Rizal Technological University “The North” mostly covers the West and the
College of Education First World, with much of the Second World.
GE03: The Contemporary World
TH: 9:00-12:00nn
Module 4
Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students
are able to:
* Determine the differences between
the North and South;
* Appreciate the significance of
international organization to globalization; and
* Enumerate the advantages and
disadvantages of Asian Regionalism.
A World of Regions
GLOBAL DIVIDES: THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH
There are broadly two economic worlds
that cut across the globe; these are the Global
North and the Global South. That while, the
Global North represent the economically
developed societies of Europe, North America,
Australia, Israel, South Africa, amongst others,
the Global South represents the economically
backward countries of Africa, India, China,
Brazil, Mexico amongst others.
While Global North countries are
wealthy, technologically advanced, politically
stable and aging as their societies tend towards
zero population growth the opposite is the case
with Global South countries. While Global South
countries are agrarian based, dependent
economically and politically on the Global
North, the Global North has continued to
dominate and direct the global south in
international trade and politics.
Although most nations comprising the
“North” are in fact located in the Northern
Hemisphere, the divide is not primarily defined
by geography. The North is home to four out of
five permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council and all members of the G8.
The Contemporary World: A World of Regions
The expression “North-South divide” is still in
common use, but the terms “North” and
“South” are already somewhat outdated. As
nations become economically developed, they
may become part of the “North,” regardless of
geographical location, while any other nations
which do not qualify for “developed” status are
in effect deemed to be part of the “South.”
Classifying Countries
In the 1980s, the Brandt Line was
developed as a way of showing the how the
world was geographically split into relatively
richer and poorer nations. According to this
model:
 Richer countries are almost all located
in the Northern Hemisphere, with the
exception of Australia and New
Zealand.
 Poorer countries are mostly located in
tropical regions and in the Southern
Hemisphere.
However over time it was realized that
this view was too simplistic. Countries such as
Argentina, Malaysia and Botswana all have
above global average GDP (PPP) per capita, yet
still appear in the ‘Global South’. Conversely,
countries such as Ukraine appear to be now
amongst a poorer set of countries by the same
measure.
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
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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 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 countries; conflict within and between
countries; and a country’s vulnerability to
natural hazards and climate change.
Global North and South Compared
Levels of Productivity
There are low levels of living and
deprivations in human development in the
Global South countries. In addition to this
Global South countries are characterized by low
levels of labor productivity throughout the
Global South countries levels of labor
productivity (output per worker) are extremely
low compared with those in the Global North,
(Todaro and Smith, 2006) argue that the
concept of production function systematically
relating outputs to different combinations of
factor inputs for a given technology is often
The Contemporary World: A World of Regions
used in the way in which societies go about
providing for their material needs. But the
technical engineering concept of a production
function must be supplemented by a broader
conceptualization that includes among its other
inputs managerial competence, access to
information, worker motivation and
institutional flexibility and all these are almost
lacking in the Global South countries. Low
productivity leads to low income, which can
leads to low capacity forward, and to low
productivity, argues (Dasgupta and Ray, 1987).
Population Growth and Dependency Burdens
The yearly number of deaths per 1,000
in the Global South is also higher than that
found in the Global North. The high birth rate in
the global south has far reaching consequences.
Children under age 15make up almost 40% of
the total population in the Global South as
opposed to less than 20% of the total
population in the Global North. Thus in the
Global South, the active labor force has to
support proportionally almost twice as many
children as it does in the Global North. By
contrast, the proportion of the people over the
age of 65 is much greater in the Global North.
Both older people and children are often
referred to as an economic dependence.
Dependency burden: This refers to the sense
that they are non-productive members of
society and therefore must be supported. The
overall dependency burdens (i.e. both young
and old) represents only about one-third of the
populations of Global North about almost 45%
of the population of the Global South.
(Dasgupta and Ray, 1987)
Agricultural production
The Global South is characterized with
a very high rate of people working in rural areas
and according to (Todaro, 2006) over 65% are
rurally based, compared to less than 27% in the
Global North. Similarly 58 % of the labor force is
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engaged in agriculture, compared to only 50%
in Global North. Agriculture contributes about
14% of the GNI of Global South Nations but only
3% of the GNI of Global North. Todaro further
argued that people in the Global South
countries concentrate on agricultural
production because since their incomes are low
their first priorities are food, clothing, and
shelter and also due to the primitive nature of
technologies, poor organization and limited
physical and human capital inputs.
Exports
Many economies of the Global South
are still geared towards the production of
primary products which form their main efforts
to other nations. In 2000 the share of Global
South exports in total world trade stood at
around 25 % (Uroh, 1988).
International Relations
The Global South is dependent on and
vulnerable to the Global North. There is an
unequal strength between the Global North and
the Global South. The Global North being
stronger than the Global South, the unequal
strength between the two is manifested not
only in the dominant power of the Global North
to control the pattern of international trade and
agreement regulating it but also in their ability
often to dictate the terms whereby technology,
foreign aid, and private capital are transferred
to Global South. This has acted as a factor in
contributing to the persistence of low levels of
living, rising unemployment, and growing
income inequality in the Global South compared
to the Global North.
The North-South Knowledge Divide
The world’s scientific community is
heavily dominated by developed countries,
whether one looks at resources, the number of
researchers, or scientific production. OECD
countries contribute ninety-four percent of the
The Contemporary World: A World of Regions
indexed scientific literature. Moreover,
measures of inequality between countries are
more pronounced in scientific expenditures
than in income: although the average per capita
income of the thirty OECD countries is about
sixty times greater than that of the roughly fifty
countries classified by the World Bank as low
income economies, average expenditures on
science and technology per capita in the former
are 250 times greater than those in the latter
(Sagasti and Alcalde, 1999). More than ninety-
six percent of world patents are registered by
Japan, the countries of Western Europe, and
the United States (Shrum and Shenhav, 1995).
The number of scientists/engineers per
million inhabitants in developing countries is
200 on average, while in developed countries; it
is 2,800 on average (Serageldin, 1998). Of
course, the picture varies greatly across
developing countries, and a number of them
have significant research capacity. India, for
example, has the third most populous scientific
community in the world (Kandlikar and Sagar,
1999: 121).Africa, on the other hand, with fifty-
three countries, has only nine merit-based
science academies (Hassan, 2001). Developed
and developing countries tend to group into
two very rough physical and climatic categories.
Developing countries, which I refer to here as
the South, are primarily located in sub-tropical
or tropical ecosystems. Developed countries, or
the North, occupy mainly temperate and arctic
climates and ecosystems.
The knowledge divide comprises
multiple gaps in basic environmental and social
data, monitoring of change, assessments, and
more comprehensive research on human and
social systems.
The Data Gap
In the area of global environmental
change, the North carries out almost all basic
research and analysis, and the relevance of the
results for developing countries is not usually
assessed (Gutman, 1994). Yet, it is those
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countries that are most likely to be negatively
affected by global warming (Redclift and Sage,
1998).3 One of the exceptions to this pattern is
India, which has a community of climate
researchers. Their research focus, however, has
been almost exclusively on the impact of
climate change on coastal zones and
agriculture, and hardly any of the results have
been published (Kandlikar and Sagar, 1999).
The limited contribution to the body of
scientific knowledge on global environmental
issues from developing country scientists is not
only a reflection of the unequal research
capacity, but is also a result of different
research priorities. Environmental issues of
more acute local importance, rather than on a
global scale, are engaging scientists in
developing countries (Biermann, 2001; Gupta,
2000; Commission on Developing Countries and
Global Change, 1992).
Consequences of the Divide for Global
Environmental Governance
The international policy debate is in no
small part shaped by the arguments emerging
from scientific research and analysis (Kandlikar
and Sagar, 1999: 133). Policymakers put strong
faith in science, particularly in natural science,
to discover environmental threats, interpret the
consequences, and even suggest policy options.
At the global governance level, this is illustrated
by the fact that scientists represent the only
members of civil society to be consistently
asked to advise government representatives
(UNEP, 2000: 13). There are a number of
scientific advisory processes at the global level
through which scientists are invited to give
advice on environmental issues. Scientific
expertise is sought in intergovernmental bodies
like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), in ad hoc expert groups to
various conventions, in bodies that develop
technical standards and global assessments on
the state of environmental knowledge, or in
capacity building and multilateral aid projects.
The Contemporary World: A World of Regions
Inappropriately Globalized Knowledge
Another consequence of the knowledge
divide occurs when globalized knowledge is not
appropriate for situations and problems in the
South. At the global level, scientific knowledge
is often collected, analyzed, and summarized
into assessments of particular environmental
problems. These efforts create a scientific
foundation for decision making at the global
level.
Although it might be expected that data
from the North would be misleading if merely
extrapolated to the South, the extrapolation is
done time and again. Of course, tendencies to
disregard local variability on both global and
local environmental issues can be interpreted as
a pragmatic approach when there is a lack of
local data. Whatever the reason, however,
biases and inappropriateness for the conditions
in developing countries is strongly noted in the
South, particularly by scientists who are often
excluded from the global scene. The knowledge
divide can thus impair global deliberations,
when they are based on an unsatisfactory
understanding of the geographically distinct
causes and effects of the global problems.
Inadequate Participation of Developing
Countries in Global Governance
Another major consequence of the
North-South knowledge divide pertains to the
inadequate participation of developing
countries in the provision of knowledge for
global policy and action. The lack of national
scientific capacity weakens the position of
developing countries in multilateral
negotiations and their participation in the
conventions. Not only do developing country
officials lack scientific input from their own
researchers, but they also experience significant
difficulty in coping with the masses of scientific
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and economic documents coming from the
West. Bridging the knowledge divide: The
generation of knowledge acknowledging the
existence of a knowledge divide between the
North and the South and its consequences
prompts the question of what can be done to
address the situation. Over the long term,
bridging the North-South knowledge divide will
require measures aimed at reducing the divide
itself. Increasing the generation of scientific
knowledge in the South and of the South will be
critical in this respect. Four strategies could be
pursued: (1) strengthening the data and science
foundations of the South; (2) strengthening the
scientific community in the South; (3)
encouraging more research on the South
among Northern scientists; and (4) expanding
the groups capable of generating scientific
knowledge.
ASIAN REGIONALISM
Asian regionalism is the product of
economic interaction, not political planning. As
a result of successful, outward oriented growth
strategies, Asian economies have grown not
only richer, but also closer together. In recent
years, new technological trends have further
strengthened ties among them, as have the rise
of the PRC and India and the region’s growing
weight in the global economy. But adversity
also played a role. The 1997/98 financial crisis
dealt a severe setback to much of the region,
highlighting Asia’s shared interests and
common vulnerabilities and providing an
impetus for regional cooperation.
In the early stages of Asia’s economic
takeoff, regional integration proceeded slowly.
East Asian economies, in particular, focused on
exporting to developed country markets rather
than selling to each other. Initially, they
specialized in simple, labor-intensive
manufactures. As the more advanced among
them graduated to more sophisticated
The Contemporary World: A World of Regions
products, less developed economies filled the
gap that they left behind.
Now, though, Asian economies are
becoming closely intertwined. This is not
because the region’s development strategy has
changed; it remains predominantly
nondiscriminatory and outward-oriented.
Rather, interdependence is deepening because
Asia’s economies have grown large and
prosperous enough to become important to
each other, and because their patterns of
production increasingly depend Asian
Regionalism: Context and Scope 27 on networks
that span several Asian economies and involve
wide ranging exchanges of parts and
components among them. Asia is at the center
of the development of such production
networks because it has efficient transport and
communication links, as well as policies geared
to supporting trade. As these new production
patterns tie Asian economies closer together,
they also boost the international
competitiveness of the region’s firms.
Against this background, the financial
crisis that swept through Asia in 1997/98—in
this chapter, referred to simply as “the crisis”—
put the region’s interdependence into harsh
new focus. Emerging Asian economies that had
opened up their financial markets—Indonesia,
the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines,
and Thailand—were worst hit, but nearly all
Asian economies were eventually affected.
Most then used the crisis as an opportunity to
pursue wide-ranging reforms in finance as well
as in other areas of weakness that the crisis
exposed. Asia emerged with a greater
appreciation of its shared interests and the
value of regional cooperation. Since the crisis,
Asia has become not only more integrated, but
also more willing to pull together.
Page 5 of 8
 Evolution of Asian regionalism from being closer each other. No less important
was the consideration to help the Three to talk
Regionalism is an inspirational
to each other regularly and without too much
enterprise in human history. As well as being
fuss. The Three were at odds when they came
inspirational, we can even say that it is quietly
together as a trio because of their insistence on
revolutionary since it involves the
face, rank, and politics before they even
reorganization of political, economic, cultural,
reached the negotiation table. For example,
and social lives along the lines of an imagined
during negotiations it was necessary to use a
region rather than according to the standard
room with three entrances and a desk of a
political unit of the nation state. In order to
triangular shape. In the 2000s, the tide of
understand the ideas of regionalism in Asia and
globalization swept through East and Southeast
speculate about the future of Asian regionalism,
Asia as well as the rest of the world. The Three
it will be most helpful to trace the evolution of
registered more than 50% of their total trade as
Asian regionalism using four benchmarks:
intraregional (i.e., Japan, Korea, and China) by
1968, 1989, 1997, and 2010 (Shiraishi, 2011). In
the early 2000s. Japan and China competed
1968, the Association of Southeast Asian
over how to adapt to the relentless tide of
Nations was born with five original members:
globalization via the politics of membership,
Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand,
that is China’s insistence on the ASEAN plus
and Singapore. The primary goal of the ASEAN,
Three formula versus Japan’s new proposal to
as far as the United States and its friends were
form the ASEAN plus Six (Japan, Korea, China,
concerned, was to consolidate Southeast Asia
India, Australia, and New Zealand) now labeled
against communism, which was raging in the
the East Asian Summit. In 2010, the East Asian
form of the Vietnam War. Its focus was on
Summit decided to add two more members,
security. The ASEAN was an outgrowth of the
the United States and Russia. This has initiated
stillborn SEATO idea, which was envisaged as a
a new phase for Asian regionalism. The
type of Asian NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
regionalism surrounding the big northeast Asian
Organization) organization against communism.
three is becoming more comprehensive. In
In 1989, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
2006, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)
(APEC) meeting was institutionalized with the
proposal was inaugurated as an economic
goal of monitoring and analyzing regional
partnership agreement among small Asia Pacific
markets and institutions as well as governing
countries such as Singapore. The TPP grew by
rules and norms for facilitating transparent and
2010 into a large and ambitious framework to
introduction to ideas of asian regionalism 167
liberalize economic transactions in the Asia
efficient business transactions in the region. Its
Pacific through adding new members, including
focus was economic and its style was
the United States, Australia, and some other
technocratic. It was in a sense the growth of the
countries. The year 2010 was also marked by
idea of the Asia Pacific economic cooperation
the vigorous and deep advances into the region
mechanism envisaged by Saburo Okita and John
by two giants, China and the United States.
Crawford in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1989, the
China engaged in assertive and largely
APEC was born with the United States’ strong
unilateral actions in the region, such as
support. In 1997, the ASEAN plus Three (Japan,
maritime security thrusts in the East China,
Korea, and China) was instituted. Japan, Korea,
South China, and Bengal seas; resource
and China were major economic engines. Both
exploitation in Myanmar, Vietnam, India, and
the ASEAN and the Three wanted to benefit
Indonesia; and investment in business firms in
The Contemporary World: A World of Regions Page 6 of 8
Korea and Japan. The United States decided to
depart from its ambiguity strategy to focus on
an engagement strategy. The United States has
inaugurated and/or consolidated security
dialogues and military exchanges with India,
Indonesia, and Vietnam with a big package of
scientific, technological, military, and energy
components. It is clear that by 2010 the stage
was set for a new evolution of Asian
regionalism.
How Asian Regionalism Can Benefit the World
The rest of the world could benefit, too.
So long as Asia’s economies continue to
integrate not just with each other, but also with
the rest of the world, sustained Asian
dynamism, strengthened by regional
cooperation, could bolster Asia’s role as a new
and stabilizing engine of global economic
growth. There are many reasons why Asia is
likely to remain Outward-looking—not least
because its economy is in large part built on
economies of scale and scope in manufacturing
and so requires global markets to perform at its
potential. Indeed, because an integrated Asia
will continue to have a powerful stake in the
global economy, it would have both an
incentive and the leverage to play a bigger role
in keeping global markets open and vibrant. An
integrated Asia can
• generate productivity gains, new ideas, and
competition that boost economic growth and
raise incomes across the world;
• contribute to the efficiency and stability of
global financial markets by making Asian capital
markets stronger and safer, and by maximizing
the productive use of Asian savings;
• diversify sources of global demand, helping to
stabilize the world economy and diminish the
risks posed by global imbalances and downturns
in other major economies;
The Contemporary World: A World of Regions
• provide leadership to help sustain open global
trade and financial systems; and
• create regional mechanisms to manage
health, safety, and environmental issues better,
and thus contribute to more effective global
solutions of these problems. While Asian
regionalism is primarily motivated by the desire
to advance welfare in the region, it would not
do so by detracting from development
elsewhere. On the contrary, Asian regionalism
can help to sustain global economic progress at
a time when other major regions are reaching
economic maturity.
The Economics of Regionalism
The economics of regionalism have a
complex and troubled history. In the 1930s,
countries created preferential trade blocs in an
attempt to shelter their economies from the
Great Depression.
The case for collective action arises
from market failures that reduce economic
welfare in the absence of official measures. The
case for regional cooperation is still more
specific: it addresses problems that are
inherently regional in scope or, for other
reasons, cannot be solved at a global or national
level. Rapid regional growth and integration
generate new commercial opportunities and
demands for governmental cooperation and
institutional development but achievable.
Important priorities for regional collective
action are as follows:
• Provide public goods that are unlikely to be
produced by markets or individual economies.
These include measures to head off
international epidemics, respond to natural
disasters, and develop and disseminate
knowledge, including technological and
scientific findings as well as policy experience in
areas such as financial regulation, pensions, and
poverty reduction.
Page 7 of 8
• Manage the spillover effects of economic
activity and policy among connected
economies. These inevitably grow with deeper
economic integration. The regional contagion
observed during the 1997/98 financial crisis is
an important example, as concerns about
liquidity and financial management in one
country led to runs, speculative attacks, and
dislocation in others.
• Coordinate regional policy approaches to
projects or decisions that affect several
economies. Such efforts can range from the
palpable need to cooperate on investments in
trade-oriented transport, communications, and
policy infrastructure links to more complex
initiatives, such as harmonizing regional
approaches in international forums.
• Liberalize trade and investment beyond
levels achievable through global negotiations.
This can be accomplished by establishing rules
and institutions that enable countries to further
integrate markets and by helping to harmonize
standards, regulations, and processes so that
businesses can operate more effectively in
different economies.
The Contemporary World: A World of Regions
References:
https://environment.yale.edu/publication-
series/documents/downloads/h-n/karlsson.pdf
https://aric.adb.org/emergingasianregionalism/
pdfs/Final_ear_chapters/chapter%202.pdf
https://Introduction.Regionalism%20(3).pdf
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/A
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF GLOBAL NORTH
AND GLOBAL SOUTH ... - Semantic Scholar PDF
https://www.adb.org/publication/Emerging
Asian Regionalism: A Partnership for Shared
Prosperity - Asian Development Bank PDF
https://www.google.com.ph/url?q=https%3A
%2F%2Fwww.rgs.org
https://www.google.com/url?
sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https%3A%2F-
%2Fenvironment.yale.edu%2Fpublication-series
%2Fdocuments%2Fdownloads%2Fh-n%2Fkar-
lsson.pdf
Prepared by:
Carpiso, Andrew
Cobarrubias, Mikaela Denise
Dimafelix, Zatchi
Maglinao, Metzie
Raquitico, Russel
Tabuñar, Sharmaine
Checked by:
Niño Pacia Maliban
Subject Instructor
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