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Prebisch and Myrdal: development economics in the core and on the periphery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2011

Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano  and
Örjan Appelqvist
Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano
Affiliation:
Institute of Latin American Studies and Department of Economic History, Stockholm University, SE-10691, Stockholm, Sweden E-mail: andres.rivarola@lai.su.se
Örjan Appelqvist
Affiliation:
International Relations at the Department of Economic History, Stockholm University, SE-10691, Stockholm, Sweden E-mail: orjan.appelqvist@ekohist.su.se
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Abstract

The ideas on development issues of two ‘pioneers in development’, Raúl Prebisch and Gunnar Myrdal, are tracked in their formation and evolution. The central role of these two ‘defiant bureaucrats’ in the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) are used to reflect on the interaction between intellectuals and international institutions in different historical contexts. Both men represented a liberal–universal strand in development thinking. Their divergent conclusions and assessments of the role of international institutions are compared, and are related to their different origins in core and periphery. It is argued that such roots influenced two different approaches to development problems within the UN system.

Keywords

developmentinternational organizationsMyrdalPrebischregionalism
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 29 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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57 Ibid., p. 66.

58 The first one was the ECE’s, published in April 1948.

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60 Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano, ‘De CEPAL a ALALC: tres vertientes del pensamiento regionalista en Latinoamérica’, unpublished paper for 53rd International Conference of Americanists, Mexico City, 18–24 July 2009.

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72 Ibid., p. 26. There is an explicit reference to Ingvar Svennilson, Growth and stagnation in the European economy, Geneva: UNECE, 1954.

73 Ibid., p. 159.

74 Ibid., p. 162.

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76 This contributed to the creation of the Latin American Free trade Association (LAFTA).

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85 Ibid., p. 309.

86 As noted earlier, this structural aspect was always a weak link in Myrdal’s analysis. The dichotomies that he used (rich/poor countries, advanced/backward, developed/underdeveloped) glossed over the structural link between the different development processes.

87 Myrdal, Challenge, p. 368.

88 Ibid., pp. 337, 342.

89 Gunnar Myrdal, ‘Increasing inter-dependence between states but failure of international cooperation’, Felix Neuberg Lecture 1977, quoted in Andersson and Appelqvist, Essential Gunnar Myrdal, pp. 194–200.

90 Gunnar Myrdal, ‘The need for reforms in under-developed countries’, in Peace studies, Seoul: Kyung Hee University Press, 1981, quoted in Andersson and Appelqvist, Essential Gunnar Myrdal, p. 210.

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