Newly Industrializing Countries And The Political Economy Of South South Relations

Covers, inter alia, industrial restructuring in Indonesia, Brazilian trade with colonial West Africa, and with Nigeria (1965- 79), and relations between South Africa and Brazil, and with Southern African states.

Conference report containing economic policy studies on economic and social development issues faced by newly industrializing countries - discusses economic conditions of the NICs, role of cultural factors, economic theory of dependence, industrial development strategies, etc.; presents case studies of Brazil, India and Korea R; examines policy responses in the old industrial countries, notably Western Europe, Canada and the USA, and Japan. List of participants. References. Conference held in Brighton 1980 Jan 6 to 8.

Pathways from the Periphery is an innovative interpretation of the development of the newly industrializing countries (NICs) which now dominate Third World industry and manufacturing trade. While such countries as Brazil and Mexico have achieved industrialization through strategies intended to foster self-reliance, the East Asian NICs--South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore--have grown rapidly through an aggressive policy promoting the export of manufactured goods. Stephan Haggard provides the first comprehensive comparison of the politics of industrialization in these East Asian and Latin American countries and offers new evidence on current issues in comparative political economy, including the implications of different growth paths for dependency, equity, and democracy. Recognizing the influence on development strategies of external shocks--such as depression, war, and reduced access to foreign capital--Haggard emphasizes the importance of domestic political institutions for economic decision-making. The East Asian NICs are characterized by close but regulated business-government alliances, weak labor movements, and politically insulated and administratively capable states: factors, Haggard shows, that have facilitated flexible and coherent industrial policies. He argues that "domestic" policy choices can shape the external constraints states face. The author considers in detail why Latin America's long-standing efforts to achieve self-reliance have ironically resulted in a dependence on international capital greater than that of the East Asian countries. Addressing a long-standing debate on the relationship between industrialization strategy and regime type, Haggard carefully assesses the connection between growth and democratic politics. Despite their authoritarian growth models the Asian NICs have, he observes, achieved greater equity than their Latin American counterparts. Although the "success" of export-led growth has in the past been associated with authoritarian rule, Haggard argues that no compelling theoretical reasons preclude democratic governments from achieving strong economic performance. Breaking new ground in theoretical inquiry and empirical research, Pathways from the Periphery will be welcomed by political economists, scholars and students of comparative politics, historians of Asian and Latin American public policy, and others concerned with the challenge of economic development.

The newly industrializing countries (NICs) of East Asia have undergone rapid economic expansion over the past twenty vears. Unlike NICs elsewhere in the Third World, those in the Pacific basin-South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong-have managed to achieve almost full employment, a relatively egalitarian distribution of income, and the virtual elimination or poverty. In this collection of essays, nine development specialists explore the Asian NICs' exceptional ability to capitalize on the favorable economic environment of the 1960s and then to adapt flexibly to worsening conditions in the 1970s and 1980s.

What does it mean to speak of 'national development' in the 1990s? As a result of the tumultuous changes in global economic and political structures, scholars and policymakers specializing in the study of national development must reassess the interpretive models they have relied upon in the past. This book brings together essays by a distinguished group of social scientists that address the dilemmas facing development theory today. These essays, grounded in sociological research, reclaim the important role once played by sociological theory in development studies. The collection provides an overview of traditional theories of development, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, and identifies the new actors, issues, and processes that future analysis must address. The essays discuss the impact of technological innovations in production and commerce, the changing relations of states and markets, regional development inequalities, and the emergence of new social groups as participants in development processes. from the book Contents: 'Sociology and Development in the 1990s: Critical Challenges and Empirical Trends,' by A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes 'Rethinking Development Theory: Insights from East Asia and Latin America,' by Gary Gereffi 'The New Dependency: Technological Change and Socioeconomic Restructuring in Latin America,' by Manuel Castells and Roberto Laserna 'Predatory, Developmental, and Other Apparatuses: A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on the Third World State,' by Peter B. Evans 'Regional Development Theory and the Subordination of Extractive Peripheries,' by Stephen G. Bunker 'Broadening the Scope: Gender and International Economic Development,' by M. Patricia Fernndez Kelly 'Path Dependence and Privatization Strategies in East Central Europe,' by David Stark 'Urbanization, Development, and the Household,' by Bryan R. Roberts

This book presents a new theory explaining underdevelopment in the global South and tests whether financial inputs, the government-business-media (GBM) complex and spatiotemporal influences drive human development. Despite the entrance of emerging powers and new forms of aid, trade and investment, international political-economic practices still support well-established systems of capital accumulation, to the detriment of the global South. Global asymmetrical accumulation is maintained by ‘affective’ (consent-forming hegemonic practices) and ‘infrastructural’ (uneven economic exchanges) labours and by power networks. The message for developing countries is that ‘robust’ GBMs can facilitate human development and development is constrained by spatiotemporal limitations. This work theorizes that aid and foreign direct investment should be viewed with caution and that in the global South these investments should not automatically be assumed to be drivers of development.

Where development is concerned, our language and perhaps our way of thinking often ap pear somewhat distorted. If anything, the Asian economies with their most impressive and dynamic growth should logically be called developing countries. Instead, we call them threshold countries, newly industrializing countries (NICs) or newly industrializing eco nomies (NIEs), the latter term taking into account the Chinese argument that Hong Kong and Taiwan should not be considered countries. During the eighties, when Latin American NICs became the main victims of the debt crisis, the NIEs of East Asia (EANIEs), the little tigers or dragons, presented most impres sive examples of growth through orientation to world trade, fitting well into the Japanese 'flying-geese' concept. Naturally, questions were raised as to the reasons for this success, the lessons other countries could draw from it, and the outlook for the future. At the same time, the establis hed industrial countries wanted to know what NIE competition might mean for them. In 1988, the OECD published a study entitled "The NIEs -Challenge and Opportunity for OECD Industries". The NIBs had become a fashionable object of research and debate. In Western Europe, where countries are preparing for a period offurtherintegration and East-West cooperation, it seems worth-while to also consider the role ofthe EANIEs and the options for cooperation they represent. Moreover, the NIEs themselves are following development in Europe with some concern and are trying to adjust to the new situation as it emerges.

Loxley examines the impact of globalization on different countries and regions. Changing patterns of trade, industrialization, debt, aid and other financial flows are analysed as is the debate about structural adjustment programs. Four recent developments likely to have major implications for North-South relations are identified; efforts to reduce the US deficit; the emergence of regional trading blocs; the implementation of the Uruguay Round of GATT; and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Finally, the likely impact on North-South relations of pursuing alternative paradigms to economic growth is examined.