The Global South at the UN: Using International Politics to Re-Vision the Global

Abstract

This article argues that the countries of the global South have defined themselves in a globally-positioned way since the 1960s - long before the current wave of neoliberal globalization or academic thinking about the ‘global South’. This is shown by tracing the history of the formation of the global South as a political bloc in the form of the Group of Seventy Seven, or G77, and in their aspirations and negotiations at the United Nations. The article explores how the G77 acts in the global political system, and how it tries to act on the global political system in order to produce a particular vision of the global. This is done through an analysis of some of the G77’s proposals of how to restructure the global order, including the NIEO and more recently in the UN’s Financing for Development conferences. The South’s vision of the global with stark disparities between North and South and their proposals to ameliorate the situation, is contrasted with a newly emerging Northern vision of the global which seeks to dissolve North and South into a neutral, holistic vision in which power and inequality is not salient.