Comment on the extent to which it supports the concept of
the North/South divide. (7 marks)
The
North/South divide used by the Brandt Commision, led by the Chancellor of West
Germany in 1980, divided the world into the ‘Rich North’ and the ‘Poor South’
using the Brandt line. It roughly went around the world at 30*N.
To
an extent, this theory is true if we look at the fig 5, the estimated
percentage of the population that used the internet in the North is at least
30% or more. Internet usage is an indication of greater globalisation, allowing
greater flow of information to make trading internationally easier. We know
that most of these countries on the ‘Rich North’ are MEDCs such as Canada and
USA, most of Europe including the UK, France and Spain at 40% usage or more,
with Russia and a few Eastern Europe and Mid Asian countries at 20 – 29%. The ‘Poor
South’ showed the continent of Africa such as Botswana and Burkina Faso, and
Southeast Asia have 10 – 19% usage, indicate less technology used. Overall, fig
5 looked like there is a higher estimated percentage of the population used the
internet in the ‘Rich North’ and the ‘Poor South’ have more countries with less
internet usage, supporting the concept.
However,
this is not all true as we can see the ‘Rich North’ have a few anomalies such
as eastern European countries like Ukrain from the old Soviet Union block has
10 – 19% internet usage, and so is Kazahstan. This means the concept of
North/South divide was realistic a few decades back but globalisation require
greater usage of internet for communication. The ‘Poor South’ is experiencing
rapid increase in internet usage in countries such as Chile, Argentina and
Brazil of South America have 40% or more usage. The same is seen with Iran and
the four Asian tigers (Taiwan, Hongkong, Singapore and Japan). Southeast Asian
countries, especially, China, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia having 20 – 29% estimated percentage of the
population using the internet.
The
concept is getting weaker evidently as some countries from the old Soviet Union
block now fall into the categories of ‘developing’ and other countries regarded
as ‘developing’ such as the Asian Tigers now appeared to cross over the divide
so the ‘Rich North’ and ‘Poor South’
Outline reasons for the growth of social and/or economic
groupings of nations. (8 marks)
The
reasons for the growth of Social and Economic groupings of nations is aiming to
advance development of domestic economies, social status and level of
development of member states with examples like the G8, EU, NAFTA and the WTO. Despite the world is increasingly globalised, Groups of
nations is still viewed as one of the best approaches to development - the
process of social and economic advancements that allows improvements in people
quality of life and general well being.
The
creation of the single market for the EU with 27 member states original
objectives was for the free circulation of goods, capital, people and services
within itself, especially important to maintain peace by integrating the
economies of main European powers after the Second World War. This enabled
conflicts to resolve and enable general improvement in welfare, human bonds,
travel and economic interaction – preventing Third World War. It is easier for
residents to move around without a passport, seeking work abroad and tourists
to travel without having to reapply for new visas.
The
EU make it easier for member states to trade with each other by eliminating
issues of exchange rate, hence the creation of the EURO in 1999, easing trade
and travel for both workers and tourists. They also created a custom union with
a common external tariff on all goods entering the market. This free trade
taking place allowed the possibility of increasing competition for new
businesses and resonal prices for households; and let’s not forget the Common
Agricultural Policy offering subsidies to help the development of this sector
which helped the farmer to profit and sustain themselves and ensuring food
security for Europe, eventhough it has led to huge surplus.
The
EU also helped equalise the level of development within by allocating funds to
support underdeveloped region within the EU like Poland which has benefitted
from investment shift to a greater market orientation from a state-controlled
economy, infrastructure funds to improve road system and making it easier to
link with EU neighbours.
Discuss the consequences of groupings of nations. (10
marks)
There are many groups of nations globally sharing common aim but slightly
different. For example, the European Union was set up after WW2 in effort to
integrate economies of power nation to maintain peace; G77 was designed to give
less developed countries a chance to speak up in the international affairs;
World Trade Organisation developed to liberalise organisation of capitalist
countries to prevent intercontinental conflict - just a few. Theoretically,
global groupings should enable member states achieve economic and social
development usually by easing movement of goods, people and knowledge. However,
because each country is at different state of development, have a different
priority of problems and disagreement, not all member actually experience the
same benefits and thus lead to some groups continue to fail to achieve their
goal.
Take the EU as a case study, there are many economic benefits from the
creation of the single market such as the EURO introduced in 1990 - the single
currency that ease travel and trade by eliminating issues of exchange rate. The
EU create a custom union with a common external tariff on all goods entering
the market increasing competition for businesses within bloc and maintain a
reasonable price. The EU allow greater interaction between member states and
increase globalisation. Society is becoming more multicultural and the EURO
helped generalised things within the union. Unemployment was solved due to
migration e.g Polish worker in the UK and the EU allows the free movement of
people without passport.
The EU equalise the level of development within by allocating fund to
support underdeveloped regions of the EU such as Poland to conform to the
standards of the EU. Poland therefore benefited from investment to shift to a
greater market orientation from a state-control economy, infrastructure funds
improved the road system and its links to neighbouring states. The
Trans-European Networks project include the Channel Tunnel and cover 75,000km
of new roads and 78,000 km of new railways. Further more, the European
Development Fund directs aid from the EU to developing countries, 2008-13
estimated to allocate over 10 billion Euros of aid.
This being said, market fluctuations of one single member state affect
the entire group of nation as seen in the Eurozone crisis - the best example of
how the single currency accentuated the vulnerability of the European market.
There are also other problem such as debt defaulting of less developed member
state, the EU has to bail out like Portugal's recent bailout in April 2011.
Some economic sectors have also reduced competition due to sharing resources
e.g traditional fishing grounds of the UK shared with Spain. The EU single
market is restricting the rest of the world thanks to the tariff cuts. The EU
nations are less likely to globalise with other countries and lead to
greater polarisation with the rest of the world.
The best example of negative economic impact has to be the Common
Agricultural Policy which promotes development of the agricultural sector by
taxing imports and subsidising agricultural purchases. This create an unbalance
situation where farmers in the developing world is undercut, making them even
poorer whilst farmers in the EU overproduce butter mountains and wine lakes.
Despite these negative impacts, the EU since then has taken numerous steps in
order to protect the environment such as placing environmental policy
addressing issues of climate change such as acid rain, the thinning of the
ozone laywer, air aquality, noise pollution and waste and water pollution. They
set out aim for all member states to use 20% renewable energy and cut carbon
emission by half by 2020 to 1990 levels. Whether this has been effective or not
is debatable but they are taking action. There are also greater attempt to
protect forests and creates animal habitats such as the Yorkshire Dales and
Peak District.
Overall,
groupings of nations enable greater globalisation, easier trading with
international businesses and making it possible for policies to be taken out in
many countries within the group, especially now that we need global effort to
attack the issues of climate change. Other groups of nations enable small
countries to have a voice in international affairs, have a say into policies
that often impact them the most. However, negative issues can form too where
the single market create an internal trade, polarising the rest of the world
and may lead to a loss in cultural identity due to the multicultural society
being created.
