Interventionism—the manipulation of the internal politics of one country by another—has long been a feature of international relations. The practice shows no signs of abating, despite the recent collapse of Communism and the decline of the Cold War. In The Political Economy of Third World Intervention, David Gibbs explores the factors that motivate intervention, especially the influence of business interests. He challenges conventional views of international relations, eschewing both the popular "realist" view that the state is influenced by diverse national interests and the "dependency" approach that stresses conflicts between industrialized countries and the Third World. Instead, Gibbs proposes a new theoretical model of "business conflict" which stresses divisions between different business interests and shows how such divisions can influence foreign policy and interventionism. Moreover, he focuses on the conflicts among the core countries, highlighting friction among private interests within these countries. Drawing on U.S. government documents—including a wealth of newly declassified materials—he applies his new model to a detailed case study of the Congo Crisis of the 1960s. Gibbs demonstrates that the Crisis is more accurately characterized by competition among Western interests for access to the Congo's mineral wealth, than by Cold War competition, as has been previously argued. Offering a fresh perspective for understanding the roots of any international conflict, this remarkably accessible volume will be of special interest to students of international political economy, comparative politics, and business-government relations. "This book is an extremely important contribution to the study of international relations theory; Gibbs' treatment of the Congo case is superb. He effectively takes the "statists" to task and presents a compelling new way of analyzing external interventions in the Third World."—Michael G. Schatzberg, University of Wisconsin "David Gibbs makes an original and important contribution to our understanding of the influence of business interests in the making of U.S. foreign policy. His business conflict model provides a synthetic theoretical framework for the analysis of business-government relations, one which yields fresh insights, overcomes inconsistencies in other approaches, and opens new ground for important research. . . . [Gibbs] provides a sophisticated analysis of the conflicts within the U.S. business community and identifies the complex ways in which they interacted with agencies within the government to form U.S. foreign policy toward the Congo. . . . This is a well-crafted analysis of a critical case of U.S. postwar intervention which should be of general interest to scholars and others concerned with the domestic bases of foreign policy."—Thomas J. Biersteker, Director, School of International Relations, University of Southern California

More than half of the world's farmers are women. They are the majority of the poor, the uneducated and are the first to suffer from drought and famine. Yet their subordination is reinforced by well-meaning development policies that perpetuate social inequalities. During the 1975-85 United Nations Decade for the Advancement of Women their position actually worsened. This book analyses three decades of policies towards Third World women. Focusing on global economic and political crises - debt, famine, militarization, fundamentalism - the authors show how women's moves to organize effective strategies for basic survival are central to an understanding of the development process.

This is a comprehensive overview of the problems associated with Third World debt and describes new and practical approaches to overcoming them. As contributions come from leading thinkers across a range of disciplines, the text offers a timely guide for understanding and influencing the debt debate.

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.

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: 1,3, University of Northampton, course: Global Political Economy, language: English, abstract: [...] In the 1970s, the world trade framework provided possibilities and opportunities for poor economies to grow. However, the harsh reality of poverty in those new independent nations was the main obstacle for any development. Their economic conditions suggested that borrowing money and gaining foreign aids were reasonable courses in the 1970s. In the meantime, the ex-colonial powers began rising awareness of remaining their influence over their past conquests. Considering of remaining economic dependency, western countries showed great willingness of lending money to poor nations. The result was an unprecedented flow of sources from the developed countries to the developing world. A large proportion of sources were in form of loans and international aids from commercial banks and western governments. Many developing countries had very large debts, and the amount of money they owed was quickly increasing. In 1982, Mexico came finally to the brink of default on its foreign debt. The critical situation marked the beginning of the “Third World Debt Crisis”. In 1970, the fifteen heavily indebted nations (using the World Bank classification of 1989) had an external public debt of $17.923 billion – which amounted to 9.8% for their GNP. By 1987, these same nations owed $402.171 billion, or 47.5% of their GNP. Interest payments owed by these countries went from $2.789 billion in 1970 to $36.251 billion in 1987. In 1991, the developing world as a whole owed a total external debt of $1.362 trillion, or 126.5% of their total exports of goods and services that year (Ferraro, V. & Rosser, M., 1994). Trying to pay off the debt became a serious problem for these countries. The nature and terms as well as the political conditions with them caused great hardship for their people. The debt crisis in the third world is highly linked to the issues of western policies, interest rates, export values and confidence in the international banking system. The crisis is thus an international phenomenon and to understand it fully needs a global perspective. This paper will examine the origins of the debt crisis in the third world in the first part and the consequences in the second part. The third part will give solutions and recommendations followed by conclusion in the fourth part.