US-led international agencies promote a singular American model including secularism

Evidence

“Seldom,” observes Serge Halimi, “has the development of the whole of humanity been conceived in terms so closely identical and so largely inspired by the American model.” As Halimi notes, that model is not confined to matters of free trade and private enterprise but includes moral and political dimensions—prominent among them being the doctrine of secularism. If this project has not been entirely successful on a global scale—if its result is more often further instability than homogeneity—it is certainly not because those in a position to make far-reaching decisions about the affairs of the world reject the doctrine of a singular destiny—a transcendent truth?—for all countries. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 70

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s standing recognition that modernity projects carry a universalizing, teleological structure — parallels Milgrom on institutions emerging from informational constraints, and Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary normalization.
• SEED: An article angle: the World Bank and IMF as secularism exporters — international development institutions imposing not just trade policy but moral-political frameworks on borrowing countries.