What does “good governance” mean for the World Bank and to what extent has the organisation been successful in diffusing the paradigm worldwide? The Bank focused primarily on economic aspects of governance in the 1980s and progressively moved to emphasise its political dimensions towards the end of the 1990s. In this paper, the soft power of the Bank is analysed in relation to this specific issue through bibliometric methods and by examining the role of governance indicators, especially within the donor community.