Muschik, Eva-Maria

Turning point in the ‘North-South conflict’ revisited: Measures such as deregulation, privatisation and liberalisation (so-called structural adjustments) were historically – against a backdrop of economic constraints and shocks – often presented as the only option. In fact, however, these policies were highly controversial. In her ERC-funded project Shockage, historian Eva-Maria Muschik examines the global history of ‘structural adjustment’ in the 1980s.

The project analyses conflicts at various levels: between states (especially with regard to the ‘Group of 77’, an alliance of states from the Global South within the UN); in international financial institutions (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which came under sustained criticism as advocates of structural adjustment); at the national level in Bolivia (which was considered a global prime example of this policy) and in activist circles in East and West Germany (as a precursor to the criticism of globalisation in the 1990s and 2000s). The focus is on the scope for action available to different actors and the alternatives that were formulated and discussed. The aim is to shed new light on an important turning point in recent history and the history of the ‘North-South conflict’ and to promote a better understanding of it.