The Global Political Economy of Raúl Prebisch offers an original analysis of global political economy by examining it through the ideas, agency and influence of one of its most important thinkers, leaders and personalities. Prebischs ground-breaking ideas as an economist - the terms-of-trade thesis and the economic case for state-led industrialization - changed the world and guided economic policy across the global South. As the head of two UN bodies - the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and later the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) - he was at the frontline of key North-South political struggles for a fairer global distribution of wealth and the regulation of transnational corporations.
Prebisch increasingly came to view political power, not just economic capabilities, as pivotal to shaping the institutions and rules of the world economy. This book contextualizes his ideas, exploring how they were used and their relevance to contemporary issues. The neoliberal turn in economics in North America, Western Europe and across the global South led to an active discrediting of Prebischs theories and this volume offers an important corrective, reintroducing current and future generations of scholars and students to this important body of work and allowing a richer understanding of past and ongoing political struggles.
PART I
Prebisch as architect and theorist of the global political economy
1 Development through tighter economic integration: how might Prebisch size up some trends and issues thus far into the twenty-first century?
P. Sai-wing Ho
2 Thinking globally from the periphery: Raúl Prebisch and the world system
Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano
3 Raúl Prebisch and the theory of regional economic integration
José Briceño Ruiz
4 The Latin American origins of Bretton Woods
Eric Helleiner
PART II
Power and resistance in the global political economy
5 Raúl Prebisch and the historical roots of the current movement against corporate-led globalisation
Robin Broad and Zahara Heckscher
6 From Palais de Nations to Centre William Rappard: Raúl Prebisch and UNCTAD as sources of ideas in the GATT/WTO
Erin Hannah and James Scott
7 The West remains on top, economically and politically
Robert H. Wade
PART III
Diagnosing structural change in the global political economy
8 A changing role for agriculture in global political economy? Brazils rise as an agro-power
Kristen Hopewell
9 Back to the future reloaded: Latin Americas development strategy during the commodity boom
Esteban Pérez Caldentey and Matías Vernengo
10 Rául Prebisch and the terms of trade: how things have changed.
Raphael Kaplinsky and Masuma Farooki