Chapter 5: The

Global South in a
World of Powers
Some Definitions
• Global South: Less-developed countries
• Global North: Wealthy industrialized countries
• Third World: Cold War term for Global South
• First World: Cold War term for Global North
democracies
• Second World: Cold War term for Soviet
Union and other communist countries
• Fourth World: Indigenous peoples

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Global South
85% of the
World’s People

20% of the
world’s wealth

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The Global North, Global
South (and Global East)

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The Great North–South Divide
in Wealth and Population

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Imperialism
• Late 1400s: Europe used transportation and
military technology to conquer colonies
• Mercantilism: Trade should increase state
wealth; increase exports, decrease imports;
used to take advantage of colonies
• 1880s: Final burst colonizes most of Africa
• China divided into spheres of influence

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European Control
of the Globe

1800
One-third

1915
Four-fifths

1878
Two-thirds
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Global Imperialism 1914

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Economic Explanations
for Imperialism
• Marxism–Leninism: Capitalists need
overseas outlets for surplus capital
• Liberalism: Result of maladjustments
within the capitalist system
• World-system theory: Capitalist core
and dependent periphery

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Political Explanations
for Imperialism
• Hobson: Competition for power and
prestige among European states
• Realpolitik

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Imperialism Declines:
20th Century
• Self-determination: Woodrow Wilson, Treaty of
Versailles
• League of Nations mandates
• World War II saps strength of colonial powers,
demonstrates that colonial powers can be defeated
• Decolonization from 1947–1960s
• Neocolonialism: Continued domination of the
Global South by the Global North through
economic means

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Global North
• Democratic
• Technologically inventive
• Wealthy
• Aging populations
• Low population growth

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Global South
• Most states:
 Not democratic
 Low technology use
 Poor
 Rapid population growth
 Overstrained social and ecological systems
• 80 percent global population
• 15 percent global wealth

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Poverty

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How Do We
Measure Poverty?
• Per capita GDP
• Purchasing Power Parity
• Basic Human Needs Approach
 Human Development Index (HDI)
• Inequality
 Gini Coefficient
• Gender Development Index

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Gini Coefficients
of Various Countries
Highest Lowest Selected Other
(most inequality) (least inequality) Countries
Namibia, 70.7 Denmark, 24.7 Mexico, 54.0
Lesotho, 63.2 Japan, 24.9 China, 44.7
Botswana, 63.0 Sweden, 25.0 United States, 40.8
Sierra Leone, 62.9 Belgium, 25.0 United Kingdom, 36.0
Central African Rep., Czech Republic, 25.4 Australia, 35.2
61.3
Swaziland, 60.9 Norway, 25.8 Canada, 33.1
Guatemala, 59.9 Slovakia, 25.8 India, 32.5
Brazil, 59.3 Bosnia/Herzegovina, Russia, 31.0
26.2

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UN
Millennium
Development
Goals

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The Problem of
Late Development
• First Mover Advantages
 Economies of scale
 Network effects
 Investment funds
• Declining Terms of Trade

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Strategies for
Development Today
• Import Substitution
• State socialism
• Export led growth

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The Asian Tigers
• Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong
Kong used export led growth to move
from the world’s poorest countries to the
world’s richest in half a century
• “Go where the money is.”
• Low cost production based on abundant
cheap labor
• Use profits and expertise gained to move
up the food chain

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World Bank and Foreign Aid
• 1968–1981: Focus on basic human
needs approach
• 1980s and 1990s: Focus on structural
adjustment
• Recently, focus on good governance

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Shortcomings of
International Aid
• Goes primarily to governments
• Multiplier effect of aid
• Tied aid

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Multilateral Aid and
the World Bank
• Structure of the World Bank:
 In 2004, the U.S. had 16.4 percent of
the votes, followed by Japan with 7.9
percent, Germany with 4.5 percent and
France and Britain with 4.3 percent
each. 163 other members have less than
one percent of the vote.

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Some Critiques
of the World Bank
• The voting procedure disenfranchises the
poor countries that have the most at stake
• Lending may leave the recipient with
debts, without much benefit
• Conditionality undermines the
sovereignty of recipient governments
• Conditions often require harsh economic
policies

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Bilateral Foreign Aid

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Modernization Theory
• Reasons for underdevelopment are internal
deficiencies
• Global South must:
 Create conditions for efficient production, free
enterprise, and free trade
 Attract investment capital from the Global North
 Pass through stages of development and reach
“take off”
• Historical conditions that allowed the North to
do this in the 19th century do not exist now

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Dependency Theory
• Reasons for underdevelopment are external
• Capitalist world economy is based on a division
of labor between the industrialized core and
underdeveloped periphery
• Global North keeps Global South poor through:
 Terms of trade and finance
 Exploitation by multinational corporations
 Dualism—rural impoverished sector and urban
modernizing sector
• Has trouble explaining the NICs

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The Global South’s Search
for Power
• Nonaligned Movement
• Failed states
• External military intervention
• Arms acquisitions
• Preparing for natural disasters

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The Global South’s Search
for Prosperity (1 of 3)
• Import-substitution industrialization
• Export-led industrialization
• New International Economic Order (1974)
 Pushed by Group of 77
 Called for changes in the international economic
system that would benefit development in the
Global South and redistribute some global
wealth to it
 Most were rejected by the Global North

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The Global South’s Search
for Prosperity (2 of 3)
• Regional trade regimes:
 NAFTA: North American Free Trade Agreement
 Mercosur: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay
 APEC: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
 ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations
 SADC: Southern African Development
Community

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The Global South’s Search
for Prosperity (3 of 3)
• Trade, Aid, Investment, Debt Relief
 Bilateral aid: official development
assistance
 Multilateral aid: World Bank
• Conditionality
 Foreign direct investment (FDI)
 Multinational corporations (MNCs)
 Heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs)

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The Washington Consensus
• Free market approach is optimal
• Other approaches:
 Developmental state
 The Post-Communist Experience
• Emerging Consensus:
 Embraces both the developmental state
and the free market

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Two Rankings of Global North
Countries’ Aid to the Global South

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Trends in Capital Investments
in the Global South

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Clooney’s Mission:
Never Giving Up on Darfur

Click the icon to open the

movie

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Questions for Discussion
1. Do you think that the UN should make use
of celebrities more often to help it with its
mission of overcoming poverty in the
Global South?
2. George Clooney believes that there is hope
in some of the countries that he has
visited. Do you see a change coming soon?
Why or why not?

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Questions for
Critical Thinking (1 of 2)

1. What factors explain European imperialism?

2. What legacies of colonialism remain and
how have they shaped the gap between the
Global North and the Global South?
3. What characteristics do newly
industrialized economies share with the
Global North?

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Questions for
Critical Thinking (2 of 2)

4. What are the root causes of

underdevelopment?
5. What changes in the international
economic system would benefit the
Global South?
6. What does the future likely hold for the
Global South?

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Web Links
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD)
• United Nations Development Program (U
NDP)
• U.S. Agency for International Developme
nt (USAID)

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