New international economic order : Conflict and co-operationin North-South economic relation 1974-77

Shortly after the oil boycott and price increases of 1973. the developing countries massed together to demand a New International Economic Order (NIEO). Specific proposals were put forth at the Sixth and Seventh Special Sessions of the United Nations General Assembly, the Fourth UN Conference on Trade and Development. and the Conference on International Economic Cooperation between 1974 and 1977. In this book, Jeffrey A. Hart attempts to identify the major factors which determined the character and timing of these demands and the response given to them by the industrial capitalist countries (toward which most of the demands were directed). Some of the major questions addressed in the book are:

*Why did the developing countries stick together in bargaining for the NIEO, despite the growing differences among them in terms
of power and interests?

*Why did the industrial countries respond in a disunified and generally negative fashion to the NIEO?

* Why was there limited agreement on some NIEO proposals but not on others? * What did the NIEO have to do with combatting
mass poverty in the developing world?

Professor Hart combines a careful analysis of the global negotiations with a country-by-country examination of the foreign policies of specific countries in both the developed and developing world. He argues that agreements emerging from the NIEO negotiations can be explained in terms of shifts in the distribution of power, but that at least one of the agreements requires a different sort of explanation. The agreement to establish a Common Fund to finance international commodity agreements is more the result of changes in the interna tional division of labour, leading to shared perceptions of the need to recognize the necessity for further industrialization in the developing world.