Reinventing South-South solidarity

Reinventing South-South solidarity

By Bob Sugeng Hadiwinata

BANDUNG (JP): After being postponed for several months, the G-
15 summit held last month in New Delhi once again failed to
achieve quorum.

This gloomy indicator of South-South solidarity tends to bring
about major disappointment among political leaders as well as
scholars in Third World countries.

The main conundrum before us could be: why should the Third
World solidarity established in the 1970s have reached the point
of diminishing returns?

There are at least three "new" realities in global political-
economic relations in the last 20 years which have changed the
nature of North-South as well as South-South relations.

First, as a result of the improvement of education and
training in most of the developing counties, a global
standardization of technological ability seems to be underway.

The improved quality of human resources has given some
developing countries the ability to produce goods that meet
international standards.

This is the case with textiles, garments, footwear,
electronics, and other industries. This situation has led to the
so-called New International Division of Labor (NIDL) in which
developing countries no longer serve as suppliers of raw
materials and importers of manufactured goods.

Some countries which can easily adjust to new technologies
gain more than those which tend to adjust slowly. Through the
operation of Multinational Corporations across nations some
sectors relocate their production bases to those developing
countries which have sufficient technical skills and produce
cheaper than at home.

Second, in dealing with debt crises, some countries of the
developing world prove to be successful by following the policy
guidance from the International Monetary Fund as well as the
World Bank but others fail to do so.

Some countries manage to minimize their Debt Service Ratio by
tightening their monetary policy and increasing their exports.

Just as more and more developing countries deliberately expand
most sectors of industry for export, so they soon find themselves
as competitors in the world market.

Many political leaders of the developing world prefer to
maintain "special" relationships with advanced industrial states
-- particularly Japan and the United States -- in order to secure
accesses for their exports.

This situation seems to cause suspicion among the less-
successful developing countries that South-South solidarity has
been betrayed. The charge posed against the Newly Industrializing
Countries (NICs) such as Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and
Taiwan is so often associated with this suspicion.

Third, it appears that different orientations on development
strategies seem to pose serious threats to the establishment of
the so-called "Third World Collective Self-Reliance".

This problem has to do with the process of global
democratization which started in early 1980s in some Latin
American countries and some other parts of the world.

While at the same time, some developing countries were
satisfied with authoritarian rule as proved to be the case for
some East Asian NICs.

These countries were indeed accused of being "developmentalist
states that sacrifice citizens' political rights." This charge
was posed not only by advanced countries but also by some
countries of the developing world.

Under these circumstances the very idea of a "collective Third
World Voice" remains a dream.

These three "new" realities in current world political-
economic affairs seem to disavow any appeal for South-South
solidarity.

It is not surprising that for some Third World countries such
an appeal is simply obsolete rhetoric consisting of confrontative
sentiments against the Western world.

For those who enjoy the benefits of industrial relocation, the
building of South-South solidarity is no longer a top priority.

Moreover, the growth of "special" relationships with the West
made by some developing countries and different orientations on
development strategies have created disguised rivalries within
the Third World.

Therefore, the establishment of South-South solidarity on the
basis of a formal-ceremonial mechanism is no longer relevant to
the interests of most developing counties.

Is there still any chance for the restoration of South-South
cooperation? If there is, how do we recreate the momentum for the
establishment of South-South solidarity?

Current studies of international cooperation have increasingly
focused on the significance of non-state actors, like groups of
scholars and experts with different fields of study.

International relations theorists call this particular group
the "Epistemic Community." Many scholars consider this particular
segment of world community as relatively free from the blaring
competition for the achievement of national interests.

Interestingly, the strong intellectual and academic background
of the "Epistemic Community" puts them in the course of universal
norms and values that enable them to cooperate with each other
regardless of their national backgrounds.

In this kind of cooperation we can imagine a number of
economists from developing countries sitting together and talking
about policy options for the developing world.

Meetings of this sort can be extended to other areas such as
environment, technology, debt crisis, political system, mass
media, and so on.

What can be expected from the cooperation among the "Epistemic
Community" of the developing countries is that this particular
group may form ad hoc expert groups across national boundaries
with a special task of reviewing every possible policy option for
every country.

Just as this kind of cooperation can remedy the outpouring of
rhetoric and national sentiment, so the chance for the building a
novel, pragmatic-functionalist and informal South-South
solidarity appears to be possible.

While the old type of rhetoric-ceremonial and formal
cooperation failed to last, it is about time to turn to the more
pragmatic and functionalist feature that can perfectly be done by
non-state actors.

The problem is whether political leaders from the developing
world will let the "Epistemic Community" organize among
themselves beyond state boundaries.

The writer is a lecturer for the Department of International
Relations at the University of Parahyangan in Bandung.

30