New Books in Sociology Elliot Dolan-Evans, "Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine" (Bristol UP, 2025)
Feb 28, 2026
Elliot Dolan-Evans, researcher and author of Making War Safe for Capitalism, studies World Bank and IMF interventions in conflict zones. He discusses how these institutions shifted into wartime engagement. Short segments cover the cascade approach, land and agriculture reforms, gas privatization and household costs, and pension changes with gendered impacts.
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Institutions Pivoted To Active Conflict Work
- The World Bank and IMF shifted from post-conflict aid to active conflict intervention by reinterpreting legal limits and embracing global public goods like peace and climate.
- This pivot accelerated after the 2000s slump, the global financial crisis, and the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals push to mobilize private capital.
Cascade Strategy Combines Policy Reform And De‑Risking
- The World Bank's cascade approach pairs upstream policy reform with downstream de-risking to attract private capital into fragile contexts.
- Upstream changes liberalize markets; downstream tools (guarantees, PPPs, blended finance) make specific projects bankable.
Ukraine Served As A Test Case For Wartime Programs
- In Ukraine the IMF/World Bank largely treated wartime Ukraine like normal reform territory and initially ignored the war in documents and programs.
- Ukraine became a testing ground for intervening during active war, prompting internal strategies and the Bank's 2020 external conflict strategy.
