Abstract

In his late years, dealing with North-South relations were of central importance to Willy Brandt, as he considered a fair balance between industrialised and developing countries to be crucial for peace in the world. His thinking and his agenda for action was primarily formed by the Independent Commission on International Development Issues (ICIDI), which under his chairmanship delivered the so-called “Brandt Reportsµ of 1980 and 1983. Studying his vast North-South activities from the mid-1970s throughout the 1980s shows that the former German Chancellor followed quite a different political and economic approach towards the countries of the Global South than several US administrations and the World Bank did. Based on an economic model that can be called “Global Keynesianismµ, Brandt strived for an alternative to the US style of capitalism