Liam Campling, Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies

1. A critical political economy of the small island developing states concept: South-South cooperation for island peoples? Liam Campling, Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies Email: lc10@soas.ac.uk

2. Overview 1) Theoretical framework: critical theory 2) Historical development of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) concept 3) Interrogating the SIDS concept 3.1) Interrogating the SIDS concept 3.2) Ethnography of institutional perceptions 3.3) What’s left? Reformulating SIDS for sustainable cooperation 4) SIDS and South-South cooperation: integrating island peoples 4.1) South-South cooperation: a historical case study 4.2) Three theories of South-South cooperation 4.3) Critical theory and South-South cooperation: island peoples in the 21st century

3. 1) Theoretical Framework ‘Theory is always for someone and for some purpose. All theories have a perspective. Perspectives derive from a position in…social and political time and space’. (R. W. Cox 1986 [1981])

4. 1) Theoretical Framework Why use Critical theory? 1) It is analytically sensitive to the underlying forces in the international political economy 2) It reflects historical-ideological change 3) It is emancipatory 4) It is a “bottom-up” approach thus takes into account civil society as a counter-hegemonic force

5. 2) HistoricalDevelopment of the SIDS Concept 19701980 1990 2000 Focus of the SIDS Concept Theoretical Focus I Theoretical Focus II Theoretical Focus III Socio-Economic Geopolitical Security Economic and Environmental Development Vulnerability Primary International Security Dynamic Détente 'Second Cold War' US HegemonySept 11th Primary Third World Dynamic Radicalism/NIEO Debt Crisis/ Structural AdjustmentWTO Conformity Dominant Development Discourse Dependency Theory Neoliberalism…with a human face?... attacking poverty?

6. 2) Theoretical Focus I: Socio-Economic Development (1970s) • Emphasis on structural inequality of the international political economy • Break dependence through development of national industry to increase and raise real levels of sovereignty • Enable this via Import Substitution Industrialisation: protect domestic firms from from competitors, create local employment and preserve foreign exchange • Promote people-centred development through comprehensive systems of education and health • Financed via taxing the private sector, Cold War patronage and ODA

7. 2) Theoretical Focus II: Geopolitical Security (1980s) • Preoccupation with geopolitical security of SIDS • Focus on internal security (traditional defined), e.g. secessionist tendencies • Division of the Third World, and by extension SIDS, through debt leverage and neoliberal adjustment • Emphasis on role of domestic economic policy in development, e.g. economic liberalisation, privatisation and export-led development • The separation of the 'social' from the 'economic'

8. 2) Theoretical Focus III: Economic and Environmental Vulnerability (1990s) • Final ‘victory’ of neoliberalism (and its variants) • Era of ‘soft' politics, i.e. prominence of economic and environmental issues on the international agenda • General decline of untied overseas development assistance (ODA) (e.g. 1994: US$2.3 billion; 2001 US$1.7 billion) and Cold War-associated patronage/ rent-seeking • Environmental vulnerability becomes a key source of ODA and SIDS concept reflects this • Rise of the 'new regionalism' as a solution to constraints of smallness and Third World development in general • Financial and monetary liberalisation opens SIDS to capital flight, speculation-led economy and financial fragility and crisis

9. 2) Theoretical Focus III: Economic and Environmental Vulnerability (1990s)

10. 2) Theoretical Focus III: Economic and Environmental Vulnerability (1990s) You believe perhaps, gentleman, that the production of coffee and sugar is the natural destiny of the West Indies. Two centuries ago, nature, which does not trouble herself about commerce, had planted neither sugar-cane nor coffee trees there. (Karl Marx, 1848)

11. 2) Theoretical Focus IV: Economic Conformity and Vulnerability to 'Terror'? (2000s) • SIDS-to-EU preferences cut in 2008 (Cotonou Agreement) and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) = ‘redesigning’ SIDS economies • SIDS ‘locked-in’ to deepened WTO influence and regulatory forces (‘free’ trade) = benefits for large developing countries but for non-LDC SIDS? • US unilateralism and aggressive foreign policy = 1) A rise in terror attacks/ insecurity across the globe 2) Reduced tourism receipts = rise in inter-SIDS competition 3) Tourism-dependent SIDS increase surveillance/ policing budgets? 4) Continued decline in ODA

12. 3.1) Interrogating the SIDS Concept • What is ‘smallness’? (subjectivity of the approach) • No island is an island? (opportunism/fatalism in the literature) • SIDS resilience over vulnerability? • Intra-SIDS competition/ conflict

13. 3.2) Ethnography of institutional perceptions of SIDS • ‘Sympathisers’: Commonwealth, UN (espcially UNCTAD and UNESCO) • ‘Agitators’: IMF, WTO • ‘Fence-sitters’: European Community and World Bank

14. 3.3) What’s Left? Reformulating the SIDS Concept for Sustainable Cooperation • SIDS are permanently isolated, therefore… • SIDS will always be in a situation of economic and environmental volatility • Integrating resilience to combat vulnerability • Civil society ownership for sustainable cooperation and grass-roots implementation of the Barbados Plan of Action…. • ….Why? Because history shows that SIDS will not otherwise succeed

15. Reasons for rise 1) Domestic and international political-economic-moral weakness of the ‘West’ 2) A culmination of ongoing Third World unity in face of glaring structural inequalities 3) Supported by commodity power through OPEC Reasons for decline 1) Third World economic collapse in the face of the commodity and debt crises 2) Re-emergence of Western unity around neoliberalism and the ‘Second Cold War’ 3) Fragmentation of fragile Third World unity, e.g. it lacked popular support 4.1) A Case Study in South-South Cooperation: The New International Economic Order

16. 4.1) A Case Study in South-South Cooperation: The New International Economic Order LESSONS FOR SIDS • NIEO benefited from majority in UN General Assembly, commodity (oil) power: The SIDS grouping is exclusionary and only has normative force • NIEO was a state-led movement and collapsed due to disunity • Popular support and input is imperative

17. PROS The G15/G22 overcomes unworkable size of NIEO Possessing relative autonomy, industrial capacity and ‘debt power’ A representative ‘voice’ of the Third World CONS Orientation towards emulation of the core development trajectory Ignored by constituent parts In compliance with neoliberalism 4.2) Contemporary Theories of South-South Cooperation: Inter-governmental cooperation

18. 4.2) Contemporary Theories of South-South Cooperation: Inter-governmental cooperation LESSONS FOR SIDS • Interests of large developing countries contradict those of many SIDS and SDEs • Institution of the ruling elite likely to counter hegemonic forces? They are often the key beneficiaries!

19. PROS Asserts centrality of asymmetry of capitalist ‘development’ Encourages self-reliant regional groupings of ‘multi-nation’ states Rejects Eurocentric world order CONS An impossible utopia(?) Assumes emulation of core industrial development is desirable The site and strategy of social forces is unclear Requires a similar transformation in the core 4.2) Contemporary Theories of South-South Cooperation: Regional ‘Delinking’

20. 4.2) Contemporary Theories of South-South Cooperation: Regional ‘Delinking’ LESSONS FOR SIDS • Would ‘delinked’ regional groupings assert new core-periphery relations? (i.e. for SIDS/SDEs) • The capacity of the biosphere must be factored- in (i.e. environment-economy nexus) • Internal social forces cannot be ignored

21. PROS Build a system of global governance from the “bottom-up” > Global Civil Society (GSC)… Emerges from the self realisation by majority at the micro-level that do not benefit from macro-effects of neoliberalism Form a distinct ‘non-Western’ identity CONS A ‘creative’ approach but ‘constructive’? How to harness ‘non-Western’ identity across diversity of Third World Fails to question the integrity of GSC 4.2) Contemporary Theories of South-South Cooperation: ‘New Multilateralism’

22. 4.2) Contemporary Theories of South-South Cooperation: ‘New Multilateralism’ LESSONS FOR SIDS • There is no clear unifying ‘island culture’ that transcends global oceans • NGOs as the ‘community face’ of neoliberalism? • Must not underestimate the ability of the core to manage capitalist crises

23. 4.2) South-South Cooperation SUMMARY • As NIEO demonstrates, options open to SIDS framework as an insular and exclusionary movement are minimal • Centrality of island peoples in any form of sustainable cooperation

24. 4.1) Critical Theory and South-South Cooperation: Island Peoples in the 21st Century At the purely foreign policy level, great powers have relative freedom to determine their foreign policies in response to domestic interests; smaller powers have less autonomy (Gramsci, 1971: 264). The economic life of subordinate nations is penetrated by and intertwined with that of powerful nations. (Cox: 1993: 59)

25. 4.1) Critical Theory and South-South Cooperation: Island Peoples in the 21st Century • There is very little SIDS can do to influence the international agenda without linking to SDEs, sympathetic developing/developed governments, social movements and lobby groups in the core • Policy orientation in SIDS reflects globally hegemonic discourse • The UN system and IFIs were formed and act in core interests SIDS framework must be as much about intra-SIDS cooperation as an external ‘common front’

26. 4.1) Critical Theory and South-South Cooperation: Island Peoples in the 21st Century • Impact of a ‘front’ of island peoples will deepen and widen the scale and scope of the SIDS grouping: a move beyond token ‘civil society’ ‘empowerment’ and/or ‘participation’ • Unity among islanders vs. intra-SIDS competition/conflict • Popular democracy central to realisation of island peoples aims, objectives and cooperation • ‘Ecological debt’ as an example of potential negative cooperation within and between SIDS and island peoples • The diasporas of island peoples as a key source of advocacy and influence

27. 4.1) Critical Theory and South-South Cooperation: Island Peoples in the 21st Century • Sustainable cooperation based upon centrality of island peoples to: • Network and ally with sympathetic ‘partners’ in the North and South • Compliment and if necessary contest ‘top-down’ SIDS negotiations in the interests of the majority

28. 4.1) Critical Theory and South-South Cooperation: Island Peoples in the 21st Century … our main task as intellectuals and as responsible, politically engaged citizens, is to counter the incessant claims that resistance is futile. (ManfredBienefeld)