MODULE 9
GLOBAL NORTH AND SOUTH
GLOBAL SOUTH
 refers to the regions of Latin America, Asia,
Africa and Oceania.
 mostly low-income and often politically or
culturally marginalized.
 it may also be called the “developing world”
such as Africa, Latin America, and developing
countries in Asia, “developing countries”, “less
develop countries”, and “developed regions”
including poorer “Southern” regions of
wealthy “Northern” countries.
 refers to the countries’ “interconnected
histories of colonialism, neo-imperialism, and
differential economic and social change
through which large inequalities in living
standards, life expectancy, and access to
resources are maintained.
 countries that are less less developed and
characterized by low level of economic
development, large inequalities in living
standards and low life expectancy such as
Africa, Latin America, and developing Asia
including the Middle East
THREE PRIMARY CONCEPTS OF GLOBAL SOUTH
1. It refers to the economically disadvantaged
nation-states and as a post cold war
alternative to “Third World”.
 The phrase “Third World” arose during the
Cold War to identify the countries whose
views did not align with NATO and capitalism
or the Soviet Union and communism. The First
World described countries whose views
aligned with NATO and capitalism, aNd the
Second World referred to countries that
supported communism and the Soviet Union.
2. The Global South captures a deterritorialized
geography of capitalism’s externalities and
means to account for subjugated peoples
within the borders of wealthier countries.
3. It refers to the resistant imaginary of a
transnational political subject that results from
a shared experience of subjugation under
contemporary global capitalism.
 has access to 1/5 of the world’s income
 as nations become economically developed,
they may become part of the “North”
regardless of geographical location.
 any nation that do not qualify for “developed”
status are in effect deemed to be part of the
South.
GLOBAL NORTH
 refers to the developed societies of Europe
and North America, which are characterized by
established wealth, technological
advancement, political stability, zero
population growth and dominance of world
trade and polibtics.
 considered as the high income countries such
as Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Canada,
US, Belgium, Iceland, Japan, Sweden,
Netherlands and most of Western Europe.
 controls 4/5 of the income earned anywhere in
the world.
 90% of the manufacturingindustries are owned
by and located in the North.
GLOBAL NORTH AND GLOBAL SOUTH DIVIDE
 Global divides are not purely of a geographical
division but rather focused on socio-economic
and political affiliations and status.
 the world was largely divided into several
empires in the 19th century. Each empire
possessed a “civilized” central that were more
or less primitive even “barbaric”
 Third World was coined in 1952 by Alfred
Sauvy, a French demographer, anthropologist,
and economic historian who compared it with
the Third Estate, a concept that emerged in
the context of the French Revolution.
 First Estate refers to the clergy and the
monarch.
 Second Estate refers to the nobility.
 Third Estate refers to the balance of French
population as contrasted the poor countries to
the First World and the Second World.
 Most people in the Third World lived far from
Global sources of economic, political, and
miitary power.
 Opposition to domination by the first world
(colonization) also grew through increasing
migration and travel, including that stimulated
by the two World Wars. Many troops who had
participated in these wars were from what
soon to be called Third World.
GLOBAL NORTH
 low poverty WORLD DIVISION DURING THE COLD WAR
 low child morality  the cold war between US and USSR created
 high economic and educational development the division between the Capitalist/Democratic
 advance technological advancement States and Communist States.
 stable governments
 low fertility rates LATIN AMERICA
 low gender related illiteracy  refers to the countries that were colonized by
the Spaniards in the American continent.
GLOBAL SOUTH

 high poverty
 high child morality
 low economic and educational development
 low self consumption of natural resources
 vulnerable to exploitation by large
corporations and industrial nations
 less technological advancement
 economy are dependent on developed
countries
 unstable governments
 high fertility rates
 high gender related illiteracy

THE FIRST WORLD

 all industrialized, democratic countries, which
were assumed to be allied with the United
States in its struggle against the Soviet Union.
 Finland and Switzerland maintained strict
neutrality.

THE SECOND WORLD

 anchored on the industrialized, communist
realm of the Soviet Union and its Eastern
European satelites, yet it often included poor
communist states located elsewhere.

THE THIRD WORLD

 refers to the countries that did not belong to
either types of formal economies.
 defined as the non-aligned world and as the
global realm of poverty and under-develop.