Contemporary World

• Global Divide


  Gap between the Global North and the Global South in terms of development and wealth
• North-South Divide


  Imaginary line separating More Economically Developed and Less Economically Developed Countries
• Causes of the global divide

  • Political power
  • Economic dependency
  • Importation/exportation of resources
• Globalization


  Has increased the gap between Northern and Southern countries (rich get richer)
• Globalization


  The process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a Global network of political ideas through communication, transportation, and trade
• Global South


  The area below the North-South Divide, known as the "Poor side"
• Characteristics of countries in the Global South

  • Low Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
  • Low Human Development Index (HDI)
  • Poor standard of living and quality of life
• LEDC

  Less Economically Developed Country
• The main reason for the South's disadvantage is colonization
• The Southern economy was weak and vulnerable because it depended entirely on cotton but was still very profitable</b>
• The South serves as a source for raw materials for the North
• Exceptions to the North-South Divide

  • Taiwan
  • Australia
  • New Zealand
  • Singapore
• Brandt Line


  An imaginary line drawn up by Willy Brandt in 1980s to show the growing income inequality between countries below the line (the 'richer North') and countries below the line (the 'poorer South')
• Differences between the North and South

  • Less population
  • High Wealth
  • High Standard of living
  • High Industrial Development
  • Industry (North)
  • Large population
  • Low Wealth
  • Low Standard of living
  • Low Industrial development
  • Agriculture (South)
• Reasons for the widening development gap between the North and South

  • Lack of Trade
  • Lack of Aid
  • Abundance of Debt
  • Failure of International Organization (e.g IMF, World bank, WTO)
  • Neo-colonialism
  • Adverse Climatic Conditions
• The United Nations has developed a program dedicated to narrowing the divide through its Millennium Development Goals
• Asia Pacific and South Asia


  The region encompassing East (or Northeast) Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and South Asia
• The Asia Pacific and South Asia have become significant in the global system due to robust economic growth and strategic location
• The United States has shifted its foreign policy focus to the "Pacific Pivot", committing more resources and attention to the Asia Pacific and South Asia region
• Externalist view of globalization

  Globalization is an external phenomenon being pushed into the Asia Pacific and South Asia region by world powers
• Generative view of globalization

  The Asia Pacific and South Asia region is an autonomous agent serving as an engine for globalization
• Asia, not the West, was the central global force in the early modern world economy
• Colonies were often laboratories of modernity where innovations in political reform, social imaginary, and defining the modern itself, traveled from the colonies to the colonizers
• Japan and China have shaped and globalized key parts of the world economy through their resource procurement and manufacturing practices
• Are Asia Pacific and South Asia Mere Beneficiaries (or Victims) of Globalization?
• The 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s actually shaped and in many ways globalized key parts of the world economy.
• Japan as a resource poor nation state

  • Embarked on a massive project to procure raw materials such as coal and iron at unprecedented economies of scale allowing them to gain a competitive edge in the global manufacturing market
  • This not only transformed the market for these materials but also globalized shipping and procurement patterns which influenced other sectors as well
  • As Japan's competitive advantage became visible, other countries modeled their practices on theirs further deepening the globalized patterns of procurement and trade blazed by the Japanese
• China can be seen as pursuing a similar pattern of development today.
• China

  • One of the world's largest importers of basic raw materials such as iron
  • Surpassed Japan, the United States, and Europe in steel production
  • The simple scale of China's development is shaping and furthering globalization
  • In terms of its low wage labor and supply chain management, China has also had an enormous impact on the availability and consumption of goods around the globe
• South Asia and, in particular, India is often mentioned in the same breath as China for its scale and impact on globalization.
• India

  • Opened up and emphasized an export oriented strategy
  • Textiles and other low wage sectors have been a key part of the economy, but high value exports such as software development have also been highly successful
  • Playing a key role in global service provision as trends in outsourcing and off-shoring increase
• India and China have also become a major source of international migrant labor - highly skilled labor, semi-skilled labor, and unskilled labor, often undocumented and working conditions can be poor, even deadly.
• Women constitute a large majority of many countries' migrant pool including Indonesian (79 percent), the Philippines (71 percent) and Sri Lanka (66 percent).
• Asian cultures have also spread outward to the West and the rest of the world.

  • Hello Kitty
  • Train to Bushan
  • Kung Fu
  • Anime
  • Astroboy
  • Gangnam Style
  • Pokemon
  • Power Rangers
  • Sushi
  • K-Pop
  • Bollywood
• Pink Globalization

  The spread of a kawaii or 'cute' culture
• Globalization has not been a one-way street.
• The relationship between globalization and the region of Asia Pacific and South Asia shows how globalization is a complex process where regional dynamics must be understood as both a cause and consequence.
• Globalization

  A complex set of interacting and often countervailing human, material and symbolic flows that lead to diverse, heterogeneous cultural positionings and practices which persistently and variously modify established vectors of social, political and cultural power
• Globalization

  A social process which involves a compression of time and space, shrinking distances through a dramatic reduction in the time taken - either physically or representationally - to cross them, so making the world seem smaller and in a certain sense bringing them "closer" to one another
• Globalization could not occur without media.