Too Much Consensus.

The article discusses international cooperation on a variety of issues, put forth as a consensus, in an attempt to provide a grand unifying theory of foreign policy as of 2004. Ever since the Washington Consensus became the hottest brand on the policy block, wonks of the world have competed to define their idea as the next big thing. John Williamson of the Institute for International Economics coined the term "consensus" in 1990 to describe the policy prescriptions of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and various Latin American economists. Inspired by the long struggle against Latin American debt, it encouraged developing countries to adopt 10 market-based prescriptions, including fiscal discipline, deregulation, and privatization. However, the failure of some economies that were supposedly following the Washington Consensus model--notably Argentina and Indonesia--contaminated the brand itself. The Monterrey Consensus was the result of the United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Mexico. The Copenhagen Consensus listed 10 great global challenges, prioritized by the "world's most distinguished economists." The Beijing Consensus is the brainchild of Joshua Cooper Ramo, a former journalist who now lectures at China's Tsinghua University. The Mexico Consensus--the product of a June 2004 conference organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and Mexico's National Women's Institute--confines itself to gender equity in Latin America and the Caribbean.