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ABSTRACT
Writing ‘global’ intellectual histories involves historicising the transnational lives of key concepts. In this article, we argue that interdependence became a key concept in global inequality debates of the 1970–1980s. While ideas about interstate dependency have a long history, interdependence saw a remarkable breakthrough from the late 1960s onwards, partly in tandem with a liberal global egalitarianism, calling for the moral duties of ‘rich nations’ to alleviate poverty in ‘poor nations.’ Interdependence took centre stage in writings on international affairs and inequality within and between nations in the 1960s–1980s, both in the US and in Ghana. We first examine the work of American foreign policy intellectual Robert Tucker, and the conservative backlash against liberal global egalitarianism in late 1970s US. We then investigate writings on African regionalism by Ghanaian political economist S.K.B. Asante in the 1980s. A critique of interdependence shaped debates on global inequality, distribution, and justice amongst both American and African intellectuals. Coming from different perspectives and places, both Asante and Tucker were critical of the descriptive value of the concept of ‘an interdependent world.’ Interdependence was an ambiguous notion, which could be used to ‘cover-up’ persisting power structures in a world of very unequal nations.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our team members of the research project An Intellectual History of Global Inequality, 1960–2015 based at Aarhus University. We would also like to thank Casper Andersen, Ludvig Goldschmidt Pedersen, Valdemar Nielsen Pold, Johannes Lundberg, as well as Sara Marzagora for her insightful feedback as the designated commentator on our paper, along with the rest of the participants, at the symposium Towards a Global Intellectual History of an Unequal World, 1945-Today (online, June 10–11 2021).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Moyn and Sartori, Global Intellectual History; McClure, “Connected Global Intellectual History,” 7.
2 Cooper, “How Global.”
3 Schulz-Forberg, “Spatial and Temporal Layers,” 50.
4 Skinner, Visions of Politics, 148.
5 Tucker, The Inequality of Nations. The book also built upon two articles in Commentary by Tucker: “Egalitarianism and International Politics” and “A New International Order?”
6 The book was reviewed in International Affairs, Commentary, Millennium – Journal of International Studies, Canadian Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, Perspective, American Political Science Review, Development Policy Review and Slavic Review.
7 Christian Olaf Christiansen, “The Making of Global Inequality"
8 Tucker, Inequality, ix.
9 The law of War and Neutrality at Sea (1955); The Just War (Johns Hopkins, 1960); Nation or Empire? The Debate over American Foreign Policy (Johns Hopkins, 1968); The Radical Left and American Foreign Policy (Johns Hopkins, 1971).
10 In a later intervention in the wake of new books such as Waltz’ 1979 book, Richard Ashley would label Tucker a ‘neo-realist’ in his ‘The Poverty of Neorealism.’ See, however, Gilpin, “The Richness” for a harsh rebuttal and a defense of realism.
11 In a long list of publications, see e.g. “Professor Mortenthau’s” or The Marx-Engels Reader.
12 Tucker, Inequality, 3.
13 Hirschman, The Rhetoric of Reaction.
14 Tucker, Inequality, 51.
15 Griffin, International Inequality; Wriggins and Adler-Karlsson, Reducing Global Inequities.
16 Tucker, Inequality, 34–5.
17 Tucker, Inequality, 48.
18 Prashad, Poorer Nation, 66.
19 Hardin, “Lifeboat Ethics.”
20 Collins and Lappé, Food First.
21 Ward, The Widening Gap; Gilman, Mandarins of the Future.
22 Singer, “Famine, Affluence and Morality.”
23 Forrester, Shadow, chapter 5.
24 Moyn, Not Enough.
25 United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld Report, 6, quoted from Tucker, Inequality, 49.
26 Examples include “Oil: The Issue;” “Further Reflections;” “Three Years Later;” “Six Years Later;” “American Power.”
27 Tucker, Inequality, 61.
28 Tucker, Inequality, 52.
29 Tucker, Inequality, 56.
30 Röling, International Law, 56. Quoted from Tucker, Inequality, 57.
31 United Nations, Partners in Development, 56. Quoted from Tucker, Inequality, 56.
32 McNanara, Address, quoted from Tucker, Inequality, 52; Milanovic, The history.
33 Myrdal, An International Economy.
34 Also see Lewis, “Poor Countries,” 65–6. Quoted in Tucker, Inequality, 139.
35 Tucker, Inequality, 139.
36 Tucker, Inequality, 156.
37 Tucker, Inequality, 84.
38 Bach, “Ein Ende der Geschichte?” On how multinational corporations became a key political theme at the UN in the early 1970s, see Christiansen, “‘Corporate Citizens’ at the United Nations.”
39 Keohane and Nye, “International Interdependence and Integration.”
40 Hay, “What’s Globalisation Got to Do With It?”; Jones and Willetts, Interdependence on Trial; Mansfield and Pollins, Economic Interdependence; Russett and O’Neal, Triangulating Peace.
41 Baldwin, “Interdependence and Power”; on Kant and the liberal tradition see Russett, “Liberalism.”
42 Schmidt, “On the History,” 11; Baldwin, “Interdependence and Power,” 481.
43 Cooper, The Economics of Interdependence.
44 Schmidt, “On the History,” 11.
45 Schmidt, “On the History”; Wæver, “The Sociology.”
46 Sterling-Folker, “Neoliberalism,” 118.
47 Baldwin, “Interdependence and Power,” 488; Waltz, “The M”; Rosecrance and Stein, “Interdependence: Myth or Reality?”
48 Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence.
49 Ibid., 3. For an interpretation see e.g. Walker, “A Circumspect Revival”; Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence Revisited.
50 Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, 6.
51 Hoffmann, “An American Social Science,” 53.
52 Dosman, Life and Times.
53 Tucker, Inequality, 97.
54 See Huntington, “Foreign Aid,” 130–1; Heilbroner, An Inquiry, 39.
55 Heilbroner, Inquiry, 127, quoted from Tucker, Inequality, 54.
56 Packenham, Liberal America, 327–8. Quote from Tucker, Inequality, 86–7.
57 Forester, Shadow, Chp. 5.
58 Beitz, “Justice and International Relations,” 383. Quote from Tucker, Inequality, 152.
59 Tucker, Inequality, 50.
60 Tucker, Inequality, 52.
61 Hirschman, Passions and the Interests.
62 Erb, “‘North-South’ Negotiations,” 107; Hoffmann, “The Uses of American Power,” 29.
63 Tucker, Inequality, 94.
64 See e.g. Achebe, A Man of the People; Duodu, The Gab Boys; Armah, Beautyful Ones.
65 Tucker, Inequality, 64.
66 Tucker, Inequality, 170.
67 Waltz, “International Structure,” 224, quote from Tucker, 170.
68 Tucker, Inequality, 200.
69 Waltz, Theory of International Politics.
70 Ibid., 113.
71 Ibid., 139, 141.
72 Ibid., 139.
73 Ibid., 151. Several publications from the time were on American foreign investments, see e.g. Levitt, Silent Surrender or Servan-Schreiber, Le Défi Americain.
74 Waltz, Theory, 91, 105, 111.
75 Brandt, North-South, 281.
76 Brandt, North-South.
77 Prashad, Poorer Nations, 69, 73.
78 Ibid., 23.
79 “Joint Letter,” quoted from Prashad, Poorer Nations, 78.
80 Prashad, Poorer Nations, 78–9. Prashad does not define ‘Atlantic liberalism’, which he sets in opposition to ‘neoliberalism’. By the first he mainly refers to (social) liberal and social democratic strands of thought in the post-war era and ideas of liberal values, and distinguishes between the ‘epoch’ of Atlantic liberalism and the epoch of neoliberalism, with a turning point in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
81 Raines, “Meeting in Cancún,” quoted from Prashad, Poorer Nations, 80.
82 Doyle, “Stalemate.”
83 Ruggie, “Cancún,” 509; also see Ruggie, “Political Structure,” 482.
84 Ruggie, “Another Round,” 44.
85 Bloom, Miescher, and Manuh, Modernization. Bloom et al. describe modernisation processes in postcolonial Africa as spectacles and highlight the political theatricality of nationalist framings of modernisation.
86 See e.g. Sesay, “Africa and Europe.”
87 See e.g. Adedeji, “Dynamic African Economy,” 84, 160–1, 167, 170, 176, 179, 279, 458.
88 See e.g. Adedeji and Shaw, Economic Crisis in Africa; Browne and Cummings, The Lagos Plan of Action vs. The Berg Report; Ravenhill, Africa in Economic Crisis; Luke and Shaw, Continental Crisis; Ndegwa, Mureithi, and Green, Development Options for Africa.
89 Ndegwa, “Introduction,” 5.
90 Professor S.K.B Asante, the protagonist of these sections, passed away in late 2020 and is not to be confused with Nana Dr. S.K.B. Asante, the Ghanaian lawyer and the Omanhene of Asokore Mampong.
91 Asante, No Road Signs, 1–127.
92 Ibid., 128–92. After returning to Ghana in 1997, Asante, inter alia, established the S.K.B. Asante International Consultancy Services and the Centre for Regional Integration in Africa based in Accra, Ghana.
93 Asante, “Development Problems,” 10; Asante, “New International Economic Order,” 18. The idea of Africa as an economic underdog was also conveyed by Adedeji in a 1980 lecture: see Adedeji, “Dynamic African Economy,” 65–91.
94 Asante, “International Assistance,” 255.
95 Asante, Regionalism, 14.
96 Ibid., 13.
97 Asante, “Development Problems,” 11.
98 Ibid.
99 Asante, Regionalism, 2.
100 Asante, Regionalism, 14.
101 Asante, “International Assistance,” 264. The attention to the concept of interdependence is e.g. clear in the headlines of the following publications by Asante: “The Lomé Convention: Towards Perpetuation of Dependence or Promotion of Interdependence?” and “Africa and Europe: Collective dependence or interdependence?” For a definition of Asante’s understanding of the concept of interdependence see Asante, “Africa and Europe,” 189.
102 Asante, “Africa and Europe,” 189.
103 On notions of genuine interdependence see e.g.: Asante, “Africa and Europe,” 209; Asante, “International Assistance,” 270.
104 Asante, “Africa and Europe,” 209, 212.
105 Ake, Political Economy of Africa, 166.
106 Asante, “Expectations and Reality,” 115; Asante, Regionalism, 188.
107 Asante, “The Lomé Convention,” 672.
108 Asante, “Africa and Europe,” 208.
109 Asante’s interest for regional integration ‘began to take root’ during a fellowship at the Hamburg Institute for International Economics in 1980. Here scholars were interested in examples of regional economic integration on the African continent and Asante, thus, started delving into the field. See Asante, No Road Signs, 122.
110 Asante, “Economic Integration,” 72.
111 Asante, “Africa and Europe,” 111, 208.
112 Asante, “Development Problems,” 13.
113 Asante, “Development and regional Integration,” 84.
114 Asante’s first book Pan-African Protest: West Africa and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis 1934–1941, based on his disseration, was published in 1977.
115 Asante, Regionalism, 120.
116 Ibid., 109, 128.
117 Ibid., 21.
118 Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite, 161–2. American Marxist scholar Paul Baran also used this metaphor: see Baran, The Political Economy of Growth, 313.
119 Asante, Regionalism, 132.
120 Austin and Serra, “West African,” 250–2; Guichon, “(Black) Neo-colonialism and Rootless African Elites,” 4–5.
121 In a Ghanaian context, see e.g. the work of Marxist-inspired scholars such as Kwesi Kwaa Prah and Eboe Hutchful: Prah, “The African Elite”; Prah, “African Languages”; Prah, “Culture, the Missing Link”; Eboe Hutchful, The IMF & Ghana. On the embrace of neoclassical economics and the free market see e.g. Jonathan H. Frimpong-Ansah, James C. W. Ahiakpor and George Ayittey: Frimpong-Ansah, Policy Perspectives; Frimpong-Ansah, “Sub-Saharan Africa”; Ahiakpor, “Success and Failure”; Ahiakpor, Multinationals; Ayittey, “Africa’s Market Tradition”; Ayittey, Africa Betrayed. For a further unfolding of the writings of Kwesi Kwaa Prah and George Ayittey see Guichon, “(Black) Neo-colonialism and Rootless African Elites.”
122 Asante, Regionalism, 39. See also Asante, “International Assitance,” 266–7; Asante, “Development and regional Integration,” 91.
123 Browne and Cummings, The Lagos Plan of Action vs. The Berg Report.
124 Adebajo, “Adebayo Adedeji,” 271.
125 Asante, Regionalism, 55; Adebajo, “Adebayo Adedeji,” 265, 271.
126 Luke, “Regionalism in Africa,” 861.
127 Shaw, “Debates about Africa’s Future,” 332.
128 Asante, Regionalism, 15.
129 Ibid.
130 Ibid. In his publication from 1991, Asante acknowledged that the Lagos Plan had not been fully implemented and instead supported the ECA’s Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation (AAF-SAP) formulated in 1989. See Asante, African Development, 196–7.
131 Asante, “Development Problems,” 11.
132 Asante, “Development and Regional Integration,” 81; Asante, “Expectations and Reality,” 106.
133 Asante, “Economic Integration,” 68. For a similar statement see also Asante, Regionalism, 23.
134 Asante, African Development, 138–40.
135 Adebajo, “Adebayo Adedeji,” 271.
136 Asante, “Economic Integration,” 67.
137 Nkrumah, Autobiography, 164.
138 Asante, “Expectations and Reality,” 107.
139 Asante, Regionalism, 45.
140 This view was in line with concurrent policies of the Lagos Plan and the ECA. However, both the Lagos Plan and the ECA also stressed the initial need for increased aid, see e.g. OAU, “Lagos Plan of Action,” para. 14(III); ECA, “ECA and Africa’s Development,” para. 222.
141 Asante, “Development and regional Integration,” 92. For some rather similar contemporary views on the relationship between external assistance and self-reliance, see Aiyegbusi, “Collective Self-Reliance”; Jamal, “Managing the African Economy”: El-Issawy, “The Aid Relationship”; Browne, “International Ressource Mobilization.”
142 Asante, “Expectations and Reality,” 114.
143 Tucker, Inequality, p. 78; Mazrui, The African Condition, 82. Quoted from Asante, Regionalism, 187.
144 Asante, Regionalism, 195, 197, 204.
145 Ibid., 113.
146 Ibid., 28.