Expert networks and policy actors in World Bank missions : the programs in Colombia and their global effects on development assistance (1940-1966).

Summary Created in 1944, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development began its activities in 1947. Among the first activities to which it devoted itself during the 1940s, the missions and loans of the World Bank in Colombia represent a key moment in the evolution of this institution towards the form of organization, the articulation of procedures and the definition of objectives that still characterize it today. Our research focuses on this process, concentrating in particular on the mission organized in 1949 and its consequences on the evolution of the Bank, as well as on the Colombian economic policy. We have studied the set of practices related to the evolution of the World Bank's policies in the first years of its activity, emphasizing in particular the emerging character of this organization. In this evolution, the missions would represent a moment of interaction between international and local experts, fundamental to understanding the evolution of the World Bank's action. Based on this hypothesis, the main challenge of the research was to develop an analytical method that would allow us to understand the strategies and practices implemented during World Bank missions and to relate them to the results of these missions. To understand these strategies, we analyzed the links established between local and transnational actors during the missions and observed their evolution over time. The reconstruction of these links has allowed us to better understand the emergence of certain institutions at the basis of the demand and management of loans, as well as the criteria for evaluation and intervention of international experts in developing countries. We are thus trying to study a transnational phenomenon through a micro-historical approach.