Chapter 3

A world of Regions
 General Objectives
O At the end of the chapter the students can: 1.
Fully Identify the regions in North and South;
and
O 2.Grasp the epitome of globalization by
understanding the world of regions.
 Lesson 1
Global Divides: The North and South
 "although 58 globalization has brought
opportunities for growth and development to
both rich and poor countries, not everyone has
been able to take advantage of the new
opportunities.”
-IMF and World Bank
O The task facing the international community, the
governors agreed, was to build a successful, truly global
economy that works well for all people and addresses
the widespread poverty that remains "the unacceptable
face of the global economic situation" (IMF 2000:341).
Similarly, former World Bank President, James
Wolfensohn (2000:308), characterized "globalization as
an opportunity, and poverty as our challenge," though
recognizing that globalization can relate to risks as well
as to opportunities.
 Lesson 1 Objectives
O 1. Define the term “Global South”;
O 2. Differentiate the Global South from the
Third World; and
O 3. Analyze how a new conception of global
relations emerged from the experiences of
Latin American Countries
 The Global South
O The phrase “Global South” refers broadly to
the regions of Latin America, Asia, Africa, and
Oceania. It is one of a family of terms,
including “Third World” and “Periphery,” that
denote regions outside Europe and North
America, mostly (though not all) low-income
and often politically or culturally marginalized.
 The Global South
O The use of the phrase Global South marks a
shift from a central focus on development or
cultural difference toward an emphasis on
geopolitical relations of power. From its
earliest days, sociology had concepts for
describing global difference.
 The Global South
O From Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer to
Emile Durkheim and Lester Frank Ward,
sociologists discussed social progress by
drawing broad distinctions between “advanced”
and “primitive” institutions and societies. They
located the primitive both in the past, and in the
colonized world of their own day.
 What it means?
O Immanuel Wallerstein forged a “world-system
approach” that made the concepts “core” and
“periphery” alternatives to the “modern/traditional”
binary. Similar ideas circulated in Marxist
economics, while “post-colonial” perspectives
were emerging in literary and cultural studies, from
Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak and others.
 What it means?
O By the 1990s these concepts were reinforced by “intersectional”
perspectives in northern sociology, especially those of African
American and Chicana/o scholars. Traces of colonialism were
made visible within the society of the North. Gloria Anzaldúa’s
Borderlands/La Frontera was particularly influential in the U.S.
With the Cold War winding down, the terms “Global North” and
“Global South” spread in academic fields like international
relations, political science, and development studies. The
NorthSouth language provided an alternative to the concept of
“globalization,”
 What it means?
O The use of the phrase “Global South” marks a
shift from a focus on development or cultural
difference toward an emphasis on geopolitical
power relations.
 What it means?
O The decolonization process of the 1960s brought the newly independent
countries of Africa into the halls of the United Nations, swelled the membership
of the General Assembly, and called attention to the social, economic, and
political problems of the countries that would be grouped together as the Third
World. The newly independent countries of Africa and the countries of Asia that
became independent after World War II came together through their leaders in
1955 at Bandung, Indonesia, to form a movement that would not be aligned in
62 the Cold War then raging between the First World, the industrialized,
capitalist, and democratic countries of the West, and the second World, the
communist countries. Later joined by the countries of Latin America,
independent since the 19th century, the term "Third World," would be applied to
them.
 What it really is.
O underdeveloped countries of the Third World are
more often referred to today as "South" or
"developing countries," surely an improvement over
the former designation, "backward countries."
"Third World" continues to be a useful and powerful
analytic concept, however, because its problems are
not only and primarily economic, much less
geographic.
 It is what it is…
O The West has been an important part of modern Third
World/Global South history, not only during colonialism
but even after independence. This article traces the stages
that countries of the Third World/Global South have gone
though and the policies they have been subjected to in their
post-colonial struggle for political independence and
economic development. The article marks three stages: the
development project, the globalization project, and the
imperial project
THE DEVELOPMENT
PROJECT
 The Project’s History
O In 1960 no fewer than seventeen former colonies in Africa rushed
to freedom, achieved political independence, and became members
of the United Nations, the most in any one year. It was a time of
euphoria and high hopes. On December 19, 1961, on a proposal by
the President of the United States, the U.N. General Assembly, in
Resolution No. 1710, designated the decade as the United Nations
Development Decade, during which it urged its membernations to
intensify efforts, to mobilize and sustain support for measures that
would accelerate progress towards self-sustaining growth of
underdeveloped countries.
 The Project’s History
O The target was a minimum annual rate of growth of aggregate national
income of five percent at the end of the decade. In Resolution 1711, the
General Assembly expressed hope that the flow of capital and technical
assistance be substantially increased so that it might reach as soon as
possible approximately one percent of the combined national incomes of
the economically advanced countries. In Resolution 1715, the General
Assembly called upon member-states to review their contributions to the
support of the work of the Expanded Program of Technical Assistance and
the Special Fund, later to be transformed into the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP), so that the combined budgets of these
two organs in the year 1962 might reach the target of $150 million
 The Word
O The term Global South functions as more than a
metaphor for underdevelopment. It references
an entire history of colonialism, neo- 64
imperialism, and differential economic and
social change through which large inequalities
in living standards, life expectancy, and access
to resources are maintained.
 Fin.
O Proceed to p. 64-65 for Activity on Lesson 1