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- Convenors:
-
Elisa Gambino
(University of Manchester)
Indrajit Roy (University of York)
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- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Decolonising knowledge, power & practice
- Location:
- L1.04
- Sessions:
- Friday 10 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Dublin
Short Abstract
As Northern dominance of the world order implodes, new actors in the global South appropriate and reinvent the ideas, institutions and political economies once associated with the global North. This panel explores challenges and opportunities for the New South in contemporary global development.
Description
As Northern dominance of the world order implodes, new actors in the global South appropriate and reinvent the ideas, institutions and political economies once associated with the global North. The slashing of aid budgets across the global North coupled with US withdrawal from multilateralism poses both challenges and opportunities for the New South.
"The New South in global development" panel examines the challenges and opportunities for multilateral cooperation; aid and assistance; and wider politics of progressive social change amidst the implosion of the Northern dominance of the world order. As once-colonised states and societies of the global South are asserting their presence in world affairs, including global development, and new actors in the global South appropriate and reinvent the ideas, institutions and political economies once associated with the global North, the prospects for Southern-led developmentalism are unprecedented. At the same time, slashing aid budgets across the global North and US withdrawal from multilateralism pose new challenges and incipient opportunities for the New South.
Against such a backdrop, this panel invites reflections on the following themes:
1. The agency of states and societies in the global South in rising to the challenge of shouldering responsibilities for global development
2. The connections forged by Southern agents with their Northern counterparts in meeting the challenges of global development
3. The diversity of actors within the global South, especially in the context of a divergence between a power South and a poor South.
Accepted papers
Session 1 Friday 10 July, 2026, -Paper short abstract
Coauthored by Manchester colleagues from the Global Production Networks, Trade and Labour group, the paper conceptualises Southern agency in GPNs through adoption, leveraging, reshaping, and crafting, highlighting their engagement with increasingly fragmented trade and production regimes.
Paper long abstract
Debates on the reconfiguration of Global Production Networks (GPNs) are increasingly framed through the lens of US-China rivalry and great power competition. This focus sidelines the increasing and diverse forms of agency exercised by a range of actors across the global South. This paper seeks to conceptualise agency in the GPN approach. In the context of a shift away from a rule-based system towards fragmented, contested, and multi-layered trade and production regies, Southern actors are increasingly re-interpreting, challenging, and selectively engaging with multiple governance arrangements at once, often across scales, while also proposing and crafting alternatives. We argue that Southern agency cannot just be understood in terms of adaptation to structural shifts or as the strategic positioning within existing GPNs, but must instead be conceptualised as a set of situated and multi-scalar practices – adoption, leveraging, reshaping, and crafting – through which actors engage with GPNs in an era of global uncertainty. Drawing on the sectors of agriculture, production, trade, and the digital economy, the paper highlights both new spaces for Southern agency and the persistent constraints imposed by a hierarchical and uneven global economy.
The paper is co-authored by a group of Manchester colleagues part of the Global Production Networks, Trade and Labour group: Elisa Gambino, Rory Horner, Khalid Nadvi, Chris Foster, Matt Alford, Aarti Krishnan, Sophie Van Huellen, Gianluca Iazzolino, Jose Antonio Puppim de Oliveria, Diletta Pergoraro, Jose Camacho Caicedo, Nedson Ng’oma, Hairui Liu, Puji Basuki, and Anifat Ibrahim.
Paper short abstract
The paper addresses how state capabilities matter for implementing social policies in multilevel governance contexts having cash transfer programs in Brazil as the main case. Through a mixed-method approach we conclude that more than information local bureaucracies need training to deliver policies.
Paper long abstract
Cash transfer programs have become a paradigmatic means of providing redistributive policies in the neoliberal age. However, the literature has yet to address the role of subnational administrative units in implementing those policies. This study examines why and how the knowledge and use of the tools provided by the Secretariat for Evaluation, Information Management (SAGICAD) of the Brazilian Ministry of Social Development vary among municipalities in Minas Gerais, the second largest state of Brazil. We argue that these variations stem from heterogeneity in local state capacities within the federal-led Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS). A mixed-methods approach was adopted, combining an electronic survey applied to 46 out of 853 municipalities in the state and conducting semi-structured interviews with bureaucrats from SAGICAD at the federal level, and documentary analysis of SAGICAD panels. The findings reveal strong heterogeneity in municipal capacities: the prevalence of small administrative structures, precarious employment ties in bureaucracies, low degree of institutionalization of Social Assistance Surveillance and Permanent Education, and predominantly operational use of informational tools. Despite the high educational level and professional experience of local managers, individual qualification does not fully translate into institutional capacity. SAGICAD's transformative potential depends on strengthening three interdependent pillars related to state capabilities: continuous training, structuring of surveillance units, and stability of technical teams. The study concludes that the main challenge does not lie in access to information but in the capacity to transform data into evidence-based decisions and management practices, thus enhancing the effectiveness of SUAS at the municipal level.
Paper short abstract
Well-being evidence shows that the Global South is no longer uniform. A power South is increasingly oriented toward capability and dignity, while a poor South remains constrained by survival- and aid-driven development models, raising questions about whose development counts.
Paper long abstract
The emergence of a “New South” in global development has coincided with growing divergence within the Global South itself, particularly between a power South and a poor South. While development debates continue to emphasise income growth, aid flows, and aggregate economic indicators, this paper argues that such approaches obscure important inequalities in lived experiences of development. Drawing on selected indicators from the World Values Survey, the paper compares subjective well-being and capability-related measures such as life satisfaction, perceived agency, and institutional trust across illustrative power South and poor South countries. The analysis suggests that power South states increasingly exhibit development trajectories oriented toward capability expansion and well-being, even at comparable income levels, reflecting greater policy autonomy and state capacity. In contrast, the poor South remains largely constrained by survival-oriented and donor-driven development frameworks that prioritise basic needs over broader human welfare. Interpreted through a behavioral political economy lens, the paper highlights how expectations, social norms, and trust shape development outcomes beyond material indicators. By foregrounding well-being as an analytical lens, the paper reveals a growing but underexplored axis of inequality within the Global South and raises critical questions about whose development priorities are recognised and legitimised in an era of declining Northern dominance, shrinking aid budgets and shifting global power relations.
Paper short abstract
This paper analyzes the proposed ECO currency as a geopolitical strategy reshaping aid and development in West Africa. Using macroeconomic data from 2019–2023, it examines asymmetries, external influence, and the potential of monetary integration to enhance strategic autonomy by 2027.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines how geopolitical shifts in the Global South are reshaping the future of aid through the lens of monetary sovereignty and regional integration, focusing on the case of the proposed ECO currency of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Building on an analysis of regional macroeconomic indicators between 2019 and 2023, the study identifies structural asymmetries between stronger and more vulnerable economies and assesses their implications for future convergence scenarios projected toward 2027. The paper situates the ECO initiative within broader debates on decolonial development, contested futures, and strategic autonomy, highlighting how monetary integration is increasingly framed not only as an economic project but also as a geopolitical strategy. Particular attention is paid to external power relations—most notably the continued influence of France—and to the challenges of convertibility, institutional capacity, and political consensus.
The central argument advanced is that, despite significant obstacles, the ECO has the potential to recalibrate aid dependencies and strengthen intra-regional cooperation, provided that robust monetary institutions and shared political commitments are established. By linking regional monetary reform to global debates on the future of aid, the paper contributes to critical reflections on how emerging forms of agency in the Global South are reshaping development in an era of systemic uncertainty.
Paper short abstract
The study of 86 countries (2000–2023) shows that in developed economies higher income inequality reduces AI scientific production, while in developing ones it increases it. Additionally, in developing countries, in the short term, higher scientific output tends to raise income inequality.
Paper long abstract
In this paper, we analyze the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) scientific production and income inequality in a sample of eighty-six countries from 2000 to 2023. We estimate a PVAR model using the System-GMM approach and analyze the Impulse Response Functions (IRFs). Our results suggest that, in developed countries, a higher concentration of income is associated with a decline in AI scientific production. Meanwhile, in developing countries, the relationship is the opposite: greater income concentration is linked to higher AI scientific output. We also find that, in developing economies, in short-term, higher scientific production tends to be associated with higher income concentration.
Paper short abstract
As Nigeria balances Belt and Road with traditional aid, does multipolar competition expand sovereignty or simply replace old conditionalities with new dependencies?
Paper long abstract
As traditional Western development architecture fractures, African states face both unprecedented opportunities and complex dilemmas in accessing development finance. This paper examines Nigeria's strategic positioning within emerging South-South cooperation frameworks, particularly Chinese development financing through the Belt and Road Initiative, while maintaining relationships with traditional donors. Drawing on recent infrastructure projects and policy negotiations, I analyze how Nigeria exercises agency in navigating competing donor interests, leveraging geopolitical competition to negotiate more favorable terms while confronting new forms of conditionality.
The paper interrogates whether this multipolar moment enables more equitable power relations or simply reproduces colonial hierarchies under new guises. While China's "non-interference" rhetoric contrasts with Western governance conditionalities, emerging dependencies around debt sustainability, technology transfer, and strategic assets suggest that sovereignty struggles persist in different forms. I examine how development assistance becomes weaponized in great power competition, with Nigeria positioned as contested terrain between declining Western influence and rising Chinese economic presence.
Through analyzing Nigeria's engagement with African Development Bank initiatives, Chinese infrastructure loans, and responses to Western aid reductions, I trace how recipient countries develop sophisticated strategies of forum shopping, playing donors against each other, and selectively appropriating development models. Yet I also explore the limitations of this agency within structural constraints of global capitalism and unequal technological capabilities.
The paper contributes decolonial critiques of both Western multilateral institutions and emerging South-South frameworks, questioning whether geographic origin of capital fundamentally transforms power relations or whether extractive logics persist regardless of financier identity.
Paper short abstract
This analysis looks at contemporary narrative on securitisation within the Global South and its implications for governance and sustainable development imperatives across states.
Paper long abstract
There are new actors in the Global South who adapt institutional norms, social, and political constructs to enable contemporary development. This is borne out of an increasing sense of agency among states and their societies in shouldering responsibility for national, regional security and ultimately global development. Such reality and adaptation of long-held Global North norms, principles and constructs is especially critical in relation to evolving narratives which can lead to tackling challenges of socio-economic development, environmental governance, security framework securitisation within these states. As a social construct and in practice, securitisation can be unevenly distributed over periods of time and space, sometimes triggered by power asymmetry, resource scarcity and natural disasters. In the building of narratives on securitisation, language is significant in understanding and shaping unfolding issues. Especially, on natural resource management, environmental governance and how to evolve the right security architecture/framework for states. Arguably, in the Global South, the emplacement of social constructs like securitisation on one hand is happening simultaneously with the aforementioned unfolding challenging issues. Methodically, this paper adopts discursive institutionalism, where narratives are seriously analysed within socio-economic, environmental and security contexts, as well as drawing on secondary sources like journals, newspaper reports, policy papers and briefs. It will interrogate and examine the various emerging securitisation narratives among scholars, security practitioners, policy and subject matter experts. While it investigates and explores new thinking, and constructs on conceptual security issues and securitisation within the Global South.
Paper short abstract
The paper examines how global production constraints and domestic institutions shape firm upgrading in Thailand’s EV and semiconductor sectors. It shows how institutional lock-ins limit upgrading while leaving room for Southern agency to generate change within global value chains.
Paper long abstract
As global production and trade regimes become increasingly fragmented and contested, emerging economies in the global South face growing pressure to pursue industrial and economic upgrading. Yet the capacity of Southern states and firms to exercise agency within global production networks remains uneven and structurally constrained. This paper examines how such tensions shape skills formation and upgrading trajectories in Thailand, a latecomer middle-income economy seeking to “catch up” through industrial upgrading in the electric vehicle and semiconductor sectors.
Drawing on qualitative evidence from firms and institutional actors, the paper analyses how domestic institutional configurations interact with global value chain (GVC) dynamics to structure opportunities for capability and skills upgrading. It shows how domestic institutions and global production dynamics generate “institutional lock-ins” that limit local firms’ movement into higher-value functions governed by lead firms in advanced industrialised economies. At the same time, the paper identifies “room for Southern agency.” Universities and locally embedded firms occasionally mobilise university–industry partnerships and targeted initiatives to support incremental upgrading of technologies and skills. However, their outcomes remain uneven.
Through a comparative analysis of firm-level experiences, the paper examines the conditions under which global production structures and domestic agency interact to challenge structural constraints and enable local firm upgrading. It argues that Thailand’s experience illustrates both the possibilities and limits of Southern agency in contemporary global development, challenging overly structuralist accounts that underestimate the potential for change in latecomer economies in the global South.