The Arab-African Connection: Political and Economic Realities by Victor T. le Vine & Timothy W. Luke

Author:Victor T. le Vine & Timothy W. Luke [Vine, Victor T. le & Luke, Timothy W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Middle Eastern, Social Science, Political Science, World, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781000242799
Google: KAiiDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 49787819
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

6

The Arab Developmental World

In the 1960s, both academics and policymakers divided the world of nations into three distinct blocs of nation-states whose ranking in each bloc depended upon their respective national economic, political, and social power (Horowitz, 1965). A decade later, however, the events of the intervening years greatly weakened the accuracy of the "Three Worlds" scheme. The First World of Europe, Japan, and North America gradually was coming to pragmatic terms with the Second World of the Soviet Union and the other states that modernized through "socialist revolution." However, the greatest transformation occurred within the Third World of less developed and so-called nonaligned states of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Historically, the Third World's distinguishing features have been political domination by and economic dependence upon the more powerful First and, in some cases, Second Worlds. By the 1970s, however, certain Third World nations were making some considerable economic and political advances. A small group of "export platforms" (Barnet and Mueller, 1974:132, 194, 196)—states with high levels of foreign corporate investment which tied them into international trade networks—such as Mexico, Brazil, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, plus the oil-exporting countries, slowly were increasing their GNPs and their political visibility. Still, the Third World states remained "dual" economies and societies that blended modern corporate production with traditional peasant agriculture. Consequently, for the most part, the Third World states were realizing political independence, but not political autonomy; achieved economic growth, but not economic development; and effected social change, but not social progress.

The past seven years radically transformed this international hierarchy of states. A new Third World, a different developmental world, has emerged from the old dominated and dependent Third World. By its emergence, this upwardly mobile Third World is reconstituting the symmetries of global interdependence, thereby establishing new configurations in the international division of power and status. The states of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)— Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Algeria, and Libya, as well as Gabon, Nigeria, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Indonesia—form the core of the new developmental world. With the formation of this new bloc, the vast majority of the less developed nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have undergone downward mobility to become the clients and constituents of the new Third World and to become a new Fourth World, in effect the residual category of the transformation. Like the relatively self-sufficient First World, this new Fourth World awoke in 1973 to the presence of a new set of dependency relations—those involving both modern and modernizing economies' oil-supply needs now largely under the price control of the OPEC states. Here, we examine how the new Third World has turned its command over most of the planet's petroleum resources—despite all of its political problems—into the economic, political, and social foundations of a new developmental bloc. Special attention will be paid to the Arab OPEC states, and to the parallels of their development with those of the First and Second Worlds, in order to better comprehend the motives behind their relations with the First and Fourth Worlds.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.