Global Change, Regional Response: The New International Context of Development

This book offers a new perspective in studying contemporary development. Part I explores how the ending of the cold war, shifting relations among capitalist powers, changing patterns of finance, globalization of trade and production, and new ideological currents have altered development in four major third-world regions. Part II suggests how development options were molded by the dominant international power in each region: the United States in Latin America, Japan in East and Southeast Asia, and Europe with the international financial institutions in Africa. Part III provides a conceptual framework for analyzing regional performance: variation in economic capacity, trade opportunities, and access to finance shaped the development chances of each region, producing rapid growth in Asia, stagnation in Latin America, and economic contraction in sub-Saharan Africa during the 1980s and early 1990s. It also speculates about future trends based on varying development models.

Barbara Stallings is the Director of the Economic Development Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (UNECLA) in Santiago, Chile. She is the author or editor of five books and numerous articles on international development issues. Dr. Stallings has taught for over fifteen years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she has also been director of the Global Studies Research Program. Chair of the Joint Committee on Latin American Studies of the Social Science Research Council and American Council of Learned Societies, Dr. Stallings has served on many editorial boards and as a consultant for various governments and foundations. She has been a visiting professor or researcher at Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and several centers in Latin America and Japan.