Susan Park is Professor of Global Governance in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. She is the author of Environmental Recourse at the Multilateral Development Banks (2020) and Global Environmental Governance and the Accountability Trap (2019, with Teresa Kramarz), among others. She is a Senior Hans Fischer Fellow at the Technical University of Munich (2019-2022), a Senior Research Fellow of the ESG, an affiliated Faculty member of the Environmental Governance Lab at the University of Toronto, and an external associate at Warwick University.

In 1993 the World Bank created the revolutionary World Bank Inspection Panel and, with it, a precedent under international law that allowed people to seek recourse for harm resulting from the projects the Bank financed in developing countries. This was the first time that a universal international organization recognized and responded to its impact on individuals. Within a decade of the Inspection Panel, other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) created similar accountability mechanisms. These mechanisms embody a norm of "accountability as justice" that provides recourse for environmentally and socially damaging behavior through a formal sanctioning process.
In The Good Hegemon, Susan Park analyzes the "accountability as justice" norm: its creation, how it functions, and whether it holds the MDBs to account. Park tackles all of these issues using three central arguments. First, the book explains how the United States promoted this norm during debates over how to maintain MDB efficiency and effectiveness in the 1990s. Building on its history of using "accountability as control," the US sought to establish a norm of "accountability as justice" for all the MDBs, even when pressure from activists was absent or muted. Second, Park traces how the MDBs resisted conforming to the norm, leading the US to exert its influence and demand that the Banks reformulate the mechanisms. Third, the book demonstrates how the MDBs have institutionalized the norm over time: improving the accountability mechanisms' accessibility, transparency, independence, responsiveness to affected people, and the effectiveness of compliance investigations and MDB monitoring. Park also shows that, despite these gains, the "accountability as justice" norm is still corrective rather than preemptive; it tends to only come into effect after a transgression by the Banks.
A rigorous analysis of how institutions react to norm creation and diffusion--The Good Hegemon sheds new light on the responsibilities of international institutions and tells the story of how the US uses its influence for good on the global stage.

Chapter 1: The Good Hegemon: Demanding Accountability as Justice for the Multilateral Development Banks
The Argument: the US, Accountability as Justice, and the MDBs
The Research Approach
Outline of the Book
Chapter 2: US Norm Entrepreneurship and the MDBs
Introduction
The US as a Norm Entrepreneur
Three Strategies for Change
MDB Responses to Change
Conclusion
Chapter 3: US Hegemony for What? From Accountability as Control to Accountability as Justice for the MDBs
Introduction
The US in the MDBs
From Accountability as Control to Accountability as Justice
Constituting Accountability as Justice for the World Bank
Accountability as Justice for the Inter-American Development Bank
Accountability as Justice for the Asian Development Bank
Accountability as Justice for the World Bank Group
Accountability as Justice for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Accountability as Justice at the African Development Bank
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Bank Resistance to Institutionalising Accountability as Justice
Introduction
Rigid but Functioning: The World Bank's Inspection Panel
Turbulent Non-Growth of the Inter-American Development Bank's Accountability Mechanism
Ruptures and Change: the Asian Development Bank's Accountability Mechanism
From Strength to Strength for the World Bank Group's Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman
Making Accountability as Justice Work at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
The Slow Emergence of the African Development Bank's Accountability Mechanism
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Accountability as Justice in Practice: Challenging the Banks?
Introduction
The Accountability as Justice Norm in Practice
Conclusion
Chapter 6: Changing the Banks and Strengthening Accountability as Justice?
Strengthening the Accountability as Justice Norm
Does Accountability as Justice Influence Bank Behavior?
Conclusion
Chapter 7: Norm Diffusion within the MDBs and Insights beyond the Banks
Bibliography