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The objective of this paper is to understand what sovereign and country risk ratings actually measure. These ratings were created by key financial agencies to serve as a way of guiding a significant part of investment in developing nations. Theoretically, this project deals with one of the key debates in the social sciences: Are markets rational and efficient, or does uncertainty lead to the adoption of certain measures and policies because they are culturally and politically legitimate? To answer this question, this paper employs quantitative analyses, looking at both the factors that lead a country to be rated and what drives the ratings themselves. More specifically, I use different statistical techniques to show that the risk ratings are not driven solely by market factors but rather measure compliance with the existing neoliberal paradigm, such as financial deregulation and privatization. They are measures of compliance with the existing policy paradigm and fail to adequately capture investment risk. As such, they play a key role in the adoption of neoliberal policies even in the face of financial crises worldwide, especially in the Global South, as is the case with Latin America studied here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social justice is often cited in literature as an essential component or an ideal end of just transition, but there remains a gap on what social justice itself entails, thus leading to confusion about what just transition truly requires. Viewed from the Philippine experience, this paper faces the broad yet fundamental question: How is the conceptualization—and subsequent operationalization—of just transition affected by differing notions of social justice? Using the Just Transition Research Collaborative's analytical framework of framing just transition (2018) as a reference, the concept of "social justice" in the Philippine legal system is used as a proxy to determine the variety of viable just transition framings in the country. After mapping the classical and humanistic notions of social justice in what Monsod (2014) described as jurisprudential tension in Philippine law, this study finds that the divergent meanings of social justice, which is usually thought to be an uncontested concept, correspond to a wide disparity of just transition framings, [End Page 402] and consequently the policy interventions that await in the grassroots. Besides inviting a deeper analysis of foundational concepts related to just transition, such as social justice, this novel study also signals to the global community that there is indeed a widely available and untapped space for collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the papers published within the issue, as well as the history, goal and activities of the journal's parent organization, the Association of Global South Studies.

The article examines the foreign policy of the revolutionary government of Iran. One of the themes of the paper is the interaction between internal/domestic and foreign/external variables in foreign policy analysis. Another theme of the paper deals with the influence of the leadership factor on the policy process. Early on, the revolutionary government declared that Iran would pursue policy based on the principle of non-alignment. Foreign policy making is done mostly by institutions in developed countries but mainly by the leaders in developing nations, especially revolutionary regimes. The need for a more conciliatory approach in Iranian non-alignment strategy was rooted in Tehran's failure to capture Basrah--Iraq's second largest city and major port. In sum, Iranian non-alignment strategy towards the U.S. generally became more cooperative beginning in 1985. Contrary to earlier uncomplimentary comments about the U.S. and its hegemonial influence at the United Nations, President Khamenei visited New York in 1987 to address the U.S. General Assembly on the anniversary of the Iraqi invasion.

The author argues that there are three significant stages in the efforts of Third World/Global South development history as of Spring 2012. The article attempts to identify continuities and discontinuities within those three stages. The paper reviews the history of development in Third World/Global South areas following the end of World War II, the decolonization of African countries in the 1960s, and membership in the United Nations (UN). It also discusses modernization efforts in developing countries and the concepts of dependency and liberation. It mentions the efforts of the Alliance for Progress established by the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy in 1961, the debt crisis among Third World countries in the 1970s, and the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The article highlights the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Association of Third World Studies Inc. in Macon, Georgia regarding conflict resolution in developing countries. The Keynote Banquet address Lessons from History on the Limits of Imperialism: Successful Small State Resistance to Great Power Aggression was given by Rodney Anderson, professor of Latin American History at Florida State University. A.B. Assensoh, professor of African-American Studies at Indiana University gave the presidential address Africa, Third World Studies and Our Responsibilities as Researchers. Additionally, several awards were presented to recognize individuals who have made significant scholarly contributions to the academic discipline of Third World Studies. The winner of the Lawrence Dunbar Reddick Memorial Scholarship Award for the best article published in the year 2003 issue of Journal of Third World Studies was Kwame Boafo-Arthur, associate professor and chairman of the Political Science Department at the University of Ghana, Legon, for his article Tackling Africa's Developmental Dilemmas: Is Globalization the Answer?. The cowinners of the Harold Isaacs Graduate Student Award given to the author of the top graduate student paper presented at the annual ATWS meeting, were two American University students, namely, Victoria Stanski, who authored a paper entitled Linchpin for Democracy: Civil Society in Iraq and Thathiah Ravi, who presented a paper on The Pakistan Army and Its Role in Peace in South Asia.

Many developing countries have been trying to expand in the last decades their taxing powers on cross-border services rendered by non-residents beyond the rigid framework of the current international tax regime. However, this expansion has been carried on unilaterally and sometimes in an unplanned manner. This contribution describes the Brazilian and Argentinian experiences and tries to extract some policy lessons therefrom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]