Corrado Tornimbeni, Davide Chinigò, Arrigo Pallotti, Massimiliano Trentin, Mario Zamponi (Unibo); Elisa Giunchi (University of Milan), Daniela Melfa (University of Messina), Maria Stella Rognoni (University of Florence).
The abstention of a large number of African countries on the occasion of the UN GA Resolution condemning Russia for the conflict in Ukraine, the proposals for the enlargement of the BRICS group during the Johannesburg summit and the divisions within African and Arab countries over the conflict in Palestine reveal the influence of the historical relations of political solidarity and economic cooperation between countries of the Global South, on the one hand, and their connections with various institutional and civil society actors in the North, on the other hand. Following the debate on the trajectory of Third-worldism, it can be said that there is an urgent need to grasp, through an historical perspective, the framework of international relations, political solidarity networks, economic cooperation projects and development models between countries of the Global South across the end of the Cold War and of the XX century. After the past challenges of experiences such as the non-aligned movement (NAM) and the New International Economic Order (NIEO), at the turn of the third millennium the attempts made at various levels to promote South-South cooperation often feed on a rhetoric that challenges Western political and epistemological hegemony, but see the actors of the South themselves (both ‘donors’ and ‘recipients’) pursuing a joint path with Northern states and multilateral institutions seeking ‘a new engagement’ with the South.
This project examines, from a historical perspective, the development models, actors, international organizations, transnational networks and the ‘places’ of political solidarity and economic cooperation of what is now called the ‘global south’ in the third millennium.