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Third World solidarity: the Group of 77 in the UN General Assembly

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Keisuke Iida
Keisuke Iida
Affiliation:
Candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Abstract

The voting behavior of the Third World states in the United Nations shows that the Third World unity increased in the 1980s. Systemic theory reveals that changes in the power of the Third World could partly account for the increased unity. For a more complete explanation, I examine three models of the Group of 77—the communityof- interest model, the leadership model, and the reciprocal coordination model—and find that the data support the reciprocal coordination model most consistently.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , Spring 1988 , pp. 375 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1988

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References

I would like to thank Editor Stephen Krasner and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Special thanks are due to Robert Keohane and Stephan Haggard for their guidance.

1. Cited in Sauvant, Karl P., The Group of 77: Evolution, Structure, Organization (New York: Oceana, 1981)Google Scholar.

2. See Nye, Joseph S., “UNCTAD: Poor Nations' Pressure Group,” in Cox, Robert W. and Jacobson, Harold K., eds., The Anatomy of Influence: Decision Making in International Organization (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Gardner, Richard N., “The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,” International Organization 22 (Winter 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gosovic, Branislav, UNCTAD: Conflict and Compromise (Leyden, Neth.: Sijthoff, 1972)Google Scholar.

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4. In social psychology, there is a voluminous literature on the concept of cohesion or cohesiveness, which is similar to solidarity. But there is no consensus on the definition of the concept, which causes a great deal of confusion. For a useful summary of the literature, see Piper, William E. et al. , “Cohesion as a Basic Bond in Groups,” Human Relations 36 (02 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In international relations, the literature on alliance includes some theoretical treatment of the concept of cohesion. See Liska, George, Nations in Alliance: The Limits of Interdependence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), chap. 2Google Scholar.

5. For a most encompassing classification of international cooperation, see Tinbergen, Jan, “Alternative Forms of International Cooperation: Comparing Their Efficiency,” International Social Science Journal 30, no. 2 (1978)Google Scholar.

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8. All the members that eventually joined the Group were counted.

9. For the strongest expositions of neorealism, see Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979)Google Scholar; Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a collection of critiques of neorealism, see Keohane, Robert O., ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

10. I owe this argument to the referees of 10.

11. I conducted interviews with permanent missions to the United Nations from nine Third World countries in July 1986. To allow candid discussion, confidentiality was assured and the interviews were not taped.

12. I avoid the term “unit level” because it is so much associated with domestic politics explanation in international relations.

13. Krasner, Stephen D., Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), chap. 2Google Scholar.

14. If the state is internally strong, it can make vigorous internal adjustments to offset the adverse effects of external disturbances. Small European states are said to fit this pattern. See Katzenstein, Peter J., Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

15. Krasner, Structural Conflict, chap. 1.

16. Krasner, , Structural Conflict, pp. 6–12Google Scholar.

17. Krasner, concedes this point. He says that “the amount of support that various countries give to specific parts of the NIEO program varied with their specific economic interests,” but he discounts the importance of the differences. Structural Conflict, p. 88.Google Scholar

18. See Murphy, Craig, The Emergence of the NIEO Ideology(Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1984)Google Scholar. Krasner, also emphasizes the role of ideology. Structural Conflict, pp. 81–92Google Scholar.

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20. Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

21. Sauvant, , Group of 77, p. 9Google Scholar.

22. Mortimer, Robert A., “Global Economy and African Foreign Policy: The Algerian Model,” African Studies Review 27 (03 1984), p. 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Mortimer, Robert A., The Third World Coalition in International Politics, 2d ed. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1984)Google Scholar.

23. OPEC Aid and OPEC Aid Institutions (Vienna: OPEC Fund for International Development, 1985), p. 33Google Scholar.

24. See Lavy, Victor, “The Economic Embargo of Egypt by Arab States: Myth and Reality,” Middle East Journal 38 (Summer 1984)Google Scholar.

25. See Hallwood, Paul and Sinclair, Stuart, Oil, Debt and Development: OPEC in the Third World (London: George, Allen & Unwin, 1981), pp. 106–7Google Scholar; Hunter, Shireen, OPEC and the Third World: The Politics of Aid (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 166Google Scholar.

26. Moon, Bruce E. makes a similar argument with respect to U.S. aid. See his “Consensus or Compliance? Foreign-Policy Change and External Dependence,” International Organization 39 (Spring 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27. Axelrod, Robert, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic, 1984)Google Scholar.

28. Keohane, Robert O., “Reciprocity in International Relations,” International Organization 40 (Winter 1986), pp. 10–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. Ibid., pp. 19–24.

30. See Axelrod, Robert and Keohane, Robert O., “Achieving Cooperation Under Anarchy: Strategies and Institutions,” in Oye, Kenneth A., ed., Cooperation Under Anarchy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986). pp. 232–34Google Scholar.

31. This obligation is related to what he calls legal liability in his earlier work. See Keohane, Robert O., After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 88–89Google Scholar.

32. Since the Group of 77 lacks any headquarters or secretariat, it is hard to identify its center of activity. In New York, the committee for Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries might eventually turn into a secretariat.

33. Theories of institutionalisation in comparative politics, such as Huntington's, do not easily apply to international institutions. Therefore, I use somewhat different criteria of institutionalisation. See Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 12–24Google Scholar.

34. Sauvant, , The Group of 77, p. 16Google Scholar.

35. Jacobson, Harold et al. , “Revolutionaries or Bargainers?: Negotiators for a New International Economic Order,” World Politics 35 (04 1983), p. 340CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. This is analogous to trans governmental alliances known to exist among Western industrialized countries. See Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., “Transgovernmental Relations and International Organizations,” World Politics 27 (10 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. See the Declaration of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Group of 77 in October 1985, General Assembly Official Records, A/40/762 (New York: United Nations).

38. New York Times, 27 May 1986.

39. See General Assembly Official Records: Supplement, 13th Special Session, No. 2 A/S–13/16 (New York: United Nations, 1986)Google Scholar.

40. One prominent example is the dispute between Latin America and Africa over tariff preferences. See Edisis, Wayne, “The Hidden Agenda: Negotiations for the Generalized System of Preferences,” Ph.D. diss., Department of Politics, Brandeis University, 1985Google Scholar; Tulloch, Peter, The Politics of Preferences (London: Overseas Development Institute, 1975)Google Scholar. The regional groups are not monolithic, either. Interviewing diplomats from Latin America countries, Jeffrey A. Hart discovered that they had quite different policy interests in the NIEO issues. See Hart, , The New International Economic Order: Conflict and Cooperation in North-South Economic Relations, 1974–77 (New York: St. Martin's, 1984), pp. 89–102Google Scholar.

41. Sauvant, , The Group of 77, pp. 16–17Google Scholar.

42. FRG77 = 28.27 e0.25t R2 = 0.95

43. Due to lack of data for exports, 1985 was not included in the regression. If our synthesized model is correct, the anomalously high defection ratio in that year will be explained by either an increase in Third World power or a decrease in coordination efforts.

44. See Coser, Lewis, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1956)Google Scholar.

45. This seems to be a hidden theme in a polemical essay by Robert Ramsay. See “UNCTAD's Failure: The Rich Get Richer,” International Organization 38 (Spring 1984)Google Scholar.

46. See Pavlic, Breda et al. , eds., The Challenges of South-South Cooperation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1983)Google Scholar; Gauhar, Altaf, ed., The Third World Strategy: Economic and Political Cohesion in the South (New York: Praeger, 1983)Google Scholar.