Partnership or Dependency? The Politics of Lomé
| Date | 01 October 1982 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.1982.tb00069.x |
| Published date | 01 October 1982 |
| Author | Trevor W Parfitt |
| Subject Matter | Article |
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-0-000-0-
PARTNERSHIP
OR
DEPENDENCY?
THE
POLITICS
OF
LOME/
TREVOR
W
PARFITT
In recent years
it
has become commonplace to analyse North-South relations
from
a dependency perspective. This perspective views the problems of underdeveloped
nations as stemming from their positions
in
a world economic order that operates to
their detriment and to the benefit
of
Northern imperialist powers. The developed
North
is
able to exploit the South through its economic predominance, which is,
in turn, partially based on this exploitation. The North's monopoly of high tech-
nology relegates the South
to
a role as supplier of primary commodities, which
are less profitable than the North's processed products. Furthermore, the dmin-
ance of Northern corporations in Southern economies ensures that much of the
surplus produced in the South
is
repatriated
to
the Northern metropolis in the
form
of profits. These modes of exploitation cause the South
to
become dependent on
the North for loans and aid, which leads to indebtedness, thus compounding the
South's problems. The North can use this financial dependence as a lever to co-opt
Southern ruling elites, which act as client regimes. Such are the main strands
of
dependency theory.
From Yaounde to
Lo&:
the Framework
of
'Partnership
European Economic Community (EEC) and the ex-colonies of
EEC
members.
'sixties and early 'seventies this relationship was codified in the two Yaounde
Conventions under which eighteen (mostly Francophone) African states became
'associates' of the
EEC.
Analysts like Galtung and Zartman convincingly argued
that the Yaounde regime was a device to maintain European access to post-colonial
Africa for their processed goods and capital].
to various Anglophone ex-colonies.
in North-South relations due to the wide variety of development facilities
it
made
available. These included aid, trade preferences, the Stabex fund2, a commitment
to industrial cooperation with the African, Caribbean and Pacific
(ACP)
signatories
to the Convention, ar:d a guarantee to buy
ACP
sugar at a price aligned with that
offered
to
producers from within the Community. The then President
of
the European
Commission called Lome/ "the most comprehensive and accompl ished form of 'attack
force' on poverty and underdevelopment"3.
of the birth of a new international economic order4.
Such hopes were soon to be dashed.
Variants on this model have been used
to
analyse the relationship between the
During the
However, in
1975
the first Lomg Convention was signed, which extended association
This agreement was hailed as a breakthrough
Informed opinion within the
ACP
spoke
The trading concessions proved inadequateto
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