V. Arunkumar – författare

The contemporary world fe passing through structural crises, during which a transition must be made from a set of socio-economic and institutional arrangements shaped by mass production technologies to another based on a new constellation of flexible technologies dependent on low-cost electronics. The emerging socio-technical system in which international trade and cross-country technical diffusion play an increasingly important role is being characterized by new patterns of investment propelled by new communication infrasthictural networks, by new patterns of business organization, by fresh socio-spatial structures, and by new global initiatives for peace. This broad-ranging transition in a global political economy has critical implications for development patterns and policies. The superpower hegemony is being replaced by global interdependence. One notices rapid changes in regional economies within countries and the regions which were once forward have lost to those which were traditionally backward. In the new dispensation of technology, some of the old regions which lost ground have re-emerged, and many which were poor have become poorer. The papers included in this volume present a general survey of the global, national and regional changes taking place in the socio-economic structures to cope with the new political and technological imperatives. Most of the papers are based on case studies in Latin America. Asia. Africa, Europe and North America and cover a wide spectrum of problems and issues confronting national economies in the process of structural transformation.