Dossier

Tectonic changes are taking place in the world, accelerated by the war in Ukraine and the rapidly escalating genocide in Palestine. These changes are shaped, on the one hand, by the Global North’s loss of economic power alongside its increasing militarisation and, on the other, by the Global South’s growing political demand for sovereignty and economic development. To understand these changes and the Global North’s bewilderment about the new mood in the Global South, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research produced dossier no. 72, The Churning of the Global Order, based on original research carried out with Global South Insights.

This dossier discusses the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, highlighting the role of the Medu Art Ensemble (1979-1985) in mobilising cultural workers and the people inside and outside South Africa. The art and cultural history, theory, and practices from this period are part of the tradition of struggles for national liberation and socialism across the Third World and remain relevant for cultural workers engaged in political struggles today.

Twenty-five years after the first ‘pink tide’ in Latin America and the Caribbean, the region – faced with the advance of right- and extreme right-wing – seems to be breathing new life into the latest wave of progressive governments. However, this ‘new wave’ faces a different reality than the earlier one. This dossier seeks to better understand the challenges, limits, and contradictions in the region today.

Despite holding a wealth of natural and mineral resources, Pakistan’s economy is projected to grow a mere 0.5% in 2023. This unprecedented contraction will see the poor grow poorer. To understand the crises in the country, from political upheaval to natural disasters, and the structural obstacles to social development, greater scrutiny of how International Monetary Fund policies are undermining economic independence is urgently needed. Pakistan is by no means an extraordinary case; it merely illustrates the IMF’s general template for all economies, whether large or small, with little interest if its actions turn a cyclical recession into a depression.

Dossier no. 68 presents an analysis of the 1973 coup against Chile and its effects on the Third World and non-aligned countries. It was the Allende government’s policies to nationalise copper that spurred the coup, but the policy to nationalise copper was part of a broader conversation in the Third World to create a New International Economic Order which would restructure the neocolonial international economic system along democratic lines and give weight to the ideas and peoples of the Third World. In that sense, the US-driven coup against Chile was precisely a coup against the Third World.

This dossier analyses the role of Marxist dependency theory today as an important scientific tool to understand the processes of development and underdevelopment, the current anti-democratic and fascist trends, and emancipation processes in the Global South.

Over the past century, there have been major shifts in the debates and theories concerning the question of development. In the post-war era, this evolution can be divided into four eras: the era of modernisation theory, the era of the New International Economic Order, the era of neoliberal globalisation, and the current transitional era following the 2007–2008 financial crisis. This dossier examines the historical and current thinking on development and offers an outline for a new socialist development theory.

In Argentina, the concentration of land ownership remains in the hands of a few. This system privileges the export of agricultural and agro-industrial goods, leaving the population facing hunger, a growing rural exodus, and an increasingly high concentration of the population in urban areas. Faced with this reality, this dossier looks at the debate and projects that consider land as a strategic resource, allowing people to put down roots, enjoy a dignified quality of life, and produce food aimed at supplying the local population.

This dossier offers a broad analysis of the living and working conditions of India’s large and diverse working class. The vast majority of workers in India are poorly paid and face terrible living conditions. Most of them are in the informal sector, where unionisation rates have been historically low. During the neoliberal era, corporations have demanded ‘labour market flexibility’, claiming that it would help attract foreign investment and generate economic growth. To overcome unions’ resistance against such ‘reforms’, which make jobs even more insecure, the government has moved to change laws. But workers have not surrendered to capital’s rising power.

Studies

The fifth study from the Women of Struggle, Women in Struggle series discusses the life and political struggles of Josie Mpama (1903–1979), a leader in the resistance against colonial oppression and the apartheid system in South Africa. As a central figure in the Communist Party of South Africa and in society more broadly, Josie teaches us about the importance of grassroots and mass organising. Like so many women involved in radical politics, particularly in the Global South, Josie’s extraordinary political contributions and theoretical acumen have been overlooked and largely excluded from then mainstream historical record.

Significant global changes have emerged in the years since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. This can be seen in a new phase of imperialism and the particularities of eight contradictions, summarised in our latest text.

This publication, from Tricontinental and ALBA Movimientos, sets out on a path to recover the history of struggles, resistance, insurrections,and revolutionary dreams that have been led by womenand  LGBTQ+ people throughout the region at different times in order to find the seeds of the popular Latin American feminisms that exist today. Selected and produced by popular feminist activists in Latin America and the Caribbean, these stories continue to inspire us today.

Although it existed for just 40 years, the German Democratic Republic (DDR) was able to construct a fundamentally different health care system that ensured a continuous improvement of the population’s health. The DDR built on progressive medical traditions and socialist property relations to eliminate the profit motive from medicine and construct a unitary health care system that operated in all sectors of society, from urban neighbourhoods and rural villages to workplaces and schools.

Catastrophes of one kind or another have rippled outward from Ukraine, including galloping inflation that is out of control. Areas of the world that are not directly party to the conflict are being hit hard by growing economic pressures, with political unrest an inevitable consequence. In this context, the Peace and Justice Project, a research institute headed by Jeremy Corbyn, joined up with Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and two media partners, Globetrotter and the Morning Star, to produce a series of reflections on unfolding conflicts in relation to concepts of nonalignment and peace.

We are witnessing a dangerous political, economic, and military escalation by the United States and its Western allies against Russia and China. The United States seeks to prevent a historical process that seems inevitable, the process of Eurasian integration, which threatens the primacy of the Euro-Atlantic elites. To secure global hegemony, the United States is committed to the pursuit of global nuclear primacy and is willing to use any means to ‘weaken’ both Russia and China – even at the risk of destroying the planet.

Nela Martínez (1912–2004), Ecuadorian activist and fighter for the people, was a key figure in the struggles of the working class and women. A communist and internationalist militant, she participated in the formation of the Ecuadorian Federation of Indians and played a central role in the Glorious May Revolution. A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ecuador, she led the creation of women’s organisations such as the Ecuadorian Women’s Alliance and the Revolutionary Union of Ecuadorian Women. Her political biography intertwines women’s struggles with anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist struggles.

As part of a network of research institutions that have been looking closely at the long-term crises of neoliberal austerity, induced debt regimes, and maldevelopment, we have jointly produced a set of policies toward a new world order.  Our plan – drawing from the lineage of the New International Economic Order – puts forward a vision for the present and the immediate future centred on twelve key themes: democracy and the world order, the environment, finance, health, housing, food, education, work, care, women, culture, and the digital world.