Southern elites and the global development agenda, a (neo)gramscian post-mortem of the south commission

by Knight, John P.

SOUTHERN ELITES AND TEE GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AGENDA: A (NE0)GRAMSCIAN 'POST - MORTEM' OF THE SOUTH COMIMISSION John Philip Knight University of Guelph, 1998 Advisor: Professor Jorge Nef This thesis examines the work of the South Cornmission. A close cornparison of its final report, The Challenge to the South, to statements of the Southern elite position in the 1 970s, reveals a clramatic evolution of their development agenda injust fifieen years (1 975 - 1990). How to account for the broadening and re-priorizing of this agenda? One way to do so is to combine a conceptual grasp of the intemationalistand nationalist interests idonning Southern elite behaviour, with an analysis of the massive changes in the global political economy caused by the global crisis of development of the past quarter century. Put together, these reveal that Southem elite behaviour was becoming increasingly polarized by the 1990s. They had to radically revise their agenda, therefore. in order to 'shore up' their Uicreasingly subordinate position within world-scale accumulation, but in a manner that simultaneously boistered their waning legitimacy 'at home'.