Power, Ideology, and Global Development: On the Origins, Evolution and Achievements of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

UNCTAD was created in 1964 as a forum for strategic thinking about international trade and development issues and for identifying mutually beneficial opportunities for policy coordination and international co-operation with the participation of both developing and industrialized countries. The history of UNCTAD, with its successes and failures, therefore, is closely intertwined with the history of ideas on trade and development and the interplay of political power and ideological manipulation in international trade and development policy making. This paper focuses on the intellectual traditions in economics which underpinned the formation of UNCTAD and examines the way such intellectual traditions have informed – both in method and substance – the subsequent thinking and research output by the institution and helped define its objectives. It compares UNCTAD’s methods and research output on a number of international development issues with the positions taken by other international institutions. These findings are used to reflect on the ideological element in development economics thinking.