A World of Regions

COLLEGE OF INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY
THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
LESSON 3: PART I
A WORLD OF REGIONS
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. define the term “global south” from the Third World;
2. Analyze how a new conception of global relations emerged
from the experience of Latin America; and,
3. Analyze how different Asian states confront the challenges
of globalization and regionalization.
A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium
Observing the dramatic in world politics since the end of the Cold War, Peter J.
Katzenstein argues that regions have become critical to contemporary world politics.
This view is in stark contrast to those who focus on the purportedly stubborn
persistence of the nation-state or the inevitable march of globalization. In detailed
studies of technology and foreign investment, domestic and international security, and
cultural diplomacy and popular culture, Katzenstein examines the changing regional
dynamics of Europe and Asia, which are linked to the United States through Germany
and Japan.
Regions, Katzenstein contends, are interacting closely with an American

Imperium that combines territorial and non-territorial powers. Katzenstein argues that
globalization and internationalization create open or porous regions. Regions may
provide solution to the contradictions between states and markets, security, nationalism,
and cosmopolitanism. Embedded in the American imperium, regions are now central to
world politics.
(Source: Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University Press, “Studies in Political Economy”)
NORTH-SOUTH
DIVIDE
The North-South divide is broadly considered a socio-economic and political divide.
- Generally, definitions of the Global North include the United States, Canada,
Western, Europe as well as Australia and New Zealand.
- The Global South is made up of African, Latin America, and developing Asia
including the Middle East.
The Contemporary World 1st Semester, S.Y. 2020-2021 Juvielyn M. Agustin1

GLOBAL AREAS
NORTH SOUTH
- The North is home to all the - The South largely corresponds

members of the G8 (Group of with the third world.
Eight was an inter-governmental
political forum including Canada, - The South as the poorer, less
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, developed region.
Russia, United Kingdom, United
States)and four of the five - The South “lacks appropriate
permanent members of the technology, it has no political
United Nations Security stability, the economies are
Council. disarticulated, and their foreign
- The North mostly covers the exchange earnings depend on
West and the First World, along primary product exports.”
with much of the Second
World. - The South – with three quarters
- The North may be defined as of the world populations – has
the richer, more developed access to one-fifth of the world
region. income.
- 95% of the North has enough
food and shelter.
- In economic terms, the North –
with one quarter of the world
population – controls four-fifths
of the income earned anywhere
in the world. 90% of the
manufacturing industries are
owned by and located in the
North.
As nations become economically developed, they may become part of the

“NORTH”, regardless of geographical location;
Similarly, any nations that do not qualify for “DEVELOPED” status are in effect
deemed to be part of the “SOUTH”
THE GLOBAL SOUTH
- The Global South is a term that has been emerging in the transnational and
postcolonial studies to refer to what may also be called the “THE THIRD
WORLD” (i.e., Africa, Latin America, and the developing countries in Asia),
“DEVELOPING COUNTRIES,” “LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES,” and “LESS
DEVELOPED REGIONS.”
- It can also include poorer “SOUTHERN” regions of wealthy “NORTHERN”
countries.
- The Global South is more than the extension of a “METAPHOR for
underdeveloped countries.”
- In general, it refers to those countries’ “interconnected histories of colonialism,
neo-imperialism, and differential economic and social changed through which
large inequalities in living standards, life expectancy, and access to resources is
maintained.”

GLOBAL SOUTH versus THIRD WORLD
“There is no Third World; There is no global south” – Martin Lewis
In the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, scholars divided the earth into three parts: THE
FIRST WORLD, THE SECOND WORLD, and THE THIRD WORLD. The reigning
“THREE WORLDS THEORY,” however, was conceptually incoherent, combining
incommensurate geopolitical and socio-economic features.
The “FIRST WORLD” encompassed all industrialized, democratic countries,

which were assumed to be allied with the United States in its struggle against the Soviet
Union. Yet, not all were: Finland and Switzerland, among others, maintained strict
neutrality.
The “SECOND WORLD” was anchored on the industrialized, communist realm of

the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites, yet it often included poor
communist states located elsewhere.
The “THIRD WORLD” was defined simultaneously as the non-aligned world and
as the global realm of poverty and under-developed. Poor Soviet allies – Mongolia,
Cuba, North Korea, and North Vietnam (after 1975, Vietnam) – were thus counted as
Third World in economic terms and as Second World in political terms. China’s Cold war
situation was even more ambiguous; a non-industrialized country at the time, it ceased
to be a Soviet ally in 1961 and by the 1980s was no longer an enemy of the United
States. Yet it continued to be commonly mapped as part of the Second World.
(Source: Martin W. Lewis, Nov. 15, 2010)

HOW the “THIRD WORLD” became the “GLOBAL SOUTH”:
The Origins of the Third World…
As published in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences edited by

A. Heelblod (2007), the world was largely divided into several empires in the 19 th
century. Each empire possessed a civilized central and peripheries that were more or
less primitive or even “barbaric”. It is unlikely the citizens of what is now often called the
“Global North” (“developed” or high-income countries) would have given much thought
to the inhabitants of what was to become known as the Third World, and now, the
“Global South”, also called “developing” or low-income countries. When they did, most
would have considered these people to be inferior in some way, by virtue of being non-
white, less educated, or even “primitive.”
“THIRD WORLD” was coined in 1952 by Alfred Sauvy,

a French demographer, anthropologist, and economic
historian who compared it with the Third Estate, a concept
that emerged in the context of the French Revolution. First
Estate refers to the clergy and the monarch, Second Estate
to the notability, and THIRD ESTATE to the balance of the
eighteenth-century French population – as contrasted the
poor countries to the First World (the non-Communist, high-income, “developed”
countries) and the Second World (Communist countries, which thought not as wealthy
as those of the First World, were then characterized by greater order, higher incomes,
and longer life expectancies.)
Most people in the Third World, through rules by European Colonies, lived far
from global sources of economic, political, and military power. Until very recently, most
were subjugated, most illiterate, and few may have been aware that, even then, they
formed a majority of the world population. But such awareness was growing among
leaders within these poor countries, many of whom had been educated, at least partly,
in Europe or America. This awareness and exposure to Western Culture raised
expectations and hopes and inspired many Third World leaders to try to improve
colonial living conditions and win political independence.
Opposition to domination by the First World (Colonization) also grew through

increasing migration and travel, including that stimulated by the two World Wars. Many
troops who had participated in these wars, particularly on the allied side, were from
what soon to be called the Third World.
End of Lesson 3 – Part 1

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COLLEGE OF INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY

THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium

Regions, Katzenstein contends, are interacting closely with an American

The North-South divide is broadly considered a socio-economic and political divide.

The Contemporary World 1st Semester, S.Y. 2020-2021 Juvielyn M. Agustin1

- The North is home to all the - The South largely corresponds

As nations become economically developed, they may become part of the

THE GLOBAL SOUTH

The Contemporary World 1st Semester, S.Y. 2020-2021 Juvielyn M. Agustin2

“There is no Third World; There is no global south” – Martin Lewis

The “FIRST WORLD” encompassed all industrialized, democratic countries,

The “SECOND WORLD” was anchored on the industrialized, communist realm of

(Source: Martin W. Lewis, Nov. 15, 2010)

The Contemporary World 1st Semester, S.Y. 2020-2021 Juvielyn M. Agustin3

As published in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences edited by

“THIRD WORLD” was coined in 1952 by Alfred Sauvy,

Opposition to domination by the First World (Colonization) also grew through

End of Lesson 3 – Part 1

The Contemporary World 1st Semester, S.Y. 2020-2021 Juvielyn M. Agustin4

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