*2.1. International Alliances Influencing Education Development*

The legacies of the nineteenth-century empires continue to influence economic and social development across the globe. The democratic revolutions in the US and France did not substantially change the overarching narrative of economic development portrayed by Adam Smith [4]. However, the Russian revolution during World War I brought the political dialectic into international politics. The British Empire transitioned to the industrial age faster than the global Spanish and Ottoman empires. Serious problems within the Ottoman economy influenced their engagement in WWI [5,6]. WWI brought British hegemony into dominance in the Middle East.

#### 2.1.1. Transformations Influencing Economic and Education Development

Transformations in prevailing political ideologies, political alliances, and nations' strategies for education development influenced social capital development in countries. These legacies of past global periods affect contemporary social stratification and the prospects for reducing opportunity gaps accelerated by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The multinational return of authoritarianism is symptomatic of profound social and cultural tensions [7]. In some Latin American countries, the rise of autocratic leftist politicians has been characterized as a "post-neoliberal" ideology [8]. Distinguishing the forces at work in economic and educational development during the current period starts with examining historical transitions. These periods stand out as distinctive as concerns economic development, trade across nations, and educational development within them:

• *The Empires.* European wars were waged over colonies, trade, and religion. South Asian nations adopted educational forms from their respective colonial power. For example, the British education and trade models dominated India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Pakistan, etc. China's trade and education were open to Western nations and missionaries, including the development of educational institutions. Japan evolved aspirations to build an empire, expanding into Korea and China before WWII.


Understanding the possible meanings of the current global transition for social change requires careful thought about conflicting political ideologies, shifting international alliances, educational development within and across nations, and patterns of social capital formation. The global supply chain created by neoliberal economics reversed the flow of goods in the US from outgoing to incoming.

#### 2.1.2. Breakdown of "Washington Consensus" on Education Development

An international aid strategy emphasizing capitalism in aid to developing nations was the alternative to communism advocated as a global strategy by Harvard social scientists, e.g., [12], and gained momentum during the 1960s under the Presidential administrations of Kennedy and Johnson. At the end of the Cold War, some economists argued that capitalism, rather than democratic institutions, had caused the demise of the Soviet Union, e.g., [13].

The "Washington Consensus" was a strategy for international development created by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the late 1980s [14,15]. It is perhaps most easily understood as a tacit agreement among neoliberal economists about the role of international capitalism in developing South American, Asian Pacific, and African nations [13,14]. The ideas persisted through most of the neoliberal period of globalization.

While the IMF is mainly concerned with lending and the repayment of loans for development, the restructuring of world trade is the haunting legacy inhibiting crossgeneration uplift, at least for the US [16]. The export of US jobs was only part of the problem. The debt accrued by developing nations ensured a legacy of poverty in many countries, especially in Latin America, where debt-to-tax ratios were excessive [17].

The Cold War's communist–capitalist dialectic disguised the deeper social conflict between racism within nations as empires crumbled. Racism morphed across global transitions into the contemporary conflict between authoritarian rule and democratic institutions. Democratic institutions are more likely to embrace and facilitate diversity within countries, while autocratic leaders appeal to powerful economic elites and populists [18]. These forces have resurfaced in Trumpism in the US, Brexit in the UK, and Russian claims of Nazism in Ukraine before the invasion. Conflicts between racist nationalism and internationalism linger within nations across the globe.
