South-South Cooperation and Neo-liberal hegemony in a Post-aid world

Abstract

South-South Cooperation SSC) has returned as a significant trope in the contemporary rhetoric of the aid industry. We compare the way that the idea of SSC is being currently constructed. In the 1960s and 1970s, SSC was discussed as constituting a challenge to the ideological dominance of the global north, presented initially as a counter-hegemonic challenge to neo-colonialism. Currently it is framed similarly as a challenge to neoliberalism. However, the current iteration of SSC differs fundamentally from the first round in the early 1970s, largely because of differences in assumptions about who is co-operating with whom and to what end, in the context of SSC. These differences are significant for the material practice of SSC and the ideological function of SSC rhetoric.