I liked the Economist article a lot Carolyn, the fact that such an acknowledgement has found its way into Economist is a way forward. I think the third world industrialization/development, via a network of third world investment, has been happening for a long while, its pace accelerated dramatically in a third word context after china's embargo was lifted. But its acknowledgement by the World Bank also means recognizing a long standing claim of the third world countries to the reform of the power structure of the existing world management institutions; UN and the Security Council. In recent debates on Iran 180+ NAM countries expressed their strong views which went unnoticed by the UN existing structure. One outcome can be reforming the UN in way that it reflects, more democratically, the views of the UN hitherto subalterns. One member one vote and no veto, a much overdue political reform.
I am going to try to post this, wish me luck!
Absolutely! I have also been thinking about the ways in which acknowledged shifts in economic realities will begin to change the global "managing" institutions, their composition and balance of power. This same debate about who has a right to speak and a free hand to act has been running since the League of Nations (Argentina withdrew from the League in 1920 with a complaint about the League's inequity and many other "subaltern" nations either actively protested or bailed ship for similar reasons). The shift from G8 to G20 is already a signal of growing challenges to unilateralism on the world stage.
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