Interpreting Post-World War II Development in Thailand: More and Less than a National Phenomenon

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Glassman
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
World War ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Industrial Transformation ◽  
The World ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Complex Development

The processes of internationalization and political economic transformation described in the previous chapters help explain the specific character of recent industrial development in Thailand. Capital accumulation in Thailand has been centred heavily on Bangkok and has favoured a stratum of ruling elites who are disproportionately represented in the capital. The Bangkok-centric political economy has been tightly linked—indeed, over a very long period of time—with broader regional and international processes of capital accumulation, and the Thai elites have been successful at using international connections to buttress their social positions and control. Bangkok elites, in particular, have been able to utilize international support to strengthen a project of Bangkok sub-imperialism, which has in turn brought various local elites from outside Bangkok into national and international coalitions. All of this has consequences for the results of economic growth and industrial transformation in Thailand. Until the economic meltdown that began in 1996, Thailand’s GDP growth record was one of the most impressive in the world since World War II, and the country was included by the World Bank among the ‘miracle’ economies of East Asia (World Bank 1993), while being lauded by others as ‘the Fifth Tiger’ (Muscat 1994) and as a new entrant into the ranks of the NICs (Jansen 1991). At the same time, Thailand has become one of the more inegalitarian countries in the world, in terms of income distribution (Medhi 1996; Voravidh 1996) and displays a dramatic spatial skew in the distribution of economic activities. There have also been numerous social and environmental problems connected with industrial development in Thailand, along with various political indignities to the general population (Bello, Cunningham, and Poh 1998)—problems that can be seen alternatively as ‘the strains of success’ (UNIDO 1992) or as symptoms of ‘maldevelopment’ (Suthy 1991). To some extent, each of these images of success and failure correspond to a definite reality of the complex development process, neither of which by itself adequately summarizes the totality. What I focus on in this chapter, however, is not the multifaceted complexity per se but rather the connections between what are regarded as the success and failure stories.

Agency and Accountability in Multilateral Development Finance: An Agenda for Change

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-140
Author(s):  
Sophie E. Smyth
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
World War ◽  
Development Finance ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Copenhagen Accord ◽  
The World ◽  
Aid Architecture

Recent development challenges highlight a pressing need to re-evaluate whether the post-World War II behemoths of multilateral development finance are up to the tasks being demanded of them today. The institutions that dominate the current order, the United Nations (“UN”) and the World Bank, are undergoing a crisis of confidence as the world’s development aid donors engage in an ongoing quest to find alternatives to them. This quest takes the form of setting up numerous funds narrowly tailored to finance specific, narrowly-defined needs. Examples of these funds include the Global Environment Trust Fund (GEF) and the Global Fund to Fight HIV Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis. The Climate Change Fund, proposed in the December 2009 Copenhagen Accord (and recently renamed the Green Climate Fund), is poised to follow this approach. This ad hoc special purpose fund approach lacks a coherent, unifying vision of how to meet today’s development challenges. The funds that have been created fill a need but suffer from several deficits, ranging from governance gaps and lacunae in accountability, to high transaction costs and uncertain status in the international political and legal order. These deficits generate new risks and costs for the international aid architecture. In this Article, I argue that the time has come to re-design the interrelationship between these special purpose funds and the UN and the World Bank so that these funds can operate in sync with these institutions rather than as bypasses of them.

scholarly journals IFIs’ Conditionalities, Poverty Reduction, and Employment

2001 ◽  
Vol 40 (4II) ◽  
pp. 435-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabur Ghayur
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
World War ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
International Financial Architecture ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World

Rising from the debris of the World War-II and also the devastations caused by the great depression of 1930s, the Bretton Woods twins—international monetary fund (IMF) and the world bank; rather the world bank group1—have over the years emerged as important players of the international financial arena. They are the major component of international financial architecture in addressing global macro and financial stability. The Bank together with the regional multi-lateral development banks (MDBs), such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the Asian and the Pacific region, is making its contribution in building necessary infrastructure needed to initiate and support the development process, the recent reduced emphasis on such projects notwithstanding.

Brazil and World War II

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank D. McCann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
National Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
World War ◽  
Industrial Transformation ◽  
The Us

World War II produced great change in Brazil. Its war effort improved its port facilities, left it with new modern airfields from Belém to Rio de Janeiro, as well as refurbished railroads, and stimulated manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and a burgeoning steel complex. Its army, air force, and navy gained combat experience and the latest equipment. Its international stature had reached new heights and its leaders foresaw an ever-greater role in world politics. The war era laid the foundations upon which Brazil’s remarkable development in the next half century took place. The Brazilian leadership prior to the war had linked national development and security with international trade and finance, and they were concerned not to endanger the country, but they saw themselves naturally on the side of the liberal powers, particularly the United States. Brazil’s contributions to the Allied victory were significant. Brazil hosted, at Natal, the largest US air base outside its own territory, and, at Recife, the US Fourth Fleet; and it tied its economy to the American war machine, sent its navy in pursuit of German U-boats, and provided an expeditionary force and a fighter squadron on the Italian front. It allowed the construction of the air bases before it severed relations with the Axis at the Rio conference in January 1942, and the army lost personnel, equipment, and families to submarine attacks before Brazil entered the war officially in August of that year. Brazil’s expeditionary force that saw combat as part of the US Fifth Army was the only Latin American ground force to fight in World War II. Brazil’s industrial development encouraged and supported by the United States laid the foundation for its post-war industrial transformation.

scholarly journals Poverty Consequences of Globalisation in OIC Countries: A Comparative Analysis

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (4II) ◽  
pp. 479-492
Author(s):  
M. Tariq Majeed
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
World Population ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Second Period

Williamson (2002) points out that ‘the world has seen two globalisation booms over the past two centuries and one bust. The first global century ended with World War I and the second started at the end of World War II, while the years in between were ones of anti-global backlash’. In the first period of globalisation, poverty fell from 84 percent in 1820 to 66 percent in 1910. In the second period of globalisation poverty fell from 55 percent in 1950 to 24 percent in 1992. In the inter-war period, the world population living in poverty remains probably stagnant. The historical negative relationship between globalisation and poverty masks variations within and between countries in their experiences with globalisation. Many decades of increasing globalisation have not yet silenced the debate over the benefits of globalisation. The fierce street protests surrounding the ministerial meeting of the WTO and similar protests at the World Bank and the IMF show that anti-globalisation debate is getting strong.

scholarly journals UNIVERSAL MAN: The Seven Lives of John Maynard Keynes

10.26458/1545 ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 69
Author(s):  
Criatian Uta
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
World War ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Policy Measures

John Maynard Keynes was one of the most influential personalities of the twentieth century. It is considered one of the creators of what today we call Macroeconomics. He played an important role during the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, after which were put up substantial postwar financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The economic policy measures he proposed prevailed in the first decades after World War II and saw a revival in recent years due to the financial crisis of 2008-2009. His works on economics have seen many editions and have been translated into most languages.  

THE ROLE AND ROLE OF OIL POLICY IN SAUDI ARABIA IN POST WORLD WAR II ECONOMIC LIFE

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-41
Author(s):  
Maftuna Sanoqulova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
World War ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oil Policy

This article consists of the politics which connected with oil in Saudi Arabia after the World war II , the relations of economical cooperations on this matter and the place of oil in the history of world economics

A war hero or a Hitler soldier?

2019 ◽  
pp. 50-57
Author(s):  
Pavel Gotovetsky
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
National Committee ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Third Reich

The article is devoted to the biography of General Pavlo Shandruk, an Ukrainian officer who served as a Polish contract officer in the interwar period and at the beginning of the World War II, and in 1945 became the organizer and commander of the Ukrainian National Army fighting alongside the Third Reich in the last months of the war. The author focuses on the symbolic event of 1961, which was the decoration of General Shandruk with the highest Polish (émigré) military decoration – the Virtuti Militari order, for his heroic military service in 1939. By describing the controversy and emotions among Poles and Ukrainians, which accompanied the award of the former Hitler's soldier, the author tries to answer the question of how the General Shandruk’s activities should be assessed in the perspective of the uneasy Twentieth-Century Polish-Ukrainian relations. Keywords: Pavlo Shandruk, Władysław Anders, Virtuti Militari, Ukrainian National Army, Ukrainian National Committee, contract officer.

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