20 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
some basic change. If that is so then perhaps the Korean model will have little relevance to the other countries of the Third World.
The Global Context
History has placed the developing countries in. a global system where despite their numerical strength, they are at a subordinate level. It is the evolutionary process of the Northern economies which influences the nature of the global system and the shaping or reshaping of the Southern economies. This overwhelming presence of the global context is emphasized at the outset because, a choice in favour of the Korean model means a verdict in favour of an export-oriented regime. And it needs no elaboration that an export-oriented regime is much more sensitive to the global context. The increasing impact of the international environment on the economic performance of the developing countries is today widely recognized. "It was mainly the deterioration in the external environment, particularly after 1980, that slowed down the industrialisation process in developing countries. If the process of industrialisation is to be both sustained and rapid, there must be expanding market both at home and abroad and continued high level of investment, in new production facilities. These pre-conditions for rapid industrialisation have not been present in many developing nations since 1980 when a fall in export earning and rise in debt-servicing cost led to reduced import and slow down in the growth of the domestic demand. The prospects of existing industries have been adversely affected both by the decline in demand and on the supply side by inadequate availability of foreign exchange to purchase imported raw material, spare parts and other essential supplies.'91
While the growing dependence of the developing world on the global economy and its growing vulnerability to pressures emanating from the latter are appreciated, the basic asymmetrical power structure which underlies this vulnerability is often not sufficiently emphasized. Once this asymmetry is taken cognizance of, it follows logically that without correcting the asymmetrical power configuration of the global economy, the vulnerability of the developing countries to the external environment cannot be minimized If this is agreed then in making a choice of a development strategy it will have to be examined whether and in what way, it contributes towards correcting the basic asymmetry of the global economy. Mere collective bargaining cannot achieve an alteration in this asymmetric power configuration. The experience of OPEC or the functioning of bodies like UNESCO and UNIDO clearly reveals the limitation of this strategy. The North-South dialogue is another episode pointing to the constraints of this approach. The potential of a development strategy to decentralize the global power structure depends upon degree to which it derives its sustenance form the local, as opposed to the global, environment. This obviously underlines that it is only by recognizing the centrality of the local or domestic market that the global power profile can be influenced and the world economy can be made interdependent. An interdependent