emerging powers

• 4 emerging powers are?

  Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRICs)
• 4 MINT countries?


  Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey
• BRICS have influenced the economy by creating New Development bank, which provides loans to developing countries - giving BRICS more influence around the world shown with all BRICS having 120% minimum growth in GDP from 2000
• BRICs are increasingly important to political systems also as there's huge support for India to be permanent member of the UN Security council
• • BRICs tend to have a drive for economic growth so have one of the worst impacts on the environment e.g. early 2000s Beijing failed to meet air quality demanded by World Health Organisation due to their reliance on coal
  • Brazil has history for large deforestation in order for infrastructure space and cash.
  • Changes are now happening with BRICs having a more important role in climate change conferences like Kyoto Protocol includes China, Brazil and India which is aimed to tackle climate change
• Brazil strength and weaknesses?

  Economy - strength is produces more than 50% of South America's GDP

  Political - weakness is corruption is very high

  Military - small military

  Cultural -

  Demographic - strength is growing middle class and weakness is high levels of inequality

  Environmental - weakness is forests threatened by illegal deforestation a strength is high supplies of oil and biofuel
• Russia strength and weaknesses?

  Economy - 9th largest economy in the world and large reserves of oil but faces EU sanctions

  Political - permanent member of UN Council but difficult relations with EU and USA

  Military - has nuclear weapons and 4th largest army in the world

  Cultural - limited amounts of cultural exports

  Demographic - has ageing and declining population
• India strength and weaknesses?

  Economy - strengths is widespread English has attracted TNCs a weakness is government has large debts

  Political - a strength is it is the largest democracy in the world and founding UN member. weakness is poor geopolitical relations with Pakistan

  Military - 2nd largest military in the world with nuclear weapons

  Cultural - foods all over the world

  Demographic - strengths is a young population

  Environmental - has large amounts of air pollution
• China strengths and weaknesses?

  Economy - investing in infrastructure projects in other countries to increase trade with rest of the world

  Political - tense relationships with many southeast Asian countries

  Military - biggest army in the world with nuclear weapons

  Demographic - ageing population due to one child policy

  Environmental - major air and water pollution due to rapid and unregulated industrialisation
• what are the 3 development theories?

  • modernisation theory
  • dependency theory
  • world systems theory
• modernisation theory identifies the 5 stages a country has to go through when developing - developed by Walt Rostow. 5 stages are:

  
  

  1. traditional society - very slow development locally
  2. preconditions for take off - identified by growth of export based trade and advancements in transport and communication networks
  3. take off - shown by development of manufacturing industries
  4. drive to maturity - characterised by increasing levels of disposable income and high levels of urbanisation
  5. high mass consumption - urban society with lots of disposable income and consumption of goods
• dependency theory believes there isn't a simple linear progression like modernisation theory, instead its a set of relationships between developed core economies and developing periphery economies.
• 3 features of dependency theory are:

  1. core provides periphery with manufactured goods, aid, FDI, political ideals and dominant cultures
  2. periphery provides core with raw materials, cheap products, cheap labour and debt repayments - periphery can be exploited by core - people who move from periphery to core cause brain drain in periphery countries
  3. superpowers in core are able to control value and volume of trade between themselves and periphery - allowing them to protect their status
• 2 criticisms of dependency theory are?

  • not all countries belong in either periphery or core e.g. Newly Industrial Countries like Singapore and South Korea have been able to develop independently by specialising in particular economic fields
  • theory suggests countries are unable to move from being peripheral nation to core nation, splitting the world into two poles
• Modernisation Theory - useful when describing economic development of superpowers but not political and cultural characteristics
• World Systems Theory shows the complexity of relationships that exist between countries

  • expanded the dependency theory and includes semi-periphery which is made up of emerging economies and NICs - semi periphery dominates periphery but not core
  • countries can move between the regions as they enter periods of development and decline

  a criticism is that it describes countries have power and wealth but does not explain why they do