North-South Relations Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The term North-South relations refers to the relationship between the advanced industrialized countries in the global North and the developing countries of the global South. It is used in contrast to the superpower conflict between East and West. Of course many parts of the global South became directly involved in the superpower rivalry of this period. In particular, the term is often used to describe the multilateral relations between these two groups. Historically, the key focus of North-South relations has been the various attempts made by the global South to alter the nature of the postwar international economic system. Since the end of the cold war, it seems that North-South relations, especially given the growing levels of poverty in the South, have moved higher up the international agenda.

Decolonization

During the 1950s there was dramatic change, as a number of former colonies became independent. A key meeting was the Bandung Conference held in 1955. In attendance were twenty-nine Asian and African states. This conference set the main agenda for North-South relations for the next decade.

Two key issues were most prominent. First, there was the need to continue the process of decolonization by putting more pressure on the old imperial powers. Second, many of these newly independent states wished to avoid taking sides in the cold war, and as a result, after Bandung, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was formed.

As the process of decolonization continued during the 1960s, the focus of North-South relations began to change. The most important new issues were economic. This was demonstrated by the South’s collective resistance to the dominance of world trade by the global North. The formation in 1964 of both the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Group of 77 at the United Nations (UN) gave the global South a more audible and coherent voice in the multilateral system.

Increasing Confrontation

The focus on economic issues became more significant in the 1970s. The global South became influenced by dependency theory and the view that the world economy was the main obstacle to their development. The oil crisis that saw pr ices quadruple between October 1973 and January 1974 also demonstrated to the global South the possibility of collective action. The raising of oil prices by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) stimulated the prices of other commodities and convinced other developing countries of the idea of “commodity power.”

The result was the call by the global South for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) in 1974, via two resolutions in the UN General Assembly. The initial reaction of the global North was hostile, and the debate over the NIEO became a confrontational feature of North-South relations during the rest of the decade. The reforms demanded in the NIEO included changes in the terms of trade and greater access to markets in the global North, reforms to the major international financial institutions, and demands for more aid and recognition of the economic sovereignty of states, especially with regard to nationalization and greater regulation of multinational corporations. Although the global South secured some minor changes, in the main the NIEO was not implemented. It was clear that oil was an exception, and that commodity power did not really exist. The confrontational approach of demanding change had clearly not been a success. A number of key developments in the early 1980s were to end this period of North-South relations.

Crisis

During the 1980s the global South went into retreat. The beginning of the decade marked a significant shift in the dominant economic ideology in the West. Neoliberalism, with its emphasis on free markets and its belief in export-led development, became popular. This approach was in direct contrast to the ideas behind the NIEO and its desire for intervention and redistribution in the world economy. The impact of this change was exacerbated by the debt crisis that profoundly altered the balance of power within North-South relations. With many developing countries facing high levels of indebtedness, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided loans that were conditional on following structural adjustment programs. Most developing countries began to follow liberal economic policies devised primarily by the United States, World Bank, and IMF—a situation that became known as the Washington consensus. These developments limited the independence of many developing countries and severely weakened the South as a coalition.

This fragmentation of the South as a united voice continued throughout the 1980s. The newly industrializing countries in East Asia achieved rapid growth largely by integrating into the world economy, welcoming foreign investment, and exporting manufactured products to developed countries. The interests of these countries increasingly departed from those of the poorer countries, especially in Africa, which experienced increasing poverty, resulting in a reliance on foreign assistance for their survival.

A New Era Of Partnership?

In recent years there have been attempts to develop North-South relations that are based on cooperation rather than simply Northern dominance. Since the end of the cold war, international development has moved up the agenda and is now regularly discussed within numerous multilateral institutions. In response to sustained criticism, the Washington consensus has been replaced by a less overtly neoliberal policy agenda. The World Bank, in particular, has sought to refocus its approach from economic growth toward poverty reduction. Rather than imposing conditionalities upon developing countries, it now seeks to formulate a development strategy in partnership with them.

During the last twenty years, another key issue that has been high on the agenda of North-South relations is the environment. Despite its contested nature, the term sustainable development has come to dominate much of the discourse. This was clearly demonstrated at the most recent UN World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002. However, achieving sustainability in the developed world would require a radical change in current patterns of production and consumption. The situation for developing countries is quite different. The logical implication of sustainable development is that the South should not follow the environmentally destructive development path that has been historically employed in the North. As a result, the question remains as to how the South can marry its development needs with the environmental pressures on the planet.

Bibliography:

Adams, Nassau A. Worlds Apart: The North-South Divide and the International System. London: Zed Books, 1993.
Biel, Robert. The New Imperialism: Crisis and Contradictions in North-South Relations. London: Zed Books, 2000.
Pender, John. “From ‘Structural Adjustment’ to ‘Comprehensive Development Framework’: Conditionality Transformed?” Third World Quarterly 22 (2001): 397–411.
Raffer, Kunibert, and H.W. Singer. The Economic North-South Divide: Six Decades of Unequal Development. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2001.
Ravenhill, John. “The North-South Balance of Power.” International Affairs 66 (1990): 731–748.
Rothstein, Robert L. Global Bargaining: UNCTAD and the Quest for a New International Economic Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.
Slater, David. Geopolitics and the Post-Colonial: Rethinking North-South Relations. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
United Nations. Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. New York: United Nations, 2002.

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