GEC 13- CONTEMPORARY WORLD
Learning Activity Sheet #6
1.
Define the term 'Global South';
2.
Differentiate the Global South from the third World;
3.
Identify the different terms and concepts used to label global poverty and wealth and the varied ways by which
countries are classified as such;
4.
5.
Analyze how a new concept of global relations emerged from the experiences of Latin American countries; and
Give various ways of changing the north-south relationship is explored.
I.
VOCABULARY LIST:
•
North-South divide – has recently been named the Development gap.
•
The Global South - is an emerging term, used by the World Bank and other organizations, identifying countries
with one side of the underlying global North–South divide, the other side being the countries of the Global North.
As such the term does not inherently refer to a geographical south; for example, most of the Global South is
actually within the Northern Hemisphere.
•
The Digital Divide - refers to the gap between those able to benefit from the internet and those who are not.
Since the 1990s, a potent global movement, including a series of intergovernmental summit meetings, were
conducted to "close the digital divide".
•
The Cold War - was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and their
respective allies, the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc, after World War II. Historians do not fully agree on the
dates, but the period is generally considered to span the 1947 Truman Doctrine to the 1991 dissolution of the
Soviet Union. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two
superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based
around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by the two powers, following their temporary
alliance and victory against Nazi Germany in 1945. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD)
discouraged a pre-emptive attack by either side. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional
military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological
warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events and technological
competitions such as the Space Race.
•
Colonialism - is the policy of a country seeking to extend or retain its authority over other people or territories,
generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonization, colonizers may impose their
religion, language, economics, and other cultural practices on indigenous peoples. The foreign administrators
rule the territory in pursuit of their interests, seeking to benefit from the colonized region's people and resources.
•
Development economics - is a branch of economics which deals with economic aspects of the development
process in low-income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic development, economic
growth and structural change but also on improving the potential for the mass of the population, for example,
through health, education and workplace conditions, whether through public or private channels.
•
International financial institution (IFI) - is a financial institution that has been established by more than one
country, and hence is subject to international law. Its owners or shareholders are generally national
governments, although other international institutions and other organizations occasionally figure as
shareholders. The most prominent IFIs are creations of multiple nations, although some bilateral financial
institutions exist and are technically IFIs. The best known IFIs were established after World War II to assist in
the reconstruction of Europe and provide mechanisms for international cooperation in managing the global
financial system.
•
Sustainable development - is the organizing principle for meeting human development goals while
simultaneously sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem
services on which the economy and society depend. The desired result is a state of society where living
conditions and resources are used to continue to meet human needs without undermining the integrity and
stability of the natural system. Sustainable development can be defined as development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability
goals address the global challenges, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation,
peace and justice.
•
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization that aims to maintain international peace and
security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a center for
harmonizing the actions of nations. It is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most
powerful intergovernmental organization in the world. The UN is headquartered on international territory in
New York City, with its other main offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague.
•
The Western world, also known as the West, - refers to various regions, nations and states, depending on the
context, most often consisting of the majority of Europe, North America, and Australasia. The Western world is
also known as the Occident, in contrast to the Orient, or Eastern world. It might mean the Northern half of the
North–South divide. Western culture is commonly said to include: Australia, Canada, all European member
countries of the EFTA and EU, the European microstates, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United
States.
II.
INTRODUCTORY CONCEPTS:
The North-South divide refers to the perceived differences in standard of living between the north and south
due to the concentration of socio-economic and political power in southern England. However, the dividing line is mainly
a hypothetical concept and is based on the stereotypes and presumptions of a region in comparison to another i.e., the
south.
The History of the North-South Divide
The origins of north-south divide dates back to the industrial revolution in Britain between 1750 and 1840, in
which the discovery of new minerals such as iron and the technological advances of steam and coal power, led to the
mechanization of agriculture, vast engineering works and infrastructures such as the transnational railway system. The
origin of dividing countries into the North-South Divide arose during the Cold War of the mid-20th century. This division
left out many countries which were poorer than the First World and Second World countries. The poor countries were
eventually labeled as Third World countries.
The industrial revolution nevertheless affected the social, cultural and economic conditions of the country, and
while regions such as the Midlands were the epicenter of mass production and labor during the ‘age of steel’ with 90% of
the manufacturing industries situated in the north, the concentration of the country’s economy was in the south.
Such socio-economic discrepancies can be seen in the commission of “workhouses” under the Poor Law
Amendment Act of 1834 that coincided with the erection of squalid tenement blocks during the 1840s in Gobals, an area
surrounding the city of Glasgow, to provide homes for the city’s growing population of industrial workers.
The North–South divide (or Global North and Global South) is a socio-economic and political division of Earth
popularized in the late 20th century and early 21st century. Generally, definitions of the Global North are not exclusively
a geographical term, and it includes Australia, Canada, most Western European countries, Israel, Japan, New Zealand,
Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan (ROC) and the United States. The Global South is made up of Africa, Latin America and
the Caribbean, Pacific Islands, and the developing countries in Asia, including the Middle East. It is home to: Brazil,
India and China, which, along with Indonesia and Mexico, are the largest Southern states in terms of land area and
population.
The North is mostly correlated with the Western world (previously called "First World"), plus much of the "Second
World", while the South largely corresponds with the developing countries (previously called "Third World") and Eastern
world. The two groups are often defined in terms of their differing levels of wealth, economic development, income
inequality, democracy, and political and economic freedom, as defined by freedom indices. Nations in the North tend to
be wealthier, less unequal and considered more democratic and to be developed countries who export technologically
advanced manufactured products; Southern states are generally poorer developing countries with younger, more fragile
democracies heavily dependent on primary sector exports and frequently share a history of past colonialism by Northern
states.[1] Nevertheless, the divide between the North and the South is often challenged and said to be increasingly
incompatible with reality.
In economic terms, as of the early 21st century, the North—with one quarter of the world population—controls
four-fifths of the income earned anywhere in the world. 90% of the manufacturing industries are owned by and located
in the North.[1] Inversely, the South—with three quarters of the world population—has access to one-fifth of the world
income. As nations become economically developed, they may become part of definitions the "North", regardless of
geographical location; similarly, any nations that do not qualify for "developed" status are in effect deemed to be part of
the "South".
Theories explaining the divide
The development disparity between the North and the South has sometimes been explained in historical terms.
Dependency theory looks back on the patterns of colonial relations which persisted between the North and South and
emphasizes how colonized territories tended to be impoverished by those relations. Theorists of this school maintain that
the economies of ex-colonial states remain oriented towards serving external rather than internal demand, and that
development regimes undertaken in this context have tended to reproduce in underdeveloped countries the pronounced
class hierarchies found in industrialized countries while maintaining higher levels of poverty. Dependency theory is
closely intertwined with Latin American Structuralism, the only school of development economics emerging from the
Global South to be affiliated with a national research institute and to receive support from national banks and finance
ministries. The Structuralists defined dependency as the inability of a nation's economy to complete the cycle of capital
accumulation without reliance on an outside economy.[16] More specifically, peripheral nations were perceived as
primary resource exporters reliant on core economies for manufactured goods. This led the Structuralists to advocate for
import-substitution industrialization policies which aimed to replace manufactured imports with domestically made
products.
Uneven immigration patterns lead to inequality: in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries immigration
was very common into areas previously less populated (North America, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand) from
already technologically advanced areas (Germany, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal). This facilitated an uneven
diffusion of technological practices since only areas with high immigration levels benefited. Immigration patterns in the
twenty-first century continue to feed this uneven distribution of technological innovation. People are eager to leave
countries in the South to improve the quality of their lives by sharing in the perceived prosperity of the North. "South
and Central Americans want to live and work in North America. Africans and Southwest Asians want to live and work in
Europe. Southeast Asians want to live and work in North America and Europe".
New Economic Geography explains development disparities in terms of the physical organization of industry,
arguing that firms tend to cluster in order benefit from economies of scale and increase productivity which leads
ultimately to an increase in wages. The North has more firm clustering than the South, making its industries more
competitive. It is argued that only when wages in the North reach a certain height, will it become more profitable for firms
to operate in the South, allowing clustering to begin.
'North' and 'South' have been established terms of use in debates about international political economy since
the 1960s. In their most basic form, the terms are regarded as a shorthand for distinguishing 'rich countries' from 'poor
countries'. 'The North' is taken to include the industrialized, high-per-capita income, national political economies of which
the majority are located in the Northern Hemisphere. 'The South' describes those countries with high levels of poverty
and comparatively low levels of industrialization, large numbers of which exist in the Southern Hemisphere.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DIVIDE
GLOBAL NORTH

United States, Canada, Western Europe,
Outermost Regions of the European Union
GLOBAL SOUTH

Africa, Latin America
 Developed parts of Asia, Australia and New
Zealand

Developing Asia including Middle East
 Home to all the permanent members of UN
Security Council
The gap between the ‘North’ and ‘South’
Despite very significant development gains globally which have raised many millions of people out of absolute
poverty, there is substantial evidence that inequality between the world’s richest and poorest countries is widening. In
1820 western Europe's per capita income was three times bigger than Africa’s but by 2000 it was thirteen times as big. In
addition, in 2013, Oxfam reported that the richest 85 people in the world owned the same amount of wealth as the
poorest half of the world’s population.
Today the world is much more complex than the Brandt Line depicts as many poorer countries have experienced
significant economic and social development. However, inequality within countries has also been growing and some
commentators now talk of a ‘Global North’ and a ‘Global South’ referring respectively to richer or poorer communities
which are found both within and between countries. For example, whilst India is still home to the largest concentration
of poor people in a single nation it also has a very sizable middle class and a very rich elite.
There are many causes for these inequalities including the availability of natural resources; different levels of
health and education; the nature of a country’s economy and its industrial sectors; international trading policies and
access to markets; how countries are governed and international relationships between.
VI.
READING MATERIALS:
Chapter 12 of textbook: “Locating the Global South” by Lisandro E. Claudio Connell, Raewyn. 2007. “Dependency,
Autonomy and Culture. In Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science. Cambridge, UK: Polity
Press, pp. 139-163.
VII.
REFERENCES:
 https://www.rgs.org/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?nodeguid=9c1ce781-9117-4741-af0a-a6a8b75f32b4&lang=en-GB
 https://medium.com/@vesabarileva/the-north-south-divide-of-countries-and-the-entire-world-e656ba588c8b
 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4621860?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
 http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/code/BuildWordSearch.asp
 https://www.rgs.org/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?nodeguid=9c1ce781-9117-4741-af0a-a6a8b75f32b4&lang=en-GB