Third World Resources

In this clear yet stimulating introductory text, John Soussan explores the issues and arguments involved using a variety of case studies from across the Third World, including the tin mining industry, Rio Tinto-Zinc and fuelwood in Kenya.

This text traces the efforts of developing countries to influence evolving environmental regimes. Negotiations regarding hazardous waste trade, biodiversity, technology transfer and atmosphere and climate serve as case studies.

Examines the prospects for democratization in the developing world. The book draws upon ideas of widespread socioeconomic well-being, human rights, the distribution of resources and population, and the environment.

The second edition of this landmark book explores how natural resources contribute to development in poor economies.

Even in impoverished countries lacking material and human resources, P. T. Bauer argues, economic growth is possible under the right conditions. These include a certain amount of thrift and enterprise among the people, social mores and traditions which sustain them, and a firm but limited government which permits market forces to work. Challenging many views about development that are widely held, Bauer takes on squarely the notion that egalitarianism is an appropriate goal. He goes on to argue that the population explosion of less-developed countries has on the whole been a voluntary phenomenon and that each new generation has lived better than its forebears. He also critically examines the notion that the policies and practices of Western nations have been responsible for third world poverty. In a major chapter, he reviews the rationalizations for foreign aid and finds them weak; while in another he shows that powerful political clienteles have developed in the Western nations supporting the foreign aid process and probably benefiting more from it than the alleged recipients. Another chapter explores the link between the issue of Special Drawing Rights by the International Monetary Fund on the one hand and the aid process on the other. Throughout the book, Bauer carefully examines the evidence and the light it throws on the propositions of development. Although the results of his analysis contradict the conventional wisdom of development economics, anyone who is seriously concerned with the subject must take them into account.

With particular reference to India.

Conventional wisdom among policymakers in both the US and Europe holds that weak and failing states are the source of the world's most pressing security threats today. However, as this book shows, our assumptions about the threats posed by failed and failing states are based on false premises.