Global Cities

Theories of Urbanism (Excerpts from: Giddens, A. [2009]. Sociology. Great Britain: T.J. Press
[Padstow] Ltd.)

1. David Harvey: the restructuring of space. Space is continually restructured …

determined by: (a) where large firms choose to place their factories, research
and development and so forth; (b) the controls which governments operate
over both the land and industrial production; and, (c) the activities of private
investors, buying and selling houses and land.
2. Manuel Castells: urbanism and social movements. The nature of the created
environment is not just the result of the activities of wealthy and powerful
people but also the struggles of the underprivileged groups to alter their living
conditions. Urban problems stimulate a range of social movements concerned
with improving housing conditions, protesting air pollution, defending parks
and green belts, and combating building development that changes the
nature of an area.

Urbanism and International Influences (Excerpts from: Giddens, A. [2009]. Sociology.

Great Britain: T.J. Press [Padstow] Ltd)

Five Emerging Forms of City

• Innovation center - urban area where research and development industries

become concentrated, developing the technical and scientific processes
used to make goods produced elsewhere. Cambridge is an example, where
the university has connections with a large ‘science park’. The most influential
world center is the Silicon Valley area of northern California.
• Module production place - the sites for production processes for parts of
products, final assembly being carried out in other regions or countries.
• Third world entrepôt. Cities of this kind are border centers, with substantial new
immigrant populations drawn from developing countries.
• Retirement centers. Retired people now move in considerable numbers to
places with good climates. This is partly internal migration.
• Headquarter city - where the large, transnational corporations house their key
activities, and are oriented to global concerns. The leading headquarter cities
are examples of what Saskia Sassen calls as the global city which has four new
traits:

a. developed into ‘command posts’ – centers of direction and policy-making – for the
global economy;
b. key locations for financial and specialized service firms, which have become more
important in influencing economic development than is manufacturing;

c. sites of production and innovation in these newly expanded industries, and;

d. markets on which the ‘products’ of financial and service industries are bought, sold or
otherwise disposed

Emergence of the Global City (Excerpts from: Kotkin, J. [2017]. The human city: Urbanism
and the rest of us. USA: Agate books.)

The preeminence of these “global” cities rests largely on unique assets: the world’s
greatest universities, research labs, hospitals, financial institutions, corporate
headquarters, and trendsetting cultural industries. These cities also disproportionately
attract the rich and serve as centers of luxury shopping, dining, and entertainment –
hence Sassen’s term “the glamour zone.”

These cities are home to people with unique, highly specialized skills – actors,
directors, app writers, oil geologists, specialized financial consultants – who are often sole
proprietors or employed by smaller firms. These workers tend to cluster in areas that
specialize in their fields and provide the best marketplace for their services.

These cities notably tend to have decent infrastructure, a high degree of

cleanliness, and excellent cultural and recreational facilities. They generally lack the
extreme congestion, high crime, and sanitation challenges common to poorer
megacities of the developing world.

In large part, it is these characteristics that attract foreign capital and talent to
these particular cities. Global hubs often are helped by their populace’s facility with
English – the world’s primary language of finance, culture, and most critically,
technology.

Physical connectivity. A successful global city needs to maintain the strongest possible
physical connectivity with other cities around the world. The most “connected” cities –
Dubai, London, and Frankfurt – have all developed strong airport systems. Although being
a hub for air travel does not necessarily create a global city, it is critical to many
businesses that function on an international level.

Human connectivity. In a world of sharp racial and religious prejudice, such cities, noted
Fernand Braudel, offered outsiders a “haven of comparative security.” “The miracle of
toleration was to be found,” he observed, “wherever the community of trade
convened.”

Historic roots. Global cities, particularly the leading ones, owe much to their early origins
– and culture, ideas, and infrastructure rooted in their evolution over time.
Costs of Global Cities

a. Housing inflation - increasingly distorts and threatens the local middle class by
raising property prices, undermining the indigenous economy, and compromising the
prospects for upward mobility. It is increasingly the wealthy that shape “the glamour
zone” and fuel the growing gap between the classes. Their inherited wealth is increasingly
diffused among multiple cities as members of the expanding ranks of the ultra-rich
purchase apartments in numerous locations, sometimes in condominiums within hotels.
b. the foreign invasion (migrant workers) of lower-end service jobs in restaurants and
retail, as well as in construction (resulting to) resentment at migrants

c. Inequality in the glamour zone. The glut of college-graduates – concentrated in

urban areas – will need to compete with an aging workforce for a still-limited number of
positions. Young people – even the educated and well off – are forced to live in smaller
spaces and face prices that make purchasing a residence prohibitive.

d. “Flattening of cultures.” Rather than establishing strong local roots tied to a specific
neighborhood, today’s global city tends increasingly toward homogenization. It is
essentially recreating the same environment everywhere. The form is not, of course, the
single-family houses or garden apartments of the suburbs but the luxury high-rises that
attract the young, the footloose, and the wealthy to the urban core. Huge towers tend
to dominate and change the tenor of neighborhoods, and in some cases, they even
block out the light that once brightened the city streets and cast shadows over local
parks, a classic case of how products for the wealthy impinge on the shared space of a
city.

e. Emergence of post-familial city (increasingly childless and more focused on the

individual). The factors are:

1. Trends toward ever-increasing density. The notion that height is a symbol of

modernity, efficiency, and even aesthetics is common among urbanists.
However, families generally avoid high-density housing. Simply put, modern families in
higher-income countries require space and are thus generally unwilling to live in crowded
conditions. xxx a strong correlation between higher fertility rates (the number of children
borne by women in their lifetime) and less dense suburban locations.

2. Related phenomenon of high costs of housing. The unaffordability of housing

and the unsuitability of house sizes for families are the principal reasons for the
exodus of families. In Japan, sociologist Muriel Jolivet unearthed a trend of
growing hostility toward motherhood – a trend that stemmed in part from male
reluctance to take responsibility for raising children.

3. Weakness of urban education system. Progress is, in part, a culprit: the ubiquity
of mass education and communications has weakened many of the bonds
that held families together xxx current material culture seems to be perhaps
more effectively undermining interest in family. This can be seen worldwide,
 increasingly childless Europe may boast some of the world’s most impressive
religious structures, but the moral influence that they once symbolized has
diminished considerably. xxx. Those who believe in some higher spiritual values
are far more likely to have children than those more secularly oriented.

4. Ability of people to perform functions remotely via the Internet. University of

California psychology professor Bella de Paulo asserts that the unattached
constitute an advantaged group in that they are more cyber-connected and
“more likely to be linked to members of their social networks by bonds of
affection.” Unlike families, whose members, after all, are often stuck with each
other, singles enjoy “intentional communities” and are thus more likely “to think
about human connectedness in a way that is far-reaching and less
predictable.”
These “singletons,” as one urban scholar notes, enjoy a “rich social life” that is “anchored
by themselves” through friendship networks and social media. “Living alone,” he asserts,
“might be what we need to reconnect.” Reliance on social media tends to emphasize
further the primacy of post-familial relationships.

Other singles simply feel that they can get from friends and roommates what people used
to seek from family members. “We’ve got all the benefits of family,” explains one New
York thirtysomething who has lived nearly two decades with his roommates, “with very
little of the craziness that normally comes with them.”

The new childless urbanites, xxx, will identify less with their parents and grandparents, or
even with their traditional cultural traditions, than with those who share their particular
cultural and aesthetic tastes. They will have transcended the barriers of race and even
country, embracing xxx “a post materialist” perspective that focuses on more abstract,
and often important, issues such as human rights or the environment, as well as aesthetic
concerns. xxx, the urban singleton could be a harbinger of not only a “new race” but
also of “new politics” – prioritizes cultural pursuits, travel, and almost defiant individualism.
Now in their 30s and 40s, many of these people, indulge themselves in hobbies, fashion,
or restaurants – personal pursuits not readily available to their homebound mothers or
overworked fathers. Mika Toyota observes that “people’s lifestyles are more important,
and their personal networks mean more than family. It’s now a choice. You can be single,
self-satisfied and well.

5. Women in the workforce. Women’s growing involvement in the workforce,

notes author Stephanie Coontz, has been necessary for decades in order for
couples to afford children, but it also makes it more difficult for them to raise
them. This reflects what Harvard’s Robert Putnam defines as the curse of
“pervasive busyness” that now affects society in high-income countries.
Although intense work regimes may increase productivity today, it clearly
makes matrimony and child raising more problematic.
Biggest Challenge to the Cities: Diminishing birth rates and the ageing population

The shift to an aging population creates, particularly in Asia where urbanization is most
rapid, the segregation of generations, with the elderly in rural areas and the younger
people in cities. It is not clear how the expanding senior will fare with fewer children to
support them and in the absence of a well-developed welfare state.

The negative impacts of rapid aging and a diminished workforce are already being
felt, even in such prosperous countries as Japan and Germany. By 2030, Germany’s debt
per capita could be twice as high as that of a bankrupt Greece in 2014, and to help
address the shortfall, officials have proposed more taxes. These would be effectively
exacted from the working population, to create what the German officials have labeled
a “demographic reserve.” Even in traditional, thrifty Asian nations such as Japan and
Singapore, savings rates have been dropping, and there is growing concern over
whether these countries will be able to support their soaring numbers of seniors.
In rapidly urbanizing, relatively poor countries such as Vietnam, the fertility rate is
already below replacement levels, and it is rapidly declining in other poorer countries
such as Myanmar, Indonesia, and even Bangladesh.

Global Migration

(Excerpts from: Castles, S. Key issues in global migration: A human development

approach.iminseisaku.org/top/pdf/journal/002/002_169.pdf)

A. The significance of migration for human security and human development.

The idea of immigrants – and particularly those of Muslim background – as a potential

‘enemy within’ is used to justify immigration restrictions and reductions in civil liberties –
often not just for immigrants but for the population as a whole.

Migration policies too can exacerbate human insecurity. Smuggling, trafficking, bonded
labor and lack of human and worker rights are the fate of millions of migrants.
Governments often turn a blind eye to this in times of economic growth, and then tighten
up border security and deport irregulars in times of recession.

B. Globalization and migration

1. International migration is an integral part of globalization. Neo-liberal forms of

international economic integration undermine traditional ways of working and living.
Increased agricultural productivity displaces people from the land. Environmental
change compels many people to seek new livelihoods and places to live. People move
to the cities, but there are not enough jobs there, and housing and social conditions are
often very bad.
2. Weak states and impoverishment lead to lack of human security, and often to
violence and violations of human rights. All these factors encourage emigration. In
developed countries, the new services industries need very different types of labor. But,
due to declining fertility, relatively few young nationals enter the labor market. Moreover,
these young people have good educational opportunities and are not willing to do
lowskilled work. Population ageing leads to increased dependency rates and care
needs.

3. Developed countries have high demand for both high- and low-skilled workers,
and need migrants – whether legal or not. Globalization also creates the cultural and
technical conditions for mobility. Electronic communications provide knowledge of
migration routes and work opportunities. Long-distance travel has become cheaper and
more accessible.

4. Once migratory flows are established, they generate ‘migration networks’:

previous migrants help members of their families or communities with information on work,
accommodation and official rules.

5. Facilitating migration has become a major international business, including travel

agents, bankers, lawyers and recruiters. The ‘migration industry’ also has an illegal side –
smuggling and trafficking – which governments try to restrict. Yet the more governments
try to control borders, the greater the flows of undocumented migrants seem to be.

6. Many people in poorer areas move within their own countries. Internal migration
attracts far less political attention, but its volume in population giants like China, India,
Indonesia, Brazil and Nigeria is far greater than that of international movements.

C. The feminization of international migration

1. Although some women migrate to take up professional and executive positions,

many migrant women are concentrated in jobs regarded as low-skilled and ‘typically
female’: domestic workers, entertainers and hostesses, restaurant and hotel staff and
assembly line workers in clothing and electronics. Often, these jobs offer poor pay,
conditions and status. Married women have to leave their children in the care of others,
and long absences affect relationships and gender roles.

2. A rapidly increasing form of female migration is for marriage. Since the 1990s,
foreign brides have been sought by farmers in rural areas of Japan, Korea and Taiwan,
due to the exodus of local women to more attractive urban settings. The young women
involved, (from the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand), can experience severe social
isolation.

3. China’s one-child policy has led to severe gender imbalances, so that Chinese
farmers are beginning to seek brides through agents in Vietnam, Laos and Burma. This
has important cultural implications: the countryside is frequently seen as the cradle of
traditional values, and the high proportion of foreign mothers is seen by some as a threat
to national identity.

D. New types of migration or mobility

1. Education: students move internationally, especially for graduate studies, and

some of them stay on in the destination country to work for a period or
permanently.
2. Marriage: demographic trends such as low fertility, ageing populations and
gender imbalances have led to high levels of migration (especially of women)
for marriage.
3. Lifestyle: some people – especially younger people of middle-class
background – move in search of new experiences and different lifestyles. Such
mobility is mainly temporary, but it can have significant impacts on destination
areas.
4. Retirement: older people, often from affluent backgrounds, move upon
ceasing employment in search of better climates, lower living costs and more
attractive lifestyles.

E. Migration and development

1. Migrants’ remittances (money transfers back home) can have a major positive
impact on the economic development of countries of origin.
 2. Migrants also transfer home skills and attitudes – known as ‘social remittances’-
which support development.
3. Although skilled migration from South to North is growing, ‘brain drain’ is being
replaced by ‘brain circulation’, which benefits both sending and receiving
countries.
4. Migrant diasporas can be a powerful force for development, through transfer
of resources and ideas.
5. Economic development will reduce out-migration.

F. Refugees and forced migration

1. Many of the world’s migrants are ‘forced migrants’ seeking refuge from
violence and persecution. Northern economic interests – such as the trade in
oil, diamonds and weapons – play an important part in starting or prolonging
local wars. At a broader level, trade, investment and intellectual property
regimes that favor the industrialized countries maintain underdevelopment in
the South. In fact, the North does more to cause forced migration than to stop
it, through enforcing an international economic and political order that causes
underdevelopment and conflict.
2. Violence and forced migration also bring about further social transformation.
Conflict destroys economic resources, undermines traditional ways of life and
break up economic development will reduce out-migration.
3. Refugees and asylum seekers are the most disadvantaged of all in the new
global migration hierarchy: in the past they were seen as worthy of
international protection; now entry rules have been tightened up to the point
where it is virtually impossible to enter most northern countries to make a
protection claim. Refugees are forced to become illegal migrants and often
end up in long-term illegality. The great majority of refugees remain poor in
countries, which may lack the capacity to protect them and the resources to
provide adequate material assistance.

F. Immigrant concentration and social change

1. Migrants go where the jobs are, and immigration can be used as a barometer
of the economic dynamism of cities, regions and countries.
2. Migrants also go where they can join compatriots, who help them to find jobs
and accommodation – the ‘network effect’. This leads to residential clustering.
This in turn puts pressure on schools, which often have to deal with sudden
influxes of children with many different languages.
3. In some countries and regions, it has become a normal part of young
adulthood to spend a period working abroad – leading to a ‘culture of
emigration’.
 4. Migrant skills have become crucial in rich countries. Migrants often have higher
skill profiles than local-born workers. Global competition for human capital is
hotting up. In older industrial countries the combination of economic growth
and demographic decline fuels demand, while new industrial areas like South
Korea and even China are increasingly hungry for skills.
G. Diversity, integration and multiculturalism

1. In areas of origin, returnees may import new ideas that unsettle traditional
practices and hierarchies. In receiving areas, migration is bringing about
unprecedented cultural and religious diversity.
2. Migrants are often seen as symbols of perceived threats to jobs, livelihoods and
cultural identities resulting from globalization. Campaigns against immigrants
and asylum seekers have become powerful mobilizing tools for the extreme
right.
3. In Australia and Canada, multicultural policies still exist, but there is a new
emphasis on citizenship and integration.
4. In Europe, the official focus is no longer on the recognition of minority cultures,
but on integration, social cohesion and ‘national values.’ In Britain, for
example, a citizenship test was introduced to promote knowledge of British
society and values.
5. Proponents of multicultural and equality policies argue that economic,
political and social marginalization still experienced by many ethnic minorities
in Europe actually reflects the unwillingness of destination societies to deal with
two issues:
6. the deep-seated cultures of racism- a legacy of colonialism and imperialism.
In times of stress, such as economic restructuring or international conflict,
racism can lead to social exclusion, discrimination and violence against
minorities.
7. the trend to greater inequality resulting from globalization and economic
restructuring. Neoliberal economic policies encourage greater pay
differences and reduce the capacity of states to redistribute income to reduce
poverty and social disadvantage.

Taken together, these factors have led to a racialization of ethnic difference. Minorities
often have poor employment situations, low incomes and high rates of impoverishment.
This in turn leads to concentration in low-income neighborhoods and growing residential
segregation. The existence of separate and marginal communities is then taken as
evidence of failure to integrate, and this in turn is perceived as a threat to the host society.

H. The effects of the global financial crisis on migration.

1. Return migration of some migrant workers to their homelands as a reaction to

unemployment or lower earnings
 2. Reduced levels of migration from origin countries to destination countries
3. Attempts by governments to provide incentives to unemployed migrant
workers to leave
4. Large declines in irregular migration, which is especially sensitive to availability
of jobs (observed in the case of Mexico-US migration)
5. Reduced remittances (money transfers) from migrants to their home
communities, leading to possible hardship in communities dependent on such
transfers
6. Increased hostility to migrants among majority populations, leading in some
cases to conflicts and violence.

For the sociologist, Saskia Assen (2016), there are three groups of migrants:

1. Traditional migrants – those who looked for better opportunities in other

territories
2. War refugees who moved out from their home country because of war
3. Economic refugees –moved out to fight for “bare life” being victims of the
massive loss of habitat brought about by the expansion of cities, mining, and
land grab (plantation) – the last two being militarized

For Sassen, the third group belongs to the three emerging patterns of migration, the other
two of which are:

1. Unaccompanied children or minors as young as 8 years old, some of them lost

their parents; living in fear in an environment of violence pushed them out from
their communities
2. Rohingya and Bangladeshi boat people – underlying reason is the massive loss
of habitat – for the Rohingyas – the entry of big corporations that are investing
in the extraction of the resources in their own land

Global Demography

Theoretical Considerations

1. Malthusian urbanism. (Excerpts from: Kotkin, J. [2017]. The human city:

Urbanism and the rest of us. USA: Agate books.) The essence of the Malthusian
approach, as historian Edward Barbier notes,
assumes the economy has no “access to new sources of land and natural resources” and
is “unable to innovate,” thus making it vulnerable to collapse.” In this worldview, humanity
is increasingly seen as a “cancer to the environment” whose influence need to be curbed
and restrained into as small a footprint as possible. Urban expansion is particularly looked
down upon, not only for its alleged impact on greenhouse gas emissions but also for its
encroachment upon farmland. Suburbs are purportedly bad, in part because they
reduce the ability of farmers to grow food.

Not surprisingly, neo-Malthusians often embrace densification and oppose urban

expansion due to concerns over the population and greater consumption. They appear
to see the city as a kind of geographic contraceptive.

2. Demographic transition theory. (Excerpts from: Macionis, J.J. [2011]. Society:

The basics. NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.) This a thesis that links population
 patterns to a society’s level of technological development. The four levels of
technological development are as follows:

Preindustrial (Stage 1). Agrarian societies have high birth rates because of the economic
value of children and the absence of birth control. Death rates are also high due to low
living standards and limited medical technology. Out breaks of disease cancel out births,
so population rises and falls with only a modest overall increase. This was the case for
thousands of years in Europe before the Industrial Revolution.

Onset of industrialization (Stage 2). Death rates fall due to greater food supplies and
scientific medicine. But birth rate remains high, resulting in rapid population growth. It was
during this stage that Malthus formulated his ideas, which accounts for his pessimistic view
of the future. The world’s poorest countries today are in this high-growth stage.

Mature industrial economy (Stage 3). The birth rate drops, curbing population growth
once again. Fertility falls because most children survive to adulthood, so fewer are
needed, and because high living standards make raising children expensive.

Postindustrial economy (Stage 4). The birth rates keep falling, partly because dualincome
couples gradually become the norm and partly because the cost of raising and
schooling children continues to increase. This trend, coupled with steady death rates,
means that population grows only very slowly or even decreases.

B. Demographics and a nation-state’s economic and military power

(Excerpts from: Yoshihara, S. & Sylva, D.A. [2012]. Population declines and the remaking
of great power politics. USA: Potomac Books.)

1. Japan is leading in global aging and this affects its global stature. Japan was
also overtaken by China as the world’s second largest economy in 2010.
2. Russia’s abysmal fertility rate, shockingly high mortality, and stagnant
immigration have also led to absolute population decline. Given its
demographics, Russia will not field forces like those that won WWII and
challenged NATO. Given the severe health crisis (HIV, TB) in its armed forces, it
will have trouble maintaining its status among the powers.
3. Europe’s population is in relative decline due to low birth rates and
immigration. Europe is constrained by the high price of social democracy. At
the same time, Europe has based its security policy explicitly on United Nation’s
goals and has aligned its military policy in a significant way toward
peacekeeping in order to fulfill this aim. More important, Europe’s idea of itself
– and its projection of power – has included “civilian power” since the end of
WWII. Today, civilian power is a way to offset the dearth of soldiers and cost of
 hard power by replacing it with human rights and other normative aspects of
soft power centered at international and European institutions.
4. India’s and China’s populations have allowed them a large domestic market
and plenty of cheap labor to bolster their export markets. However, chief
among China’s liberalization has been whetted by Beijing due to political
necessity, but which will never be satisfied by the current regime. This is
compounded by gender imbalances and the emergence of “bare branches”
in the military.

India instituted harsh population control policies in the 1960s and 1970s, which failed
to significantly suppress the fertility of poor Hindus and Muslims. Conversely, cultural norms
shifted toward smaller families among more affluent Hindus, leaving India with a
bifurcated fertility rate favoring the less educated Northern population.

At just over 300 million people, it is one third the size of India and China, US economy
is nearly four times the size of China’s and more than ten times larger than India’s.
American military forces are generally younger and more educated than the U.S.
population at large. They are the most technologically proficient – and since the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars the most combat-experienced – forces in the world. Experts credit the
U.S. military’s high caliber to the thirty-five-year-old All Volunteer Force, which is both
successful and expensive to maintain.
 The seven myths of ‘slums’

(Excerpts: Share the World’s Resources, [2010]. The seven myths of ‘slums’: Challenging
popular prejudices about the world’s urban poor. London: Author.)

One of the major social costs of the emergence of global cities or any type of cities
is the increasing number of slum areas and slum dwellers. This social cost was not
highlighted in Module 4 but was highlighted in the documentary film, Global Cities.

The author contends that neoliberalism which is at the very core of the Washington
Consensus (agreement of the IMF, WB, and the US Federal Reserve) and the economic
doctrine that guides the IMF-WB-WTO-MNCs/TNCs is the main factor for the growth of
slums in cities. And for as long as governments continually adhere to any development
model that is based on neoliberalism, slums will continue to grow.

In debunking the seven myths of slums, the author aims to challenge his readers to have
alternative perspectives or frameworks in understanding the issue on urban poverty that
is symbolized by slums. He cautions his readers though not to romanticize urban poverty
nor highlight only the facts that will serve their own selfish agenda.

The author submits his major argument that the urban poor are not the main cause
of their own poverty but victims of the political elite and the private sector that subscribe
only to a neoliberal model of development, but these urban poor have the capacity and
agency to reverse their situation provided there is a sufficient government and or private
sector intervention under an alternative model of development.

Myth 1: There are too many people

Since Thomas Malthus first warned of an impending population explosion in 1798,

the idea that there are too many people in the world for everyone to share in the earth’s
bounty is one of the most persistent and widespread myths in popular thinking on
development. When applied

to the problem of informal housing and slums in developing countries, the implications
are clear: that there are too many people sharing the land, and too many people
migrating from rural to urban areas for governments to contend with the strain on
housing, infrastructure and job

provision. It is easy to agree with such a viewpoint when contemplating the foreboding
statistics from the United Nations. At the beginning of the century, it was estimated that
170,000 people were moving to cities on a daily basis, and they required about 30,000
new housing units per

day. As the latest figures from the UN’s State of the World’s Cities report suggest, the
world slum population will probably grow by six million people each year unless drastic
action is taken (equivalent to more than115,000 people moving into a slum somewhere
in Africa, Asia or Latin America each week, or more than 11 people each minute).
 In the face of such dramatic figures, it is perhaps understandable if politicians and
more privileged citizens perceive that city authorities across the developing world simply
lack the resources to provide such vast numbers of the immigrant poor with adequate
housing; that governments lack the needed financial resources and capacity to provide
basic infrastructure and services to the immigrant poor on such a scale; and that the
existence of slums is an inevitable consequence of a mushrooming and increasingly
mobile human population. But is it really true that governments are unable to provide
adequate housing and public services for all residents in rapidly growing cities, or that
population growth and overcrowding is the source of the problem of slums? ...There are
also many examples of Western cities that grew at comparable rates to the developing
world’s fast-growing cities, but without comparable rates of poverty, malnutrition and
disease (such as Los Angeles in contrast to Calcutta since 1900, or Tokyo in contrast to
Mexico City).

The basic reason why shacks or houses are built on illegally occupied land in many
low- and middle-income nations is straight forward; there is a gap between the cost of
the cheapest ‘legal’ accommodation and what large sections of the population can
afford. Formal urban land markets are too expensive for most of the immigrant poor, while
government regulations that influence the provision of land and its cost largely fail to
account for the needs of newcomers to the city. The inevitable result is a high proportion
of the population living in overcrowded tenements and informal settlements, most of
which provide very poor-quality housing on land sites that are occupied or built on
illegally. It may be tempting to view the sheer volume of poor urban migrants as ‘the
problem’, but the real problem is the failure of urban governments to ensure there is
sufficient land for new housing with infrastructure and services to support low-income
residents. In other words, the manifest and pervasive urban squalor in many cities of the
South is by no means an inevitable consequence of having too many people, but the
outcome of outdated institutional structures, inappropriate legal systems, incompetent
national and local governance, and short-sighted urban development policies.

The existence of slums is essentially the manifestation of a greater and

fundamentally political problem of unequal land supply, discriminatory resource
allocation and usage, and the age-old questions of social equity and distributive justice.
Policy choices, not population growth. To understand the deeper causes of rapid rural-
urban migration and slum growth in cities of the South, it is necessary to examine the
economic policies that have driven the process of development in recent decades.
Although changes in the development policy paradigm are not uniform for all countries
in the developing world, the impact of neoliberal economic reforms have contributed in
large measure to increases in poverty and inequality since the late 1970s. Much has been
said and written about the now-discredited Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs)
that were led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank from themid-
1980s throughout the developing world. Most of the countries who committed to
restructuring their economies were heavily indebted and reeling under the impact of
soaring oil prices, and thereby susceptible to receiving further loans on condition of
implementing adjustment reforms.
These policy lending ‘conditionalities’ – summarized by state withdrawal free market
expansion and privatization of public services – had a devastating impact on the poorest
members of society in both the rural and urban sectors of recipient countries.

In rural areas, the agrarian welfare state that functioned in many poorer countries in the
post-war period until the mid-1970s was effectively dismantled under adjustment policies
that necessitated the deregulating of land markets, the drastic cutting of farm subsidies
and price supports, and a shift to export-oriented agriculture. As a result, subsistencelevel
small farmers were forced to compete with (heavily subsidized) transnational food
corporations from the industrialized Northern countries. In the formerly protected home
markets, millions of small producers were rendered redundant and either dispossessed or
displaced, leading to a structural shift of people from rural to urban places of residence
through migration, and a “reserve army of migrant labor”.

In urban centers, most notoriously in many African and Latin American countries,
the consequences of economic restructuring were similarly catastrophic for millions of
people in the urban lower- and middle classes. Structural adjustment enforced such
measures as reduced

government expenditure through substantial public-sector redundancies and freezing

salaries; the privatization of state-run industries leading to massive lay-offs without social
security; removal of price controls leading to sudden price rises for basic goods and
services; the introduction of ‘user fees’ for public services such as health and education;
and raised interest rates to tackle inflation which hastened the closure of many small local
businesses. Many cities became trapped in a vicious cycle of increasing ruralurban
migration, the collapse of formal urban employment and falling wages, and an
undeveloped manufacturing sector that was unable to provide sufficient jobs for those
displaced from the traditional agriculture sector. At the same time as, structural
adjustment forced millions of people out of the countryside, infrastructure spending and
public sector jobs were significantly eliminated in the

cities. In effect, the cities became a dumping ground for a surplus rural population with
limited skills, scant education, and little hope of attaining employment in the formal
sector. This was the basic recipe for a dramatize in inequality and urban poverty, a
burgeoning informal sector of

employment, and the dramatic growth of urban slums throughout the developing world
from the 1980s onwards.

It is only in this context of the neoliberal agenda that the problem of governance
can be fully appreciated. In 2003, the United Nations’ Challenge of Slums report … states:
“The main single cause of increases in poverty and inequality during the 1980s and 1990s
was the retreat of the state. The redirection of income through progressive taxation and
social safety nets came to be severely threatened by the ascendancy of neoliberal
economic doctrines that explicitly ‘demanded’ an increase in inequality.” ... The root of
the problem of social exclusion and urban poverty, says the Report, was the
“abandonment of the redistributive agenda” following almost 50 years of government
intervention and wealth distribution ...According to neoliberal ideology, markets were
somehow regarded as being capable of delivering prosperity for all, and “the major
problem was regarded as governments who were sapping the ability of the people to
generate wealth.”

While the World Bank continues to identify the remedy to urban social problems as
‘good governance’ – demanding the transparency of public sector institutions, political
decentralization, legal reform and anti-corruption measures – the neoliberal agenda has
placed intolerable constraints on national governments to deal effectively with urban
poverty. Crippled by debt, forced to prioritize loan repayments over basic services such
as healthcare, and held in thrall to the ‘Washington Consensus’ diktats that demanded
a withdrawal of government from almost every sphere of public life, it has been
impossible for initiatives by the state, international agencies, donors or NGOs to keep
pace with the rate of urban slum formation since the 1980s. ...

The failure of governments. Although it cannot be said that neoliberal globalization is the
main cause of slum growth everywhere throughout the developing world, the
development policy paradigm promoted by the IMF, World Bank and most major powers
since the late 1970s is a foremost reason for the ongoing deluge in urban poverty and the
‘big bang’ in slum formation.

The resurgence of a non-interventionist ideology has weakened the role of national

governments, and de-prioritized the importance of an activist state in planning for the
equitable distribution of resources in cities. This prevailing model of development has also
spawned projects and policies that have destroyed the livelihoods of millions of small
farmers in rural

areas, diverted resources to export production that might otherwise be used by the poor
to produce for their own needs, and created the structural conditions for mass migration
into many cities of the South.

It is not simply the occurrence of rural-urban migration that is the source of the problem,
nor is it simply the manifestation of a population explosion within cities or demographic
change, but rather the failure of governments to implement the necessary redistributive
policies to provide low-income residents with sufficient land, infrastructure, services and
support for new housing. For the many countries that committed to structural adjustment
programmes in the 1980s and 1990s, reduced government expenditure and massive
public sector redundancies further limited the possibility of low-income residents securing
adequate

employment in the formal sector. Today, this same ideology continues to legitimize
policies that deprive persons in need of essential public services. If the governments of
developing countries wish to access loans and grants with which to sustain their
economies, they are given little

option but to agree to pro-market policy prescriptions (such as reducing agricultural

trade barriers, privatizing housing and the supply of essential services, and spending less
on social support).

In its simplest form, the existence of slums and urban poverty is a result of the failure of
policy at all levels – global, national and local – and the adoption of an international
development paradigm that fails to prioritize the basic needs of the urban and rural poor.

The challenge of slums is ultimately determined by the recognition of fa mass injustice.

We are led to wonder at the morality of a world that denies people employment in a
homeplace that may have sustained their ancestors for millennia, and then denies them
a home or a life of dignity in areas where they go in search of a new livelihood. The
excluded poor are constantly left to fend for themselves in the interstices of the urban
fabric, without any planned locations to populate, or economic resources to buy or rent
their way into the formal housing market. Forced to construct primitive settlements upon
marginal lands at the urban periphery, or on steep hillsides, along railways and riversides,
or on other dangerous areas not suitable for development, the residents of ‘slums’ are
often caught in a limbo existence that is neither strictly urban nor rural. With no security
of employment for the unskilled rural migrant, and with no access to adequate housing
or security of tenure in illegal settlements, the residents of slums are easy targets for
exploitation in the economic and social order of the city system.

Myth 2: The poor are to blame

The deep-seated myth that the poor are to blame for their conditions of poverty echoes
back to the earliest days of industrialization in Western Europe. With a perverse inversion
of cause and effect, the prevalence of extreme urban poverty and slum settlements is
blamed not on the

vagaries of industrial growth, failures in urban planning or the inequitable distribution of

land and resources, but on poor people themselves. Today, many people continue to
reason that the residents of slums are antisocial, uneducated and unwilling to work, or
else they would not

be living in such conditions of deficiency and squalor. Once denied a place in civic life
and urban culture, slum residents are subsequently viewed as an impediment to the
progress and betterment of society.

A sinister consequence of such prejudiced attitudes to the poor is seen in the

summary evictions of illegal settlements. Although the underlying reasons for slum
clearance operations is likely to differ from official justifications, an intolerance of slum
residents – and an unwillingness

among governments to acknowledge their role in the causes of slum formation – is an

attitude that motivates and psychologically permits the forced relocation of the poor…

An important change in the housing policies of most governments in the South took
place by the mid-1970s, in part stemming from there cognition that squatter settlements
or other forms of illegal housing are a permanent part of a city’s growth. Governments
gradually realized that eradication policies were not part of the solution but, in terms of
displacing families into worse conditions and damaging their networks of social cohesion,
rather exacerbate the problem… As John F. C. Turner famously pointed out in one of his
early essays: “Housing is a verb”, and as such the industrialized countries had much to
learn from the communal housing constructions of rapidly developing cities in the Global
South.

The role of the state, as well as private professionals and international donors, was
reconceptualized in Turner’s writings as an ‘enabler’ of the urban poor in their
incrementally-built squatter housing, and the existence of slums was considered less the
problem than the solution. Such was the impact of Turner’s ideas on housing policies
worldwide that even the World Bank was influenced by his concepts and methods,
officially changing its position from the mid-1970s to endorse slum upgrading instead of
new site development for squatters.

The collective power of the urban poor. Since Turner first observed that poor people living
in slums were building for their own needs much more effectively than governments or
public agencies, a compelling amount of evidence backs up his view that the urban
poor are not a burden upon the developing city, but are often its most dynamic resource.
The immense ingenuity and resilience of those who occupy illegal settlements on private
or public land, frequently in the most dangerous or uninhabitable areas of the city, is
witnessed in the remarkable diversity of their habitations – such as the self-made houses
built on thick bamboo stilts on the edge of marshes, as in Bahia’s alagadosi or on the
ponds outside Dhaka; or on steep hillsides unfit for conventional construction, as in the
favelas of Rio; or inside floodplains, as in many of Jakarta’s kampungs or the lagoon
community of Makokoin Lagos; or even in cemeteries, as in Cairo’s infamous el-arafa.
Not only do the residents of squatter communities receive little or no expenditure from
the government on infrastructure and services, they also tread more lightly on the planet,
using far fewer resources (water, electricity and other services) and generating lower
levels of waste than their wealthier neighbors.

The slum, when considering its high density, minimal land occupation, low-cost of
production and large population size, is the most ‘sustainable’ form of housing
construction by any yardstick. And yet low-income groups rarely receive official
acknowledgement or support for
their role in the construction and management of urban housing across Africa, most of
Asia and Latin America. While achieving considerable feats of inventiveness in self-help
housing

on an individual basis, the organized and collective power of the urban poor can also
produce exceptional results. In many developing countries, the lowest income urban
residents have formed into national federations of ‘slum’ and ‘shack’ dwellers that are
actively engaged in addressing their own needs, both in building new homes and
upgrading existing settlements. …

Over the last 20 years, a growing number of urban poor organizations have shifted
from making demands on the state – such as to acquire land for housing or security of
tenure, or to prevent being summarily evicted from their homes – to a collaborative
approach with governments and aid agencies. The reasons for this shift are broadly
twofold; firstly, there are limitations to what the inhabitants of informal settlements can
achieve through their own autonomous actions, however well-organized these may be...
Collective organization in many low-income settlements may also be limited by the
diversity of political allegiances and ethnic ties among the urban poor. Secondly,
demands made on state institutions by community-based organizations are
characterized by slow and difficult negotiations that usually take many years to be
achieved in a piecemeal fashion, and without support for comprehensive upgrading of
existing settlements. Even when the state has allocated considerable resources to urban
poverty reduction, the projects built by government bodies or the contractors they hire is
often inappropriately designed, of poor quality, and in unsuitable locations unless urban
poor organizations have
an influence over how it is designed and managed.

Pro-poor change through cooperation. The shift from “protest to co-production” was first
developed by the National Slum Dwellers Federation in India during the 1980s, principally

by its founder Joc kin Arputhum (popularly known as Jockin, who later became president
of the S.D.I. network). After working tirelessly to build federations of slum-dwellers across
India, his initial focus was on protesting against injustices felt by the urban poor, especially
with regard to evictions, and on making demands upon the state for basic services.

Although the federations achieved many successes, mainly through their strength in
numbers and occasionally through support from the courts, Jockin recognized that
demands on state organizations had limited value if these organizations were incapable
of fulfilling them. He also saw that pro-poor change would always be limited, no matter
how large the coalition or social movement of the urban poor, so long as bureaucrats
and politicians saw them as trouble-makers and the ‘opposition’, and therefore as the
‘problem’…

In part drawing on and learning from the example laid down by the Indian federations,

the citizen-led model of co-production – combining autonomous action, which

demonstrates the abilities and capacity of the urban poor groups, with offers of
partnership to government agencies – has been promoted …In contrast to common
stereotypes about the incompetence and laziness of the poor, or about the inability of
community groups to collaborate with governments and international agencies, many
remarkable cases studies can be cited on how the community-led model of upgrading
is able to successfully formalize squatter settlements and ameliorate slums … when
politically organized social movements shift from making demands and protests to
conducting dialogue with the state.

Myth 3: Slums are places of crime, violence and social degradation

A corollary of the myth that the poor are to blame for their poverty is the
widespread prejudice against slums as places of social degradation and despair, and
against slum residents as perpetrators of violence and crime. In many instances, this is
more a fabrication of the media than a reality... The reality is that poor people living in
informal settlements are the foremost victims of crime and violence, as opposed to the
middleclasses living in wealthier neighborhoods with higher levels of protection. Contrary
to popular perceptions, many poor areas in cities of the South may even be considered
relatively safe when compared to the daily robberies, burglaries and attacks
experienced in many Western capital cities. Unfortunately, emphasizing the crime and
squalor in slums can lead to worse consequences than simply a biased misrepresentation
of informal settlements, including the victimization, disempowerment and
disenfranchisement of the urban poor; further justification for slum-clearance
programmes; and the wrong policy solutions to deal with rapid urbanization and
poverty…
Although high levels of crime may occur in many informal settlements, the popular
representation of life in slums often fails to acknowledge the deeper causes of insecurity
and violence. In a recent study on urban safety and security by UN-HABITAT, data
revealed that violence and crime are at present widespread in all countries of the world
… a correlation exists between levels of crime and incidences of poverty, inequality,
social exclusion, and youth unemployment. The quality of municipal government and the
effectiveness of urban planning and urban management is also a key factor in the
victimization rates of the poor and vulnerable population segments. Yet these causal
factors - and most importantly, the responsibilities and failures of state institutions - often
go unacknowledged in media representations of violence and crime in informal
settlements. … The effect is to reinforce popular prejudices and fears against slums and
slum residents, thereby criminalizing the urban poor without acknowledging the extreme
inequality, poverty and disenfranchisement that sows the seeds of violence and social
disorder.

The popular view of slums as centers of crime and havens for criminals is also a
commonplace excuse for governments to deal with the consequences of urban poverty
whilst ignoring its causes. …

The language of ‘slums. Part of the reason for prejudiced gut reactions to urban squalor
is the current use of language, particularly in relation to the word ‘slum’. The origins of the
term in nineteenth-century England had distinctly negative connotations, with slums
usually stigmatized as centers of crime and infectious disease – an association that still
resonates in many people’s minds today. Although usage of the word ‘slum’ was largely
discredited by academics for many decades in the twentieth century, the United Nations
is largely responsible for resurrecting the term following its ‘Cities Without Slums’ initiative
in 1999 (later translated into the Millennium Development Goal to “achieve significant
improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers by 2020”). The UN’s use of the
slogan may have the noble intention of increasing official and public interest in the
problem of inadequate housing, but its historical and emotional connotations also carry
the danger of reinforcing negative stereotypes about the urban poor. … The plethora of
such reports can have the effect of kindling fear and foreboding from the middle-classes,
and of portraying slum residents as an “anomic mass of human derelicts” without agency
or uniqueness. This tendency to generalize about the qualities of slums across the world
serves to reduce the lives of all their occupants to the lowest common denominator, and
can prevent us from perceiving the awkward contradictions and differences among
slums worldwide. At worst, the negative associations with the word ‘slum’ can be used by
demagogic mayors and government ministers to justify slum demolition programmes as
a way of ‘improving’ life in the city.

Myth 4: Slums are an inevitable stage of development

 There is an underlying assumption to much of the debate surrounding slums and
urban poverty: that the urban poor will get to our standard of living eventually, and
countries of the South will rise to the same level of material affluence as the industrialized
North, just so long as they follow our prescribed free market approach to development.
The view that slums were a temporary and unavoidable phenomenon was prevalent in
most developing countries until the early 1970s, based on the assumption that slums
would be overcome by economic development in both urban and rural areas. It was on
this basis that slums and the rights of slum residents were largely ignored by newly-
independent Third World governments in the 1950s and 1960s, as reflected in land-use
maps that showed informal settlements as blank spots denoting developed land…

Since the neoliberal ascendence in development policy from the late 1970s, the
advocated approach for governments was firstly to get the ‘market signals’ right, and
then deal with any remaining pockets of the poor and excluded. Urban inequalities, from
the latter-day policy perspective, were viewed as a residual and temporary outcome of
necessary market-led growth. The orthodox mindset which still prevails could be read as
follows: economic growth is good (inevitable/necessary/mandatory), and since such
growth depends on populations organizing themselves in cities, urbanization is also good
(inevitable/necessary/mandatory) …

The unofficial history of ‘development’. The reality is more the opposite of the official
history. Most notably in the case of Britain, a country widely regarded as having
developed without significant state intervention, import protection was widely applied
throughout the industrial revolution, and even the short-lived liberalization of the British
economy during the mid-nineteenth century was a highly controlled affair overseen by
the state. On the national level, government non-intervention was more to blame for
producing the scenes of degradation and squalor recorded by Engels, Dickens, Mayhew
and Booth in Victorian England. It was only the tireless work of reformers, improvers and
trade unions that created pressure for governments to intervene against the worst abuses
of early industrialism, resulting in legislation to limit the hours of work, prevent child labor,
make education compulsory, and regulate against unsanitary living conditions and
substandard housing. The comprehensive welfare state in Britain achieved after the
Second World War is still a dream for most of the developing world. Yet the opposite of
the policies that eventually raised living and working conditions for the urban poor in
Britain are now being advocated to governments in the Global South.

Structural adjustment policies in the 1980s and 1990s therefore had the effect of
“kicking away the ladder” of protectionist tariffs and subsidies that the developed
countries employed in their progression from economies based on agriculture to those
based on high-value goods and services produced in cities. Following the exploitation of
foreign lands in the colonial era and a history of infant industry protectionism, rich
countries have achieved a position of strength from which they now command
lessdeveloped nations to adopt free market economic policies, in spite of their fragile
industrial development and dependency on smallholder agriculture. Moreover, the
major industrialized nations fail to practice the same economic prescriptions that they
preach. As long pointed out by campaigners, the current free trade regime is extremely
biased against developing countries, with the US and EU in particular maintaining strong
protectionist policies in key industries along with huge subsidies in agriculture and food
manufacture. In other words, those policies that rich countries are not prepared to
implement at home are being recommended as a panacea to lessadvantaged nations
with greater levels of poverty and inequality. International financial institutions dominated
by the West, in particular the World Bank, IMF and WTO, have effectively institutionalized
a biased and unequal world economic system for the benefit of the already
advantaged. In this light, it is difficult to account for the belief that the current
development policy paradigm is going to lead to the eradication of slums in the future,
when the evidence suggests that urban poverty and wealth inequality is exacerbated
by a non-interventionist path of industrial growth. The only certainty is that developed
countries are recommending policies that they find beneficial for themselves (not least
for Western commercial interests), rather than those that are beneficial for the inclusive
development of poorer nations…

Reconceptualizing the informal economy. Following the continued failure of

‘trickledown’ growth strategies to benefit all sectors of society, many development
thinkers have turned to the informal economy as an answer or solution to poverty in the
developing world. The informal sector of employment – more commonly understood as
the huge invisible economy of home-based producers, garbage collectors, garment and
domestic workers, and the millions of street traders that characterize the developing
world – has become the primary source of livelihood in a majority of low-income countries
since the 1980s debt crisis. In some ways reminiscent of the tens of thousands of
impoverished entrepreneurs that peddled their wares between the grimey alleyways of
nineteenth century European cities, the new urban laboring poor are of a scale
unprecedented in human history – by some accounts comprising up to three-quarters of
non-agriculture employment in developing countries, or about two-fifths of the working
population of the developing world. In sub-Saharan Africa and across Southern Asia, this
figure could be higher than 80 percent of all working men and women if reliable data
was available, especially if women’s invisible paid work was counted in official statistics…

The author Mike Davis debunks what he calls the “myths of informality” by partly drawing
on the understanding of Jan Breman, a veteran researcher who has spent 40 years
studying poverty in India and Indonesia. Informal employment by its very definition, writes
Davis, is the absence of formal contracts, rights, regulations and bargaining power – an
immeasurable and neglected mass of people who are not registered, let alone taxed. Its
essence is not defined by unlimited elasticity and sustainability, but by an endlessly
franchised “petty exploitation”. It is usually the weakest and smallest who bear the
heaviest burdens of informalization, in particular women, and competition for work has
become so intense that jobs are not generated by “elaborating new divisions of labor,
but by fragmenting existing work, and thus subdividing incomes” – as defined by the
street scenes in developing cities of shoe-shiners squatting on the sidewalk all day to serve
a handful of customers, or young boys hawking tissues to passing rows of smoky traffic, or
construction workers waiting each morning in the vain hope of a day’s work. Worst of all,
increasing competition within the informal sector “depletes social capital and dissolves
self-help networks and solidarities essential to the survival of the poor – again, especially
women and children”.

The safety net of last resort. In effect, the risks of the international financial system are
downloaded to the informal sector, which operates as a kind of safety net of last resort
for those who lose their jobs in formal employment (especially in the aftermath of financial
crises). It is inevitable that earnings in informal employment are likely to fall as work
opportunities become crowded out, until the safety net ultimately breaks. Earnings may
become so low that individuals cannot meet their basic needs no matter how long the
hours they work, or how many family members seek to earn a living on the streets. To
therefore believe that private enterprise should be encouraged to operate in lowincome
settlements by making labor even more flexible, predicated on the belief that the state
already intervenes too much and market forces are more efficient, is to casually invite
even worse scenes of misery and destitution in urbanizing cities (in Davis’s solemn words,
a “living museum of human exploitation”).The reform or even removal of regulations
cannot automatically ‘formalize the informal’, not when the problem of urban poverty
begins with the lack of appropriate regulations and state interventions. The reality is less
susceptible to any quick-fix panacea: a global economy that has proven unable to
absorb a vast displaced and impoverished humanity, a process of globalization that has
strengthened the rights of the most powerful and weakened the rights of the most
excluded, and labor markets sustained by policies that lack any sufficient degree of
compassion, imagination or long-sighted vision.

This is not to overlook the crucial role that the informal sector plays in cities of the South,
providing work and livelihoods for a large proportion of the urban population in the
absence of formal or secure employment opportunities – particularly for those living in
slum settlements. On the contrary, it is imperative that governments uphold the rights of
informal workers through more effective forms of public intervention. As long recognized
by most governments in developing countries, much of the informal sector in which many
poor individuals earn an income may be considered illegal, but provide goods and
services that are essential to the functioning of the ‘legal’ city (even if the police still
subject many informal workers to harassment, fines or arrest). The point of contention is
the assumption held by many people in government and the business community that
the streetwise operators of the “underground circuits of the economy” are always able
to get by without expensive social provisions or welfare support, unencumbered as they
are from the tax and benefit systems of the ‘formal’ economy…

The bigger questions. Even if the business potential of the millions of slum-dwellers living in
abject poverty could be unleashed and transformed into a widespread material
affluence, we can ask if the path of never-ending industrial growth and consumption is
the answer to the world’s problems. The very word ‘development’ has a deterministic ring
- meaning the path pursued by the West, originally imposed upon the rest of the world
through colonial conquest, and now justified on the basis of economic necessity. The
mainstream ‘science’ of economics - also originating from and propagated by the West
- does not question its assumption that perpetual growth is the foundation of progress,
even if common experience raises doubts about the perilous side-effects of unfettered
capitalism and industrialization: the depletion of rainforests and fish-stocks, the threat to
ecology and biodiversity, anthropogenic climate change and pollution, and the
hundredfold increase in inequality over 200 years. The policy papers of orthodox
economists give no insight into what might happen if the remaining four-fifths of humanity
successfully follow the same development patterns.

Business-as-usual for politicians in the developing world also spells a very uncertain
long-term future, for the real costs of slums are hidden from balance sheets and
economics text books - the drain on resources from ‘containing’ slums, the costs of
dealing with humanitarian crises caused by outbreaks of contagious diseases, of water
pollution from untreated sewerage, or the costs of keeping order when unrest or mass
violence occasionally breaks out inside the more volatile shantytowns. And more
indirectly, the social costs of maintaining a large population of uneducated men and
women who live unfulfilled, underdeveloped and uncreative lives; the quiet
psychological burden felt by the middle-classes who have to live with slums beyond their
doorstep; and the intangible moral costs felt by those in the privileged world who remain
unmoved by this affront to personal dignity and social justice.

As a final question, we might ask if it is acceptable in today’s culture of human rights

norms to condemn millions of people to a life in subsistence-wage sweat shops as a point
of entry into the game of capitalism, a type of forced labor that gives many slum residents
the choice between economic exploitation or continued abjection. Is it likewise
acceptable to consider the appalling conditions and human abuses that defined cities
all over Europe during the nineteenth century as an inevitable, even if disagreeable, part
of progress in a modern industrializing city like Kolkata, Jakarta, Mexico City or Chang
Hai? If not, our only choice is to consider alternative goals and more holistic models for
development, no longer predicated on endless capital accumulation and economic
growth, that prioritize social objectives (such as the right to health and the right to a clean
environment, along with the right to adequate shelter and the eradication of poverty)
ahead of the profit imperative and GDP, with a more equitable distribution of resources
on the national and global level.

Myth 5: The free market can end slums

According to the international institutions and powerful states that drive

globalization (along with most of the business community, conservative political parties,
libertarian ideologues and the corporate-controlled media that gives voice to their
concerns), we are told that social injustice can only be addressed by the proper
application of some version of free market capitalism. As the appalling poverty that
haunts the world is the foremost expression of social injustice, and as the incidence of
slums concentrated in cities is the most visible manifestation of poverty, this rigid faith in
the magic of market forces to end slums demands special consideration. Since Margaret
Thatcher and Ronald Reagan began their attack on social housing in the 1980s – a
symbolic hallmark of the ideology that has permeated almost every aspect of political,
economic and social life in the intervening years – we are still led to believe that ‘There Is
No Alternative’ to the tenets of economic liberalism: free markets, free trade, small
governments and privatization. Get the inefficient government out of the way, remains
the assumption, and the beneficent power of the market mechanism and private capital
will act as the levers of economic growth and widespread affluence…

As a result, the role of urban governance has fundamentally changed over recent
decades, with the word ‘governance’ becoming a general term to denote the changing
balance between government and the private sector. The rationale for this shift lies in the
apparently growing gap between available resources and welfare demand – according
to the perspective of most economists, governments alone can no longer afford to meet
the needs of all residents in cities. In reality, the responsibility for securing wealth and
welfare has been devolved from governments to the individual under what some
academics have called the initial “roll-back” phase of neoliberalism, in reference to the
rolling back of the gains in state-provided welfare achieved during the Keynesian period.
This process involved the retreat from previous government control of resources and state
regulations, including public services, nationalized industries, and labor and social rights.
Advocates of neoliberalism claim that the way to improve social welfare is through less
dependency on governments and a greater reliance on private agencies, hence the
motivation behind the privatization of formerly state-run services and industries. The role
of the state is reconfigured into being, first and foremost, the ‘enabler of growth’ and
business prosperity…

The World Bank took up the discourse on ‘social capital’, for example, in stressing
the importance of “the community’s capacity to work together to address their common
needs”, while public-private partnerships (PPPs) were promoted as a solution to poverty
and urban regeneration. An “entirely new paradigm for development” was adopted, in
the words of former World Bank president James Wolfensohn, that fostered partnerships
between a broad coalition of actors such as international institutions, bilateral agencies,
voluntary organizations, the police, schools, neighborhood residents and (most
importantly) investors and the private sector. Beneath the rhetoric, however, the
objective was fundamentally unchanged – to mobilize community and other social
networks and assets toward the goal of “a competitive and revitalized urban growth
machine”. This was the ‘growth-first’ approach to urban development that has come to
define the modern era; a kind of zero-sum competition among cities and states that
prioritizes social investment ahead of social equity or redistribution. The name of the
game is to transform urban spaces to be as attractive as possible to financial investors,
hence the expansion of downtown areas into attractive up-scale service centers, the
implementation of large-scale projects (such as train station renovations and waterfront
redevelopment schemes) to attract big expositions, conventions, and ‘megaevents’ like
the Olympics, and the makeover of central cities to befit them as ‘world class’
conference and hospitality destinations.
The world class city. The world class, globalizing city is managed much like a large
corporation and forced to compete for the capital investment required to build new
offices and plants and provide jobs. As such, cost-benefit calculations determine the
allocation of resources within a city rather than missions of service, equity and social
welfare. In what has been called the “city-state”, “city-corporation”,
“entrepreneurialcity” or “city of the spectacle”, a manufactured place image of the city
is used to represent its value and to attract tourism, convention industries and capital
investment from overseas. In effect, the city is turned into a marketed image on the
global stage, a packaged commodity called a “world class city”. All players must
compete in the new globalizing process, including individuals and enterprises as well as
entire cities. It is only under these extreme conditions of competition that the ‘There Is No
Alternative’ school of thinking becomes persuasive; even modest efforts for redistribution,
which in themselves may be far cries from trying to realize social or economic justice, are
understood to be doomed to fail because the capital needed to fund them will simply
relocate elsewhere. With great skill in exploiting these new opportunities, large domestic
or transnational corporations are able to benefit from a ‘bidding war’ between the mayors
of different cities, who often mortgage away their future through tax forgiveness, debt
burdens, and the foregoing of spending on other public needs. As the globalization
champion Thomas Friedman famously argues, you either run with the Global Herd or you
will face less access to capital, less access to technology, and ultimately a lower
standard of living (at least for those privileged citizens not altogether excluded from the
new social order).The future of urbanization is regarded as already determined by the
power of globalization and of market competition, and urban possibilities are limited to
“mere competitive jockeying of individual cities for position within the global urban
system”…

For the individual, … ‘self-reliance’ and ‘autonomy’ are redefined in an

individualized and competitive direction; individual freedom, for example, is redefined as
“freedom from bureaucracy rather than freedom from want, with human behavior
reconceptualized along economic lines”. In the process, the notion that the state is
obliged to secure a person’s rights and obligations is replaced by a growing conception
of individual responsibility. Citizens are increasingly ‘freed’ of the state and led to provide
for themselves through market participation. Employees are redefined as entrepreneurs
with an obligation to work, not a right to work. No longer relying on the state, they are
responsible for their own education and retraining, and must now negotiate access to
work and services without state patrimony.

The “self-responsibilities” for one’s own well-being may be welcomed by wealthier citizens
for a number of reasons; in being freed to increase their wealth and consumption without
interference from a ‘bureaucratic’ and ‘inefficient’ state, inequality no longer needs to
be justified, apologized for or hidden. According to the logic of a market-driven society,
inequality is not a problem of what the poor lack, but rather of what they have been
unable to achieve. For the ‘global citizens’ that inhabit gated residences of material
comforts and privatized services, it is also no longer necessary to identify themselves with
the same imagined city as the poor. Furthermore, the responsibility of ensuring access to
housing and basic services is not held by the state or the elite, but by the ‘self-governing’
individual through participation in the market. For the poor, however, this means placing
a new responsibility upon their shoulders for which they are no more equipped to bear,
and with less obligation on the state to ensure access to basic needs. The very notion of
the ‘right to the city’ - which has laid the basis of a claim to urban residency and
citizenship for the urban poor since the 1960s - has been steadily eroded through the
dominance of neoliberal ideology and discourses on the competitive city. Attention is
effectively redirected away from traditional issues of social justice, and the right to the
city is reinterpreted in terms of a new ideal citizen-subject: an “aspirational middle-class
consumer citizen, ideally primed to live in a ‘world class city’”.

Urban management by market forces. …Maintaining the city’s image on a global stage
then becomes dependent on efforts to keep downtown areas and event spaces free of
undesirable groups (such as the homeless, beggars, prostitutes and the very poor). As
cities seek to attract tourism and convention industries while catering for a more
businessoriented and middle-class clientele, the inevitable side-effects are seen in
gentrification and the displacement of poorer communities, along with the
abandonment of neighborhoods that don’t fit into the new design. Even in most
successful middle-income nations, urban poverty as manifested through inadequate
living conditions and inadequate incomes is still a serious problem that affects a large
proportion of the population. Although globalization may have acted as the true engine
of economic growth in recent decades, the progressive increase in levels of marginality,
poverty and inequality highlights the failure of the free market to redistribute its benefits
and opportunities.

Employing market forces as the arbiter of resource distribution is socially exclusive,

not inclusive, and does not function when there is a need to produce certain types of
goods or services such as housing for the poor or welfare services for low-income groups...
In industrialized countries, an average of 80 percent of the population has access to
private housing markets, while 20 percent is dependent on public subsidies. In developing
countries, the opposite occurs, where private markets have little reach and are highly
speculative. In Latin America as a whole, for example, only 20 to 40 percent of the
population have access to housing through the real estate market. As public policies do
not meet the needs of the remaining 60 to 80 percent, the excluded population are left
to meet their own housing needs – which often includes blue-collar workers, public
servants and bankers within the illegal squatter settlements and favelas. A similar dynamic
takes place in the privatization of urban infrastructures and basic services, a trend that
began in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s with Margaret Thatcher’s free market
economic reforms and then spread to almost every corner of the globe. During the 1990s,
private sector participation was vigorously promoted by international organizations such
as the World Bank, IMF and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, ...
The arguments in favor of privatization were based on the general agreement that public
utilities have been too slow in extending access to services, that they can be inefficient
and corrupt, and that developing countries reeling from debt were unable to pay for
new infrastructures. In particular, the World Bank’s “Cities Without Slums” action plan (in
coalition with UN-HABITAT) sought to solve the problem of urban poverty in part through
public-private partnerships – a strategy to harness the power of transnational
corporations in the delivery of basic social and economic infrastructure to urban slums.
Under the free-market development paradigm, basic needs like clean water, sanitation,
healthcare and education are not considered a birthright, but a privilege of the fee-
paying user even in the poorest low-income settlements. The role of the state is not to be
directly responsible for addressing society’s needs and problems, but to facilitate and
regulate the business sector in undertaking social functions and economic development.
In the process of privatization, public goods are effectively transferred into private hands,
and the government acts on behalf of corporations in operating (or building new and
large-scale) infrastructures and realizing their profit potential.

Privatization for the poor. While this strategy may have a certain rationale for providing
services to high-end consumers in industrialized countries, it has serious flaws when
applied to the urban poor in developing countries. The incentive for private provision to
low-income areas has little to do with the securing of basic human rights ... A key
consideration for private companies and their financial investors is scale, as larger
projects with a sizeable client base provide the highest rates of return. Private operators
are also more likely to cherry pick the most attractive locations with acceptable levels of
financial and political risk, ideally in regions with large or growing economies, in cities with
denser and wealthier populations, and in more affluent neighborhoods that are
preferably already connected to utilities. None of these criteria apply to low-income
populations and slum settlements, where residents are too poor to be profitable and
represent too great a financial risk. This reality is reflected in the provision of water and
sanitation, in which the least profitable locations are often excluded from the service
area in private contracts. Still only around 5 percent of the world’s population is currently
served by the formal private sector in water and sanitation, despite the keen support of
many development agencies for ‘pro-poor’ private sector participation since the 1990s.
An estimated 1.1 billion poor people still lack access to improved drinking water, while
2.4 billion people lack reasonable access to improved sanitation – and most of the
unserved urban dwellers in this number live in the low-income neighborhoods that large
water companies have shown little interest in serving.

… The case of water privatization in Bolivia is also famous. When the American company
Bechtel took over water services in 1999, rates immediately increased by 35 to 50 percent.
In the capital city Cochabamba where families earn on average $100 a month, the
prospect of paying $20 a month in water bills led to widespread protests and clashes until
the government finally annulled the private contract. This story has had a big impact on
the polemic debate surrounding water privatization and was an inspiration for popular
resistance against other privatization contracts around the world, such as Suez’s attempts
to privatize the Ganges River in India. As the ‘Cochabamba Water Wars’ poignantly
illustrated, privatization of essential services can dispossess the poor of their right to basic
social amenities, whilst servicing the economic interests of multinational corporations
(usually based in the wealthiest countries).

The right role for governments. One of the tragic paradoxes of globalization is that
privatization and free market policies hinder the kind of government action that is
needed to tackle urban poverty and slum growth. It is indisputable that the private
market is unable to provide an answer to the deficiency in housing and urban service
provision for the poor, yet the Washington Consensus policies still enforced harsh
reductions in government spending on social needs during the 1980s and 1990s. The
deregulation and privatization of public services serves to directly undermine the welfare
state and further compromises the ability of public agencies to meet the needs of those
who cannot afford the market price for housing, healthcare, education and sanitation....
Although international competition and market-driven policies are limiting the options of
local governance, both the national and local state is increasingly required for the global
economy to function smoothly (such as by enforcing international agreements,
formulating binding trade policies, and ensuring the security of global financial
transactions).

The …actions of governments are adapted to meet the needs of market growth and the
efficient conduct of the business community. It requires infinitely more government
planning and intervention to build a skyscraper, for example, than to assist the poor in
constructing low-income secure housing. If anything, the formal power of governments
to affect the development of cities is greater than ever before, even if this power is
generally exercised to facilitate the trends of increasing corporatization and economic
competition. The reason that low-income settlements are given so little priority in national
budgets is not simply an indication of severe fiscal constraints or a decreasing role of the
state, but more the result of deliberate policy choices in favor of wealthier citizens and
the business sector. These attitudes may be shaped by an international policy framework
that favors an increased reliance on market forces as the best allocator of resources, but
even this doesn’t automatically remove the responsibility of governments to secure the
basic rights of all citizens. In this light, the free market approach to urban development
can be read as a collusion between governments and corporations to push a common
agenda, regardless of the increased partitioning of cities and the exclusion of the urban
poor.

The efficiency-oriented, growth-led and internationally competitive strategies of the ‘city-

enterprise’ have failed to combat the problem of slums, and are more likely to
exacerbate urban poverty than act as a solution in the future. This dominant approach
may well have turned cities into ‘engines of growth’, but the balance sheet of costs and
benefits is difficult to justify; technical transformation, prosperity and affluence for the
chosen few, but deepening poverty, inequality and increasing marginalization for the
many. The liberalization of national economies, their global integration, structural
adjustment and the privatization of former public utilities is clearly a marvelous investment
strategy for transnational corporations, unless we question its implications for social
cohesion or environmental sustainability. This would include, inter alia, the promotion of
wasteful consumerism, the undermining of national sovereignty, the weakening of state
authority and the depletion of natural resources – and ultimately, a “dehumanizing
implosion of deepening alienation, anger, and social breakdown that manifests itself in
urban violence, a loss of compassion for the weak, and a disregard of the environmental
and human consequences of economic activity”. This is another of the great paradoxes
of globalization: while the push for democratization is promoted by the flows of
information associated with global integration, these same processes have centralized
power and control into unaccountable corporate institutions. The result is a system in
which a few make decisions on behalf of a whole, returning great rewards to themselves
while passing the costs onto others. To formulate new public policies that prioritize the
person and community in place of the market and enterprise is therefore the greatest –
and most urgent – humanitarian challenge of our time.

Myth 6: International aid is the answer

The first problem with development assistance for cities is simply one of scale. At no
time in the past 30 years has international aid as a whole exceeded US $60bn a year, a
sum that is equivalent to 20 percent of the annual budget of the US department of
defense over the same annual period, and hardly enough to have a major impact on
the lives of 2 billion poor people in low- and middle-income countries.

… Because economic growth and modernization naturally occurs in the cities where
wealth is most concentrated, the policies of leading development agencies were said to
be biased against the countryside - a notion that continues to receive support, especially
from those who advocate neoliberal economic policies in favor of exportoriented
agriculture. This assumption that city-dwellers benefit more from development than their
rural counterparts persist even despite the growing incidence of slums and extreme urban
poverty - what amounts to an ‘anti-urban biases for the poorest residents in developing
cities. Another reason that urban development does not muster enough interest within
most aid agencies to attract sufficient funding is the sheer competition from other issues.
Climate change, HIV/AIDS, post-conflict reconstruction, child labor, violence against
women, and natural disasters like floods or droughts or hurricanes are all issues that may
involve life or death for millions of vulnerable people, and therefore hold a high moral
imperative in the clamor for assistance budgets. These campaign demands, often
backed by high profile celebrities and international NGOs, are more likely to gain popular
support than demands for long-term urban development needs such as slum upgrading,
capacity building for newly democratized municipal governments, or support for
participatory planning initiatives.

The bottom line is that insufficient financial resources are one of the main
impediments to dealing effectively with the problems faced by urban slum-dwellers. This
reality is partly attributable to increased public sector austerity resulting from global
economic inequalities, structural adjustment policies and liberalization programmes since
the 1980s. Other factors include the incapacity (or unwillingness) of governments to
provide appropriate support to low-income settlements; the lack or misuse of financial
resources by municipal authorities; a growing pressure on municipal budgets from new
jurisdictions on their periphery; and the misuse or poor targeting of subsidies for the urban
poor…
Aiding or hindering the urban poor? … Although “self-help” and “participation” became
the buzzwords of the low-cost housing debate from the mid-1970s, aid assistance has
largely failed to adhere to the true tenets of this approach. According to the new
consensus that emerged around slum upgrading and ‘sites and services’, the urban poor
should be empowered to formulate their own solutions to the problems of housing and
human settlement, backed up with a redistribution of power and resources in their favor.
.... The key principle, as emphasized by John Turner, is to give the poor local control over
the housing process, which depends on personal and local access to resources which
only governments can guarantee. The enabling approach to low-cost housing therefore
requires governments to prioritize an increase in poor people’s access to resources, rather
than grandiose housing projects. Effective community participation also depends upon
a decentralization of power and resources to city/municipal level, and a
democratization of the political system. This is to ensure that citizens can influence
government policies and priorities, and local governments can respond to the diverse
needs of poorer groups.

In practice, the functioning of aid agencies often works against these core
principles of participation, decentralization and redistribution. ... Discussions about “good
governance” and “capacity-building” have become central to development discourse
since this period, but despite the commitment of international agencies to strengthen or
build local capacity, local government officials are often bypassed or ignored by aid
agencies and foreign consultants. In many cities, a large number of international
agencies (both official agencies and NGOs) are often busy funding separate projects
with no coordination between them, and with little attempt to work together and help
improve the capacity of local institutions. In this way, NGOs can serve to pre-empt
community level capacity-building by taking over decision-making and negotiating
roles.

Most official development assistance agencies have also generally failed to

develop relationships with urban poor citizens and their representative organizations.
Much of the literature on aid assistance concludes that planning and urban
management is much more effective if responsibilities are delegated directly to the
urban poor, with the decision-making process transferred to the lowest possible levels. But
rather than support the work of local communities in slum-upgrading programmes or
infrastructure provision, international agencies rarely assign any role to urban poor groups
in the design and implementation of aid programmes. Part of the reason is the structure
of aid institutions, which were set up on the assumption that development is best
delivered by making large capital sums available to recipient national governments,
accompanied by the best technical advice. Although the limitations of this fixed
relationship between donor agencies and national governments are long recognized,
there is still little scope for aid institutions to respond directly to the needs and priorities of
local communities. This structure also creates a great distance between the aid
agency and the intended beneficiaries of urban development programmes; decisions
about funding are made far from the urban poor in government ministries or at the
headquarters of large agencies in Europe or North America, and aid projects are shaped
by commercial and political influences that filter through many intermediaries before
reaching the people on the ground.

The result is a lack of accountability to the urban poor, as well as a lack of

transparency to the poor in the allocation of resources – and yet it is the poor whose
needs justify the entire development industry. With so little ability to influence
development programmes, apart from the extremely limited power to vote for politicians
who oversee the international aid institutions, the urban poor are unable to hold a
development bank or a bilateral agency to account if a project fails – or even worse, if a
development project threatens their home or livelihoods. Furthermore, most of the
literature on development assistance is written by the staff of international agencies, most
of them based in Western countries, with little attention paid to the perspectives of those
who live and work in poor communities (such as the staff of local NGOs, schools and
health centers, and members of community-based organizations). The residents of
squatter settlements are normally given little or no say in internationally-funded projects,
have no involvement with agency staff during the project’s implementation, and are
usually abandoned as soon as the project is completed. Such projects may bring
considerable improvements in the provision of water, sanitation and some services but
fail to alleviate the wider problems of unemployment, violence and generalized poverty.

Myth 7: There will always be slums

… For some modern writers, the evidence suggests that the future of cities is a foregone
and forbidding conclusion, a “planet of slums” made up of a permanently redundant -
and potentially revolutionary - mass of disenfranchised informal workers. As the urban
sociologist Mike Davis argues, the self-help squatters on the edge of cities inhabit a “zone
of exile”, a “new Babylon”, and the only hope is the “militant refusal of the new urban
poor to accept their terminal marginality within global capitalism”. For other writers, the
view of cities as engines of breakdown and apocalypse is far from justified. … the
anthropologist Peter Lloyd in … argued, much of the scholarly literature on squatter
settlements reflects the prejudices of Western observers to squalor and neglect, as well
as fears of the urban poor becoming a socially destabilizing force …

Furthering these dystopian vs utopian viewpoints in more recent times, some writers
are tempted to romanticize the “magic of squatter cities” for their ecologically and
socially sustainable practices, or for the self-help praxis of the urban poor and their values
of mutuality, community and solidarity. Both reactions to urban poverty are an extreme
of the reality, often serving the ideological purposes of different interest groups who
occupy a higher social strata: the political far right who effectively view slum-dwellers as
an unwanted burden on market society, or the political far left who imbue slum-dwellers
with their hopes of revolutionary social transformation. As a consequence, all of these
interpretations tacitly accept the existence, and persistence, of slums.

Where the world is headed. ... Firstly, no statistics are required to reveal what every
urbanite in the developing world must realize: that the problem of slums is a growing
reality. Although the UN’s data on slums is contestable and probably underestimated on
many counts, the latest figures revealed that “the urban divide still exists” and is expected
to increase in coming years. … will probably grow by six million people each year unless
drastic action is taken. Put bluntly, the absolute number of slum-dwellers across the world
is expected to increase, and keep on increasing. The number of town and city-dwellers
is expected to rise to two-thirds of humanity by 2030, … If present trends continue over
the coming decades, we can expect the same things as forewarned in the 1989 classic
Squatter Citizen: “...tens of millions more households living in squatter settlements or in very
poor quality and overcrowded rented accommodation owned by highly exploitative
landlords. Tens of millions more households will be forcibly evicted from their homes... The
quality of many basic services (water, sanitation, garbage disposal, health care) will
deteriorate still further, and there will be a rise in the number of diseases related to poor
and contaminated living environments.”

In the second decade of the new millennium, as the world economy reels from the
impact of a global financial crisis, the outlook is increasingly pessimistic. As in previous
economic recessions since the 1980s, many governments in Latin America, Asia and
Africa face large deficits in their balance of payments and insuperable problems with
national debt. Application for loans from the International Monetary Fund still leads to
pressure to reduce public spending, especially in social programmes. As a result,
government subsidies for basic goods and services (such as staple foods and transport)
are more likely to be cut, while the provision of basic services and new investments in city
infrastructure are more likely to be postponed. And as always, it is the urban poor who
are among the hardest hit, with little or no safety margin to allow them to absorb or survive
the impacts of the crisis. As millions more people migrate from rural areas to the cities,
where the lack of employment and declining real incomes is affecting the middle-class
as well as the lower-income groups, increasing numbers of urban-dwellers will be forced
to organize the construction of their own shelters. This depressing outlook is reinforced by
The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010, which states that the recent crisis in
housing markets may offset the progress made in lifting people out of slums since 1990:
“Although the crisis did not originate in developing regions, it has hit their populations and
cities, where millions continue to live in precarious conditions... In many cases, public
authorities have exacerbated the housing crisis through failures on four major counts: lack
of land titles and other forms of secure tenure; cutbacks in funds for subsidized housing
for the poor; lack of land reserves earmarked for low-income housing; and an inability to
intervene in the market to control land and property speculation. Low incomes in the
face of rising land prices virtually rule out the possibility that the working poor can ever
own land, contributing to the problem of urban slums.”
Another observation is that few, if any, governments have development plans that
sufficiently address the housing demands of urban growth and development in
developing countries. As urbanization continues apace, few of these governments are
even attempting to put in place the infrastructure and services that are needed to make
cities livable for all low-income residents. Even when investments are made, they tend to
be in high-end infrastructure projects to attract foreign capital rather than to provide
services to the poor, or to make cities more attractive to domestic investors. …, city
‘beautification’ programmes continue to result in the mass dislocation of squatters and
slum-dwellers – … There is also little evidence to suggest that a framework has evolved
to adequately address the problems of slums at the global level, let alone shape a clear
vision of a future without any incidence of urban poverty and inadequate housing. For
many fast-expanding mega-cities, the pressing concern is not the longer-term
sustainability of rapid urbanization and its social and environmental consequences for
generations to come, but the short-term viability of the continued divide between rich
and poor – especially in the context of an economic crisis and food price volatility that
led to riots across the developing world in 2007 and 2008. The impasse in urban policy is
exacerbated by the ideological belief that states as well as cities have no alternative but
to accelerate headlong in the same direction, relentlessly driven by the pressure to
compete for high-class tourism, foreign investment, large-scale development projects
and all other hallmarks of the ‘world class city’. As urban leaders seek their own bit of
competitive advantage over the others, the very poor living in illegal squatter
communities represent the unwelcome shadow side of globalization.

Although faith in deregulated markets has been jolted by the world stock market
crash in 2008, there are few world leaders who question the trajectory of the privatized
and globalized market economy, based on the assumption that further and higher
growth is the speediest and most effective route to alleviate poverty, despite all evidence
to the contrary. In the corridors of power, turning back on the export-oriented, growth-
led model is seen as neither practical nor viable. Yet there is nothing inevitable about the
current processes that result in an uncontrolled form of urbanization that is resource
depleting, polluting and exploitative of the urban poor. The choice rests with
governments and decision-makers to either accept the social instability and rising slum
growth that accompanies current trends, or forge a new path with different policies to
achieve more inclusive and sustainable outcomes. If urbanization trends and cities are
to change, the economic model that sustains them must be wholly reformed and
reimagined. A first step lies in recognizing the impossibility of continuing in the same
direction of urban development, and the possibility of achieving a new vision of human
progress based upon a fundamental reordering of global priorities – beginning with the
immediate securing of universal basic needs. Only then can the twin goals enshrined in
the Habitat Agenda of 1996 be translated into a concrete programme of action:
“adequate shelter for all” and “sustainable human settlements development in an
urbanizing world”.
 The Twelve Myths of Hunger

(Excerpted from: Lappe, F., Collins, J., Rosset, P. & Esparza, L. [1998]. 2nd edition. World
hunger: Twelve myths. New York: Grove Press.) updated synopsis, Poole-Kavana, H.
[Summer 2006]. 12 myths about hunger in Food First Institute for Food and Development
Policy Backgrounder. Vol 12, No. 2.; Korten, D.C. [1995]. When corporations rule the
world. USA: Kumarian Press and Berrett-Koehler Publishers.)

Lappe, Collins, Rosset, and Esparza’s work on the Twelve Myths of Hunger inspired other
scholars to use it as their framework in identifying, analyzing, and debunking the myths
about other global issues, like the Seven Myths of Slums that we recently covered. These
12 myths reflect the arguments for neoliberalism that are forwarded by the global
corporations and their cohorts in both the public and private sectors.

Going over the myths can help you understand world poverty and hunger. Some, if not
all of these myths, had been debunked by what we got in the previous lessons. Therefore,
as you read and analyze each myth, imagine that you are in front of the representatives
of global corporations and world leaders who are sold to the doctrine of neoliberalism
and for each myth, you give your counterargument.

Myth 1: Not Enough Food to Go Around. With food-producing resources in so much of the
world stretched to the limit, there’s simply not enough food to go around. Unfortunately,
some people have to go hungry.

Myth 2: Nature’s to Blame. Droughts and other events beyond human control cause
famine.

Myth 3: Too Many Mouths to Feed. Hunger is caused by too many people pressing against
finite resources. We must slow population growth before we can hope to alleviate
hunger.

Myth 4: Food vs. Environment. Pressure to feed the world’s hungry is destroying the very
resources needed to grow food. To feed the hungry, we are pushing crop and livestock
production onto marginal, erosion-prone lands, clearing age old rain forests, and
poisoning the environment with pesticides. Clearly, we cannot both feed the hungry and
protect our environment.

Myth 5: The Green Revolution is the Answer. The miracle seeds of the Green Revolution
increase grain yields and therefore are a key to ending world hunger. Higher yields mean
more income for poor farmers, helping them climb out of poverty, and more food means
less hunger. While the Green Revolution may have missed poorer areas, with more
marginal lands, we can learn valuable lessons from that experience to help launch a
“Second” Green Revolution to defeat hunger once and for all.
Myth 6: Justice vs. Production (or We Need Large Farms). No matter how much we believe
in the goal of greater fairness, we face a dilemma. Since only the big growers have the
know-how to make the land produce, redistributing control over resources would
undercut production. Reforms that take land away from the big producers will lower food
output and therefore hurt the hungry people they are supposed to help.
Myth 7: The Free Market Can End Hunger; (Korten) – myths of the free unregulated markets
and that corporations are benevolent institutions. If governments just got out of the way,
the free market could solve the hunger problem.

Myth 8: Free Trade is the Answer; (Korten) – myths of the free trade and absentee investors
create local prosperity. Without protectionist barriers, world trade could reflect the
comparative advantage of each country – each exporting what it can produce most
cheaply and importing what it cannot. Third world countries could increase exports of
those commodities favored by their geography, and their greater foreign exchange
earnings could be used to import what they need to alleviate hunger and poverty.

Myth 9: Too Hungry to Fight for Their Rights. If initiative for change must come from the
poor, then the situation truly is hopeless. Beaten down and ignorant of the real forces
oppressing them, poor people are conditioned into a state of passivity. They can hardly
be expected to bring about change.

Myth 10: More U.S. Aid Will Help the Hungry. In helping to end world hunger, our primary
responsibility as U.S. citizens is to increase and improve our government’s foreign aid. (The
authors are Americans so they wrote it from an American perspective. However, US is not
the only country that is giving aid. It is best therefore to appreciate Myth 10 by substituting
“U.S. Aid” with “foreign aid.” In its broadest sense, foreign aid consists largely of loans,
and the smaller percentage consists of grants [amount given need no repayment],
humanitarian aids [relief, rescue operation, medical mission, among others], military aid
[includes logistics, scholarship in the donor’s military schools], and food aid [under US PL
480, to be paid in local currency]).

Myth 11: We Benefit from their Poverty. No matter how much Americans may think we
would like to help end hunger in the third world, deep down we know that hunger
benefits us. Because hungry people are willing to work for low wages, we can buy
everything from coffee to computers, bananas to batteries, at lower prices. Americans
would have to sacrifice too much of their standard of living for there to be a world without
hunger.

Myth 12: Food vs. Freedom. For hunger to be eliminated, it is clear that a society would
have to undergo radical changes. Many of its citizens would see their freedoms curtailed.
A trade-off between freedom and ending hunger is unfortunate, but it appears to be a
fact of life. People have to choose one or the other.
 POLITICAL GLOBALIZATION

(excerpted from: Steger, M.B. [2003]. Globalization: A very short introduction. New York:
Oxford University Press)

Political globalization refers to the intensification and expansion of political

interrelations across the globe. For Harari (2018), to globalize politics does not necessarily
mean to establish a global government but simply to have the political dynamics within
political territories – national or local – to give far more weight to global problems and
interests.

Humans have organized their political differences along territorial lines that generate
a sense of 'belonging' to a particular nation-state. This artificial division of planetary social
space into 'domestic' and 'foreign' spheres corresponds to people's collective identities
based on the creation of a common 'us' and an unfamiliar 'them'. Thus, the modern
nation-state system has rested on psychological foundations and cultural assumptions
that convey a sense of existential security and historical continuity, while at the same time
demanding from its citizens that they put their national loyalties to the ultimate test.
Nurtured by demonizing images of the Other, people's belief in the superiority of their own
nation has supplied the mental energy required for large-scale warfare.

Harari (2018) argues, however, that:

to globalize politics means that political dynamics within countries and even cities should
give far more weight to global problems and interests … we need a new global identity
because national institutions are incapable of handling a set of unprecedented global
predicaments. We now have a global ecology, a global economy, and a global science
– but we are still stuck with only national politics. This mismatch prevents the political
system from effectively countering our main problems. (p.126)

The modern nation-state system

The origins of the modern nation-state system can be traced back to 17th-century
political developments in Europe. In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia concluded a series
of religious wars among the main European powers resulting to the formulation of the
principles of sovereignty and territoriality. The Westphalian model gradually strengthened
a new conception of international law based on the principle that all states had an equal
right to self-determination.

According to political scientist David Held, the Westphalian model contained the
following essential points:
 1. The world consists of, and is divided into, sovereign territorial states which
recognize no superior authority.
2. The processes of law-making, the settlement of disputes, and law enforcement
are largely in the hands of individual states.
3. International law is oriented to the establishment of minimal rules of
coexistence; the creation of enduring relationships is an aim, but only to the
extent that it allows state objectives to be met.
4. Responsibility for cross-border wrongful acts is a 'private matter' concerning
only those affected.
5. All states are regarded as equal before the law, but legal rules do not take
account of asymmetries of power.
6. Differences among states are often settled by force; the principle of effective
power holds sway. Virtually no legal fetters exist to curb the resort to force;
international legal standards afford only minimal protection.
7. The collective priority of all states should be to minimize the impediments to
state freedom.

The centuries following the Peace of Westphalia saw the further centralization of
political power, the expansion of state administration, the development of professional
diplomacy, and the successful monopolization of the means of coercion in the hands of
the state. Moreover, states also provided the military means required for the expansion
of commerce, which, in turn, contributed to the spread of this European form of political
rule around the globe.

The modern nation-state system found its mature expression at the end of World War
I in US President Woodrow Wilson's … commitment to the nation-state coexisted with his
internationalist dream of establishing a global system of collective security under the
auspices of a new international organization, the League of Nations. His idea of giving
international cooperation an institutional expression was eventually realized with the
founding of the United Nations in 1945. While deeply rooted in a political order based on
the modern nation-state system, the UN and other fledgling intergovernmental
organizations also served as catalysts for the gradual extension of political activities
across national boundaries, thus undermining the principle of national sovereignty.

The demise of the nation-state? There are two opposing arguments regarding this.

Hyper-globalizers Globalization Sceptics

Territory still matters … there is the
Politics has been rendered almost powerless by an continued relevance of
unstoppable techno-economic juggernaut that will conventional political units,
crush all governmental attempts to reintroduce operating either in the form of
restrictive policies and regulations.
modern nation-states or global
Globalization inevitably involves the decline of cities. bounded territory as a
meaningful concept for
Governments can still take
understanding political and social change. measures to
make their economies
Consequently, political power is located in global more or less attractive to global
social formations and expressed through global
investors. Nation-states have
networks rather than through territorially based retained control over education, states.
infrastructure, and, most importantly, population
Nation-states have already lost their dominant role movements. Immigration control, in
the global economy. As territorial divisions are together with population becoming
increasingly irrelevant, states are even registration and monitoring, has less capable of
determining the direction of social often been cited as the most life within their borders.
For example, since the notable exception to the general workings of genuinely global
capital markets dwarf trend towards global integration. their ability to control exchange
rates or protect
their currency, nation-states have become Although only 2% of the world's vulnerable to
the discipline imposed by economic population live outside their choices made
elsewhere, over which states have country of origin, immigration no practical control.
control has become a central issue in most advanced nations. Many Minimalist political
order of the future will be governments seek to restrict determined by regional
economies linked together population flows, particularly those in an almost seamless
global web of production originating in the poor countries of and exchange. the global
South. Even in the United
The economic and political aspects of globalization States, annual inflows of about are
profoundly interconnected. Recent economic 600,000 immigrants during the 1990 s
developments such as trade liberalization and reached only half the levels deregulation
have significantly constrained the set recorded during the first two of political options
open to states, particularly in the decades of the 20th century.
global South. For example, it has become much The series of drastic national easier for
capital to escape taxation and other security measures that were national policy
restrictions. Thus, global markets implemented worldwide as a frequently undermine the
capacity of governments response to the terrorist attacks of to set independent national
policy objectives and 9/11 reflect political dynamics that impose their own domestic
standards. Hence, we run counter to the hyperought to acknowledge the decline of the
nation- globalizers' predictions of a state as a sovereign entity and the ensuing borderless
world. Some civil rights devolution of state power to regional and local advocates even
fear that the governments as well as to various supranational enormous resurgence of
patriotism institutions. around the world might enable
The activities of global terrorist networks have states to re-impose restrictions on revealed
the inadequacy of conventional national the freedom of movement and security
structures based on the modern nation- assembly.
state system, thus forcing national governments to engage in new forms of international
cooperation.

Harari (2018) adds that:

technology has changed everything by creating a set of global existential threats that
no nation can solve on its own. A common enemy is the best catalyst for forging a
common identity and humankind now has at least three such enemies – nuclear war,
climate change, and technological disruption. If despite these common threats humans
choose to privilege their particular national loyalties above everything else, the results
may be far worse than in 1914 and 1939 ... The rest of the world can learn from the
European example – (while remaining proud of their own national identities and history,
the people of Europe are determined to transcend their former divisions and, united ever
more closely, to forge a common destiny … Yet if we want to survive and flourish,
humankind has little choice but to complement such local loyalties with substantial
obligations toward a global community. A person can and should be loyal simultaneously
to her family, her neighborhood, her profession, and her nation … humankind and planet
Earth.” (pp. 124-125)

Political globalization and global governance

Political globalization is most visible in the rise of supra-territorial institutions and

associations held together by common norms and interests.

On the municipal and provincial level, there has been a remarkable growth in the
number of policy initiatives and trans-border links between various sub-state authorities.
For example, Chinese provinces and US federal states have established permanent
missions and points of contact, some of which operate relatively autonomously with little
oversight from their respective national governments. Various provinces and federal
states in Canada, India, and Brazil are beginning to develop their own trade agendas
and financial strategies to obtain loans. An example of international cooperation on the
municipal level is the rise of powerful city networks like the World Association of Major
Metropolises that develop cooperative ventures to deal with common local issues across
national borders. 'Global cities' like Tokyo, London, New York, and Singapore tend to be
more closely connected to each other than they are to many cities in their home
countries.

On the regional level, there has been an extraordinary proliferation of multilateral

organizations and agreements. Regional clubs and agencies have sprung up across the
world, leading some observers to speculate that they will eventually replace nationstates
as the basic unit of governance.

On a global level, governments have formed a number of international

organizations, including the UN, NATO, and WTO. Full legal membership of these
organizations is open to states only, and the decision-making authority lies with
representatives from national governments. The proliferation of these trans-world bodies
has shown that nation-states find it increasingly difficult to manage sprawling networks of
social interdependence. Finally, the emerging structure of global governance is also
shaped by 'global civil society', a realm populated by thousands of voluntary,
nongovernmental associations of worldwide reach.

International NGOs like Amnesty International or Greenpeace represent millions of

ordinary citizens who are prepared to challenge political and economic decisions made
by nation-states and intergovernmental organizations.

REGIONALIZATION

(Source: Claudio &Abinales. [2018]. The contemporary world. Quezon City: C&E
Publishing)

It refers to the “regional concentration of economic flows.” Regionalism on the other

hand is “a political process characterized by economic policy cooperation and
coordination among countries.”

Reasons for forming regional associations:

1. military defense (example: North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] – formed

during the Cold War to provide collective security for Europe against the threat
of the Soviet Union. In response, the Soviet organized the Warsaw Pact which
was composed of its satellite states in Eastern Europe)
2. to pool their resources together, get better returns for their exports, as well as
expand their leverage against trading partners (example: Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries [OPEC] with the aim of regulating the
production and sale of oil – able to dictate the crude oil prices in the world
market in the 1970s)
3. protect their independence from the pressures of superpower politics
(example: Non-aligned Movement [NAM] with the aim to give a voice to
developing countries and to encourage their concerted action in world affairs
– pursue world peace and international cooperation, human rights, national
sovereignty, racial and national equality, non-intervention, and peaceful
conflict resolution)
4. response to economic crisis (example: European Coal and Steel Community
which was founded by Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg (BeNeLux),
Germany, France, and Italy; currently with 28 members; formally renamed as
European Union in 1993; after the Cold War, it expanded to Eastern Europe)
5. fear of Communism during the Cold War (example: ASEAN – original members
– Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore)
The ASEAN (excerpted from: Mahhubani, K. &Sng, J. [2017]. The ASEAN miracle: A catalyst
of peace. Singapore: Ridge Books)

the key factors that led to the creation of the ecosystem of peace that the ASEAN
now enjoys

1. Fear as Communism expanded

2. ASEAN countries were blessed with relatively good leaders
3. ASEAN ended up with the winning side in the major geopolitical contest - Cold
War (US vs. USSR) – where USSR crumbled into 15 independent republics
4. ASEAN countries successfully wove themselves into the thriving East Asian
economic ecosystem, at a time when world trade was expanding rejected
nationalist and protectionist policies
5. The ASEAN dynamic gained momentum and ASEAN moved towards creating
hundreds of multilateral meetings a year, the xxx region became more closely
connected, with several spider webs of networks in different areas

Strengths:

1. Sense of community among the ten nations of Southeast Asia despite their
remarkable diversity the governments and leaders of ASEAN feel a sense of
responsibility to maintain and strengthen the sense of ASEAN community xxx
invisible but real psychological sense of community has developed among the
elites and policy makers of ASEAN thousands of formal meetings and less
formal games of golf have developed invisible networks of trust and
cooperation amongst thousands of key Asian officials mutual trust and
confidence among the leadership corps of member states, although often
invisible to the international community.
2. ASEAN is developing institutions to reinforce the invisible sense of community
set up visible ASEAN institutions and institutional processes the fact that the
citizens of ASEAN countries can see these institutions at work may help them to
develop a greater sense of ownership of ASEAN

3. Many great powers have a vested interest in keeping ASEAN going despite
divergences in their interests vis-à-vis the ASEAN region only ASEAN is trusted by
all the great powers to be a neutral and effective platform through which they
can engage with one another the foreign ministers of the US, China, Japan,
India, and even Russia and the EU have come to see the value of attending
the annual ASEAN meetings prevented significant great-power conflict even
though there have been enormous shifts of power among the great nations in
the region

Weaknesses:
 1. ASEAN has no neutral custodian unlike the EU that remained strong and
resilient because Germany and France accepted a common responsibility to
keep the organization going
2. The absence of strong institutions while setting up institutions is one of ASEAN’s
strength, it is also a weakness in the sense that these institutions are not strong
enough to provide leadership for ASEAN neither are they strong enough to
discourage ASEAN national leaders from putting their national interests ahead
of ASEAN interests biggest issue with the ASEAN was that there was no
enforcement of decisions, no monitoring of compliance, and no sanctions xxx
structural reason for this is the insistence of some member-states that each
ASEAN member state should pay an equal share of the annual cost of funding
the ASEAN’s Secretariat despite differences in the size of their GDP
3. ASEAN citizens do not feel a deep sense of ownership of ASEAN if there is no
popular support for the organization, politicians will have little incentive to keep
it going
Threats:

1. Geopolitical rivalries are the most obvious threat that ASEAN faces. In coming
years, the Asia-Pacific region will see significant shifts of power, especially with
the US giving up its position as the number one economy in the world to China
by 2030, or even earlier. History shows that when the world’s number one power
is about to be surpassed by an emerging power, rivalry between these powers
intensifies on other issues the ASEAN countries adopt a different stance. With
regard to the South China Sea, most ASEAN countries are seen as being more
pro-American. On the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) issue, the
ASEAN countries are seen as more pro-Chinese a strongly pro-China
government in Cambodia could clash with a strongly pro-American
government in the Philippines. When that happens, ASEAN could well break
apart.
2. The political leaders are focused on domestic challenges rather than regional
concerns. Aggravated by the growing but still relatively weak institutions of
ASEAN, which cannot provide leadership for the organization.
3. Fails to address the first two threats. If ASEAN is hit by geopolitical conflicts and
its leaders are distracted by domestic affairs, the organization could well be
seriously weakened or torn apart. the underlying cultural fabric of Southeast
Asia could make it the Balkans of Asia; sectarian strife could break out in many
corners of the region. One indication of this is provided by the tensions
between the Muslim Rohingya population and the dominant Buddhist majority
population of Myanmar. There has been a long-standing low-level insurgency
in Southern Thailand led by some Thai Muslims who are fighting for greater
autonomy.

Opportunities:
 1. xxx after the EU, the second most successful regional organization is ASEAN.
The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), formally established in 2015,
“envisions ASEAN as a single market and production base characterized by
free flow of goods, services, and investments, as well as freer flow of capital
and skills.” ASEAN had been virtually tariff-free since 2010. FDI into ASEAN
increased ASEAN connectivity has been greatly enhanced EU tended towards
rigidity in its methods and procedures while ASEAN has tended towards
flexibility and pragmatism. Unlike the EU, which works out detailed agreements
to bind countries in various areas of cooperation, ASEAN is based on simple
and general agreements that allow for flexibility more and more regional
organizations in the developing world are developing ties with ASEAN xxx if
ASEAN becomes a model for regional cooperation, it will add value not only
to the 630 million people who live within the ASEAN region but also to the lives
of the almost 5.5 billion who live in the rest of the developing world. In fact, EU
might also benefit from studying the ASEAN model of cooperation.
2. Growing geopolitical competition in the Asia-Pacific region. If ASEAN can
retain a certain degree of cohesion, it could also take advantage of
geopolitical competition if US and China, followed by Japan and India and
possibly the EU, continue to shower ASEAN with geo-economics goodies, the
ASEAN countries could end up as the biggest winners from the rising
geopolitical competition in the Asia-Pacific region. Several ASEAN countries
have already benefited from the growing competition between Japan and
China. Indonesia builds a high-speed rail line between Jakarta and Bandung
Japan and China competed ferociously contract went to the Chinese,
Indonesia obtained very sweet terms for the long-term financing of this railway.
Myanmar has benefited from the competition between China and India
3. General rise of Asia in world affairs. This was triggered by the emergence of
Japan and the great success of the “four tigers” of Hong Kong, South Korea,
Singapore, and

Taiwan. However, the rise of China and India has given real weight to the sense of
inevitability of the Asian century, as their large populations serve as the basis of massive
economies. China and India had the world’s largest economies through most of human
history. Southeast Asia is geographically close to both China and India.
 Global Civil Society/ International Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)

INGOs date back to at least 1839, the phrase “non-governmental organizations”

came into popular use with the establishment of the UNO in 1945, with a consultant status.
The UN defines it as: “any international organization that is not founded by an
international treaty.”

So, an international non-government organization is not created by a treaty. They often

focus on specific set of issues, such as hunger, poverty, disease, and can be funded by
philanthropies or through partial government funding.

Perlas (2000) – cultural institutions (like religious groups, foundations, voluntary

organizations, professional groups, academe, etc.) that are active, whether through
demonstrations or partnerships, in shaping globalizations – moving towards genuine or
comprehensive sustainable development; included here are international
nongovernmental organizations; mainly concerned with the issues that are transnational
in nature

(excerpted from: Bello, W. (2000). Civil Society as Global Actor. Global Policy Forum)

The Civil Society consists of the complex of citizens and groups outside government
working in the public arena. It is often called as CSOs- civil society organizations and also
sometimes referred to as the Third Sector. The civil society comprises the academe or
schools, NGO’s e.g. Association of Schools of Public Administration in the Philippines, Inc.
(ASPAP, Inc) housed at the National College of Public Administration and Governance
which is religiously collaborating with Government and NGOs (GOP-UNDP Programme,
Galing-Pook Foundation, Social Watch Philippines, TAN, TI etc.) in promoting governance
and development.). Other civil society groups include POs and the voluntary groups.

This sector plays an important role in the facilitation and interaction among the
key players of local governance. It mobilizes the various groups or organizations in the
community to participate in planning and decision-making process. The Philippines has
a large and very vibrant Third Sector with a long history dating back to its colonial years.
The total number of civil society organizations is estimated to between a low of 249,000
to a high of 497,000 (Cariño, 2002: 84).

Ma. Oliva Z. Domingo also discussed in her paper entitled: "Third Sector
Governance: Meanings, Issues, and Challenges in the Philippines”, the Civil Society is the
third sector governance. The extensive use of the term governance in the literature and
day-to-day operations of Third Sector organizations precedes the now current, broader
meaning popularized by the UNDP. Brian O’Connell’s work published in 1985, identifies
governance as a basic role for the boards of voluntary organizations (1985: 22). An even
much earlier work describes alternative governance models for nonprofit universities
(Baldridge et al, 1997).
 Within the broad view of governance, Third Sector organizations play a key role as
they engage in programs and deliver services in areas where government is absent or
where the private sector is not interested in. They facilitate political and social integration
by mobilizing and empowering people to participate in economic, social, and political
activities. Within the Third Sector itself, governance generally refers to the exercise of
governing functions by responsible persons. In this sense, the term has an inward-looking
perspective, an internal relevance for Third Sector organizations. Whether in the broad or
the internal point of view, Third Sector organizations are called upon to respond to the
challenge of good governance.

In order to do so, the sector needs to clarify the meanings, issues, and role
expectations associated with the concept of governance. In local governance, a critical
role that the civil society plays are that it provides the forum for the airing of grievances,
complaints, concerns, issues and problems among the populace. Specifically, it provides
voice to the “inarticulate and the unarticulated”. It also performs some political role in
the community by serving as an instrument of checks and balances on the power of the
state or local government and the business sector behavior. It is seen as a claim holder
of basic human rights. And most of all, it can serve as an alternative delivery mechanism
for the frontline services. Some civil society organizations engage primarily in the critique
of existing policy and the advocacy of what to them are more appropriate policies for
the good of the nation.

In authoritarian regimes which close avenues of citizen access to policy

formulation, some groups may be forced to go underground and work for the ouster of
the regime itself. But even in the most democratic states, there will be no lack of critics
that press for regime change and drastic policy reversals. NGOs may also go beyond
opposition and debate into competing with government’s own delivery system,
demonstrating that the alternative mechanisms they advocate are capable of being
implemented on the ground.

Other civil society organizations may extend the government’s delivery system by
mobilizing people to prove themselves eligible to receive government social services, or
providing their own services in areas unreached by the public bureaucracy. The
government may complement NGOs in turn by providing the needed scaling up and
referral system for their relatively smaller programs. In relation to this, there are other
possible directions to strategic directions for active civil society participation in good
governance. In general terms, this means supporting efforts to promote partnerships
between government and civil society. These maybe in designing, implementing,
monitoring, and evaluating programs and projects. This can also mean identifying areas
where civil society can either complement or supplement the efforts of the Government
to deliver services, or even serve as alternative mechanisms altogether. ADB (2005)

Scholars writing on Third Sector organizations make fine distinctions between

governance and management (Wood, 1996: 3-4), or even with administration (Lyons,
2001: 123-124), but affirm that the term governance captures the scope of the “special
kind of management” applicable to these organizations. Within the broad view of
governance, Third Sector organizations play a key role as they engage in programs and
deliver services in areas where government is absent or where the private sector is not
interested in. They facilitate political and social integration by mobilizing and
empowering people to participate in economic, social, and political activities. Within the
Third Sector itself, governance generally refers to the exercise of governing functions by
responsible persons. In this sense, the term has an inwar- looking perspective, an internal
relevance for Third Sector organizations.

Whether in the broad or the internal point of view, Third Sector organizations are
called upon to respond to the challenge of good governance. In order to do so, the
Sector needs to clarify the meanings, issues, and role expectations associated with the
concept of governance. In local governance, a critical role that the civil society plays is
that it provides the forum for the airing of grievances, complaints, concerns, issues and
problems among the populace. Specifically, it provides voice to the “inarticulate and
the unarticulated”.

It also performs some political role in the community by serving as an instrument of

checks and balances on the power of the state or local government and the business
sector behavior. It is seen as a claim holder of basic human rights. And most of all, it can
serve as an alternative delivery mechanism for the frontline services. Some civil society
organizations engage primarily in the critique of existing policy and the advocacy of
what to them are more appropriate policies for the good of the nation. In authoritarian
regimes which close avenues of citizen access to policy formulation, some groups may
be forced to go underground and work for the ouster of the regime itself. But even in the
most democratic states, there will be no lack of critics that press for regime change and
drastic policy reversals. NGOs may also go beyond opposition and debate into
competing with government’s own delivery system, demonstrating that the alternative
mechanisms they advocate are capable of being implemented on the ground.

Potential of CSOs

1. Emerging as a third or fourth actor in the formulation and implementation of

macro-political and macro- economic decisions. In many Asian countries, for
instance, real decision-making power used to be monopolized by politicians,
technocrats, and the business elite. This is now less possible in the face of the
mass mobilization by labor groups, environmental groups, and human and
social rights groups, often working in coalitions.
2. Crucial not only as checks on elites but also the key to the evolution of
democracy. With their constant pressure on bureaucrats and parliamentarians
to be accountable, CSOs are a force for more democracy. By organizing the
energies of millions of citizens to impinge on the daily political scene, CSOs are
a force pushing the evolution of more direct forms of democratic rule. CSO
activity, combined with advanced applications of information technology
that allow citizens and citizens' groups to instantaneously communicate with
 one another, may be the key to the emergence of direct democracy in
contemporary mass societies

3. Force for effective internationalism that can check the power of politically
hegemonic forces like the US government and transnational corporations. The
combination of citizens' resistance to globalization and communications
technology has created global citizens' movements that can assemble and
meet the "enemy" at a moment's notice. The "Battle of Seattle" (marked the
first successful Internet campaign and coalition building by NGOs in stopping
the Multilateral Agreement on Investment [MAI] which was secretly negotiated
by the ministers of the world’s richest nations – the MAI would have given the
TNCs unparalleled access to the resources of a country with minimal
obligations or responsibilities to that country, eroding the sovereignty of nations
and citizens.) in November 1999 is an example of the new trans-border activist
movements.

Pitfalls/Problems:

1. There is the North-South divide among NGOs. Many Northern NGOs are,
oftentimes, focused on single issues, such as the environment or human rights
and carry agenda that are filtered through the lens of these issues. Southern
NGOs, on the other hand, are more comprehensive in their concerns. They are
concerned almost equally with the environment, social equity, development,
national sovereignty, and democracy. Thus, while NGOs in the North working
on climate change are sometimes solely concerned about bringing down the
level of greenhouse gas emissions, Southern NGOs want to make sure that
bringing down CO2 levels in the South does not conflict with the legitimate
aspirations to development of their countries. Similarly, they are concerned
that environmental standards in the North do not become a protectionist
screen against the entry of products from the Third World.

2. There is the question of compromising with or fundamentally opposing

corporate-led globalization. For some CSOs, both in the North and the South,
corporate-led globalization is inevitable; the main task is to humanize it. For
instance, some labor and environmental NGOs see the WTO as a fact of life
and focus their energies on attacking "social" or "environmental" clauses to
WTO agreements. Others see the WTO as fundamentally problematic and push
for abolishing or radically reducing its powers.
3. There is the question of working with governments. Some CSOs adopt a stand
of maximizing cooperation with governments to get governments to adopt
some of their agenda. Many environmental NGOs in the North, for instance,
worked with the US government to ban imports of tuna and shrimps to the US
 if these were not caught with methods specified in US government legislation.
In the South, some NGOs have strongly supported the nationalist policies of
certain governments, while muting their criticisms of other aspects of their
governments, like the bad record of these governments in human rights and
democracy. Other NGOs in both the North and the South, in contrast, have
made it a point to limit working relationships with governments to a minimum,
while maximizing their critical stance.
4. Competition and intrigues among CSOs are often just as intense and
destructive as conflicts in the political and business worlds. Among NGOs in
the North and the South, a source of intense competition that can quickly
make allies into adversaries is funding. Indeed, some observers contend that
nothing has proven more problematic in terms of building common fronts and
common programs among CSOs and NGOs than fights over funds which often
mask as fights over principles or politics.

References:

Bello, W. (2000). Civil society as global actor. Global Policy Forum.

Claudio &Abinales. [2018]. The contemporary world. Quezon City: C&E Publishing

Mahhubani, K. &Sng, J. [2017]. The ASEAN miracle: A catalyst of peace. Singapore: Ridge
Books

Permanent Court Arbitration’s Press Release: The South China Sea Arbitration (The
Republic of the Philippines v. The People’s Republic of China). Retrieved from
https://thediplomat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/thediplomat_2016-0712_09-15-
37.pdf (Links to an external site.)

Steger, M.B. [2003]. Globalization: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University
Press

The Case of the West Philippine Sea by Justice Antonio T. Carpio. (2016). Retrieved
fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If-jpt8Oos4 (Links to an external site.)

http://www.ombudsman.gov.ph/UNDP4/wp-
content/uploads/2013/01/Module_I.pdf (Links to an external site.)
 Cultural Globalization

At the end of the lesson, students are expected to:

a. apply to real-life situations their understanding of the optimistic and pessimistic
hyperglobalizers’ arguments
b. make a reflection on the effects of McDonaldization and glocalization on their
personal lives
c. categorize and organize data that will substantiate theories relevant to the
globalization of religion
d. point at the mechanisms and factors that made religion a force in global affairs

(excerpted from: Steger, M.B. [2003].Globalization: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press)

Cultural globalization refers to the intensification and expansion of cultural flows across
the globe. Facilitated by the Internet and other new technologies, the dominant symbolic
systems of meaning of our age - such as individualism, consumerism, and various religious
discourses - circulate more freely and widely than ever before. Today, cultural practices frequently
escape fixed localities such as town and nation, eventually acquiring new meanings in interaction
with dominant global themes.

Global culture: sameness or difference?

There are contrasting arguments regarding this. Let us analyze the comparison below.

Pessimistic hyperglobalizers Optimistic hyperglobalizers

 We are xxx witnessing the rise of an increasingly
homogenized popular culture underwritten by a Western
'culture industry' based in New York, Hollywood, London, and
Milan.
These manifestations of sameness are also evident
inside the dominant countries of the global North. American
sociologist George Ritzer coined the term 'McDonaldization'
to describe the wide-ranging sociocultural processes by which
the principles (efficiency, control, predictability, and
calculability) of the fast-food restaurant are coming to
dominate more and more sectors of American society as well
as the rest of the world.
The problem however is that the generally low
nutritional value of fast-food meals - and particularly their high
fat content - has been implicated in the rise of serious health
problems such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and
juvenile obesity. In the long run, the McDonaldization of the
world amounts to the imposition of uniform standards that
eclipse cultural diversity, human creativity and dehumanize
social relations.
Music, video, theatre, books, and theme parks are all
constructed as American image exports that create common
tastes around common logos, advertising slogans, stars,
songs, brand names, jingles, and trademarks. Political
theorist Benjamin Barber's insightful account of cultural
globalization also contains the important recognition that the
colonizing tendencies of McWorld provoke cultural and
political resistance in the form of 'Jihad' - the parochial impulse
to reject and repel the homogenizing forces of the West
wherever they can be found. xxx, Jihad draws on the furies of
religious fundamentalism and ethnonationalism
which constitute the dark side of cultural particularism. Fueled
by opposing universal aspirations, Jihad and McWorld are
locked in a bitter cultural struggle for popular allegiance.
Barber asserts that both forces ultimately work against a
participatory form of democracy, for they are equally prone to
undermine civil liberties and thus thwart the possibility of a
global democratic future.
Finally, those who applaud the spread of consumerist
capitalism need to pay attention to its negative consequences,
such as the dramatic decline of communal sentiments as well
as the commodification of society and nature.
Globalization of Religion
It means that “religious groups might harden their views on particular issues and turn them
into allegedly sacred and eternal dogmas.” (Harari, 2018, p. 133)
In another perspective, it can be argued that Islamic fundamentalism or radical Islam is a
challenge to global civilization – it caters to the fears and hopes of alienated modern youth.
(Harari, 2018, p. 94)
Agree that cultural globalization
generates more sameness, but they consider
this outcome to be a good thing. For example,
American social theorist Francis Fukuyama
explicitly welcomes the global spread of
Anglo-American values and lifestyles,
equating the Americanization of the world with
the expansion of democracy and free markets.
Sociologist Roland Robertson contends
that global cultural flows often reinvigorate
local cultural niches. Hence, rather than being
totally obliterated by the Western consumerist
forces of sameness, local difference and
particularity still play an important role in
creating unique cultural constellations.
Arguing that cultural globalization always
takes place in local contexts, Robertson
rejects the cultural homogenization thesis and
speaks instead of 'glocalization' - a complex
interaction of the global and local
characterized by cultural borrowing. The
resulting expressions of cultural 'hybridity'
cannot be reduced to clear-cut manifestations
of 'sameness' or 'difference'. xxx (The)
processes of hybridization have become most
visible in fashion, music, dance, film, food, and
language.
Those commentators who summarily
denounce the homogenizing effects of
Americanization must not forget that hardly
any society in the world today possesses an
'authentic', self-contained culture. Those who
despair at the flourishing of cultural hybridity
ought to listen to exciting Indian rock songs,
admire the intricacy of Hawaiian pidgin, or
enjoy the culinary delights of Cuban-Chinese
cuisine.
 It also means that religions have the continuing power and importance in determining
“who are ‘us’ and who are ‘them,’ whom we should cure and whom we should bomb.” (Harari, 2018,
p. 133)An example of this is Japan that created an official version of Shinto – from the traditional
Shinto which was a hodgepodge of animist beliefs to a fusion with modern ideas about nationality,
race, and any element in Buddhism, Confucianism, and the Bushido that could be helpful in
cementing loyalty to the state. Its supreme principle is the worship of the emperor - considered
as a direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu. This recreated Shinto helped in
modernizing Japan as well as in the development and use of precisionguided missile, known as
kamikaze (ordinary planes loaded with explosives and guided by human pilots willing to go on
one-way missions). This was a product of the death-defying
spirit of sacrifice cultivated by state Shinto. (Harari, 2018, pp. 136-137) Harari
(2018) further noted that:
Numerous governments follow the Japanese example. They adopt the universal tools and structures
of modernity while relying on traditional religions to preserve a unique national identity … No matter
how archaic a religion might look, with a bit of imagination and reinterpretation it can almost always
be married to the latest technological gadgets and the most sophisticated modern institutions. (p. 137)

A. Theoretical Considerations: 1. Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilization: This

thesis suggests that “humankind has always been divided into diverse civilizations whose
members view the world in irreconcilable ways. These incompatible worldviews make conflicts
between civilization
inevitable.” (Harari, 2018, p. 93)
Civilizations can be held together by religious worldviews. The Jesuits and Dominicans used
religion as an ‘ideological armature’ to legitimize the Spanish empire. Max Weber suggested that
Calvinism believed that God had already decided who would and would not be saved. Therefore,
the Calvinists made it their mission to search for clues as to their fate, and in their pursuit, they
redefined the meaning of profit and its acquisition contributing to the rise of modern capitalism.
(Claudio &Abinales, 2018)

2. Ernest Gellner: “Young Muslims who grew up in immigrant communities

in Western Europe suffer from an acute identity problem. They are living in largely secular
societies with Christian roots that do not provide public support for their religious values
or practices. For some Muslims, the answer to this confusion is membership in a larger
religious group – an umma, or community of believers: you are part of a proud and ancient
community; the outside world doesn’t respect you as a Muslim; we offer you a way to
connect to your true brothers and sisters, where you will be a member of a great
community of believers that stretches across the world.” (Fukuyama, 2018)

3. Olivier Roy: “Second-generation European Muslims rejected the Islam of

their parents. In their early years, they appeared to be westernized. Yet many failed to find
regular jobs and began a descent into petty crime and run-ins with the police. They lived
at the margins of their own communities, with no history of great piety or interest in religion,
until they are suddenly ‘born-again’ by watching videos of radical imams or being
converted by a prison preacher. xxx this is not the radicalization of Islam, but the
Islamization of radicalism – a process that draw from the same alienation that drove earlier
generations of extremists. xxx suggests that the motives behind jihadist terrorism are
more personal and psychological than religious and reflects the acute problem of identity
that certain individuals face. xxx the number of Muslims who become terrorists or suicide
bombers is minuscule compared to the total global population of over a billion Muslims.
Poverty and deprivation, or simple anger over American foreign policy, does not inevitably
 lead people to extremism. Many terrorists have come from comfortable middle-class
backgrounds, and many were apolitical and unconcerned with global politics for most of
their lives. Neither these issues nor any kind of genuine religiosity drove them so much as
the need for a clear identity, meaning, and sense of pride. They realized that they had an
inner, unrecognized self that the outside world was trying to suppress.” (Fukuyama, 2018)

B. Religion for and against globalization (excerpted from: Claudio &Abinales, 2018)

1. a “pro-active force.” It gives communities a new and powerful basis of identity; an

instrument with which religious people can put their mark in the reshaping of this globalizing world,
although in its own terms. The rise of religious fundamentalism (like born-again groups,
ISIS[Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] ) signals religion’s defense against the materialism of globalization but
using the tools of globalization – fast-long distance transport and communications, English as a
global vernacular, know-how of modern management and marketing.
2.Some Muslims view globalization as a Trojan horse hiding supporter of Western values
like secularism, liberalism, or even communism ready to spread these ideas in their areas to
eventually displace Islam. The Catholic Church through Pope Francis condemned
globalization’s ‘throw-away’ culture that is ‘fatally destined to suffocate hope and increase risks
and threats.’ The Lutheran World Federation 10th Assembly’s message warned that:
‘our world is split asunder by forces we often do not understand, but that result in stark contrasts
between those who benefit and those who are harmed, especially under forces of globalization. xxx
there is also a desperate need for healing from terrorism, its causes and fearful reactions to it.
Relationships in this world continue to be ruptured due to greed, injustices, and various forms of
violence.’

From another perspective, Harari (2018) comments:

xxx religious groups might harden their views on particular issues and turn them into allegedly sacred
and eternal dogmas. In the 1970s theologians in Latin America came up with liberation theology,
which made Jesus look a bit like Che Guevarra. Similarly, Jesus can easily be recruited to the debate
on global warming, with the result that current political positions look as if they are eternal religious
principles.
This is already beginning to happen. Opposition to environmental regulations is incorporated
into the fire-and-brimstone sermons of some American evangelical pastors, while Pope Francis is
leading the charge against global warming, in the name of Christ (as witnessed in his second
encyclical, “Laudatosi”) xxx it goes without saying that evangelicals will object to any cap on carbon
emissions, while Catholics will believe that Jesus preached that we must protect the environment.
You will see the difference even in their cars. Evangelicals will drive huge gasolineguzzling
SUVs, while devout Catholics will go around in slick electric cars with a bumper sticker reading “Burn
the Planet – and Burn in Hell!” but though they might quote various biblical passages in defense of
their positions, the real source of their difference will be in modern scientific theories and political
movements, not in the Bible. From this perspective, religion doesn’t have much to contribute to
the great policy debates of our time. xxx

References

Claudio &Abinales. [2018]. The contemporary world. Quezon City: C&E Publishing

Fukuyama, F. (2018). Identity: The demand for dignity and the politics of resentment. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Harari, Y.N. (2018). 21 lessons for the 21st century. New York: Spiegel & Grau
Steger, M.B. [2003]. Globalization: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press

https://study.com/academy/lesson/george-ritzer-and-mcdonaldization-of-society-definition-and-principles.html

Full documentary:
The rise and fall of the ISIS. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_89L-xIpWc
 Global Media
(excerpted from:. Steger, M.B. [2003].Globalization: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press)

To a large extent, the global cultural flows of our time are generated and directed by global
media empires that rely on powerful communication technologies to spread their message.
Saturating global cultural reality with formulaic TV shows and mindless advertisements, these
corporations increasingly shape people's identities and the structure of desires around the world.
Today, most media analysts concede that the emergence of a global commercialmedia
market amounts to the creation of a global oligopoly like that of the oil and automotive industries
in the early part of the 20th century.
The negative consequences of this shotgun marriage of finance and culture are obvious.
TV programmes turn into global 'gossip markets', presenting viewers and readers of all ages
with the vacuous details of the private lives of American celebrities. xxx The values disseminated
by transnational media enterprises secure not only the undisputed cultural hegemony of popular
culture, but also lead to the de-politicization of social reality and the weakening of civic bonds.
One of the most glaring developments of the last two decades has been the transformation of
news broadcasts and educational programmes into shallow entertainment shows. Given that
news is less than half as profitable as entertainment, media firms are increasingly tempted to
pursue higher profits by ignoring journalism's much vaunted separation of newsroom practices
and business decisions. Partnerships and alliances between news and entertainment companies
are fast becoming the norm, making it more common for publishing executives to press journalists
to cooperate with their newspapers' business operations. A sustained attack on the professional
autonomy of journalism is, therefore, also part of cultural globalization.

A. Theoretical Considerations: (excerpted from: McPhail, T.L. [2010]. Global communication: Theories,
stakeholders, and threats. Singapore: Blackwell Publishing Ltd)
1. Electronic Colonialism Theory - posits that foreign produced, created, or manufactured
cultural products have the ability to influence, or possibly displace, indigenous cultural
productions, artifacts, and media to the detriment of receiving nations. The economic transactions
through which a number of large multinational communication corporations engage in the selling
of culturally embedded goods and services abroad are viewed as revenue-producing activities
that increase market share and maximize profits for themselves and their shareholders. All of this
are accomplished in unison with other firms, particularly advertisers, and multilateral agencies
such as WTO, ITU, or the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – the organization of rich
nations). Effects include attitude formation, particularly among young consumers who seek out
foreign cultural products, ranging from comic books, to music, to videos, which represent distant
cultures and dreams – products that are produced and manufactured primarily in a totally different
environment and culture. This theory is focused on the impact of foreign products, ideologies, and
software on individuals, or their minds.
xxx The values disseminated by transnational media enterprises secure not only the
undisputed cultural hegemony of popular culture, but also lead to the de-politicization of social
reality and the weakening of civic bonds. One of the most glaring developments of the last two
decades has been the transformation of news broadcasts and educational programmes into
shallow entertainment shows. Given that news is less than half as profitable as entertainment,
media firms are increasingly tempted to pursue higher profits by ignoring journalism's much
vaunted separation of newsroom practices and business decisions. Partnerships and alliances
between news and entertainment companies are fast becoming the norm, making it more
common for publishing executives to press journalists to cooperate with their newspapers'
business operations. A sustained attack on the professional autonomy of journalism is, therefore,
also part of cultural globalization. xxx
 Cultural values and environmental degradation. Nature is considered a 'resource' to be
used instrumentally to fulfil human desires. The most extreme manifestation of this
anthropocentric paradigm is reflected in the dominant values and beliefs of consumerism. As
pointed out above, the US-dominated culture industry seeks to convince its global audience that
the meaning and chief value of life can be found in the limitless accumulation of material
possessions.
At the dawn of the 21st century, however, it has become impossible to ignore the fact that
people everywhere on this planet are inextricably linked to each other through the air they breathe,
the climate they depend upon, the food they eat, and the water they drink. In spite of this obvious
lesson of interdependence, our planet's ecosystems are subjected to continuous human assault
in order to secure wasteful lifestyles. Granted, some of the major ecological challenges the world
faces today are problems that afflicted civilizations even in ancient times. But until the coming of
the Industrial Revolution, environmental degradation was relatively localized and occurred over
thousands of years. In the last few decades, the scale, speed, and depth of Earth's environmental
decline have been unprecedented. xxx
Two of the major concerns relate to uncontrolled population growth and lavish
consumption patterns in the global North. Since farming economies first came into existence
about 480 generations ago, the global population has exploded a thousand-fold to more than 6
billion. Half of this increase has occurred in the last 30 years. Except for some rodent species,
humans are now the most numerous mammals on earth. Vastly increased demands for food,
timber, and fire have put severe pressure on the planet's ecosystems. Today, large areas of the
Earth's surface, especially in arid and semi-arid regions, have nearly ceased to be biologically
productive.
xxx, the global impact of humans on the environment is as much a function of per capita
consumption as it is of overall population size. For example, the United States comprises only 6%
of the world's population, but it consumes 30-40% of our planet's natural resources. Together,
regional overconsumption and uncontrolled population growth present a serious problem to the
health of our planet. Unless we are willing to change the underlying cultural and religious value
structure that sustains these ominous dynamics, the health of Mother Earth is likely to deteriorate
even further. xxx

2. World System Theory - basically divides the world into three major sectors: core, semi-
peripheral, and peripheral. Core nations exercise vast economic influence and dominate
relationships and transactions with the other two zones. Semi-peripheral nations are those that
interact with the core nations but currently lack the power and economic institutions to join the
elite core group. The peripheral zone is made up of developing nations. They are basically
exploited by the other zones. They have few media exports, little or poor connectivity to the
internet, little education, little technology, poor literacy rates, and much poverty. This theory has
a one-way flow of argument suggesting that core nations use their power for systematic
advantage to maximize their profits from their relationships with the other zones. All major
communication corporations, whether advertising, print, wire service, movies, electronics, video
or internet, have their world headquarters in core nations, have extensive dealing with
semiperipheral nations, including purchasing subsidiaries to ensure market penetration, and have
relatively little corporate presence in the periphery.

B. Surveillance Capitalism
(excerpted from: Zuboff, S. [2019]. The age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of
power. New York: Public Affairs )

Defined as (1) A new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for
hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction, and sales; (2.) A parasitic economic logic
in which the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new global architecture of
behavioral modification; (3.) A rogue mutation of capitalism marked by concentrations of wealth,
knowledge, and power unprecedented in human history; (4.) The foundational framework of a
surveillance economy; (5.) As significant a threat to human nature in the twenty-first century as
industrial capitalism was to the natural world in the nineteenth and twentieth; (6.) The origin of a
new instrumentarian power that asserts dominance over society and presents startling challenges
to market democracy; (7.) A movement that aims to impose a new collective order based on total
certainty; (8.) An expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from
above: an overthrow of the people’s sovereignty. Xxx

Surveillance capitalism unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for
translation into behavioral data. Although some of these data are applied to product or service
improvement, the rest are declared as a proprietary behavioral surplus, fed into advanced
manufacturing processes known as “machine intelligence,” and fabricated into prediction products
that anticipate what you will do now, soon, and later. Finally, these prediction products are traded
in a new kind of marketplace for behavioral predictions xxx call behavioral futures markets.
Surveillance capitalists have grown immensely wealthy fromthese trading operations, for many
companies are eager to lay bets on our future behavior.

Google invented and perfected surveillance capitalism xxx quickly spread to Facebook and
later to Microsoft. Evidence suggests that Amazon has veered in this direction, and it is a constant
challenge to Apple, xxx Surveillance capitalism is not technology; it is a logic that imbues
technology and commands it into action. xxx in 2009 the public first became aware that Google
maintains our search histories indefinitely: data that are available as rawmaterial supplies are also
available to intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. Xxx

Surveillance capitalism employs many technologies, but it cannot be equated with any
technology. Its operations may employ platforms, but these operations are not the same as
platforms. It employs machine intelligence, but it cannot be reduced to those machines. It
produces and relies on algorithms, but it is not the same as algorithms. Surveillance capitalism’s
unique economic imperatives are the puppet masters that hide behind the curtain orienting the
machines and summoning them to action. Xxx

In 2012, Facebook also gave advertisers access to targeting data that included users’ e-mail
addresses, phone numbers, and website visits, and it admitted that its system scans personal
messages for links to third party websites and automatically registers a “like” on the linked web
page. By 2014, the corporation announced that it would be tracking users across the internet
using, among its other digital widgets, the“Like” button, in order to build detailed profiles for
personalized ad pitches. Its “comprehensive privacy program” advised users of this new tracking
policy, reversing every assertion since April 2010 with a few lines inserted into a dense and
lengthy terms-of-service agreement. No opt-out privacy option was offered. xxx
Meanwhile, Google xxx an announcement that a user’s Double Click browsing history “may
be” combined with personally identifiable information from Gmail and other Google services. Xxx

Facebook’s xxx team learned to be skilled and ruthless hunters of behavioral surplus,
capturing supplies at scale, evading and resisting law, and upgrading the means of production to
improve prediction products. Surveillance revenues flowed fast and furiously, and the market
lavishly rewarded the corporation’s shareholders. By 2017, xxx Facebook’s market capitalization
rose to just under $500billion, with 2 billion average monthly active users. Xxx Advertising,
primarily mobile, accounted for nearly every dollar of the company’s revenue in the second quarter
of 2017 xxx
 Zuckerberg’s advantages in biometrics are significant. In 2017 Facebook boasted two
billion monthly users uploading 350 million photos every day, a supply operation that the
corporation’s own researchers refer to as “practically infinite.” In 2018 a Facebook research team
announced that it had “closed the gap” and was now able to recognize faces “in the wild” with
97.35 percent accuracy, “closely approaching human-level performance.” The report highlights
the corporation’s supply and manufacturing advantages, especially the use of “deep learning”
based on “large training sets.” Facebook announced its eagerness to use facial recognition as a
means to more powerful ad targeting, but even more of the uplift would come from the immense
machine training opportunities represented by so many photos. By 2018, its machines were
learning to discern activities, interests, mood, gaze, clothing, gait, hair, body type, and posture.
The marketing possibilities are infinite. It should not surprise any student of the prediction
imperative that with these advantages in hand, Facebook is unwilling to accept anything less than
total conquest in its bid to render faces for the sake of more-lucrative prediction products. Xxx

Under xxx surveillance capitalism, individuals do not render their experience out of choice
or obligation but rather out of ignorance and the dictatorship of no alternatives. The ubiquitous
apparatus operates through coercion and stealth. xxx We are left with few rights to know, or to
decide who knows, or to decide who decides. xxx
In 2016 Microsoft acquired LinkedIn, the professional social network, for $26.2 billion. The
aim here is to establish reliable supply routes to the social network dimension of surplus behavior
known as the “social graph.” These powerful new flows of social surplus from 450 million users
can substantially enhance Microsoft prediction products, xxx

Verizon—the largest telecom company in the US and the largest in the world xxx publicly
introduced its shift toward surveillance revenues in the spring of 2014, when an article in
Advertising Age announced the company’s move into mobile advertising. xxx Verizon had
developed “a cookie alternative for a marketing space vexed by the absence of cookies.” Verizon
aimed to solve advertisers’ tracking needs by assigning a hidden and undeletable tracking
number, called a Precision ID, to each Verizon user.

xxx the ID enables the corporation to identify and monitor individuals’ habits on their smart phones
and tablets, generating behavioral surplus while bypassing customers’ awareness. The tracker
can neither be turned off nor evaded with private browsing or other privacy tools and controls.
Whenever a Verizon subscriber visits a website or mobile app, the corporation and its partners
use this hidden ID to aggregate and package behavioral data, all without customers’ knowledge.
Verizon’s indelible tracking capabilities provided a distinct
advantage in the growing competition for behavioral surplus. Advertisers hungry to redefine your
walk in the park as their “marketing space” couldnow reliably target ads to your phone on the
strength of the corporation’s indelible personal identifier.
Verizon also entered into partnership with Turn, an advertising technology firm already
notorious for the invention of an unusual “zombie cookie” or “perma-cookie” that immediately
“respawns” when a user chooses to opt out of ad tracking or deletes tracking cookies. As a
Verizon partner, the Turn zombie cookie attached itself to Verizon’s secret tracking number,
adding even more protection from discovery and scrutiny. xxx xxx AT&T was using a similar
tracking ID. The article quoted a Verizon spokesperson admitting, “There’s no way to turn it off.”
xxx even when customers opt out of Verizon’s targeted ads, its tracking ID persists, as the
corporation bypasses or overrides all signals of a user’s intentions, including the Do Not Track
setting, Incognito and other private browsing modes, and cookie deletion. The ID is then broadcast
to every “unencrypted website a Verizon customer visits from a mobile device. It allows third party
advertisers and websites to assemble a deep, permanent profile of visitors’ web browsing
habits without their consent.”
 xxx In June 2017 Verizon closed on the purchase of Yahoo!’s core business, thus acquiring the
former internet giant’s one billion active monthly users, including its 600 million monthly active
mobile users, xxx. The new internet company xxx combine Yahoo! and AOL for a total of 1.3
billion monthly users.

xxx Google Search codifies the informational content of the world wide web.
Facebook’s News Feed binds the network. Much of this public-facing text is composed of what
we inscribe on its pages: our posts, blogs, videos, photos, conversations, music, stories,
observations, “likes,” tweets, and all the great massing hubbub of our lives captured and
communicated.

Under the regime of surveillance capitalism, xxx our experience is dragooned as raw
material to be accumulated and analyzed as means to others’ market ends. xxxits analyses, xxx
says more about us than we can know about ourselves. xxx There have been myriad revelations
of Google and Facebook’s manipulations of the information that we see. xxx, researchers have
shown that these manipulations reflect each corporation’s commercial objectives. As legal scholar
Frank Pasquale describes it,“ The decisions at the Googleplex are made behind closed doors…
the power to include, exclude, and rank is the power to ensure which public impressions become
permanent and which remain fleeting.… Despite their claims of objectivity and neutrality, they are
constantly making value-laden, controversial decisions. They help create the world they claim to
merely ‘show’ us.”

xxx surveillance capitalism’s laws of motion compel both its secrecy and its
continuous growth. We are the objects of its narratives, from whose lessons we are excluded. As
the source from which all the treasure flows, this xxx text is about us, but it is not for us. Instead,
it is created, maintained, and exploited outside our awareness for others’ benefit.

The result is that the division of learning is both the ascendant principle of social ordering
in our information civilization and already a hostage to surveillance capitalism’s privileged position
as the dominant composer, owner, and guardian of the texts. Surveillance capitalism’s ability to
corrupt and control these texts produces unprecedented asymmetries of knowledge and powerxxx

Google is known as a “full stack AI company” that uses its own data stores “to train its own
algorithms running on its own chips deployed on its own cloud.” Its dominance is further
strengthened by the fact that machine learning is only as intelligent as the amount of data it has
to train on, and Google has the most data.
By 2013, the company understood that its shift into the “neural networks” that define the current
frontier of artificial intelligence would substantially increase computational demands and require
a doubling of its data centers.

With data center construction as the company’s largest line item and power as its highest
operating cost, Google invented its way through the infrastructure crisis. In 2016 it announced the
development of a new chip for “deep learning inference” called the tensor processing unit (TPU).
The TPU would dramatically expand Google’s machine intelligence capabilities, consume only a
fraction of the power required by existing processors, and reduce both capital expenditure and
the operational budget, all while learning more and faster.

On the strength of its lavish recruitment efforts, Google tripled its number of machine
intelligence scientists xxx. Under the regime of surveillance capitalism, the corporation’s scientists
are not recruited to solve world hunger or eliminate carbon-based fuels. Instead, their genius is
meant to storm the gates of human experience, transforming it into data and translating it into a
new market colossus that creates wealth by predicting, influencing, and controlling human
behavior.

xxx Berkeley’s Paul M. Schwartz warned in 1989 that computerization would transform the
delicate balance of rights and obligations upon which privacy law depends: “Today the enormous
amounts of personal data available in computers threaten the individual in a way that renders
obsolete much of the previous legal protection.” Most important, Schwartz foresaw that the scale
of the still-emerging crisis would impose risks that exceed the scope of privacy law: “The danger
that the computer poses is to human autonomy. The more that is known about a person, the
easier it is to control him.

Insuring the liberty that nourishes democracy requires a structuring of societal use of
information and even permitting some concealment of information.” xxx. Surveillance capitalists’
acts of digital dispossession impose a new kind of control upon individuals, populations, and
whole societies. Individual privacy is a casualty of this control, and its defense requires a reframing
of privacy discourse, law, and judicial reasoning. The “invasion of privacy” is now a predictable
dimension of social inequality, but it does not stand alone. It is the systematic result of a
“pathological” division of learning in society in which surveillance capitalism knows, decides, and
decides who decides. Demanding privacy from surveillance capitalists or lobbying for an end to
commercial surveillance on the internet is like asking Henry Ford to make each Model T by hand
or asking a giraffe to shorten its neck. Such demands are existential threats. They violate the
basic mechanisms and laws of motion that produce this market leviathan’s concentrations of
knowledge, power, and wealth.

References:

Naughton, John. 'The goal is to automate us': welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism. Retrieved from
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook

Report of the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods Executive

Summary. Retrieved from https://www.parliament.gov.sg/docs/default-source/Press-
Releases/executive-summary---report-of-the-selectcommittee-on-deliberate-online-falsehoods.pdf

Steger, M.B. (2003). Globalization: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/7176061/Steger_Manfred._2003_._Globalization_A_very_short_introduction

Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance. The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. NY: Public Affairs. Retrieved
from: Zuboff,%20Shoshana.The%20Age%20of%20Surveillance%20Capitalism.2019.pdf

Documentary Films :
Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism | VPRO Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIXhnWUmMvw

Invasive Nature of AI even in political intervention In the

Age of AI (full film) | FRONTLINE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dZ_lvDgevk
 Global Problems Need Global Answers
(excerpted from: Harari, Y.N. [2018]. 21 lessons for the 21st century. NY: Spiegel & Grau)

The Nuclear Challenge. xxx the Cold War ended with little bloodshed, and a new
internationalist world order fostered an era of unprecedented peace. Not only was nuclear war
averted, but war of all kinds declined. Since 1945 surprisingly few borders have been redrawn
through naked aggression, and most countries have ceased using war as a standard political tool.
In 2016, despite wars in Syria, Ukraine, and several other hot spots, fewer people died from
human violence than from obesity, car accidents, or suicide. This may well have been the greatest
political and moral achievements of our times.
Unfortunately, by now we are so used to this achievement that we take for granted. This is
partly why people allow themselves to play with fire. Russia and the United States have recently
embarked on a new nuclear arms race, developing novel doomsday machines that threaten to
undo the hard-won gains of the last decades and bring us back to the brink of nuclear annihilation.
Meanwhile, the public has learned to stop worrying and love the bomb xxx or has just forgotten
about its existence.
This is why the Brexit debate in Britain – a major nuclear power – revolved mainly around
questions of economics and immigration, while the vital contribution of the EU to European and
global peace has largely been ignored. After centuries of terrible bloodshed, French, Germans,
Italians, and Britons have finally built a mechanism that ensures continental harmony – only to
have the British public throw a wrench into the miracle machine.
It was extremely difficult to construct the international regime that prevented nuclear war
and safeguarded global peace. No doubt we need to adapt this regime to the changing conditions
of the world, for example by relying less on the United States and granting a greater role to non-
Western powers such as China and India. But abandoning this regime altogether and reverting to
nationalist power politics would be an irresponsible gamble. xxx. As long as humans know how to
enrich uranium and plutonium, their survival depends on privileging the prevention of nuclear war
over the interests of any particular nation. Zealous nationalists who cry “Our country first!” should
ask themselves whether their country by itself, without a robust system of international
cooperation, can protect the world – or even itself – from nuclear destruction.

The Ecological Challenge. xxx Humans are destabilizing the global biosphere on multiple
fronts. We are taking more and more resources out of the environment while pumping back into
it enormous quantities of waste and poison, thereby changing the composition of the soil, the
water, and the atmosphere.
xxx habitats are degraded, animals and plants are becoming extinct, and entire ecosystems
such as the Great Barrier Reef off Australia and the Amazon rainforest might be destroyed. For
thousands of years Homo Sapiens behaved as an ecological serial killer; now it is morphing into
an ecological mass murderer. If we continue with our present course, it will not just cause the
annihilation of a large percentage of all life-forms but also might sap the foundations of human
civilization.
Most threatening of all is xxx climate change xxx a present reality. There is scientific
consensus that human activities, in particular the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon
dioxide, are causing the earth’s climate to change at a frightening rate. Nobody knows exactly
how much carbon dioxide we can continue to pump into the atmosphere without triggering an
irreversible cataclysm. But our best scientific estimates indicate that unless we dramatically cut
the emission of greenhouse gases in the next 20 years, average global temperatures will increase
by more than 3.6°F, resulting in expanding deserts, disappearing ice caps, rising oceans and
more frequent extreme weather events such as hurricanes and typhoons. These changes in turn
will disrupt agricultural production, nundate cities, make much of the world uninhabitable, and
send hundreds of millions of refugees in search of new homes.
xxx as global warming melts the polar ice sheets, less sunlight is reflected back from planet Earth
to outer space. This means that the planet absorbs more heat, temperatures rise even higher,
and the ice melts faster. Once this feedback loop crosses a critical threshold it will melt even if
humans stop burning coal, oil, and gas. Therefore, it is not enough that we recognize the danger
we face. It is critical that we actually do something about it now. xxx
Technological breakthroughs can be helpful in many other fields beside energy. Consider, xxx,
the potential of developing “clean meat.” At present the meat industry not only inflicts untold misery
on billions of sentient beings but is also one of the chief causes of global warming, one of the
main consumers of antibiotics and poison, and one of the foremost polluters of air, land, and
water. xxx it takes nearly four thousand gallons of fresh water to produce a little over two pounds
of beef, compared to the seventy gallons needed to produce the same weight of potatoes.
The pressure on the environment is xxx get worse as rising prosperity in countries such as
China and Brazil allows hundreds of millions of additional people to switch from eating potatoes
to eating beef on a regular basis. It would be difficult to persuade the Chinese and the Brazilians
– not to mention the Americans and the Germans – to stop eating steaks, hamburgers, and
sausages. xxx xxx the world’s first clean hamburger was grown from cells – and then eaten – in
2013. It cost $330,000. Four years of research and development brought the price down to $11
per unit, and within another decade industrially produced clean meat is expected to be cheaper
than slaughtered meat. This technological development could save billions of animals from a life
of abject misery, could help feed billions of malnourished humans, and could simultaneously help
to prevent ecological meltdown.
There are many things that governments, corporations, and individuals can do to avoid
climate change. But to be effective, they must be done on a global level. When it comes to climate,
countries are not just sovereign. xxx
Nationalist isolationism is probably even more dangerous in the context of climate change
than nuclear war. An all-out nuclear war threatens to destroy all nations, so all nations have an
equal stake in preventing it. Global warming, in contrast, will probably have different impacts on
different nations. Some countries, most notably Russia, might actually benefit from it. Because
Russia has relatively few coastline assets, it is far less worried than China xxx whereas higher
temperatures are likely to turn Chad into a desert, they might simultaneously turn Siberia into the
breadbasket of the world. xxx as the ice melts in the far north, the Russian-dominated Arctic sea
lanes might become the artery of global commerce, and Kamchatka might replace Singapore as
the crossroad of the world.

The Technological Challenge. xxx whereas nuclear war and climate change threaten only
the physical survival of humankind, disruptive technologies might change the very nature of
humanity, and are therefore entangled with humans’ deepest ethical and religious beliefs. While
everyone agrees that we should avoid nuclear war and ecological meltdown, people have widely
different opinions about using bioengineering and AI to upgrade humans and to create new life-
forms. xxx xxx, nations facing a climate cataclysm might be tempted to invest their hopes in
desperate technological gambles. Humankind has a lot of justifiable concerns about AI and
bioengineering, but in times of crisis people do risky things. Whatever you think about regulating
disruptive technologies, ask yourself whether these regulations are likely to hold even if climate
change causes global food shortages, floods cities all over the world, and sends hundreds of
millions of refugees across borders.
xxx technological disruptions might increase the danger of apocalyptic wars, not just by
increasing global tensions but also by destabilizing the nuclear balance of power. xxx as new
kinds of offensive and defensive weapons appear, a rising technological superpower might
conclude that it can destroy its enemies with impunity. Conversely, a declining power might fear
that its traditional nuclear weapons might soon become obsolete and that it had better use them
before it loses them xxx
Boyer (2018) adds his thoughts on technology of disruptions. “Artificial intelligence, robotics,
and analytics will continue to grow and develop. xxx it is unsettling to look over and see a robot
coworker in the next cubicle, or know that one will most likely take that position in the very near
future. It is even more disturbing to think about how your job could one day be done by a
mechanical employee that does a faster, better job at a cheaper rate and without the need for
costly benefits. We are rapidly heading into the “great unknown” as robots and AI systems are
created, developed, and tweaked to a higher and higher performance ability. Robots absolutely
present some very real threats to large segments of human society, but they just as equally
provide some major opportunities for extreme change that can be very positive indeed. xxx
How it all turns out with the increased momentum of robots and artificial intelligence is still
very much up in the air. What we do know is that it’s coming, and we have to make the choice to
deny it, fear it, or prepare for it. Since the first two options would leave us totally caught off guard
and lacking ability to adequately adjust to the changes, it is best to do all we can to prepare.
However, the gap of opportunity is shrinking and squeezing out many people who are not
adequately prepared for such rapid and extreme changes of our growing environment of robots.
A vast number of opportunities are arising that could be quite enjoyable and lucrative for those
who identify, prepare for, and take advantage of them.
The key to riding the wave of success in the Age of Robots is to harness their amazing
power while at the same time fine-tuning your human knowledge and talent base and your sense
of who you are. xxx Where possible, anticipate changes, learn, and adapt. Just as the different
challenges compound one another, so, also the goodwill necessary to confront one challenge
may be sapped by problems on another front. Countries locked in armed competition are unlikely
to agree on restricting the development of AI, and countries striving to outstrip the technological
achievements of their rivals will find it very difficult to agree on a common plan to stop climate
change. As long as the world remains divided into rival nations, it will be very hard to
simultaneously overcome all three challenges – and failure on even a single front might prove
catastrophic. (Harari, 2018)

Online Falsehoods
(Source: Report of the select committee on deliberate online falsehoods – causes, consequences and countermeasures. Presented
to Singapore Parliament on 19 September 2018)

The actors are foreign state actors, foreign non-state actors, and local actors.
1. Objectives:
a. sow discord
b. financial gains
c. achieve an election outcome
d. advance or undermine a policy
e. attack politicians; de-legitimize a government
f. Mischief; Falsehoods may be created for the sheer thrill of being able to influence people
g. Radicalize. Terrorist organizations, such as ISIL, have used online disinformation to
radicalize people around the world.

2. Use of Digital Technologies to Spread Online Falsehoods

a. easy amplification. Falsehoods may be spread further and faster using basic, everyday
social media functions, such as posting, “sharing,” “liking”, re-tweeting, hyper-linking and
 hash-tagging. On Facebook, an individual can share a public post with up to 5,000
people with just one free click. In a full WhatsApp group, one can send a message to
256 people instantaneously.
b. false amplification. Inauthentic social media accounts may be used to artificially amplify
online falsehoods. Fake social media accounts are easily created, due to either lax or
non-existent verification requirements.
c. Targeted advertising can be an influential and effective amplification tool.

3. Market for online disinformation tools and services

a. Tools. Fake social media accounts are commonly used to spread falsehoods. These
include accounts that have over some time, years even, been cultivated into convincing
personas. These can include bots. There are commercial “bot herders” that hire out bots
they create, some on a scale of thousands or tens of thousands of accounts.

b. Services. Ms Myla Pilao (Director, Core Technology Marketing, TrendMicro) gave evidence of the
services available on the market. One example is “click farms”, which comprise a large
number of low-paid workers who click on links or posts. “Click farms” allow “click farm
masters” to sell things like video views, “likes” and even votes. One can buy one million
Instagram “likes” for only US$18, 1,000 WeChat “likes” for US$0.19, and 500 re-tweets
for US$2. There are also content marketing services, which offer fake news articles for
as little as US$15 to US$30 for 500 to 1,500 words. More sophisticated services include
“public opinion monitoring systems”, which survey, research, and influence opinions in
online forums and social media networks for between US$1,850 and US$4,175. Fake
content can be made to appear on legitimate news sites without appearing as paid
content, although this costs a premium of more than US$20,000. TrendMicro estimated
that one could use online propaganda to instigate a street protest in the US for
US$200,000.

c. “Hired guns”. The demand for online public manipulation has spawned syndicates such
as the Saracen Cyber Team in Indonesia. This organization was paid to spread
falsehoods on social media to further the political agendas of their clients. According to
the Indonesian authorities, Saracen is only one among many organizations profiteering
in online falsehoods.

4. Impact of Online Falsehoods

a. Threats to national security. Online falsehoods may interfere in a country’s elections and
domestic and foreign policies, or weaken the country’s government and the resilience of
the people to pave the way for the foreign State to gain control.
b. Harm to democratic institutions, free speech.
1. make it difficult for people to understand each other and inhibit diverse views from
being shared
2. Falsehoods can erode trust in authoritative sources of information; prevents the
formation of a shared foundation of facts necessary for public debate
3. Online falsehoods can cause citizens to disengage from public discourse
altogether; exposure to large amounts of misinformation has been shown to have
the psychological effect of making people stop believing in facts altogether and
decreasing their engagement in public discourse.
c. Obstructing public institutions in policy-making and the delivery of public services. The
erosion of domestic trust in public institutions diminishes the ability of public institutions
 to defend their reputations, respond effectively to threats and crises, and to govern. It
also weakens the role of public institutions as a source of information to foster a common
foundation of facts for public debate.
d. Erode overseas support for countries, cutting them off from important aid and economic
cooperation.
e. Harm to individuals
1. can confuse the decisions people make, and affect how people interact with the
world around them; can harm people by making them the target of harassment and
insults, causing them anxiety and leading them to make decisions that are bad for
their health and well-being.
2. interference in individual decision-making; can make people feel more concerned
or threatened than warranted.
3. cause anxiety
4. harming of health. xxx quack procedures promoted online have led to deaths in
Indonesia, and patients have declined to continue with medical treatment because
of what they read on the Internet, xxx drowning out expert voices.
5. Harm to businesses. xxx may harm the reputation of businesses, erode customers’
confidence, goodwill and trust, and cause financial loss, potentially transferring
costs to consumers.

5. Difficulties in Combatting Online Falsehoods

a. human cognitive tendencies
1. Mental shortcuts - innate tendency towards confirmation bias, which leads people
to believe information consistent with their preferences and worldviews.
2. Falsehoods tend to be believed when seen repeatedly - also known as the illusory
truth effect - the more often people see the falsehood, the stronger its effect,
especially if they see it from different sources [fallacy of repeated assertion]
3. People tend to believe falsehoods to conform to the expectations of those they are
close to (conformity cascades). People also tend to believe falsehoods because
many others do so (informational cascades). [bandwagon or fallacy of majority
rules]

b. the weakness of truth compared with falsehoods

1. the influence of falsehoods is by its nature difficult to reverse - exposure to
misinformation can have long-term effects, while corrections may be shortlived.
Even when people believe a correction, they may forget what is true and “re-
believe” the falsehood. Falsehoods tend to trigger more emotions, especially
negative emotions, making them generally harder to correct, as such falsehoods
leave strong impressions. [related to: argumentum ad hominem, baculum,
vericundiam, cherry-picking, apple polishing]
2. people engage in motivated reasoning, which means finding justifications for their
existing wrong conclusions, despite conflicting facts. People tend to reject
corrections when they are inconsistent with their beliefs.
3. in some cases, corrections can backfire, by increasing people’s belief in the
falsehood. For example, one study found that conservatives presented with false
information that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction became even more
likely to believe this claim after reading a news article correcting the falsehood.
c. the further and faster reach of falsehoods than the truth
1. Corrections usually lag behind falsehoods, for reasons that are often difficult to
overcome. This hinders our ability to mitigate and remedy the damage done.
 2. Reasons for lag are difficult to overcome. First, falsehoods generally enjoy an
inherent time advantage. This is in some cases worsened by the difficulty of
identifying a falsehood. Second, people are less likely to share corrections due to
psychological factors. Due to confirmation bias, information that is consistent with
beliefs and world views is often shared and sought more than information that is
inconsistent with these beliefs.
3. Ability to mitigate and remedy the damage is hindered. First, falsehoods often
cause damage long before corrections can be put in motion. Second, corrections
cannot reach people fast enough to stop them from unwittingly spreading the
falsehood. Third, corrections are less likely to reach those exposed to the
falsehood.
4. Social transformations caused by the digital revolution. The digital revolution has
led to online “echo chambers” on social media, the disruption of the news
ecosystem, and fundamental changes to the nature of political discourse. This has
in turn created fertile conditions for online falsehoods to gain traction. “Echo
chambers” refer generally to online clusters where individuals discuss similar views
with like-minded people.

GLOBAL CITIES FULL DOCUMENTARY:

CITIES; have been for thousand of years the centers of civilization as they have watched empires,
kingdoms, governments, corporations come and go.
 Urban fabric is going under going radical transformation
 Mass urbanization; historically unprecedented in speed and scale
 1 million are added every week
 Our future is set to be urban as the world’s population is increasingly concentrated in urban
settlements, creates new opportunities and challenges in a fast-changing context
 rapid unplanned urban growth can lead to an expansion of global slums
 Exacerbating poverty and inequality
 Hampering efforts to provide basic infrastructure
 Accelerate environmental degradation
 Rapid economic growth development
 Hubs of commerce, transportation, communication, and flows of financed cities drive
economic and social devt. offering us the unprecedented opportunity to bring the majority
of the world’s population into the global economy of exchange.
 Urban centers are integrating into even larger and even denser networks of exchange.
 The way cities are shaped, their scale, scope of influence, form and functionality is being
transformed to support the rise of global networks.
 A myriad of overlapping and intersecting flows of ideas, knowledge, people, money,
goods, and services link not only major cities and city regions but an increasing number
of diverse places and ecologies into expanding global networks of exchange.
 These networks of economic, social, political and cultural organization pivot around global
cities creating a new geography of connectivity, new rules for economic success, and new
patterns of governance.
 The rise of urban networks is linked to much broader of social economic and technological
transformations taking place in the global economy today.
 This documentary this changing landscape and the development o urban networks as the
emerging geography of connectivity in an age of globalization.
URBAN NETWORKS
Are complex systems of people and technology that constitute our engineered environment

Over the course of thousands of years, we have gone from the first engineered environments
composed of a few discreet hand tools and small shelters built around the individual and local
community to the complex global networks of today that span around the planet enabling global
economic processes to support billions of people.

12,000 years ago; the first humans being nomadic would have lived almost completely without
fixed technology infrastructure, simply using hand tools and temporary shelters.
10,000 years ago; in response to the warming climate at the end of the last ice age, some groups
adapted to the changing environment in new ways these changes in organization would lead to
the first major paradigm shift in our engineered environment, what we call the Neolithic revolution.

NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION
 Was the 1st major technology revolution, the critical turning point would have been the
development of fixed and permanent systems of agricultural production and permanent
settlements built around this permanent shelters (huts, storage areas, wells for water,
agricultural, systems for food, fixed pathways, distinct buildings for congregation, and
ceremony) with all of these being integrated around the community creating the first urban
infrastructure systems.
 The permanent settlements of humans within fixed communities led to prolonged and
sustained technological and economic innovation, giving rise to advanced civilization.
 Advances in agriculture, irrigation systems the harnessing of animal muscle as an energy
source and population density would lead to the formation of Hamlets.

Hamlets
 Evolved into towns and even cities as the first empires formed.
 First human design landscapes in the form of urban centers like the ancient cities of
Babylon or Damascus.
 Throughout history, the evolution of our engineered environment has been directly related
to our knowledge of the natural environment around us for much of human history, our
scientific knowledge was very limited in scope and depth.
 The great expansion of this knowledge that happened during scientific revolution laid the
foundations for a massive explosion on technological change—one of the hallmarks of the
modern era.
 The much deeper understanding of our physical environment that modern science brought
enabled a new level in our capacities to engineer the natural environment and gave rise
to what has come to be called the industrial revolution.

INDUSTRIAL AGE

Age of machines as we tapped into a new energy source technology became alive, evolving into
large mechanical systems, no longer dependent upon human and animal energy sources, we
could develop larger and larger mechanical systems powered by artificial energy sources.

Before 1800; there was less than 10% of people living in cities and there was no overall
urbanization
Beginning of 1900; 20% off world population was urban
social and economic organizational unit of the modern era during the 19th and 20th century
centralized national governments worked to leverage these new industrial technologies towards
building their own national infrastructure systems the use of the combustion engine to bring
artificial energy sources to mass transport began to integrate the infrastructure of whole national
economies across broad geographical areas across Europe and the u.s. national infrastructure
networks were developed during the 19th and early 20 th century national railways in Europe

 National Road systems like the interstate highways in the u.s. national water systems
telephone networks centralized broadcast media by 1950 urbanization had reached 30%
around the world but it was not until the new millennium before we would reach the
symbolic tipping point of half of humanity living in urban centers.

 by the latter half of the twentieth century major new technological and economic processes
of change were underway as national economies and infrastructure were becoming
increasingly connected into global networks of exchange the advent of low-cost computing
and telecommunication networks would work to enable the development of ever larger
more complex systems of organization in the 80s and 90s financial markets became
deregulated and expanded into a global network of exchange we saw a huge rise in
multinational corporations as they expanded beyond their national economies entering
into new markets through outsourcing enterprises became distributed out with advances
in transport and trade liberalization integrated global supply chains started to take form
and the global economy expanded hugely within the space of just a few decades.

 with the development of globalization the emergence of the services economy and
information technology the global economy is going through a deep structural
transformation moving from an industrial model of mass production organized around the
nation-state and its territory into a new form of services and information economy based
around global networks of exchange urban networks are the physical means of
connectivity they are systems of technology that enable us to overcome physical borders
and connect with ever larger networks these networks of roads of communications of
power lines of logistics air transport shipping are the physical form of this global
connectivity.

 there are now vastly more resources moving around in these global networks than in any
national economy and around the world people are flocking to cities as points of access
into these emerging global networks and the opportunities they provide as our economies
and societies develop into some form of global organization so to our technology
infrastructure is morphing into a new structure of urban networks that enables this physical
connectivity just as the industrial technologies provided the physical means for enabling
the national economy so too our technology infrastructure today is being reconfigured to
provide the connectivity for a global economy.

 it is only in very recent years the global economy has switched from being dominated by
agriculture and industry to becoming predominantly based on services and information as
a consequence societies and economies around the world are being transformed from
being primarily organized around physical agricultural and industrial processes within the
national territory and instead moving to the delivery of services the processing of
information and knowledge which is no longer defined by its physicality and the logic of
territoriality but instead is one based on the logic of access and connectivity it is this
 connectivity that urban centers provide as economies shift from being industrial to post-
industrial services economies a new strategic role is given to cities as they become the
locus of high value-added services of innovation and knowledge creation.

 with globalization and urbanization we are in the process of creating a new geography a
geography based around functional connectivity instead of physical borders whereas the
building of the nation-state and its borders was cultural and ideological in nature these
global networks are functional in nature connections are made horizontally to facilitate
exchanges in a world where market logic and technology have combined to create a
powerful engine driving the world forward for better or worse.

 the infrastructure networks that now stretch around the planet are held together by urban
centers that form dense concentrations of connectivity urban centers function as the hubs
within regional networks that reach into the territory of the locality linking it into larger
networks of exchange on the macro level these urban centers become nodes within the
global network of cities that provide the critical mass of advanced services required to
operate the world economy at its current level of functionality.

 the leaders in providing this connectivity are what we call global cities these are urban
centers that provide the services for integrating the whole network a network of over 100
global cities is now understood as the landing point for worldwide networks of Finance and
the hubs for logistics networks these cities constitute a myriad of overlapping and
intersecting flows of ideas knowledge people money goods and have a direct and tangible
effect on affairs around the planet when the world is seen from this perspective of urban
connectivity a new image emerges where each city is horizontally oriented to other cities
of the same level of interconnectivity as cities have become interconnected over the past
decades they have come to identify themselves increasingly in relation to their peer cities
around the world instead of so much with their national economy as these major urban
centers have risen they have both come to take on more power and influence over their
own operations and the operations of the global economy but they have also come to
differentiate themselves within these larger networks and increasingly compete with other
cities.

 being a global city though is not about size or even economic scale it is about performing
a differentiated function within a global network of exchange and thus making them a
strategic location within a worldwide value chain global cities play specific roles in specific
networks for example cities like Taipei and Shenzhen our major nodes in the supply
network for high-tech electronics while cities like Geneva and Nairobi are important nodes
in global civil society networks Dubai and Hong Kong for air transport networks
Washington and Brussels for international political networks but the absolute leaders in
this global connectivity play a major role in almost all these networks London New York
Tokyo and Paris these urban networks are the most complex multi-dimensional and their
influence is the farthest reaching they regulate vast flows of financial capital effectively
coordinate millions of people and production processes in a multiplicity of overlapping
complex networks tourist attractions research centres shopping destinations tech startups
the engines of the knowledge economy corporate headquarters melting pots of people
ideas culture all concentrated in small areas of dense interaction and connected into
information networks that shape the operations of the economy around the world.
 the urban transformation that is occurring to enable these global information and services
networks is not just about cities getting bigger it is a reconfiguration of territory and basic
organizational principles from cultural and territorial borders to functional connectivity
globalization creates a new form of space based around networks of exchange and the
physical form of that space is urban networks this new geometry of urban networks driven
by a market logic responsive primarily to global networks of exchange and operated by
powerful private actors creates a huge disjunction with local territory and existing
governance structures cities still exist and operate within the national regulatory
framework which is designed according to the logic of its fixed territorial space when
increasingly our economy and society operate based upon global networks anchored in
cities these networks of information and services are increasingly bypassing the national
territory altogether creating a new kind of global and local space that exists in urban
centers one that requires a new organizational paradigm to structure and enable nowhere
is this disjunction seen more clearly than in the major financial centers that are seen as
the most strategic nodes in these global networks global cities are the landing points for
the world's flow of capital and goods as these networks have grown the power of the
corporations that operate them has likewise expanded greatly the global city is the space
where that power becomes materialized a point where highly abstract flows of capital and
information become something material and visible to all.

 throughout history urban centers have been the home of the dominant sources of power
within society with the building's used to exhibit the power of those dominant actors
whether this was the church government buildings or the monuments of Empires but over
the past decades the centers of our iconic world cities has become the locus of corporate
headquarters and financial centers with the rise of economic globalization the multinational
corporations and financial institutions that manage and operate

 these networks become the dominant actors this power is exhibited in a global city which
has come to be shaped to a great extent by these powerful actors according to their logic
and to accommodate their needs.

 financialization has changed the form of investment in urban development with significant
results for how urban networks have evolved over the past decades the lines between
private and public have blurred while at the same time the logic of finance becomes more
pervasive in the development of the urban space cities have become increasingly defined
in terms of investment vehicles instead of shared living spaces huge amounts of capital
are now flowing into the development of the primary urban centers from the global financial
system this financialization of real estate and urban centers has created a huge disjunction
between the local needs of communities and those of these private actors where once
urban development was driven by local incentives in response to the local needs of the
place with financialization cities are becoming increasingly private spaces of investment
that are primarily responsive to the logic of these flows of finance.

 the process of globalization engenders an evolving relationship between the local needs
of people and the market logic of global networks world cities are at the epicenter of this
conflict they are the frontier zone of globalization and the struggle for new systems of
organization that would be relevant for an age of networks in a time when existing
governance structures are paralyzed by the complexity of the issues at hand cities take
pragmatic action because they have to they are at the forefront of financialization and
 environmental changes the effects of these changes impact them directly and they are
pushed to take action in the absence of appropriate governance mechanisms cities are
becoming a new locus of action but this is a very different form of governance than the
one we are used to it will be a governance structure that expresses the new forces at play
of Finance and corporate supply chains of technology and increasingly internet platforms
the rise of urban networks and the movement of humanity into a predominantly engineered
environment corresponds to a broader process of change brought about in the
Anthropocene.

 the so called age of humans after 1950 we can see for the first time that major Earth
System changes became directly linked to changes largely related to the global economic
system with this coinciding with the huge rise of major urban centers urban centers occupy
only 3% of global land areas but their physical impact is directly connected to very complex
environmental transformations that take place far beyond the confines of the city large-
scale planetary metabolic flows are mobilized in order to supply the largest urban centers
whole region's territories and landscapes are operationalized in new ways in order to
provide food energy water materials and other basic resources that result in massive
transformations in ecosystems far away and often unseen by the population landscapes
in Malaysia are transformed into palm plantations for biofuels that keep urban transport
systems running cement and iron are pulled out of the ground in Russia to lay concrete
for the 20 million Chinese moving into cities every year water systems in the Himalayas
are altered to provide for the urban centres of northern India rare earth metals extracted
from Africa for the millions of smartphones that keep Paris connected.

 globalization is the building of global systems of economic social and technological

organization this connectivity crosses borders reduces all divides and creates inter
dependencies that bind diverse people and places through shared interests opportunities
and threats global cities are physical super connectors in this network but they are also
super disconnectors when urbanization is successful people become integrated into a
global economy and society when it is unsuccessful they become disconnected and
divided in new ways but the consequences of that are no longer local with interconnectivity
comes interdependencies and the benefits and losses become increasingly shared
globally in the space of just the past few decades we have created a new economic system
of organization in the form of global supply chains and the urban networks that support
them global cities are now the engines driving the world forward and how the process of
urbanization plays out in the coming

 decades will shape the structure of what happens this century and indeed the future of the
relationship between human beings and the planet the current process of urbanization is
nothing less than a fundamental transformation in the human habitats the indigenous
environment of humanity is changing from the natural environment to the engineered
environment at a breathtaking speed in the space of just a few short decades we will
remake our environment and the patterns of organization that shape society and economy
in this process we don't just rebuild the world around us but urbanization changes us it
creates a new environment new ways of thinking new patterns of work of governance of
production and exchange of interaction between people through which we come to
redefine ourselves and our relationship to the natural environment.
• What Is at Stake for the Philippines What is at stake in the West Philippine Sea dispute
are:
a.  80% of of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), comprising 381,000 square
kilometers of maritime space, and b.  100% of the Philippines’ extended continental shelf
(ECS), estimated at over 150,000 square kilometers of maritime space, aggregating a
huge maritime area of over 531,000 square kilometers, larger than the total land area of
the Philippines of 300,000 square kilometers - either the Philippines keeps this huge
maritime space, or loses it to China.

• Gravest External Threat to Philippines since WWII The shaded area, over 531,000 square
kilometers of maritime space, together with all the fisheries, oil, gas and mineral resources
found within this vast area, is what China wants to grab from the Philippines. This Chinese
aggression is the gravest external threat to the Philippines since World War II.

• The root cause of the South China Sea dispute is China’s 9-dashed lines claim, which
gobbles up large areas of the EEZs and ECSs of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia,
Brunei and Indonesia. Root Cause of South China Sea Dispute

• China’s 9-dashed Lines Gobble Up EEZs of Coastal States China’s 9-dashed lines claim
encloses 85.7% of the entire South China Sea. This is equivalent to 3 million square
kilometers out of the 3.5 million square kilometers surface area of the South China Sea.

• Nine-dashed Lines Map Submitted by China to United Nations on 7 May 2009 China did
not explain the legal basis for the dashes. The dashes had no fixed coordinates. The
Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia protested China’s claim under this 9-
dashed lines map.

• “China has indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and the
adjacent waters, and enjoys sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the relevant waters as
well as the seabed and subsoil thereof.” - China’s Note Verbale The terms “adjacent” and
“relevant” waters are not UNCLOS terms. China refuses to explain the meaning of
“adjacent” or “relevant” waters. Do these terms mean that China claims all the waters and
resources enclosed by the 9-dashed lines? We shall examine China’s acts, regulations,
declarations, and practices in the South China Sea to understand what China means by
its 9-dashed lines claim, and how China interprets and applies the terms “adjacent” and
“relevant” waters. China’s 2009 Note Verbale Explaining The 9-dashed Lines Map

• China Seized Subi Reef in 1988 In 1988, China seized Subi Reef from the Philippines by
erecting a radar structure and military facilities on the reef. Subi Reef is a Low-Tide
Elevation (LTE) outside of the Philippines’ EEZ but within its extended continental shelf
(ECS). Subi Reef is just outside the 12 NM territorial sea of the Philippine-occupied
Pagasa (Thitu) Island. Under UNCLOS, only the Philippines can erect structures or create
an artificial island on Subi Reef. The waters of Subi Reef are part of the high seas of the
South China Sea.

• China Seized Mischief (Panganiban) Reef in 1995 In 1995, China seized Mischief Reef
from the Philippines. Mischief Reef, located 125 NM from Palawan, is a Low-Tide
Elevation (LTE) within the Philippines’ EEZ. As an LTE beyond the territorial sea of any
state, it is part of the submerged continental shelf of the adjacent coastal state, which is
 the Philippines. Under UNCLOS, only the Philippines can exploit its natural resources or
erect structures on it.

• China Claimed Reed Bank in 2010 In February 2010, the Philippines awarded a Service
Contract to Sterling Energy (predecessor of Forum Energy) for Block SC 72 in the Reed
Bank. China protested, sending a Note Verbale to the Philippines on 22 February 2010,
"express[ing] its strong objection and indignation,” and asserting "indisputable
sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the Nansha Islands (Spratlys) and its
adjacent waters.” China demanded that the Philippines "withdraw the Service Contract
immediately.” China sent another Note Verbale on 13 May 2010 again demanding that the
Philippines
"immediately withdraw the decision to award the Service Contract” to Sterling Energy.
Block SC 72 is 85 NM from Palawan, well within the Philippines’ EEZ, and 595 NM from
Hainan.
• . China Interfered Directly with a Philippine Contractor for Reed Bank in 2010 On 2 August
2010, the Nido Petroleum office in Manila received an email directly from the Chinese
Embassy in Manila. The Embassy requested a meeting between the Chinese First
Secretary and the Nido vice-president. The meeting was held on 6 August 2010. The
Chinese First Secretary showed the Nido vice-president a map depicting China's 9-
dashed lines, and informed him that the area covered by Nido Petroleum’s service
contract (Block SC 58) was "claimed by" the People’s Republic of China. Since then Nido
Petroleum has not made any exploration within Block SC 58. [Memorandum from Rafael
E. Seguis, Undersecretary for Special and Ocean Concerns, Department of Foreign
Affairs, Republic of the Philippines, to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of
the Philippines (30 July 2010); Letter from Mr. Anthony P. Ferrer, Country Representative,
Nido Petroleum, to the Office of the
Undersecretary, Department of Energy of the Republic of Philippines (7 Oct. 2013)] Nido
Exploration Area
• China Reiterated its Claim to Reed Bank in 2011 In 2011, the Philippines invited bids for
the exploration of Area 3 and Area 4 in the Reed Bank, well within the Philippines’ EEZ.
On 4 July 2011, China protested and sent a Note Verbale to the Philippines, stating: “The
Chinese government urges the Philippine side to immediately withdraw the bidding offer
in Areas 3 and 4, refrain from any action that infringes on China's sovereignty and
sovereign rights.”
• Chinese Coast Guard Vessels Harassed A Philippine Survey Ship in Reed Bank in 2011
In March 2011, two Chinese coast guard vessels, the CMS-71 and CMS-75, prevented a
Philippine-commissioned ship, the MV Veritas Voyager, from undertaking oil and gas
survey in the Reed Bank, which is entirely within the Philippines’ EEZ. The 9-dashed lines
cut through Malampaya, the Philippines’ largest operating gas field which supplies 40%
of the energy requirement of Luzon. Malampaya will run out of gas in 10-12 years.
• . In 2012, China invited an international bidding for the exploration of areas within the EEZ
of Vietnam. China published this map, naming it “Location for part of open blocks in waters
under jurisdiction of the People’s Republic of China available for foreign cooperation in
the year of 2012.” China Auctioned off Areas within Vietnam’s EEZ & ECS
• In 2013, China released a new map of China, adding a 10th dash on the eastern side of
Taiwan. In its 2013 map, China claims the 10-dashed lines are its “national boundaries,”
without again explaining the legal basis or giving the fixed coordinates for the dashes. The
2013 China map was published by SinoMaps Press, under the jurisdiction of China’s State
Bureau of Surveying and Mapping. This means the 2013 Map is an official Chinese
government map. In its Note Verbale of June 7, 2013 to China, the Philippines stated it
 "strongly objects to the indication that the nine-dash lines are China's national boundaries
in the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea.” China’s claim that the 9-dashed lines are
China’s “national boundaries” contradicts its assurance to the world that there is “freedom
of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea in accordance with international law.”
China’s 2013 Map with 10-dashed Lines As “National Boundaries”
• China Claims 10-dashed Lines in 2013 Map Are China’s “National Boundaries”
• James Shoal - China’s “Southernmost” Border Since at least 2012, China has been
periodically laying sovereignty steel markers on the seabed of James Shoal. China claims
James Shoal as its southernmost border. James Shoal is fully submerged at 22 meters
below the water surface, and is situated more than 950 NM from Hainan Island and more
than 400 NM from Itu Aba. Under UNCLOS, the maximum maritime zone that a state can
claim is 350 NM from baselines along its coast (or 100 NM from the 2500m isobath, a
limitation which does not apply to China based on the geology of the South China Sea).
Under international law, a state’s border must either be a land territory, a river, or a
territorial sea - which are all subject to its full sovereignty. A state cannot appropriate as
its sovereign territory a fully submerged area beyond its territorial sea. James Shoal is 80
KM from Malaysia’s coast in Bintulu, Sarawak, within Malaysia’s EEZ.
• China Holds Sovereignty Oath Swearing Ceremony at James Shoal in January 2014 A
Chinese taskforce composed of three warships from the South China Sea Fleet of the
Navy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLAN) held a sovereignty oath-swearing
ceremony on January 26, 2014 in the waters of James (Zengmu) Shoal off the coast of
Sarawak, Borneo in the South China Sea. The Singapore Straits Times quoted China’s
Foreign
Ministry spokesman Qin Gang that Malaysia did not lodge any protest against China.
Photo: Xinhua
• China Seized Scarborough (Panatag) Shoal in 2012 In 2012, China seized Scarborough
Shoal from the Philippines. In November 2012, following a three-month standoff between
Philippine and Chinese vessels around the shoal, China informed the Philippines that
Chinese coast guard vessels would remain permanently on the shoal. Scarborough Shoal,
including its lagoon, has an area of 58 square miles or 150 square KMs (15,000 hectares).
Located 124 NM from Zambales, Scarborough Shoal is rich in fisheries and is one of the
traditional fishing grounds of Filipino fishermen. The shoal is a high tide elevation, with the
biggest rock protruding 1.2 meter above water at high tide. China claims that Scarborough
Shoal generates a 200 NM EEZ.
• China Seized Luconia Shoals in 2013 In 2013, China seized Luconia Shoals from
Malaysia. Malaysian National Security Minister Shahidan Kassim posted on Facebook
last June 4, 2015 the location map of Luconia Shoals, 54 NM from Sarawak, with this
statement: "This small island is not a disputed territory but the foreign ship which came
here has intruded into our national waters.” That foreign ship is the Chinese Coast Guard
vessel Haijing 1123, which anchored on Luconia Shoals since April 2013 and has
remained there up to now. Luconia Shoals, covering 100 square miles, are one of the
largest reef formations in the South China Sea. Luconia Shoals, with a sandbar above
water at high tide, are rich in fish, oil and gas. China claims that all geologic features in
the Spratlys generate a 200 NM EEZ. China Installed HD 981 Oil Rig in 2014 In
2014, China placed its $1 billion deep-water HD 981 oil rig 130 NM from Vietnam’s coast,
well within Vietnam’s EEZ. In protest, Vietnamese workers in export processing zones in
Vietnam rioted, burning several Chinese factories. A Vietnamese fishing boat sank near
the oil rig after being rammed by a Chinese vessel. Recent reports reveal that China is
building three (3) more type HD 981 rigs for deployment in the South China Sea.
• Article 35 of the Hainan Province’s 2014 Fishery Regulations, which took effect on
January 1, 2014, mandate that foreign fishing vessels “entering the waters under the
jurisdiction of this province (Hainan) to engage in fishery operations or fishery resource
surveys shall secure approval from relevant departments of the State Council.” The
Fishery Regulations apply to Macclesfield Bank, which is part of the high seas. Hainan’s
2014 Fishery Regulations
• Waters Hainan Claims under its Administration The enclosed waters under Hainan’s
administration comprise 2 million square kilometers out of the 3.5 square kilometers total
surface area of the South China Sea. China claims a total of 3 million square kilometers
or 85.7% of the waters of the South China Sea. Macclesfield Bank, which is part of the
high seas, is within the enclosed waters.
• Since 1999, China thru Hainan Province has imposed unilaterally a three-month annual
fishing moratorium, from mid-May to end July, on waters in and around the Paracels,
Macclesfield Bank and Scarborough Shoal. Violators of the ban face fines, confiscation
of fishing equipment, and even criminal charges. Macclesfield Bank is part of the high
seas. In a Note Verbale dated 6 July 2015, China demanded that the Philippines “respect
China's territorial sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction, and xxx educate its own
fishermen, so that they can strictly abide by the fishing moratorium xxx." China warned
that "Chinese law-enforcing authorities will strengthen their maritime patrols and other
law-enforcing actions, investigate and punish the relevant fishing vessels and fishermen
who violate the fishing moratorium xxx.” China Imposes a Unilateral Annual 3-Month
Fishing Moratorium In the South China Sea
• The high seas have always been part of the global commons, whether before or after
UNCLOS. The high seas could not be subject to sovereignty by any state, whether before
or after UNCLOS. UNCLOS declares: “The high seas are open to all states, whether
coastal or land-locked. Freedom of the high seas xxx comprises, inter alia, xxx freedom
of fishing” (Art. 87, UNCLOS). UNCLOS declares: “No state may validly purport to subject
any part of the high seas to its sovereignty” (Art. 89, UNCLOS). The High Seas Part of
Global Commons By appropriating for itself the fishery resources in the high seas of
the South China Sea, China is committing a grand theft of the global commons. All states,
coastal and landlocked, are interested parties in the South China Sea dispute because
China is appropriating for itself the fishery resources in the high seas. Grand Theft of the
Global Commons
• All these acts of China, among so many others, demonstrate beyond doubt that China is
claiming sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction to all the waters, fisheries, oil, gas,
mineral resources, seabed and subsoil enclosed by the 9-dashed lines. The South China
Sea - A Chinese Lake
• The Philippines loses about 80% of its EEZ facing the West Philippine Sea, including the
entire Reed Bank and part of the Malampaya gas field. Malaysia loses also about 80% of
its EEZ in Sabah and Sarawak facing the South China Sea, as well as most of its active
gas and oil fields in the same area. Vietnam loses about 50% of its total EEZ. Brunei loses
about 90% of its total EEZ. Indonesia loses about 30% of its EEZ facing the South China
Sea in Natuna Islands, whose surrounding waters comprise the largest gas field in
Southeast Asia.
What is the Effect of China’s “National Boundaries” under the 9-dashed Lines?
• . Philippines’ Sliver of Territorial Sea and EEZ The Philippines will be left with a sliver of
water as its territorial sea and EEZ. The Philippines and China will have a very long
common sea border – 1,300 kms – from Balabac Island in southern Palawan to Yamin
Island in northern Batanes. The dashed lines are just 64 KMs from Balabac Island, 70
KMs from the coast of Burgos, Ilocos Norte, and 44 KMs from Yamin Island.
• Maritime Zones under UNCLOS An island above water at high tide is entitled to a 12 NM
territorial sea. If such island is capable of human habitation or economic life of its own, it
is entitled to a 200 NM EEZ. If there is a natural prolongation of its extended continental
shelf, it is entitled to an ECS up to where the natural prolongation ends, but not exceeding
150 NM from the outer limits of its EEZ. The maximum maritime zone a coastal state can
claim is 150 NM from the outer limits of its 200 NM EEZ (or 100 NM from the 2500 meter
isobath, a limitation which does not apply to China based on the geology and
geomorphology of the South China Sea). China is claiming maritime zones more than
150 NM from the outer limits of its EEZ.
• A Low-Tide Elevation (LTE) is a naturally formed area of land (rock, reef, atoll or sandbar)
surrounded by water, above water at low tide but submerged at high tide. An LTE is part
of the submerged continental shelf. An LTE is not land or territory, and has no territorial
sea or territorial airspace (Art. 13, UNCLOS). An LTE beyond the territorial sea is not
subject to appropriation by any State (Nicaragua v. Colombia, ICJ, 2012). Low-Tide
Elevation (LTE)
• Low Tide Elevation vs. Rock/Island A low-tide elevation is not entitled to a territorial sea
or any maritime zone. A rock above water at high tide is entitled to a 12 NM territorial sea.
An island capable of human habitation or economic life of its own is entitled to a 12 NM
territorial sea and a 200 NM EEZ, and if there is a natural prolongation of its extended
continental shelf, it is entitled to an ECS up to the end of such natural prolongation but
not exceeding 150 NM from the outer limits of its EEZ (or 100 NM from the 2500 meter
isobath, if applicable).
• China has built artificial islands on seven (7) reefs: Fiery Cross Reef, Cuarteron Reef,
Gaven Reef, Johnson South Reef, McKennan Reef, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef. These
are all the reefs China occupies. However, China has actually also dredged ten (10) other
reefs for filling materials for the seven reefs on which China has built islands.* China has
explained:
 “The primary purpose of these activities is to improve the working and living conditions of
personnel stationed there, to better fulfill our international obligations concerning maritime
search and rescue, disaster prevention, and mitigation, and to enable China to provide
better services to vessels from China, her neighbors, and other countries sailing in the
South China Sea.”** * J. Ashley Roach, an ASIL member, Captain, JAGC, USN (retired),
Office of the
Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State (retired), and Global Associate and Senior Visiting
Scholar at the Centre for International Law (CIL) (2014–2015), National University of
Singapore; see http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/marine-sovereignty/ 137126/china-s-
shiftingsands-in-the-spratlys.html **Statement of Wang Min, China's deputy permanent
representative to the United Nations. China’s Island-Building in the Spratlys
• China’s Island-Building on Seven Reefs There are about 750 small maritime features
in the Spratlys. The vast majority are submerged at all times while others are exposed
only at low tide. There are, at most, only 28 features that remain above water at high
tide. The largest high-tide feature, Itu Aba, is only 0.43 square kilometer. The rest
range in size from a high of 0.36 square kilometers (Pagasa) to a low of less than 2
square meters.
• Fiery Cross (Kagitingan) Reef Before Island-Building Fiery Cross Reef is about 1
meter above water at high tide. It is just outside the Philippines’ EEZ but within its
continental shelf. In 1987, UNESCO agreed that China would build a weather station
on Fiery Cross Reef as part of UNESCO’s global oceanic survey. That weather station
would later turn out to be a
Chinese military air and naval base. China’s Airbase with Seaport on Fiery Cross Reef
Source: China State Shipbuilding Corporation One of the islands built by China is an
airbase with a seaport, completed in June 2015. The airbase, with a 3,000 meter runway,
is on a 274-hectare area on Fiery Cross Reef, larger than 213-hectare Woody Island which
hosts China’s airbase in the Paracels. This artificial island will also be larger than the
combined area of the 20 largest islands in the Spratlys, and more than twice the area of
Diego Garcia Island, the U.S. airbase in the Indian Ocean.
• June 2015 Chinese Photo of Completed Island-Building on Fiery Cross Reef - 274
Hectare Airbase With 3 KM Runway As Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the U.S.
Pacific Command stated, “A 10,000-foot (3 KM) runway is large enough to take a B-
52, almost large enough for the Space Shuttle, and 3,000 feet longer than what you
need to take off a 747.” Admiral Harris also stated that China is building on Fiery Cross
Reef hangars for tactical fighters.
• China’s Strategic Bomber H-6K with 7,000 KM Range The H-6K can carry under its
wing pylons six conventional or nuclear armed CJ-10A cruise missiles with 2,200 KM
range. Although the H-6 was first domestically produced in 1968, this upgraded
version, using composite materials, modern avionics and a powerful radar, first
entered service only in October 2009.
• Test Flights on Fiery Cross Reef Runway - January 6, 2016
• Johnson South (Mabini) Reef Before Island-Building Johnson South Reef is an LTE
within the Philippines’ EEZ. [Note: Chinese, Philippines and other countries’ nautical
charts designate this as an LTE. Only the U.S. nautical chart designates this as a high
tide feature.]
• Johnson South (Mabini) Reef December 26, 2015 In 1988, Chinese naval forces
forcibly dislodged the Vietnamese soldiers guarding this LTE. Over 77 Vietnamese
soldiers died in the battle. Johnson South Reef is within the Philippines’ EEZ. As of
 November 2015, China has created an artificial island of 10.9 hectares in Johnson
South Reef.
• McKennan (Chigua) Reef Before Island-Building McKennan Reef is an LTE within the
Philippines’ EEZ. It is within 12 NM of Sin Cowe Island.
• McKennan (Chigua, Hughes) Reef May 5, 2015 As of November 2015, China has
created an artifical island of 7.2 hectares in McKennan Reef.
• Gaven (Burgos) Reef at Start of Island-Building Gaven Reef is outside of the
Philippines’ EEZ but within its continental shelf. Gaven Reef is an LTE within 12 NM
of Namyit Island.
• Gaven Reef May 9, 2015 As of November 2015, China has created an artificial island
of 13.6 hectares in Gaven Reef.
• Cuarteron (Calderon) Reef Before Island-Building Cuarteron Reef is outside the
Philippines’ EEZ but within its continental shelf. It is above water at high tide.
• Cuarteron Reef Jan 21, 2016 Cuarteron Reef is a tiny rock above water at high tide
just outside the Philippines’ EEZ. As of November 2015, China has added 24.6
hectares to Cuarteron Reef. China is installing on Cuarteron Reef a powerful radar
facility that can monitor aircraft flying anywhere in Palawan.
• Subi (Zamora) Reef Before Island-Building Subi Reef is an LTE outside of the
Philippines’ EEZ but within its continental shelf. Subi Reef is just outside the 12-NM
territorial sea of the 36-hectare Pagasa (Thitu) Island, the largest island occupied by
the Philippines in the Spratlys. Subi Reef is 231 NM from Palawan and 502 NM from
Hainan.
• Subi (Zamora) Reef December 23, 2015 3 km runway/air strip
• Center Portion of Subi Reef Runway December 21, 2015 Source:www.ft.com
• Subi (Zamora) Reef January 8, 2016 Source:www.+.com Under UNCLOS, Subi Reef,
an LTE in the high seas, cannot be used as a military facility. Article 88 of UNCLOS
mandates that “the high seas shall be reserved for peaceful purposes.” The total area
of Subi Reef, including the lagoon and rim of the reef, is 16 sq. km. In its original state,
the Subi Reef‘s lagoon was 22 meters deep. Subi Reef’s location, size and depth
make it ideal for a naval base with an airfield. As of December 23, 2015, China has
created an artificial island of 500 hectares in Subi Reef.
• Mischief (Panganiban) Reef January 2012 and March 2015 Mischief Reef is a circular
atoll with a diameter of 7.4 KM, and its lagoon has an area of 3,600 hectares. The
average depth inside the lagoon is 26 meters. As of November 2015, China has
created an artificial island of 590 hectares out of a planned 800 hectares. China can
garrison thousands of troops on Mischief Reef. Mischief Reef is 125 NM from Palawan
and 596 NM from Hainan.
• Mischief (Panganiban) Reef December 24, 2015 3 Km runway/air strip
• Mischief (Panganiban) Reef January 8, 2016 The northwest side of Mischief Reef as
of January 8, including a 1,900 foot seawall and newly-constructed infrastructure
including housing, an artificial turf parade grounds, cement plants, and docking
facilities. - Source: www.ft.com
• Mischief Reef and Palawan, 125 NM Distance Mischief Reef is an LTE that is 125 NM
from Palawan, well within the 200 NM EEZ of the Philippines. As an LTE, Mischief
Reef is part of the submerged continental shelf of the Philippines. With an air and
naval base in Mischief Reef between Palawan and all the Philippine-occupied islands
in the Spratlys, China can block Philippine ships re-supplying Philippine-occupied
islands in the Spratlys.
• China’s island-building violates the 2002 Asean- China Declaration of Conduct, which
states that the parties undertake to exercise self-restraint, like “refraining from action
of inhabiting on presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays and other features.”
Island-Building Violates the Declaration of Conduct
• China’s Airbases in Woody and Duncan Islands, the Paracels Woody Island: As the
largest island in the Paracels, it is 213 hectares in area. It has a 2,700 meter runaway
that can handle all of China’s 4th generation fighter aircraft as well as the nuclear-
armed H-6K strategic bomber. Recently, China deployed on Woody Island two
batteries of the long- range HQ-9 anti-aircraft missiles with a range of 200 kms,
creating an anti-access zone of 103,600 square kilometers around Woody Island.
Duncan Island: China has significantly expanded the size of this island, upgraded the
harbor, and is building a helicopter base.
Duncan Island is in the Crescent Group of the Paracels.
• An ADIZ in the South China Sea? China conducted in June 2015 its first air-sea
military drill in the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines. China
announced that in the future it would conduct regular air-sea military drills in the Bashi
Channel.
• China is mass-producing destroyers, frigates, corvettes and other warships at a faster
rate than any other country in world history during peacetime. According to the U.S.
Office of Naval Intelligence, “During 2014 alone, more than 60 naval ships and crafts
were laid down, launched, or commissioned, with a similar number expected through
the end of 2015.” China’s Continuing Mass Production of Warships
• China’s Type 056 Corvette China launched its 25th Type 056 Corvette last March 19,
2015, out of a total planned 40 Type 056 Corvette fleet. The PLA Navy believes that
it can control the South China Sea with 20 of these Corvettes.
• . China’s Second Navy - The Coast Guard China will deploy this year a 10,000-ton
coast guard vessel, the world’s largest blue water coast guard vessel. A second
10,000-ton sister ship is under construction. China has more coast guard vessels than
Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines combined. China’s Coast
Guard is the largest blue water coast guard fleet in the world.
• China’s Third Navy - Maritime Militia China has a maritime militia consisting of
hundreds of thousands of fishermen who are well- trained to spy on foreign warships,
harass foreign fishing vessels, and act as eyes and ears for the PLA Navy. Their
fishing vessels, numbering about 20,000, are equipped with China’s Beidou satellite
navigation and communications system. The PLA’s official newspaper declared:
“Putting on camouflage these fishermen qualify as soldiers, taking off the camouflage
they become law abiding fishermen.”
• 2015 China Military Strategy Under its 2015 “China Military Strategy,” China will shift
from “offshore waters defense” to the combined “offshore waters defense” and “open
seas protection.” The CMS states: “The traditional mentality that land outweighs the
sea must be abandoned, and great importance has to be attached to managing the
seas and oceans and protecting maritime rights and interests.”
• . China’s Creeping Expansion in the SCS from 1946 to 2016 Before World War II,
China’s southernmost defense perimeter was Hainan Island. Before the war, China
did not have a single soldier or sailor stationed in any SCS island outside of Hainan
Island. Right after the war, China took over the Amphitrite Group of the Paracels and
Itu Aba in the Spratlys following the defeat of the Japanese, moving China’s defense
perimeter southward. In 1974, China forcibly dislodged the South Vietnamese from
the Crescent Group of the Paracels. In 1988, China forcibly evicted Vietnam from
 Johnson South Reef, moving further south China’s defense perimeter in the Spratlys.
In 1995, China seized Mischief Reef from the Philippines, just 125 NM from Palawan
and 594 NM from Hainan. In 2012, China seized Scarborough Shoal from the
Philippines, just 124 NM from Luzon. In 2013, China seized Luconia Shoals from
Malaysia, just 54 NM from Sarawak’s coast. In 2014, China started island-building on
rocks and submerged areas in the Spratlys to construct air and naval bases.
• China’s grand design is to control the South China Sea for economic and military
purposes. China wants all the fisheries, oil, gas and mineral resources within the 9-
dashed lines. China already takes 50% of the annual fish catch in the South China
Sea as more than 80% of its coastal waters are already polluted. China has the largest
fishing fleet in the world, with 200,000 sea-going vessels and 2,640 long- distance
ocean-going vessels. China’s per capita fish consumption is the highest in the world
at 35.1 kg/year to feed 1.4 billion people, while the rest of Asia’s per capita
consumption is only 21.6 kg/year. China is the largest net importer of petroleum in the
world. The South China Sea is rich in methane hydrates - said to be one of the fuels
of the future. China wants to secure all these methane hydrates for itself. China also
wants the South China Sea as a sanctuary for its nuclear-armed submarines – free
from surveillance by U.S. submarine-hunting Poseidon airplanes or U.S. nuclear
attack submarines. The island-building in the Spratlys is not a knee-jerk response to
the Philippines’ arbitration case but part of China’s long-term grand design. As Zang
Jie, head of the Asia Pacific Security program at the government-linked Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, stated: “China has wanted to do this for a long time.
Now it has the dredging boats, the money and the people. So it is doing it.” China’s
Grand Design in the South China Sea
• Mischief Reef - A 30-Million Year Work of Nature It takes 30 million years for the reefs
of an atoll like Mischief Reef to form. Reefs are the breeding ground of fish. In the
Spratlys, the eggs and larvae spawned by fish are carried by currents to the Sulu Sea,
the coasts of Palawan, Luzon, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Vietnam and even China.
All the reefs in the
seven built-up sites of China are now dead. Reefs need clear waters to grow. Island-
building makes the waters in nearby reefs turbid, unhealthy for both reefs and fish. The
coral reefs in the South China Sea comprise 34% of the world’s total coral reefs, despite
the South China Sea occupying only 2.5% of world’s total ocean surface.
• Chinese Reef Killer Dredges 4,500 Cubic Meters of Sand per Hour The Tiang Jing
Hao (Heavenly Whale) dredger, a 127 meter-long seagoing cutter suction dredger
designed by the German engineering company Vosta LMG. At 6,017 gross tons, this
dredger is the largest in Asia. China has dozens of dredgers in the Spratlys.
• How Dredging Is Done in the Spratlys Coral reef and hard sediment on the seabed
are pulverized by the rotating cutter. Pulverized materials are sucked into the ship.
Pulverized materials are transported by pressure through a floating pipe. Pulverized
materials are deposited on the rim of the reef.
• Fiery Cross Reef January 28, 2015 According to Dr. John McManus, a renowned
marine biologist who has studied the marine life in the Spratlys, China’s island-
building is the “most rapid permanent loss of coral reef in human history. It’s a terrible,
terrible thing to do this.”
• A Hainan government report states that especially fine and large carvings can fetch
up to 700,000 yuan (US$106,000). Ivory of the Sea
• Only the adjacent coastal state has the right to create artificial islands, or erect
structures on LTEs, within its EEZ or ECS (Arts. 60 & 80, UNCLOS). Thus, such
artificial islands or structures put up by other states within the EEZ or ECS of a coastal
state are illegal under UNCLOS. Who can create artificial islands, or erect structures
on LTEs, in the EEZ or ECS?
• Thus, Article 60, Part VI of UNCLOS, on “Artificial islands, installations and structures
in the exclusive economic zone,” states: “1. In the exclusive economic zone, the
coastal State shall have the exclusive right to construct and to authorize and regulate
the construction, operation and use of: (a) artificial islands; (b) installations and
structures for the purposes provided in Article 56 (exploitation of non- living resources
in the seabed, marine scientific research, protection and preservation of marine
environment) and other economic purposes; (c) xxx.” “2. The coastal state shall have
exclusive jurisdiction over such artificial islands, installations and structures, including
jurisdiction with regard to customs, fiscal, health safety and immigration laws and
regulations.”
• Article 80, Part VI of UNCLOS, on “Artificial islands, installations and structures on the
continental shelf,” states: “Article 60 applies mutatis mutandi to artificial islands,
installations and structures on the continental shelf.” Clearly, China’s island-building
on LTEs in the EEZ and ECS of the Philippines violate UNCLOS and are thus illegal
under international law.
• Maritime Zones under UNCLOS
• No. UNCLOS defines an island as a “naturally formed” area of land, surrounded by
water, and above water at high tide. (Art. 121, UNCLOS) Article 60(8) of UNCLOS
provides: “8. Artificial islands, installations and structures do not possess the status
of islands. They have no territorial sea of their own, and their presence does not affect
the delimitation of the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone, or the continental
shelf.” Article 2(2) of UNCLOS states that “sovereignty extends to the air space over
the territorial sea.” While a coastal state’s artificial structure installed within its own
EEZ is entitled to 500-meter safety zone (Article 60(5), UNCLOS), an illegally installed
structure by another state is not entitled to this legal 500-meter safety zone. A legal
right cannot arise from an illegal act. Do LTEs and artificial islands acquire a maritime
zone if by island-building they are raised above water at high tide ?
• Historic rights cannot be invoked to claim natural resources in the EEZ of another
state. UNCLOS granted to coastal states “sovereign rights” to exploit its EEZ.
“Sovereign rights” means supreme rights, superior to the rights of other states. This
extinguished all historic rights or claims by other states in the EEZ of a coastal state.
The word “exclusive” in the term EEZ means the economic exploitation of the zone is
exclusive to the adjacent coastal state. China actively participated in the negotiations
of UNCLOS from 1973 to 1982. China aligned itself with the developing coastal
countries which demanded a 200 NM EEZ where the
coastal state has exclusive sovereign rights to exploit the EEZ. China never claimed that
historic rights could be an exception to the exclusive sovereign rights of coastal states in
the EEZ. In fact, the 200 NM EEZ was agreed upon on the clear understanding that all
historic claims of other states in the EEZ of a coastal state are deemed extinguished. Can
a State Claim “Historic Rights” in the EEZ of another State?
• “The rights of a coastal state over the continental shelf do not depend on occupation,
effective or notional, or on any express proclamation” (Art. 77(3), UNCLOS). As the
ICJ has explained, the rights of a coastal state “exist ipso facto and ab initio, by virtue
of its sovereignty over the land.”* “[I]f the coastal state does not explore the continental
shelf or exploit its natural resources, no one may undertake such activities without the
express consent of the coastal state” (Art. 77[2]). This is an express prohibition to the
application of historic rights claimed by other states in the continental shelf of another
coastal state. The continental shelf of a state covers its EEZ and extended continental
shelf. *North Sea Continental Shelf Cases (Federal Republic of Germany v. Denmark;
Federal Republic of
Germany v. Netherlands), Judgment, ICJ Reports 1969, paragraph 19. A Coastal State
Has Inherent Right to its Continental Shelf
• Historic rights cannot be claimed in the EEZ, ECS or high seas. Even assuming, quod
non, historic rights can be claimed, the following conditions must first be satisfied for
historic rights to be valid: First, the state actually exercised authority over the area
where it claims historic rights; Second, the state exercised that authority continuously
and for a long period of time; and Third, other states either acquiesced in or failed to
oppose the exercise of such authority.* China’s 9-dashed lines claim fail to satisfy any
of these conditions. *United Nations Secretary General, Juridical Regime of Historic
Waters, Including Historic Bays, UN Doc No. A/CN.4/143 (9 Mar. 1962), paragraph
80. Historic Rights under General International Law
• Compilation of Historical Archives on the Southern Territories of the Republic of China
- Published in July 2015 by Taiwan This is a compilation of the most important
documents relating to the 9-dashed lines culled from the thousands of records in the
Kuomintang historical archives. The Kuomintang brought the records with them to
Taiwan when they fled the mainland in 1949.
• The Tribunal invited the Philippines to comment on Taiwan’s official publication
entitled Compilation of Historical Archives on the Southern Territories of the Republic
of China published in July 2015. The Philippines made the following comments,
among others: 1.  Of the tens of thousands of historical records reviewed by the
experts who compiled the archives, not a single document could be identified
asserting China’s claim to the South China Sea before 1907. 2.  Taiwan’s President
Ma himself wrote in the Preface of the book that China’s "sovereignty over the South
China Sea islands" dates only to the "early 20th century,” 1935 to be exact, with the
publication of the Map of the South Sea Islands and Maritime Features. The claim to
sovereignty refers only to the islands and their territorial seas. 3.  The book contains
a timeline of key events that summarizes China's historic evidence in support of its
 historic rights claim. The chronology of event starts in 1907. 4.  The events in the
timeline from 1907 to 1935 refer to China’s claims to the Pratas and the Paracels, not
to the Spratlys. Chinese claims to the Spratlys started only in 1935.
Kuomintang’s Compilation of Historical Archives
• Timeline of Key Events Starts in 1907
• In its Position Paper dated 7 December 2014 submitted to the UNCLOS Tribunal,
China made this incredulous claim: “Chinese activities in the South China Sea date
back to over 2,000 years ago. China was the first country to discover, name, explore
and exploit the resources of the South China Sea Islands and the first to continuously
exercise sovereign powers over them.” Taiwan’s publication of Compilation of
Historical Archives on the Southern Territories of the Republic of China, using the
extensive archives of the
Kuomintang, the originator of the 9-dashed lines, has definitively debunked the PROC’s
claim that the 9- dashed lines were “formed in the long course of history,” dating back two
thousand years ago. Taiwan Debunked China’s Incredulous Historic Claim to the South
China Sea
• 1595 Ortelius Map - The Champa Kingdom Before the South China Sea name was
coined by Portuguese navigators, the South China Sea was known as the Champa
Sea, after the Cham people who established a great kingdom in central Vietnam from
the late 2nd to the
17th century. The Chams had sailboats with outriggers, just like the sailboats of the
Austronesians. The Chamic language is derived from the Austronesian language, just like
the Tagalog language. The word “cham” comes from the flower of the champaka tree. This
flower is the symbol of the Cham Kingdom. The Chams are believed to have migrated
from Borneo to central Vietnam. “For centuries the South China Sea was known by
navigators throughout Asia as the Champa Sea, named for a great empire that controlled
all of central Vietnam xxx.” - National Geographic, June 18, 2014
• 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct The South China Sea dispute shall be
resolved “in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law,
including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.”
• After the Philippines filed in January 2013 its arbitration case against China under
UNCLOS, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared that the South China Sea
dispute should be resolved in accordance with “historical facts and international law.”
China Insists on Respect for Historical Facts
• Official and unofficial maps of China from 1136 during the Song Dynasty until the end
of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 show that the southernmost territory of China has always
been Hainan
Island. Official and unofficial maps of the Philippines from 1636 until 1933 show that
Scarborough Shoal has always been part of the Philippines. The first name of
Scarborough Shoal is “Panacot,” which appeared in the 1734 Murillo Velarde map
published in Manila. Ancient Maps of China and the Philippines
• 1136 AD “Hua Yi Tu”
• 1896 “Huang Chao Zhi Sheng Yu Di Quan Tu” or The Qing Empire’s Complete Map
of All Provinces. During the Chinese dynasties, Hainan Island was a part of
Guangdong Province. Hainan became a separate province only in 1988.
• China’s Southernmost Territory Through the Dynasties - Hainan
• 1734 Murillo Velarde Map
• 1695 Coronelli Map of Southeast Asia This 1695 map, entitled Isole dell’ Indie, shows
the Spratlys as part of the Philippines. This map was created by the Venetian
Vincenzo Coronelli, a Franciscan monk. The map was published in Venice in 1695.
 Coronelli, famous for his atlases and globes, became the Father General of the
Franciscan Order. The Franciscans arrived in the Philippines in 1578.
• 1899 “Islas Filipinas, Mapa General Observatorio de Manila.” Published in 1899 in
Washington, D.C. by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
• When the Qing Dynasty ended in 1912, the Chinese republicans led by Dr. Sun Yat
Sen established the Republic of China. The following provisions of five (5)
Constitutions of the Republic of China state:
• . Constitution of 1912 Article 3, Chapter 1, of the Provisional Constitution of the
Republic of China of March 11, 1912 states: “The territory of the Republic of China is
composed of 22 provinces, Inner and Outer Mongolia, Tibet and Qinghai.” As we have
seen in the 1896 map of the Qing Dynasty, one of the 22 provinces is Guangdong,
which includes Hainan Island as the southernmost territory of China. 1896 “Huang
Chao Zhi Sheng Yu Di Quan Tu” or The Qing Empire’s Complete Map of All Provinces
• Article 3, Chapter 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of China of May 1, 1914 states:
“The territory of the Republic of China continues to be the territory of the former
empire.” The editorial comment in the Regulations of the Republic of China
Concerning Rule over Tibet (1999) explains the words “former empire” as “referring
to the Qing Dynasty.” Constitution of
1914
• Official Publication of PROC: Territory of Republic of China Is the Same as Territory of
the Qing Empire, with Hainan Island as Southernmost Border All constitutional provisions
cited are from an official publication of the People’s Republic of China entitled Regulations
of the Republic of China Concerning Rule Over Tibet (China No. 2 History Archives, China
International Press, January 1, 1999). “Former empire” means the Qing Dynasty Page 3
of the Regulations state:
• Article 3, Chapter 2, of the Constitution of the Republic of China of October 10, 1924
states: “The territory of the Republic of China continues to be the traditional territory.” The
Constitution of the Republic of China of January 1, 1937 states: “The territory of the
Republic of China continues to be the territory it owned in the past.” Article 4, Chapter 1
of the Constitution of the Republic of China of December 25, 1946 states: “The territory of
the
Republic of China shall be that encompassed by its traditional boundaries.” Constitutions
of 1924, 1937 and 1946
• As late as 1932, China has been telling the world that its southernmost border was Hainan
Island, but that Hainan Island included the Paracels. In a Note Verbale to the French
Government on September 29, 1932 protesting the French occupation of the Paracels,
the Chinese Government officially declared:
• “Note of 29 September 1932 from the Legation of the Chinese Republic in France to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris On the instructions of its Government, the Legation of
the Chinese Republic in France has the honor to transmit its Government’s reply to the
Foreign
Ministry’s Note of 4 January 1932 on the subject of the Paracel Islands.” xxxx
• “xxx The eastern group is called the Amphitrites and the western group the Crescent.
These groups lie 145 nautical miles from Hainan Island, and form the southernmost part
of Chinese territory.” (Emphasis supplied) xxx [Source: Sovereignty over the Paracel and
Spratly Islands, Monique Chemelier-Gendreau, Annex 10, Kluwer Law International,
2000]
• “Southernmost Part of Chinese Territory” – the Paracels The Paracels - “These groups
lie 145 nautical miles from Hainan Island, and form the southernmost part of Chinese
territory.” China’s Note Verbale to France of 29 September 1932
• 1933 “Zhonghua Min Guo Fen Sheng Xin Tu” Despite Chinese maps that appeared in the
1930s and 1940s showing the Paracels as part of China, China’s Republican
Constitutions of 1937 and 1946 still declared that its territory remained the same as the
territory of the former empire.
• In a document entitled China’s Sovereignty Over Xisha and Zhongsha Islands Is
Indisputable issued on January 30, 1980, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially
declared that the Nanhai island that Guo Shoujing visited in 1279 was in Xisha or what is
internationally called the Paracels, a group of islands more than 380 NM from
Scarborough Shoal. China issued this official document to bolster its claim to the Paracels
to counter Vietnam’s strong historical claims to the same islands. This Chinese official
document, published in Beijing Review, Issue No. 7 dated February 18, 1980, states:
China and Vietnam: Conflicting Claims over the Paracels
• “Early in the Yuan Dynasty, an astronomical observation was carried out at 27 places
throughout the country. xxx According to the official History of the Yuan Dynasty, Nanhai,
Gou’s observation point, was “to the south of Zhuya” and “the result of the survey showed
that the latitude of Nanhai is 15°N.” The astronomical observation point Nanhai was
today’s Xisha Islands. It shows that Xisha Islands were within the bounds of China at the
t i m e o f t h e Y u a n dynasty.” (Emphasis supplied)
• Screenshot from China’s Manila Embassy Website Huangyan Island was first discovered
and drew into China's map in China's Yuan Dynasty(1271-1368AD). In 1279, Chinese
astronomer Guo Shoujing performed surveying of the seas around China for Kublai Khan,
and Huangyan Island was chosen as the point in the South China Sea.
• . Gaocheng Observatory This 12.6 meter high stone observatory in Henan Province is
the only extant astronomical observatory among the 27 that Guo Shoujing built during the
Yuan Dynasty.
• What is the Legal Basis of the Philippines’ Claim to Scarborough Shoal The 1898 Treaty
of Paris between Spain and the United States drew a rectangular line wherein Spain
ceded to the United States all of Spain’s territories found within the treaty lines.
Scarborough Shoal lies outside of the treaty lines.
• However, two years later, in the 1900 Treaty of Washington, Spain clarified that it had
also relinquished to the United States “all title and claim of title, which (Spain) may have
had at the time of the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace of Paris, to any and all islands
belonging to the Philippine Archipelago, lying outside the lines” of the Treaty of Paris.
Thus, Spain ceded Scarborough Shoal to the United States under the 1900 Treaty of
Washington (Treaty between Spain and the United States for Cession of Outlying Islands
of the Philippines, signed November 7, 1900.).
• When the issue of whether Scarborough Shoal forms part of Philippine territory, Secretary
Cordell Hull of the U.S. State Department stated in his Memorandum of July 27, 1938 to
Harry Woodring, Secretary of War: Because of the absence of other claims, the shoal
should be regarded as included among the islands ceded to the United States by the
AmericanSpanish Treaty of November 7, 1900*… In the absence of evidence of a
superior claim to Scarborough Shoal by any other government, the Department of State
would interpose no objection to the proposal of the Commonwealth Government to study
the possibilities of the shoal as an aid to air and ocean navigation. *Treaty of Washington;
boldfacing supplied. Source: A CNA Occasional Paper, Philippine Claims in the South
China Sea: A Legal
Analysis, Mark E. Rosen, JD, LLM [citing François-Xavier Bonnet, The Geopolitics of
Scarborough Shoal, available at www.irasec.com.] (2014) In 1938 the U.S. Had Already
Determined Scarborough Shoal Is Part of Philippine Territory
• From 1960s to1980s, Scarborough Shoal was used by the American and Philippine
military as an impact range for their warships and warplanes. Notices to Mariners were
issued worldwide by American and Philippine authorities thru the International Maritime
Organization of the United Nations whenever bombing runs were made. Not a single
country registered any protest to these military activities.
• The Philippine Navy issued a Notice to Mariners on 18 September 1981 warning mariners
that the U.S. Navy would undertake gunnery and bombing exercises in Scarborough
Shoal. Source: Bajo de Masinloc, Maps and Documents, U.P. Institute for Maritime Affairs
and Law of the Sea/NAMRIA, 2014 Bombing and gunnery exercise using live ammunition
have taken place at 15 degrees 07 minutes North, 117 degrees 46 minutes East within
20 mile radius. The exercises are conducted more or less on a daily basis and likely to
continue indefinitely. Philippine Navy Notice to Mariners in September 1981
• Bureau of Coast and Geodetic Survey, Notice to Mariners, February 24, 1983 Source:
Bajo de Masinloc, Maps and Documents, U.P. Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of
the Sea/NAMRIA, 2014 The missile firing ranges are bound as follows: Vessels may be
requested to alter course within the above areas due to firing operations and are
requested to monitor VHF Channel 16, 500 KHZ o r o t h e r a p p r o p r i a t e m a r i n e
broadcast frequencies for details of firing schedules before entering above areas. The
 Bureau of Coast and Geodetic Survey announces the following navigational warnings to
all mariners and others concerned in surface navigation
• In September 2014, Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou, who belongs to the Kuomintang
Party, which controlled the Chinese mainland government in 1947 that adopted the 9-
dashed lines, clarified the extent of China’s claim under the lines. President Ma declared
that the claim was limited only to the islands and their adjacent 3 NM (now 12 NM)
territorial sea. President Ma unequivocally stated that there were “no other so-called
claims to sea regions.” This express clarification from Taiwan directly contradicts China’s
claim that China has “indisputable sovereignty” over all the waters enclosed within the 9-
dashed lines. Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou Statement
• In an October 21, 2014 interview with the New York Times, President Ma, who earned an
S.J.D. from Harvard University with specialty in the Law of the Sea, stated: “There is a
basic principle in the Law of the Sea, that land dominates the sea. Thus marine claims
begin with land; however, even if it is logically this way, when resolving disputes, it is not
impossible to first resolve resource development issues. xxx.” President Ma Ying-jeou: A
Law of the Sea Scholar
• Scarborough Shoal Why fight over rocks like Scarborough Shoal? What is the value of
these rocks?
• As an island, Scarborough Shoal is entitled to a 12 NM territorial sea around it. This
amounts to 155,165 hectares of maritime space, more than twice the land area of Metro
Manila of 63,600 hectares. Scarborough Shoal
• Okinotorishima
• Japan’s Okinotorishima Rock In Philippine Sea: Preventing Erosion of Tiny Rock This
rock is about 7 inches above water at high tide. Japan reportedly spent US$600 million to
prevent erosion in three Okinotorishima rocks.
• If UNCLOS does not apply to the South China Sea dispute, as when China’s 9-dashed
lines are allowed to gobble up the EEZs of coastal states as well as the high seas, then
UNCLOS, the constitution for the oceans and seas, cannot also apply to any
maritimedispute in the rest of the oceans and seas of our planet. It will be the beginning
of the end for UNCLOS. The rule of the naval cannon will prevail in the oceans and seas
of our planet, no longer the rule of law. There will be a naval arms race among coastal
countries. Why Is it Important to Apply UNCLOS to the South China Sea Dispute?
• 1.  ASEAN-U.S. Special Leaders’ Summit at Sunnylands, California: Reaffirmed the key
principle of: “Shared commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes, including full respect
for legal and diplomatic processes, without resorting to the threat or use of force in
accordance with universally recognized principles of international law and the 1982
United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).” Joint Statement of 15-16
February 2016 2.  European Parliament Resolution of 16 December 2015 on EU-China
relations
(2015/2003(INI): EU Parliament “considers it regrettable that China refuses to
acknowledge the jurisdiction of both UNCLOS and the Court of Arbitration; urges China
to reconsider its stance and calls on all the parties including China to respect the eventual
decision of UNCLOS.” Resolution of 16 December 2015 3. Group of Seven (G7) –
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and United States: “We call on
all states to pursue the peaceful management or settlement of maritime disputes in
accordance with international law, including through internationally recognized legal
dispute settlement mechanisms, and to fully implement any decisions rendered by the
relevant courts and tribunals which are binding on them.” - Declaration of 15 April 2015
World Support for Compliance with Arbitral Decision
• The Philippines today is engaged in a historic battle to defend over 531,000 square
kilometers of its maritime space (EEZ and ECS) in the West Philippine Sea, an area larger
than the total land area of the Philippines of 300,000 square kilometers. This huge
maritime space is part of Philippine national territory since the Constitution defines the
“national territory” to include “the seabed, the subsoil, xxx and other submarine areas”
over which the Philippines has “sovereignty or jurisdiction.” Under UNCLOS, the
Philippines has
“jurisdiction” over this huge maritime space. Can the Philippines prevent China from
gobbling up this huge maritime space? All citizens of the Philippines - both government
personnel and private individuals – have a solemn duty to prevent the loss of this huge
maritime space. It is a duty we owe to ourselves, and to future generations of Filipinos.
The Historic Battle for the West Philippine Sea
THE RISE AND FALL OF ISIS

• They came out of the desert promising death and destruction to all those who opposse
them; they establish a caliphate that ruled over millions of people Their 5 year reign of
terror was short lived.
• ISIS is a death cult.
• Now, the caliphate is destroyed.

SPRING OF 2019
ISIS was losing
• Surrounded in the little syrian town called Baghus

ETHNIC KURDS
• A key ally in the fight to defeat ISIS

UNITED STATES AND THE KURDS

• Joint war plan; a partnership
• U.S military drop bombs from above, Kurdiah fighters does the grunt work
• Either they surrender or we kill them
• The operation to strangle baboos went on for weeks
• The battle for bagooz was over; where Islamic state was defeated, where ISIS made their
last stand and lost

AFTER THE WAR THOUSAND OF PEOPLE EMERGE FROM BAGHUZ

• Stunned, starved and had nowhere to go; wife and children of ISIS fighters
• Given food and water before taken to refugee camp
• Thousand of radicals were sent to refugee camps
• Even hundred of ISIS men surrendered; they claimed they are just cooks and drivers,
innocent individuals
• Interrogated before marched off to prison

WARREN CHRISTOPER CLARK

• Recruit from sugarland texas
• Claimed that ISIS videos was only part of what ISIS is all about
• Back in U.S facing charges providing material support to ISIS, if convicted he faces up to
20 years in prison

ISIS
• Fanatical view of Islam on videos and the likes

ZAYD
• From carribean, claims to be working for ISIS medical corps
• Kurdish military claims he’s a leader
• A “believer”
• Remajns in kurdish custody

“ISIS lives in our heart”

• Women and children raise their fingers in the air just like what they’re taught to implying
that there’s one true God that cannot be defeated
SPRAWLING SEA OF TENTS IN NORTHERN SYRIA
• Home to 65,000 people
• The families of ISIS fighters are kept here until their home country figure out what to do
with them
• The government dont want them back

HODA MUTHANA
• Daughter of a diplomat from yemen
• Age 20 left U.S and her privto join ISIS
• Ardent believer
• Wedded to the cause; marrying 3 ISIS fighters one after another
• 2 dead; 1 divorced
• Claimed that women doesn’t have any role in the battle other than being a wife

ISIS had women-only brigade

• Enforces, Part of the feared morality police,
• The HANSA brigade
• These women who are responsible for policing nor punishing other women
• Tour markets, take part in raids, take women who are violating the dress code to their
headquarters for punishment
• Punishable offenses ranged from standing too close to a man, consuming alcohol or even
just having a hint of a pattern on ther black abayas
• Lashes or whipping; there’s this woman who refused to go to the headquarters instead of
20 lashes, she received 40 for not abiding
• More serious crimes like adultery; punishment was death by stoning
• These women were not mere followers but were committed disciples enforcing obedience
Helped one of the Islamic states’ most disturbing practices = sexual slavery

UM ASMA, another hansa member

• Received military and liked it
• Public executions went too far for her sensibilities
• The way body were displayed for executions were disgusting; they leave it there for weeks

YAZIDIS
• Northern iraq, captured towns long inhabited by long inhabitant called yazidis
• Non-muslims with a secretive religion; ISIS claimed they worshipped the devil
• Yazidi men were killed on the spot
• Yazidi girls of any age were taken as ranima; spoils of war to be distributed among ISIS
fighters
• Girl;s dont want to go but they beat them and drsg them away by force
• ISIS establish a market where fighters buy and sell their captives
• Men in the video were laughing as they inspected more than 80 yazidi girls, picking out
the one they desired.
• Farida was raped repeatedly for 3 months
• They raped girls as young as 8
• Hawaeda, 12 years old; she didnt know what raped meant

ISIS cubs
ISIS women also allowed their child to be turned into murderers and used this propaganda
in deeply disturbing scenes
• Children; isolated, indoctrinated and given military training
 • From playing soldiers to being soldiers
• The stone-called killers
• Muhammad doesnt want to be an ISIS cub and escaped trainings so ISIS made an
example of him; they chopped off the 14 year old’s opposite hand and foot, he can’t afford
to go to hospital
• ISIS targeted children; they give aboy some money or a bicycle; ISIS women are equally
responsible for such

Women are the backbone of ISIS, the ones who held the group together and made some of its
worst atrocities possible

FALSE PROMISES THAT LURED RECRUITS TO ISIS; VIOLENT TRUTH OF LIFE INSIDE
THE CALIPHATE
• Black flag of ISIS spread across the muslim world like a plague according to Islamic states
own propaganda, this was god’s will for told by the prophet mohammad
• ISIS said it was fulfilling a divine mission and naive believers flopped to be part of it
• ISIS claimed that they would herald a new Islamic golden age and create a pure state for
muslims the caliphate
• ISIS promised to restore muslim pride and prestige = it means power
• It means honor and dignity after embarrassment and failure
• Saw muslims in disarray, weakness, loss and failure
• “If we would establish a caliphate, everything would fall into play and we’d all live happily
ever after”
• Tens of thousand of fighters believed the Islamic state was their destiny; destroyed their
passports to show their commitment to the caliphate
• “There was no going back”
• “Feeling alienated and being pushed towards being identified as another” ; convinced the
world, especially America was against muslims
• Radicalism;joining ISIS seemed as a right thing to do.
• The most powerful weapon in the ISIS arsenal turned out to be a propaganda
• A media blitz that drew in thousand of new recruits
• Good vs evil; isis were the good guy
• Belief: they were noble warriors on a divine mission to bring pride back to Islam
• ISIS wanted thugs and criminals
• ISIS = 2.0 version of terrorists
• ISIS leaders weren’t just terrifying the outside world, they were also spreading fesr among
their own believers

ISLAMIC UTOPIA = DYSTOPIA

• Execute people for things which even in islamic law would not be executed for.
• Everything becomes a capital offense because they are a death cult
• Islamic’s murderous regime did nothing to restore muslim pride and its appetite for
gruesome publicity seems limitless

JIHADI JOHN
• “Muhammad emwazi”
• Used to be a petty criminal back home
 1
Topic 1, Module 7

Became ISIS executioner

• Responsible for holding, torturing and beheading 27 foreign hostages including 4
americans
• Taunted Pres. Obama
• Murdered James Foley on camera

WAR IN IRAQ
• Ashamed after defeat at the hands of Americans and angered by american back-shiad
government; ISIS was formed by sunni extremists who believed Al qaeda was too soft
• Their tactics were as old as history but remained brutally effective
• “Killed or be boiled alive or your women will be raped”
• The group’s reputation of savagery was often enough to strike fear into their enemies
• It got so bad 30 thousands of iraqi soldiers dropped their weapons and fled rather than
stand up to less than a thousand of ISIS fighters Cities fell one by one

OIL FIELDS IN IRAQ

• Derazur, sinjar, ramadi and fallujah even Saddam Hussein’s hometown of tikrit all fell
to ISIS
• United States and its allies seemed powerless to stop them

SUMMER OF 2014
• Something extraordinary happened
• ISIS reached one little town called Kobani in northern syria; right on the border
separating turkey and syria
• The world media and hundreds of syrian refugees watched helplessly from the turkish
side as black clad isis fighters advanced on the town; isis are unopposed
• U.S govt: “kobani just wasn’t worth saving”
• Kobani people stood their ground and fought
• Firefights were underway, ISIS had already captured more than half the twon but
people of Kobani were trying to hang on

Brave resistance fighters were ethinic kurds: a minority group of millions in the
middle east that has been striving for independence for centuries
• Organized into a militia unlike anything else in the region: secular, socialist, egalitarian:
proudly feminist where men and women sharing power equally and fighting shoulder
to shoulder
• Gen. Jonathan Braga; led the unit that fought side by side with the kurd
Kobani fighters were committed, dedicated and formidable.
• Quickly expanded the first batch of 50 american advisors sent in to help the kurds
soon grew to 2000.
• Kurds were willing to fight and die
• For the allies, Kobani was a turning point
• Four years later, it was all over
• Kobani town hall was back up and running holding a meeting of the women’s right
committee
• AZUMA: this is history, even if nobody writes about it, no one can deny

EDGE OF KOBANI
There’s a graveyard for those who died fighting ISIS
• The kurds lost 11,000 people in all The U.S and the world owes them
• Unfortunately, they’re being abandoned
• Trump announced with ISIS defeated the U.S was heading home

ISIS is making a comeback

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Topic 1, Module 7

• People at the West are the target

• After five brutal years, the caliphate was defeated
• Abu Bakr Al-baghdadi has sworn to fight on, to take the fight to the West Paris,
London, Berlin, Brussles, Manchester, Orlando etc.
• Cities around the world are targeted; hundreds of people had been killed
• Refugees: Ideological hatred of the west still burns in their hearts
• Al-baghdadi has urged his supporters to attack the prisons and liberate their brothers
• The women of ISIS continues to pledge allegiance to the group; several women at the
camp gathered together to beat a woman to death for betraying the cause, guards has
been stabbed
• The so-called ISIS brides were not innocent victims; married jihadi fighters to breed
the next generation of jihadi fighters
• Women understood their roles; isis cubs still believed too
• The only way to fight ISIS ideology is to have Nuremberg style trials because many
detainees themselves still believe they’ve done nothing wrong. “Still has no regrets”
• “Worse decision, I’ve made in my life”
• As long as state is not bringing Islam to the world and people need to know that

MOHIMANUL BUHIYA
• Served a two year sentence for aiding and abetting a terrorist org.
• He coopersted with intelligence agencies and is now free back in the U.S
HODA MUTHANA
• With her son, moved to another detention camp in northern syria for her safety

Islamic state may have been defeated but the threat will live on for years to
come ISIS is not dead and going to be around for a long time

Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism | VPRO Documentary Shoshana Zuboff - the Karl
Marx of our time Monumental Book- THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM exposed
the dubious mechanism of our digital economy. According to Zuboff our personal and private
experiences have been hijacked by Silicon Valley and used as the raw material for extremely
profitable digital products. The term surveillance capitalism is not an arbitrary term. Why
surveillance? Because it must be operations that are engineered as undetectable,
indecipherable, cloaked in rhetoric that aims to misdirect, obfuscate, just downright bamboozle
all of us, all the time. It's about empowerment of the individual. “The future is private.”
Shoshana Zuboff reveals how Silicon Valley deceives us. Misconception of what’s really going
on We think that the only information they have about us is what we’ve given them. Hence,
we think we can exert some control over what we give them and therefore we think that our
calculations are a trade-off here is something that is somehow under our control. We provide
personal information but the info we provide is the least important information they collect
about us. Google knows where we are all the time and what we think through navigation and
search engine Facebook knows our hobbies, preferences and friends They retrieve a lot of
information from the digital traces we leave behind unwittingly. “Residual data” Way back in
the beginning: 2000, 2001, 2002 These datas were just considered just extra data, waste
material Called as “digital exhauster or data exhaust” Then this so-called waste materials
harbored these rich predictive data VPRO Backlight 2006 Marissa Mayer: the search
information we retain we do for quality purposes For example, the google spell checker Takes
more than 30 days worth of dataya to build the world-class spell corrector that we have “We
collect data so we can improve our service” Shosana; they collect data and SOME of it is used
to improve the service to you but even more of it is analyzed to train what they call models--
patterns of human behavior “Once I have big training models, I can see how people with these
characteristics typically behave over time and that allows me to fit your data right into that arc
and to predict what you’re likely to do, not only now but soon and later.” Behavioral surplus
These data streams filled with these rich predictive data Why surplus? Right from the start
 3
Topic 1, Module 7

these were more data than what was required to improve products and services Once you
have behavioral surplus the comprehensive behavioral data of hundreds of millions of people-
-you can start predicting the preferences of specific groups At simplest level, they may predict
the kind of food you’re in the mood for rn and then auction that prediction to their business
customers One of the misconceptions really important for us to move away from is that
surveillance capitalism is something that is only manifest in our lives when we’re online or
somehow it's only restricted to online targeted advertising Conducted at a layer not accessible
to us We have no idea what today’s algorithms can predict about us or what behavioral data
they used to do it VPRO Backlight 2013 Analysis of trillions of terabytes of behavioral data
that we unwittingly leave around the digital domain Big tech sometimes know us better than
we know ourselves They can predict things like our personality, our emotions, our sexual
orientation, our pol. Orientation The predictive value the big tech can glean from residual data
is huge The family photos we post on our FB page contain residual data from which vast
amounts of valuable knowledge can be distilled Not the photos per se--its the predictive signals
that these companies can lift from the photos Uploading innocent snapshots on your facebook
page can have unforeseen consequences. Face; used to train algorithms to recognize
features
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Topic 1, Module 7
 Wallerstein’s World System Theory

Underdevelopment and dependency theory

World Systems theory

• DEPENDENCY

• historical condition which shapes a certain structure of the worldeconomy such that it favors some countries to the detriment of others
and limits the development possibilities of the subordinate economies

• a situation in which theeconomy of a certain group of countries is conditioned by the development and expansionof another economy, to
which their own is subjected.
• Immanuel Wallerstein refined Frank’s dependency theory in his World Systems Theory
Aspects of Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory

 Developing countries are not exploited by individual countries but by the whole capitalist, profit-seeking system in a Modern World
System (MWS), which is a unified system of capitalism

 Modern World System of capitalism is :

1. profit seeking

2. de-skilling of labour (decline in working positions through the introduction of machine technology which are operated by
semiskilled or unskilled workers)

3. proletarianization occurs ( closely associated to urbanization ) adoption of the logic of factory labor to a large sector of services and
intellectual professions
 Modern World System of capitalism is profit seeking

• The pursuit of profit by capitalism results in exploitation

between classes

• Commodification –
everything is turned into a commodity to be bought and sold
Three zones in the MWS

• core/developed nations – these control world trade and monopolize manufactured goods

• semi-peripheral zone e.g. Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, with urban areas like the core but large areas of rural poverty like the
periphery

• peripheral countries e.g.. Most of Africa – they provide primary products for both the semi periphery and the core
CLASSIFICATIONS OF STATES
 CORESTATES

Rich, industrialized
countries

SEMI -PERIPHERY
Interact w/core nations but
currently lack the power and
economic institutions to join
the elite core group
PERIPHERY
Poor, dependent states
Low technology
 Evaluation of World Systems Theory

Wallerstein was one of the first to recognize ‘globalization’ of the world and the international division of labour as the basis of
global inequality
Evaluation of World Systems Theory

Globalization theorists also show

how dependency is not a one
way process, there is
interdependency between the
developing and western world.

(E.g. economic crisis caused by

debt can ripple out and affect
core nations – unemployment
and destabilization of western
currencies)
dependent states
supply cheap minerals, agricultural commodities, and cheap labor, and also serve as the
repositories of surplus capital, obsolescent technologies, and manufactured goods

Capitalist System
 • rigid international division of labor

• dependent states:

1. supply cheap minerals, agricultural commodities, and cheap labor

2. serve as the repositories of surplus capital, obsolescent technologies, and

manufactured goods
ASSUMPTION: that economic and
political power are heavily
concentrated and centralized in the
industrialized countries ( Global North )

governments will take whatever

steps are necessary to protect private economic interests, such as those held by multinational
corporations.
CULTURAL INFLUENCES

• one-way flow of argument suggesting that core nations use their power for systematic advantage to maximize their profits from
their relationships with the other zones.

• All major communication corporations, like advertising, print, wire service, movies, electronics, video or internet, have their
world headquarters in core nations
• have extensive dealing with semi-peripheral nations, including purchasing subsidiaries to ensure market penetration, and have
relatively little corporate presence in the periphery.
EFFECTS

• PERPETUATION of dependency and

exploitation by the core of the periphery states

• UNDERDEVELOPMENT

• IMPOSITION of the ways, habits of the core to the periphery