Alternative Approaches to North-South Negotiations

Abstract

Over the last thirty years, growing attention has been paid to North-South issues. At a political level this was a natural development following many Third World countries’ political independence, and their increasing recognition of the gap in per capita incomes between North and South. While this gap may not have widened in relative terms, it has certainly widened in absolute terms over this period. The questions at issue relate to the ‘rules’ of the game — whether these are biased, how they might be reformed, and how best to operate within them. Despite much talk, there has been very little progress in terms of changing the rules. This chapter is concerned to analyse why this is so, and within the perspective this analysis gives, to make suggestions for more fruitful approaches to North-South negotiations. Paul Streeten has been a leading analyst of these issues, and much of what follows has been inspired by his thinking.²

This is a revised version of a paper prepared for the Committee on Development Planning for a meeting in December 1983.