The Global Divides:

The North and the South

The North-South Divide
• is a socio-economic and
political division of Earth
popularized in the late
20th century and early
21st century.
• Began during the Cold
War
• Soviet Union and China –
East
• US and their allies –
West
Third World
• The term “third world” came
into parlance in the second
half of the 20th century.
• Originated in a 1952 article by
Alfred Sauvy entitled “Trois
Mondes, Une Planete”.
• Definition:
1. Exclusion from the conflict of
the Cold War
2. Ex-colonial status
3. Poverty of the nations
Alfred Sauvy
• A French demographer,
anthropologist, and historian,
is credited with the coining
the term Third World during
the Cold War.
• He observed a group of
countries, that did not share
the ideological views of
Western capitalism or Soviet
socialism.
History of the Third World
• The classification of nations into-worldly segments emerged
during and after the Cold War.

First World Countries Second World Countries

• Highly industrialized • Supported communism and
• Aligned with NATO and Soviet Union
Capitalism

Third World Countries

• Mostly in Asia and Africa
• Were not aligned with either US
or the Soviet Union.
Terms: North and South
• Following the end of the
Cold War and the break up
of the Soviet Union
• Global North: Second World
Countries joined the First
World,
• Global South: The others
joined the Third World.
• The definition of Third world
is less precise within the
historical parameters.
 GLOBAL NORTH GLOBAL SOUTH
• G8 countries • Africa
• US • Latin America
• Canada • Developing Asia including
• European Union Middle East
• Israel • BRIC countries excluding
Russia: Brazil, India, and
• Japan China, which, along with
• Singapore Indonesia, are the largest
• South Korea Southern States
• Australia and New Zealand
• Four of the five permanent
members of the UN Security
Council excluding China
 Global NORTH
• Western World, First World
and much of the Second
World
• Wealthier, less unequal, more
democratic, export
technologically advanced
manufactured products.
• ¼ of the world population
• Controls four-fifths of the
income
Global SOUTH
• Third world, Eastern World
and Latin America.
• Poorer developing countries,
heavily dependent on primary
sector exports, younger more
fragile democracies, shared of
past colonialism by Northern
State.
• ¾ of the world population
• Control one-fifths of the world
income
Defining
Development
“the South lacks the right
technology, it is politically
unstable, its economies are
divided, and its foreign
exchange earnings depend on
primary products exports to the
North along with the
fluctuation of prices”
- N. Oluwafemi
Mimiko
Defining
Development
“ process of social change or (
a change) to class and state
projects to transform national
economies”
- The Dictionary of
Human Geography
Economic
Development
• Is the measure of progress in
a specific economy.
• Advancement of technology
• Economic transition
• > standards of living
• Also measured by following
factors:
• Life expectancy
• Levels of education
• Poverty
• employment
 STATES OF THE SOUTH
• World’s poor regions states called
- Third world countries, less developed countries (LDCs), underdeveloped
countries (UDCs), or developing countries.
• Scholars do not agree on the causes, implications or solutions to
poverty in the global South.
• About a Billion people live in abject poverty – no access to basic
nutrition and healthcare.
- conc. In Africa
- Two decades ago, similar situation in South Asia, but average income per
person there has increased.
- Every 6 seconds a child dies as a result of malnutrition
- 5 million children die every year.
 Brandt Line
• Visual depiction of
the north-south
divide.
 UN MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
• Sets targets for basic
needs measures to be
achieve by 2015
• Cut in Half number in
extreme poverty living in
less than $1 a day
 BASIC HUMAN NEEDS
• Food, shelter and other necessities
- Children are essential to meeting a population’s basic needs.
- As long as people in the global south blame imperialism it will fuel poverty,
extremism and anti-Western sentiment.
• Education allows a new generation to meet over the basic needs and
more through the demographic transition.
- Ability to read and write is the basic components of education
 BASIC HUMAN NEEDS
• Children suffer from hunger in the global South.
- ¼ children suffer from malnutrition
• Healthcare
- 75% of the world’s people living in the global south have about 30% of the
world’s doctors and nurses.
- Biggest killers are AIDS, Diarrhea, TB, malaria, and hepatitis
• Safe Water
- 1/7 people lack access to clean drinking water.
- 40% of the world’s population does not have access to proper sanitation
• Shelter
- 1/6 people live in substandard housing or are homeless altogether
• War is the leading obstacle to the development of global south
Rates of Access to Water and Food
 World Hunger
• Of all the basic needs of people in the global South, the
most central is food.
- malnutrition: lack of needed food including proteins and vitamins
- Hunger: a lack of calories
- 820 Million people (1 in 8 worldwide) are chronically undernourished.
• Rural communities and farming
- Colonialism disrupted the pattern of subsistence farming (growing your own
food)
- Shift to commercial farming (cash crops); displacement of subsistence
farmers from the land.
- Most commercial farming are cash crops, not nutritious food.
Who’s Hungry
 Rural and Urban Populations
• The displacement of subsistence farmers leads to massive population
shift.
- Urbanization: Relocation from the countryside to the cities
- Higher income levels in cities
- Population growth in the countryside stretches available food, water, arable
land and other resources.
• Influx of people can cause difficulties
- Slums
• Land reforms – redistribute large holdings to the poor – land holders
against this.
 Migration and Refugees
• Millions of people from the
global South have crossed
international borders, often
illegally, to reach the North.
• The Home State – no
obligation to let people live
and not state is obligated to
receive migrants.
• Most industrialized states try
to limit immigration from the
global South.
 Imperialism
• Imperialism structured world
order starkly around the
dominance principal – there
are conquerors and the
conquered
• At the same time, imperialism
depends on the identity
principle to untie the global
North around a common
racial identity that defines
non-white people as an out-
group.
 History of Imperialism 1500 -
2000
• European Imperialism
- 15th century with the development of
oceangoing sailing ships in which a
small crew could transport a sizable
cargo over a long distance.
- Decimated indigenous populations.
• Decolonization
- Many former colonies in Africa and
Asia are given independence because
the Mother Country did not have the
money to upkeep the colony.
- Many of the borders of these country
did not take into account religious or
ethnic tensions between groups in
that region.
Conquest of the World
 Effects of Colonialism
• Being colonized had a
devastating effect on a people
and culture.
- People were forced to feel
inferior and adopt the colonizing
society’s way of life.
- White dominion seen as normal
after generations of colonialism
- Negative economic implications
- Resources taken out of colony
- Cultural oppression
Areas of White Minority Rule in
Africa, 1952 -1994
 Postcolonial Dependency
• Development in the global
south did not take off once
colonialism was overthrown.
- Left few people with the
experience to run a state – was
the former job of the colonizing
power.
- Economies had been narrowly
developed.
- Many of these former colonies
were valuable because one or two
resources – too narrow to be
successful globally.
- Government Corruption
 Postcolonial Dependency
• Dependency theory
- Dependency as a situation in
which accumulation of capital
cannot sustain itself internally
- A dependent country must
borrow capital to produce
goods.
• Types of non-colonial
dependency
- Enclave economy – foreign
money is investing in a
developing country to extract raw
materials.