Global Intellectual Hegemony and the International Development Agenda

The worldwide homogenisation of thinking, analysis, and prescription, coupled with the de‐legitimisation of social critique, dissent, and alternative thinking in the 1990s, are characteristic of globalisation and of the current international system. The homogenisation is the outcome of global geopolitical changes and the end of the Cold War, with the ascendance of a victorious paradigm. The resulting global intellectual hegemony (GIH) is of special concernto developing countries and to the United Nations. It has undermined the goals and aspirations of the former and contributed to their intellectual disarmament and disempowerment; it has undermined the mandate and role of the latter. This essay discusses GIH in the context of international development cooperation, showing how it is nurtured in many different ways. It is argued that the mechanisms at work are well‐known in national politics, in particular inundemocratic societies, and are now projected by new technologies and through the global domination by those with power, a task made easier by the lack of organised and credible opposition. It suggests the need for further study and policy debate of this global phenomenon which seems to have largely passed unnoticed in academic, policy, and public opinion circles.