Independence Day
Independence Day
Dawn of the Global South
By Jorge Heine
The unwillingness of many leading countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to stand with NATO over the war in Ukraine has brought to the fore once again the term “Global South.”
“Why does so much of the Global South support Russia?” inquired one recent headline; “Ukraine courts ‘Global South’ in push to challenge Russia,” declared another.
But what is meant by that term, and why has it gained currency in recent years?
The Global South refers to various countries around the world that are sometimes described as “developing,” “less developed” or “underdeveloped.” Many of these countries – although by no means all – are in the Southern Hemisphere, largely in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In general, they are poorer, have higher levels of income inequality and suffer lower life expectancy and harsher living conditions than countries in the “Global North” — that is, richer nations that are located mostly in North America and Europe, with some additions in Oceania and elsewhere.
The term Global South appears to have been first used in 1969 by political activist Carl Oglesby. Writing in the liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal, Oglesby argued that the war in Vietnam was the culmination of a history of northern “dominance over the global south.”
But it was only after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union – which marked the end of the so-called “Second World” – that the term gained momentum. Until then, the more common term for developing nations – countries that had yet to industrialize fully – was “Third World.” That term was coined by Alfred Sauvy in 1952, in an analogy with France’s historical three estates: the nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie. The term “First World” referred to the advanced capitalist nations; the “Second World,” to the socialist nations led by the Soviet Union; and the “Third World,” to developing nations, many at the time still under the colonial yoke.
Sociologist Peter Worsley’s 1964 book, “The Third World: A Vital New Force in International Affairs,” further popularized the term. The book also made note of the “Third World” forming the backbone of the Non-Aligned Movement, which had been founded just three years earlier as a riposte to bipolar Cold War alignment.
Though Worsley’s view of this “Third World” was positive, the term became associated with countries plagued by poverty, squalor and instability. “Third World” became a synonym for banana republics ruled by tinpot dictators – a caricature spread by Western media.
The fall of the Soviet Union – and with it the end of the so-called Second World – gave a convenient pretext for the term “Third World” to disappear, too. Usage of the term fell rapidly in the 1990s. Meanwhile “developed,” “developing” and “underdeveloped” also faced criticismfor holding up Western countries as the ideal, while portraying those outside that club as backwards. Increasingly the term that was being used to replace them was the more neutral-sounding “Global South.”
The term “Global South” is not geographical. In fact, the Global South’s two largest countries – China and India – lie entirely in the Northern Hemisphere. Rather, its usage denotes a mix of political, geopolitical and economic commonalities between nations.
Countries in the Global South were mostly at the receiving end of imperialism and colonial rule, with African countries as perhaps the most visible example of this. It gives them a very different outlook on what dependency theorists have described as the relationship between the center and periphery in the world political economy – or, to put it in simple terms, the relationship between “the West and the rest.”
Given the imbalanced past relationship between many of the countries of the Global South and the Global North – both during the age of empire and the Cold War – it is little wonder that today many opt not to be aligned with any one great power.
And whereas the terms “Third World” and “underdeveloped” convey images of economic powerlessness, that isn’t true of the “Global South.” Since the turn of the 21st century, a “shift in wealth,” as the World Bank has referred to it, from the North Atlantic to Asia Pacific has upended much of the conventional wisdom on where the world’s riches are being generated.
By 2030 it is projected that three of the four largest economies will be from the Global South – with the order being China, India, the United States and Indonesia. Already the GDP in terms of purchasing power of the the Global South-dominated BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – surpasses that of the Global North’s G7 club. And there are now more billionaires in Beijing than in New York City.
This economic shift has gone hand in hand with enhanced political visibility. Countries in the Global South are increasingly asserting themselves on the global scene – be it China’s brokering of Iran and Saudi Arabia’s rapprochementor Brazil’s attempt to push a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.
This shift in economic and political power has led experts in geopolitics like Parag Khanna and Kishore Mahbubani to write about the coming of an “Asian Century.” Others, like political scientist Oliver Stuenkel, have began talking about a “post-Western world.”
One thing is for sure: The Global South is flexing political and economic muscles that the “developing countries” and the “Third World” never had.
Read more here.
We the People
By Joseph Jones (edited)
The United States’ founders firmly rejected King George III and the entire idea of monarchy 247 years ago, on July 4, 1776. Political power does not come from some absolute authority of a king over people, the founders argued. Rather, political power comes from the people themselves. And these people must agree to any authority governing their society.
This is why the U.S. Constitution starts with the words “We the People,” and not “I, the ruler.” The founders of the United States of America did not trust everyone’s ability to equally participate in the new democracy, as laws at the time showed. But, because of policy changes on issues like voting, the idea of who actually is represented in the phrase “We the People” has changed over time.
In 1776, only white men who owned property had the right to vote.
“Few men, who have no property, have any judgment of their own,” as former President John Adams wrote in 1776.
As activists – including some women and Black Americans – proclaimed their equality, public education spread, and social thinking shifted. By about 1860, all state legislatures had lifted property requirement for voting. Allowing only wealthy property owners to vote did not align with the democratic notion that “all men are created equal.”
While some states, like Vermont, eliminated the property voting requirement in the 18th century, this shift became more popular in the 1820s and the 1830s. Congress passed the 15th Amendment in 1870, giving Black men and others the right to vote, regardless of race. But that amendment still excluded some people, chiefly Native Americans and women.
Despite the 15th Amendment, violence and intimidation in some states still prevented Black men from voting. State lawmakers also used bureaucratic measures, such as a poll tax, renewed attempts at a property requirement and literacy tests, to prevent African Americans from voting.
The fight over African American suffrage continued for decades, and many courageous Americans protested and were arrested or killed in the struggle to exercise their voting rights. Thanks to the work of civil rights activists – including John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer and Marting Luther King Jr. – public opinion shifted.
In the 1960s, Congress passed additional legal measures to protect the voting rights of Black Americans. This included the 24th Amendment, which outlawed the use of poll taxes, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibited any racial discrimination in voting.
In 1920, women gained the right to vote with the addition of the 19th Amendment, following another decadeslong struggle. Women’s rights activists made the first organized call for female suffrage at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. In the following years, suffragists pushed for constitutional amendments, state laws and a change in public thinking to include women in “We the People.”
Having self-governed for centuries, Native Americans were not legally recognised with voting rights until Congress approved the Indian Citizenship Actin 1924. While that supposedly gave Native Americans the same rights as other Americans, Native Americans faced the same tactics, like violence, that white racists used to prevent Black Americans from voting. Like other people excluded from “We the People,” Native Americans have continued to push for voting rights and other ways to ensure they are included in American self-government.
In 1971 “We the People” again expanded, to include younger people, with the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18. The ongoing Vietnam War shifted public opinion, and there was popular support for the idea that someone old enough to die fighting for their country should also be able to vote.
A government once described by Abraham Lincoln as “of the people, by the people, and for the people” was now going to technically include all of the people. The government has recognized that citizens over the age of 18 have a right to participate in self-government. North Carolina passed new ID requirements in April 2023 that make it difficult for those without current state identification to vote.
Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Idaho are also among the states that are deleting some voters from their rolls – if people do not regularly vote, for example. Arizona has closed multiple polling sites, making it more difficult for some people to vote. Twenty-five states, meanwhile, including Hawaii and Delaware, have passed laws over the last few years that make it easier to vote. One of these measures automatically registers people to vote when they turn 18. There are more examples. The bottom line is, voters have fewer protections when it becomes harder to vote, and American democracy is not as democratic as it could be.
Read more here.