The North–South conflict
With the acceleration of the decolonization movement in the 1960s,
the North–South conflict was superimposed on the East–West divide,
thus completing the geo-political construction of the postwar world.
From the outset, this conflict was connected to the opposition between
the left and the right. Because they emphasized the need for change,
equality, and justice, the demands of the South were immediately
associated with socialism and Marxism. Just as typically, governments
of the North constantly called into question the legitimacy of the
Third World’s claims in the name of economic efficiency and market
rationality. A similar polarization emerged among the public in
developed countries: social groups who supported Third World
demands usually identified with the left, while those who opposed
them belonged to the right.^64
Many arguments of the East–West debate were simply transposed
into the North–South context. Conservatives, for instance, sought to
convince developing countries that private enterprise opened the only
practicable road to prosperity. Highly critical of the statist economic
model favored by many Third World governments, they insisted that
the strong expansion of the 1950s and 1960s was due to the free trade
regime institutionalized by the GATT and the IMF. The right resigned
itself to the United Nations’ increased powers in the area of develop-
ment and to the mushrooming of international agencies such as the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD),
the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United
Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), but it always
maintained loudly that the market approach of the Bretton Woods
institutions was better able to deal with the challenges of poverty than
the social-democratic and interventionist approach of the UN. For the
right, the IMF and the World Bank also had the distinct advantage of
being constitutionally controlled by the rich countries, an organiza-
tional trait that was said to ensure their sound management.
Moreover, from a conservative point of view, the postwar period
had clearly improved global justice. As a result of decolonization,
practically every nation now had a voice in international affairs, and
(^64) David H. Lumsdaine,Moral Vision in International Politics: The Foreign Aid
Regime, 1949–1989, Princeton University Press, 1993.
128 Left and Right in Global Politics