Power and Dependency in an Interdependent World : A Guide to Understanding the Contemporary Global Crisis

YERCEPTIONS OF A GLOBAL CRISIS have been rampant for over a decade. Third world nations fear their development prospects are being undermined by a series of devastating external shocks. Unprecedentedly high levels of foreign debt service, coupled with climbing interest rates and falling export revenues, have forced many developing countries to cut imports, restrict public-sector spending, curtail economic growth, and confront spiraling unemployment. The economies of the third world grew by an average of just six-tenths of 1 percent in 1981, and the figures were worse for 1982. Per capita income fell for the first time in twenty years. Even OPEC members, who gained most from increased oil prices in the 1970s, are concerned that lower prices and falling oil revenues may jeopardize their ability to repay extensive loans some of them acquired from Western banks at the height of the oil