Worlds apart: the North-South divide and the international system

This book examines the role of international economic policy in the evolution of the North-South divide. The author traces the development of the international system during the post-war years, probes into the various forces that have been brought to bear in influencing its evolution, and assesses the way in which the system as it has evolved has impacted on underdeveloped countries and affected their development prospects. The international debates and discussions are reviewed in order to help understand the motivations and forces at work, and the policy developments are examined and discussed in the context of their relevance to and bearing on the economic development problems of developing countries. The main theme that emerges from the discussion is that of an international system heavily stacked against the underdeveloped countries, of a growing effort by these countries during the first three post-war decades to bring about beneficial changes in the system, with limited success, and of a major turning of the tide in the 1980s which saw them no longer able to sustain such effort, facing now a bleak future in an ever more hostile international economic environment. -from Author