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Classifying Countries: How Many Ways Can You Group Countries?

This document summarizes various ways that countries can be grouped or classified, including by economic development, social development, political systems, geographic location, and levels of modernization. It discusses classifications such as developing vs. developed, First/Second/Third World, and lists various economic and political organizations that certain countries belong to like the G7, G20, BRICS, and UN groupings. The classifications are not mutually exclusive and countries can fit into multiple categories.

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40 views51 pages

Classifying Countries: How Many Ways Can You Group Countries?

This document summarizes various ways that countries can be grouped or classified, including by economic development, social development, political systems, geographic location, and levels of modernization. It discusses classifications such as developing vs. developed, First/Second/Third World, and lists various economic and political organizations that certain countries belong to like the G7, G20, BRICS, and UN groupings. The classifications are not mutually exclusive and countries can fit into multiple categories.

Uploaded by

Jack Schwartz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Classifying

Countries
How many ways can you group countries?
How many countries are there?
CGP Grey October, 2013 video 5 mins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AivEQmfPpk
Criteria for Grouping Countries
• Economic development e.g. per capita GDP, per capita electrical
power capacity
• Social development e.g. level of education, life expectancy, infant
mortality
• Political maturity e.g. level of corruption, establish electoral system

Soccer World Cup, South Africa 2010


North-South
• Grouping by geographic location
• Richer countries tend to be located in the temperate regions,
while poorer nations are most often found in the tropical
regions.
• This grouping is not very accurate, but it has been used as a
model for designing aid programs.
Developed and
Underdeveloped Countries
• Grouped by economic development.
• A developed country enjoys a relatively high standard of living
through a strong high-technology diversified economy. High
per capita GDP.
• Canada, USA and Germany: developed countries
• Brazil, Nigeria, China and Jamaica: underdeveloped
• System ignores culture. Countries such as Brazil, China and
India have a very rich and highly developed culture.
Garbage
Management

One significant difference between developed and developing countries


lies in the way they manage their garbage. Several developed countries
have strict rules and procedures in place regarding garbage disposal and
violators are fined heavily. Proper management of garbage is a strong
indicator of a developed society.
First, Second and Third World
• First World nations are industrialized, developed, capitalist
countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, USA and
Japan. These countries are most often within the sphere of
American influence. They share common political and
economic interests.
• Second World nations are former communist-socialist
countries with strong industrial and social development.
Countries include Russia, Poland and Hungary.
• Third World countries are the poor nations of the world as
defined by developing and “south”. These countries can be
very rich (e.g., Saudi Arabia) or very poor (e.g., Mali). Most
often the countries are African, Asian or Latin American.
Note: Second World ceased to exist between 1989 and
1991, when the Soviet system collapsed.
Five Worlds
• First World nations have the highest level of economic and social
development (e.g., Canada, Japan, France)
• Second World nations have high social development but lesser
economic development. Most of these countries are former
communist states such as Russia and Poland. Since these countries are
no longer communist, it can be assumed they will eventually take on
the characteristics of one of the other categories.
• Third World nations include Brazil and Mexico. These countries are in
a stage of transition with increased levels of social and economic
development.
• Fourth World nations are in the early stages of development. Their
social and economic development is in its earliest stage. The group
includes India and Ecuador.
• Fifth World nations have little evidence of development. The countries
include Ethiopia, Haiti and Bangladesh.
Wallerstein’s
World Systems Theory

Core: Industrialized capitalist countries


Periphery: poor, limited political freedom, corruption problems
Core, Semi-periphery and Periphery 1800s

Core, Semi-periphery and Periphery 1900s

Core, Semi-periphery and Periphery 2010


Economic Groups
Group of Eight (G8)
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United
States and Russia
• Largest industrialized democracies
• Account for 66% of the world's economic output.
• Get together to deal with world macroeconomic management,
international trade and developing countries.
• Issues include economic relations, energy, terrorism, as well as
microeconomic issues such as employment, environment,
crime and drugs.
Huntsville, 2010
G8
G8

Canada, France, Germany, Italy,


Japan, Russia, the USA and the UK.
EU: Jose Manuel Barroso, President
of European Commission, and
Herman Van Rompuy, President of
European Council.

Northern Ireland,
June, 2013
http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/g8-golfing-460.jpg

Northern Ireland,
June, 2013
G7 countries snub Putin and refuse to attend planned G8 summit in Russia
March, 2014
G-7 summit at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, June, 2015.
Issues as climate change, poverty and the situation in Ukraine.

From left, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Canadian Prime Minister
Stephen Harper, French President Francois Hollande, European Council President
Donald Tusk, U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Press TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlxkW_g06ZI
2017 G7 Summit
Italy
May in Taormina, Sicily
Summit to focus on Africa and Migration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aUgfuSpvTU
Attendees at G7 in 2017

https://twitter.com/g7
The G7 summit, summed up in one photo
By AMY B WANG The Washington Post
Sat., June 9, 2018
In the photo, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stands behind a long, narrow
table, both hands pressed firmly into its surface atop some documents that are
angled every which way. With as neutral an expression as possible, she stares
directly at U.S. President Donald Trump, who sits on the other side of the divide.

Is he angry? Bored? Amused? Rare is the countenance where all three are equally
plausible, but here it’s difficult to say. Trump’s eyes stare blankly ahead, focused in
the direction of Merkel but not quite affixed upon the German chancellor. His
arms are crossed in front of his chest, revealing below them only the length and
wayward tendency of his tie.

Surrounding Merkel and Trump are a slew of other leaders, each with an
unplaceable gaze. From his partially obscured side profile, one can only make out
French President Emmanuel Macron’s furrowed forehead. Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe is fully visible in the frame, but his thoughts remain just as
inscrutable as the others’, with his arms also crossed against his chest and his
glance somewhere over Merkel’s head.

To Abe’s left stands U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, the only one in the
picture who looked as if he might have been in the middle of talking. If he was,
though, no one appeared to be listening.
G20
• International forum for the governments and central bank
governors from 20 major economies
• Finance ministers and central bank governors
Police officers clash with
protesters during a
demonstration of the G20
summit in Toronto June, 2010
A Sherpa is a personal representative of the leader of a
member country at an international Summit meeting such as
the G8, G20 or the Nuclear Security Summit. The term is
derived from the Nepalese Sherpa people, who serve as
guides for mountaineers in the Himalayas.
BRICS
• Established 2006 as BRIC
• South Africa added 2010
• Large, fast-growing economies and significant influence on
regional and global affairs
• Development bank proposed 2014
Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin
India’s PM Narendra Modi
Brazil’s Pres. Dilma Rouseff
Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping
South Africa Pres. Jacob Zuma
Explain this editorial cartoon:
Goa in October, 2016
5 countries with 42% of the world
population and combined GDP of
over US $16 trillion
Brazil's President Michel Temer, Russian President Vladimir
Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, South Africa's President
Jacob Zuma and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Human Development Index
UN indicator that measures quality of life beyond just national
income.

• Life Expectancy
• Education
• Income
UN HDI
• The report was based on 2016 data, published on December
14, 2017.
• http://hdr.undp.org/en/data
Life Expectancy at birth (2011)
Social Development
• Population pyramids used to identify developed, developing,
least developed nations
UN Least Developed Countries
World Leader that population
has most confidence in

Putin
Merkel
Trump
Xi Jinping
Tie: Jinping/
Putin
Sept., 2017 https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn
Freedom of the Press
• Case of Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout kidnapped for
15 months in Somalia in 2008
Global Development over the
past 200 years
Hans Rosling tells the story of the world in 200 countries over
200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes.

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/200-years-that-changed-the-
world-bbc/#.VA0ce_ldV8E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
The Gapminder World Map was produced by Gapminder in May 2010, with the latest available
data (2008). The chart compares all countries and territories by income and health.
How many countries are there?
• Wonder Why June, 2013 video 15 mins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vsPB_lbo94
• Sporcle World https://www.sporcle.com/games/g/world

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