Chapter by chapter resources - Chapter 6

Review Questions

• In retrospect, why did so many commentators refer to the Cold War as a period of international certainty?
• What did the TINA principle stand for?
• What were the failings of the Soviet socialist model of development?
• What were the failings of state-led development during the Cold War?
• How does Kuznets’ inverted U-Curve explain the relationship between growth and inequality?
• What were the similarities and differences between modernization theory and neoliberal approaches to development?
• What socio-economic transformation does de Soto consider to be essential for development and modernization to succeed?
• How does de Soto’s analysis differ from modernization theory and dependency theory?
• What factors accounted for the rise of neoliberalism in the 1990s?
• What criticisms have been levelled against neoliberal solutions to development?
• In what sense did the fall of communism signal ‘the end of history’?
• Is Fukuyama a contemporary modernization theorist?
• What were some of the characteristics of post-Cold War global conflict?
• How does the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis explain contemporary global conflict?
• In what sense does Huntington break with the premises of modernization theory and in what sense does he maintain its outlook?
• Did the events of September 11, 2001 support ‘the end of history’ thesis, or the ‘clash of civilization’ thesis, or neither?
• How did the USA justify ‘nation-building’ and how did this fit with previous understandings of development?
• Should the USA assume an imperial burden in the twenty-first century?
• Do the IFIs alleviate or perpetuate global inequalities?
• Is conditionality a new form of imperialist control?
• In the early twenty-first century, how significantly have the IFIs revised their policy prescriptions for development?
• Is it possible for the IFIs to function according to their mandate and remain ‘above politics’?
• Why is the WTO seen by its supporters as a ‘golden straitjacket’?
• Does the WTO promote equality, and if so in what sense?
• Why has the WTO been accused by its critics of being ‘a rich man’s club’?
• Does greater equality, poverty alleviation and other social benefits such as environmental improvement flow invariably from the proceeds of economic growth, as the WTO affirm?
• Are there ethical or political reasons why governments should impose non-trade protection?
• Why do structuralists argue that debt forgiveness alone will not end global inequality?

Further Reading

Arnold, G. (1993), The End of the Third World, New York, St Martin’s Press.

Blackburn, R. (ed.) (1991), After the Fall: The Failure of Communism and the Future of Socialism, London, Verso Press.

Fukuyama , F. (2006), After the NeoCons, London, Profile Books.

Fukuyama , F. (1989), 'The end of history?’, The National Interest, Summer.

Huntington , S. (1993), ‘The Clash of Civilizations’, Foreign Affairs, Summer.

Stiglitz, J. (2002), Globalization and its Discontents, London, Penguin.

Websites

The homepage of the World Trade Organisation:www.wto.org/

ZNet and Zmag contains a wealth of up-to-date analysis and commentary of contemporary affairs and development issues: http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm

The Brookings Institute based in Washington DC has a webpage devoted to global economy and development:http://www.brookings.org/global/

The CATO Institute supports the extension of free markets: www.cato.org

The Heritage Foundation also supports neo-liberalism:www.heritage.org

The Citizen’s Guide to the WTO can be downloaded from the internet: http://www.citizen.org/documents/wto-book.pdf

The documentary on the impact of neo-liberalism on Jamaica, Life and Debt, has a dedicated website with useful weblinks on IMF and WTO:http://www.lifeanddebt.org

Peter Constantini’s article ‘What’s Wrong With The WTO?’ is available on this site along with other resources:http://www.speakeasy.org/~peterc/wtow/

The 50 years Is Enough campaign is devoted to achieving global economic justice:http://www.50years.org/index.html

There are many national Jubilee websites that actively fight against poor country debt under the slogan ‘Drop the debt’: http://www.jubileeaustralia.org/

The former Chief Economist of the World Bank, Professor Joseph Stiglitz has a personal website with a range of valuable resources:http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/

A critique of the World Trade Organization by Robert Wade from the journal New Left Review is available here:http://www.newleftreview.net/?page=article&view=2494