Third World Quest for Political and Economic Security in the Post-Cold War Era

Abstract

The persistence of the West on the adoption of free market policies by developing countries may constitute a widespread form of external intervention in the post-Cold War era. The autonomous capacity of the Third World state to guarantee domestic peace and security can be increasingly undermined by its economic dependence on industrialized countries and by IMF and World Bank demands. That is, security in many developing countries would be dependent on their perennial cooperation with western powers. Similarly, the inability of popularly elected Third World governments to maintain their legitimacy, internal peace, and security may be intensified by a result of free market policies, and their readiness to express their frustration in the form of collective political violence--a situation that can infuse paralysis into the activities of governments and spawn anarchy in already heterogeneous societies.