This article attempts a discourse analysis of two chapters of the World Bank document Beyond the Washington consensus: institutions matter, identifying and questioning the proposition of theoretic models for public administration and educational reforms in Latin America, having as a basis authors concerned with thrashing out the theoretic model concept. The purpose is to discuss the categories involved, their ambiguities and their innovative/conservative character, and define whether the proposals in the above-mentioned text are nationally and regionally appropriate, whether they are capable of transforming reality or, rather, just some more of the same old thing or, worse still, whether, inspired by the business theory, they translate into bringing back/praising "remodelled" models which have been the cause of regional academic critique for decades.
WORLD BANK; EDUCATIONAL REFORM; LATIN AMERICA; MODERNIZATION