The “Rise of the South” and International Relations and Development Theory

Abstract

This chapter introduces the argument that the South has risen in recent years. It outlines two initial arguments: (1) that there has been a rise and this is a threat to the USA and the West; (2) that there has been a rise and this is because of market friendly policies as advocated by the West. It then relates these views to international relations (IR) theory—showing how realists and liberal internationalists respond to these questions—and shows that while these approaches are different, they are not objective, but in many respects “recommendations” for how the USA should respond to these changes. It then introduces approaches more critical of US hegemony (world systems theory [WST], global history and dependency theory), and in doing so shows how these are also perspectives on development. The chapter then moves on to explicitly consider the development question, showing how older modernisation theory overlaps, despite their considerable differences, with contemporary neoliberalism, in that both see contact with “the West” as desirable and progressive. And in particular I show how liberal internationalism and neoliberal political economy can be seen as new versions of modernisation theory. The chapter then focuses in more depth on dependency theory, arguing that, for all its problems, this approach does address important questions about inequality, marginalisation and subordination in the international order. The chapter then suggests that we might think of the rise (and fall) of the South in terms of modernisation and dependency approaches (rather than the specific details of these problematic theories), albeit updated to take account of new realities (including the uneven and unequal effects of China’s rise and premature industrialisation in much of the rest of the South). The final section provides an initial introduction to the rise and fall of the South through the lens of these two broad approaches.