The Debt Crisis in the Fourth World: Implications for North-South Relations

Editorial, ‘If wishes were horses …’, South, 46, August 1984, p. 10.

Horowitz Irving Louis , Beyond Empire and Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. vii.

All three of these approaches are described in Hoogvelt Ankie M. , The Third World in Global Development (London: Macmillan, 1982). For a descriptive survey of the Fourth World, see Irving Louis Horowitz, ‘Three Worlds of Development Plus One’, in Horiwitz (note 2), pp. xiii-xxvii. For the LLDC concept, see Thomas G. Weiss and Anthony Jennings, More for the Least? Prospects for the Poorest Countries in the Eighties (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1983), pp. 1–10.

World Bank, World Development Report 1984 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 218; and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, External Debt of Developing Countries: 1983 Survey (Paris: OECD, 1983), p. 223.

Those excluded are China, Vietnam, Kampuchea, Laos PDR, Mozambique, Afghanistan and Bhutan. The World Bank's list excludes countries with populations under one million.

In Williams Richard , International Capital Markets: Developments and Prospects, 1983 (Washington, DC: IMF, 1983), p. 70.

OECD, External Debt of Developing Countries: 1982 Survey (Paris: OECD, 1982), pp. 15–16.

For further discussion of this point, see Wood Robert E. , ‘Foreign Aid and the Capitalist State in Underdeveloped Countries’, Politics and Society, 10: 1, Fall 1980, pp. 1–34.

OECD (note 7), p. 15.

World Bank, Toward Sustained Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Joint Program of Action (Washington: World Bank, 1984), p. 12.

Delamaide Darrell , Debt Shock: The Full Story of the World Credit Crisis (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), p. 40.

World Bank (note 10), p. 13.

Delamaide (note 11), p. 41; and World Bank, Tanzania: Agricultural Sector, Report No. 4052-TA, (Washington: World Bank, 1983), p. 6.

Payer Cheryl , ‘Tanzania and the World Bank’, Third World Quarterly, 5:4, October 1983, p. 800; and Reginald Herbolt Green, ‘Political-Economic Adjustment and IMF Conditionality: Tanzania, 1974–81’, in: Williamson John (ed.), IMF Conditionality (Washington: Institute for International Economics, 1983), p. 359.

Calculated from data in World Bank, World Debt Tables 1983–1984 edition (Washington: World Bank, 1984).

World Bank, Debt and the Developing World: Current Trends and Prospects (Washington: World Bank, 1984), pp. ix, 6–7.

Ibid., pp. 10–111.

OECD, Development Cooperation: Efforts and Policies of the Members of the Development Assistance Committee, 1979 Review (Paris: OECD, 1979), p. 96.

World Bank (note 4), p. 24.

Quoted in Payer (note 14), p. 802.

See Dell Sidney Lawrence Roger , The Balance of Payments Adjustment Process in Developing Countries (Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1980), p. 11.

Data taken from IMF Survey, 21 January 1980, p. 28; 6 February 1984, p. 33; and 4 February 1985, p. 33.

Calculated from data in World Bank (note 15); and International Monetary Fund, Balance of Payments Statistics (Washington: IMF, various years).

For a definition and discussion of international regimes, see Krasner Stephen D. , ‘Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables’, International Organization, 36:2, Spring 1982, pp. 185–205.

MacEwan Arthur , ‘The Current Crisis in Latin America and the International Economy’, Monthly Review, 36:9, February 1985, p. 3.

See, for example, Makin John H. , The Global Debt Crisis: America's Growing Involvement (New York: Basic Books, 1984).

Reported in New York Times, 25 September 1984, p. A12.

For assessments of North-South negotiations, see Bhagwati Jagdish N. Ruggie John Gerard (eds.), Power, Passions and Purpose: Prospects for North-South Negotiations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984); and Jimoh Omo-Fadaka, ‘The Mirage of NIEO: Reflections on a Third World Dystopia’, Alternatives, VIII:4, Spring 1983, pp. 543–550.

Leslie Peter , ‘Techniques of Rescheduling: The Latest Lessons’, The Banker 133:686, March 1983, p. 24.

Killick Tony , ‘An Introduction to the International Monetary Fund’, in Killick (ed.), The Quest for Economic Stabilization: The IMF and the Third World (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984), p. 132.

OECD, Development Cooperation: Efforts and Policies of the Members of the Development Assistance Committee, 1983 Review (Paris: OECD, 1983), p. 124.

‘Co-financing—New World Bank Approaches’, Finance and Development, 20:1, March 1983, p. 40.

The extension of multilateral development bank protection to banks and institutions engaged in co-financing is discussed in Jacques Cook, ‘Maintaining the Flow of Loans: The Cofinancing Alternative’, The Banker, 133:687, May 1983, p. 60.

International Finance Corporation Annual Report 1983 (Washington: IFC, 1983); and Roger S. Leeds, ‘IFC's New Approach to Project Promotion’, Finance and Development, 22:1, March 1985, pp. 5–7.

Overseas Private Investment Corporation Annual Report 1984 (Washington: OPIC, 1984), p. 2.

See Shihata Ibrahim F. I. , ‘Increasing Private Capital Flows to LDCs’, Finance and Development, 21:4, December 1984, pp. 6–9.

The official literature is large and growing. For examples, see Belassa Bela , Structural Adjustment Policies in Developing Countries, World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 464 (Washington: World Bank, 1981); Robert Liebenthal, Adjustment in Low-Income Africa, 1974–79, World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 486 (Washington: World Bank, 1981); Christine Wallich, An Analysis of Developing Country Adjustment Experiences in the 1970s: Low-Income Asia, World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 487 (Washington: World Bank, 1981); and World Bank, World Development Report (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981 and 1983).

John Gerard Ruggie raises doubts about the applicability of structural adjustment policies for fourth world countries in his ‘Political Struggle and Change in the International Economic Order: The North-South Dimension,’ in Ruggie , (ed.), The Antinomies of Interdependence (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), p. 487. For a more detailed critique focusing on a “middle-income” country, see Walden Bello, David Kinley and Elaine Elinson, Development Debacle: The World Bank in the Philippines (San Francisco: Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1982).

Ministry of Agriculture, The Agricultural Policy of Tanzania (Dar Es Salaam: Government Printing Office, 1983).

See, for example, World Bank, World Development Report 1983, (note 37), esp. Part II; and World Bank, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (Washington: World Bank, 1981).

IMF Survey, 13 June 1983, p. 166.

Quote in Raghavan C. , ‘Corea bows out with a broadside—and a plea for unity’, South, 53, March 1985, p. 62.

See the following good background sources: Loxley John , ‘Monetary Institutions and Class Struggle in Tanzania’, in: Mwansasu Bismarck U. Pratt Cranford (eds.), Towards Socialism in Tanzania (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1979), pp. 79–84; Idrian N. Resnick, The Long Transition: Building Socialism in Tanzania (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1981), pp. 126–134; and Andrew Coulson, Tanzania: A Political Economy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 315.

World Bank (note 15), p. 82.

World Bank (note 10), p. 11.

Kinzer Stephen , ‘Cracks in the World Coffee Pact’, New York Times, 18 July 1983, p. D7.

In a best-selling book, Brazilian economist Celso Furtado attacked the policies of the IMF and argued that sovereign borrowers had the right to declare payments moratoria and inform creditors and the new conditions they were offering unilaterally. He urged this course of action for Brazil, but warned Brazilians to be prepared to face the consequences of “a long period of financial abstinence on the international financial market”. Furtado Celso , No to Recession and Unemployment: An Examination of the Brazilian Economic Crisis (London: Third World Foundation, 1984), p. 23.

Quote in May Clifford D. , ‘Africa's Debts Appear More Troublesome Than Others’, New York Times, 1 July 1984, p. E3.

Liff Robert A. , ‘11 Latin American Debtors Agree to Continue Lobbying’, Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 June 1984, p. 11D.

South, 53, March 1985, pp. 55, 57.

Ibid., p. 60.

‘What Debt Crisis?’ Wall Street Journal, 20 April 1983, p. 28: and Kristof Nicholas D. , ‘Debt Crisis Called All but Over’, New York Times, 4 February 1985, p. D1.

IMF Survey, 18 February 1985, p. 51.

Riding Alan , ‘The New Crisis for Latin Debt’, New York Times, 11 March 1984, p. 8F.

Bello (note 38); and Payer Cheryl , The World Bank: A Critical Analysis (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983).

IMF Survey, 23 April 1984, p. 123.

Quint Michael , ‘Rates Fall Sharply on G.N.P. Data’, New York Times, 19 April 1985, p. D1.

IMF, Annual Report 1984 (Washington: IMF, 1984), p. 33.

IMF Survey, 18 February 1985, p. 50; and 15 April 1985, pp. 114–115.

IMF, Annual Report 1983 (Washington: IMF, 1983), p. 2.

See Fishlow Albert , ‘The Debt Crisis: Round Two Ahead?’ in: Feinberg Richard E. Kallab Valeriana (eds.), Adjustment Crisis in the Third World (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1984), pp. 40–45.

IMF Survey, 15 April 1985, p. 126.

IMF Survey, 18 March 1985, p. 88.

Business Week, 21 February 1983, p. 112.

Lewis Paul , ‘A “Cartel” of Debtors Ruled Out’, New York Times, 19 June 1984, p. D19.

World Bank (note 4), p. 44.

See interview in South, 46, August 1984, p. 36.