. This implied the study of a transnational phenomenon by a micro-historical approach.