Paul Wolfowitz (an architect of the second Iraq war), who was the organization's president at the time (Wolfowitz was president of the World Bank from 2005–2007. He was later ousted amidst allegations that he had inappropriately retained personal contacts as employees.). Officials spoke with great precision and neutrality about their leader, but they also made clear that they themselves had the ability to influence the agendas in their respective areas of specialty. This was a testimony to the balance of power between the organization as a whole and the ten thousand individual employees which it comprises, many of whom are economists saddled with bureaucratic regulations.
The second phase of study began with a trip to Bangkok, Thailand. Thai culture is quite beautiful and is visible in social structures like business, education, and government. I traveled there in order to research the impact of a World Bank loan issued to enhance university science and technology as well as to gain a better understanding of the nation's education priorities in general. World Bank officials in Thailand repeated the mantra of “reducing poverty with passion and professionalism,” just as their DC colleagues had done. However, these officials also exhibited a high degree of skepticism as to whether university faculty members and officials in the Ministry of Education (MOE) would even remember the recently completed project to improve Thailand's universities. But Thai culture exhibits a high degree of precision. Contrary to the suspicions of the World Bank officials, I encountered professors and program coordinators who were able to explain the effective components of the projects as well as the conditions for obtaining a loan that had hampered the project's success. Moreover, these professionals even showed me specific pieces of equipment in their classrooms and laboratories that had been purchased with funds from the World Bank loan.
In Thailand's universities and in the MOE, one common refrain that was repeated when discussing the purpose of education referred to the Thai king's idea of a sufficient economy. The king of Thailand is regarded with the highest degree of honor, as is his idea of a sufficient economy—a concept that promotes spending only as much as one earns as well as education for personal growth and societal good. Overall, the