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LEARNING GUIDE

Week No.: __6__

TOPIC/S: A WORLD OF REGIONS

1. Global Divides: The North and the South (focus on Latin America)
a. History of Global Politics: Creating an International Order
b. The United Nations and Contemporary, Global Governance
2. Asian Regionalism

EXPECTED COMPETENCIES:
At the end of the week, you must have:
1. explained how regions are formed and kept together;
2. discussed the advantages and disadvantages of regionalism;
3. described the emergence of global economic, political, social, and cultural
system; and
4. reflected critically on the issues confronting the nation-state.

CONTENT/TECHNICAL INFORMATION

A WORLD OF REGIONS:

The gap between the rich and poor countries has become wider. The poor countries
have become poorer and the rich countries have become richer. All over the world 800
million individuals live in extreme poverty. Most of them are found in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America (Central and South America) (Fajardo, Economic Development, p.16.).

1. Global Divides: North and the South (focus on Latin America)

The unfair distribution of global wealth and income has created two different worlds.
One world belongs to the rich while the other one is for the poor. The rich world is called
North while the poor world South. The latter has not been able to eliminate poverty, hunger,
disease, squalor, and ignorance. Their social and economic conditions even become worse.
The North becomes richer. More than 90 percent of the manufacturing industry is located in
the North.

The countries of the South share common situations. They are economically
dependent on the North. They feed the factories of the North with the raw materials and
labour. They are the consumers of the finished products of the North. Most of the countries of
the South were colonies of the North. (Fajardo,F. Economic Development, p 15).

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a. A History of Global Politics: Creating an International Order

Global politics, also known as world politics, names both the discipline that studies
the political and economic patterns of the world and the field that is being studied. At the
centre of that field are the different processes of political globalization in relation to questions
of social power.

What is global politics? What does it mean to suggest that politics has gone global?
Two meanings :(1) global means worldwide, having planetary (not merely regional or
national) significance. Global politics refers to politics that is conducted at a global rather
than national or regional level .Examples: UN almost has universal membership, environment
acquired a global character, economy became global because fewer and fewer countries now
remain outside the international trading and financial system etc.
(https://slideplayer.com/slide).

We have a different meaning of global. The author does not believe that this state of
interconnectedness absorbs all of its units into a global whole. For example, he does not
support the claim that we live in a ‘borderless world’, or the assertion that the state is dead
and sovereignty is irrelevant. Here in the second meaning, global means comprehensive, it
refers to all elements within a system, not just to the system as a whole. Global politics thus
takes place not just at a global level, but at and across all levels-worldwide, regional,
subnational and so on (https://slideplayer.com/slide).

International politics should be described as ‘inter-state’ politics. A state must possess

four qualities: a defined territory, a permanent population, an effective government and the
capacity to enter into relations with other states (https://slideplayer.com/slide).

States are taken to be the key actors on world stage since the Peace of Westphalia
(1648) which established sovereignty as a distinguishing feature of the state. Yet states are
not the only significant actors on the world stage anymore. Transnational corporations (TNC),
nongovernmental (NGO) organizations, and other non-state bodies influence politics.
However although states are not the only actors in the world stage any more, no TNC or NGO
can rival the state’s coercive power (https://slideplayer.com/slide).

A key assumption of the traditional approach is that there is no higher authority than
the state, meaning that the state system operates in a context of anarchy .In the absence of any
other force attending to their interests, states are forced to rely on self-help. Since the
powerseeking inclinations of one state are only tempered by competing tendencies in other
states, conflict and war are inevitable features of the international system. In this view,
conflict is only constrained by balance of power (a condition in which no one state
predominates over others, tending to create general equilibrium and curb the hegemonic
ambitions of all states).

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EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY and is NOT FOR SALE NOR FOR REPRODUCTION.
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The international order created after the World War II has changed due to three
contemporary and central phenomena: the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the attack on the
New York World Trade Canter’s twin towers in 2001 and crash of Wall Street in 2008.
All forms of politics are about power. Modern global politics raises two main
questions about power. The first is about where power is located: who has it? During the Cold
War era, this appeared to be an easy question to answer. Two ‘superpowers’ dominated world
politics leading to a bipolar world order. What happened regarding power at the end of the
Cold War?
In one view, the disintegration of the Soviet Union left the USA as the world’s sole
superpower meaning that it had been transformed into a global hegemon. Alternative views:
power may have shifted away from states generally through the growing importance of non-
state actors and the increased role played by international organizations. Furthermore,
globalization increased the influence of global markets and drew states into a web of
economic interdependence that substantially restricts their freedom of manoeuvre. Due to
new technology and rising literacy rates, soft power (influencing others by persuading them
to follow certain norms) is becoming as important as hard power in influencing political
outcomes
(https://slideplayer.com/slide).
There were reasons for believing in a positive future. The first signs were encouraging:
nations such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, willingly accepted constitutionalism,
the division of power, political parties, a competitive election system, freedom of the press,
the protection of civil rights and freedom of assembly. However, hope and enthusiasm fell
when aberrant happenings began taking place, such as inter-ethnic fighting in former
Yugoslavia. (Santillan, J F., Global Politics, 2013).

The emerging international order is characterized by deepening interdependence. All

major (and minor) powers face challenges of economic growth, energy security, and
environmental sustainability, all of which are intimately interconnected and which no nation
can successfully confront on its own. The global order has been in flux since the end of the
Cold War. Two fundamental trends are reshaping the international system. First, power shifts
at the global level are creating a more diverse international order as emerging and resurgent
players pursue and assert their own interests. The likelihood of effective policy coordination
has been reduced. Diverging interests as well as diverse perspectives on how to approach the
growing number of new and longstanding issues on the international agenda have led to
greater fragmentation of world politics. (Glosserman, B. et.al., The Diplomat. 2012).

b. The United Nations and Contemporary: Global Governance

Global governance or world governance is a movement towards political cooperation

among transnational actors, aimed at negotiating responses to problems that affect more than
one state or region. Institutions of global governance—the United Nations, the International
Criminal Court, the World Bank, etc. tend to have limited or demarcated power to enforce
compliance. Global governance involves multiple states including international organizations
with one state having more of a lead role than the rest.

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EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY and is NOT FOR SALE NOR FOR REPRODUCTION.
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Global governance brings together diverse actors to coordinate collective action at the
level of the planet. The goal of global governance, roughly defined, is to provide global
public goods, particularly peace and security, justice and mediation systems for conflict,
functioning markets and unified standards for trade and industry. One crucial global public
good is catastrophic risk management – putting appropriate mechanisms in place to
maximally reduce the likelihood and impact of any event that could cause the death of 1
billion people across the planet, or damage of equivalent magnitude.

The leading institution in charge of global governance today is the United Nations. It
was founded in 1945, in the wake of the Second World War, as a way to prevent future
conflicts on that scale. The United Nations does not directly bring together the people of the
world, but sovereign nation states, and currently counts 193 members who make
recommendations through the UN General Assembly. The UN’s main mandate is to preserve
global security, which it does particularly through the Security Council. In addition, the UN
can settle international legal issues through the International Court of Justice.

The United Nations has added a range of areas to its core mandate since 1945. It
works through a range of agencies and associated institutions particularly to ensure greater
shared prosperity, as a desirable goal in itself, and as an indirect way to increase global
stability. As a key initiative in that regard, in 2015, the UN articulated the Sustainable
Development Goals, creating common goals for the collective future of the planet.

Global governance is the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public
and private, manage their common affairs. It is a continuing process through which
conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and cooperative action may be taken. It
includes formal as well as informal arrangements that people and individuals have agreed to
or perceive to be in their interest”( https://slideplayer.com/slide/2476125/)

Global governance is not a global government; it is not a single world order; it is not a
top-down, hierarchical structure of authorities, rules and mechanisms, formal and informal,
existing at a variety of levels in the world today. Pieces of GG: arrangements and activities to
deal with issues and problems. They include international rules of law, norms or “soft law”,
and structures such as formal international intergovernmental organizations (IGO’s) and
arrangements. (https://slideplayer.com/slide/2476125/)

Since the 1990’s popularity of this concept Liberals claim that global governance has
become a prominent feature of global politics since the 1990’s as a response and an attempt to
shape the process of globalization An important aspect of global governance has been the
growth in the number and importance of IO’s Liberals claim that since the WWII states
demonstrated a capacity to solve their common problems through different arrangements,
such as IO’s, norms and rules. To support this claim usually the examples of the EU and the
Washington Consensus institutions are being used. (https://slideplayer.com/slide/2476125/)

2. Asian Regionalism

Asian regionalism is the product of economic interaction, not political planning. As a

result of successful, outward oriented growth strategies, Asian economies have grown not

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EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY and is NOT FOR SALE NOR FOR REPRODUCTION.
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only richer, but also closer together. In recent years, new technological trends have further
strengthened ties among them, as have the rise of the PRC and India and the region’s growing
weight in the global economy. But adversity also played a role. The 1997/98 financial crisis
dealt a severe setback to much of the region, highlighting Asia’s shared interests and common
vulnerabilities and providing an impetus for regional cooperation. The challenge now facing
Asia’s policy makers is simply put yet incredibly complex: ( https://aric.adb.org/
emergingasianregionalism/pdfs/)

In the early stages of Asia’s economic take off, regional integration proceeded slowly.
East Asian economies, in particular, focused on exporting to developed country markets
rather than selling to each other. Initially, they specialized in simple, labour-intensive
manufactures. As the more advanced among them graduated to more sophisticated products,
less developed economies filled the gap that they left behind. The Japanese economist
Akamatsu (1962) famously compared this pattern of development to flying geese. In this
model, economies moved in formation not because they were directly linked to each other,
but because they followed similar paths. Since these development paths hinged on sequential
—and sometimes competing—ties to markets outside the region, they did not initially yield
strong economic links within Asia itself. Now, though, Asian economies are becoming
closely intertwined.
(https://aric.adb.org/ emergingasianregionalism/pdfs/)

As more countries adopted labor-intensive growth strategies, multinationals became

adept at shifting production from one low cost economy to another. The emergence of the
PRC, given its sheer size, unsettled regional trading patterns. By the mid-1990s, the PRC
accounted for 20% of Asian trade and 70% of the region’s foreign direct investment (FDI)
inflows. While the PRC emerged as a vigorous competitor, its growth also created new
market opportunities for the region’s finished products, raw materials, and especially
intermediate inputs. In effect, the growth of the PRC helped to catalyse the development of
regional production networks. Thus, while the PRC caused large and often difficult
adjustments in the region’s exports (Loungani 2000, Eichengreen and Tong 2006), it also
injected new energy into Asian trade. Asian exports soared again after the crisis and came to
be increasingly directed toward regional markets.
(https://aric.adb.org/emergingasianregionalism/pdfs/)

Countries, Regions and Globalization

Governments, associations, societies and groups form regional organizations and/or networks
as a way of coping with the challenges of globalization.

Regions are not natural, but constructed, and defined by policymakers, economic actors, and
even social movements (Claudio and Abinales, 2018).

Basic Features of Regions

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EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY and is NOT FOR SALE NOR FOR REPRODUCTION.
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• Group of countries located in the same geographically specified area or an

amalgamation of two regions or a combination of more than two regions
• The words regionalization and regionalism should not be interchanged.
Regionalization – refers to the regional concentration of economic flows
Regionalism – is a political process characterized by economic policy
cooperation and coordination among countries
• Countries form regional associations for several reasons such as:
(1) military defense (e.g. NATO);
(2) to pool resources, get better returns for their exports, expand their leverage
against trading partners (e.g. OPEC was established to regulate the production
and sale of oil)
(3) to protect their independence from the pressures of superpower politics (e.g.
Southeast Asian countries joining Asian to protect themselves from the US,
and other powerful countries such as China)
(4) economic crisis compels countries to come together (e.g. ASEAN integration)

Contemporary Challenges to Regionalism

• Resurgence of militant nationalism and populism

• Financial Crisis (e.g. Greece considered leaving EU to gain more flexibility in
their economic policy, Brexit resulted from anti-immigrant sentiment and a
populist campaign against Europe)
• Countries’ disagreement over the extent to which members should sacrifice their
sovereignty for the sake of regional stability.
• Differing visions of what regionalism should be for. Western governments may
see regional organizations not simply as economic formations but also as
instruments of political democratization. Non-Western and developing societies,
may have different view regarding globalization, development and democracy
(Claudio, 2018).

This module is a property of Technological University of the Philippines Visayas intended for
EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY and is NOT FOR SALE NOR FOR REPRODUCTION.
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This module is a property of Technological University of the Philippines Visayas intended for
EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY and is NOT FOR SALE NOR FOR REPRODUCTION.
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PROGRESS CHECK
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Discuss the following questions in 2-3 sentences only.

1. What are the distinctions of North and the South?

__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________ 2.
Describe something about the following:
a. History of global politics, and
b. Global governance.
__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________
3. What is Asian regionalism all about?
__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

4. Agree or disagree: The Philippines made a good deci sion in joining the
ASEAN. Give an example to justify your answer.
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EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY and is NOT FOR SALE NOR FOR REPRODUCTION.
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_________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________
for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY This module is a property of Technological University of the Philippines
Visayasand is NOT FOR SALE NOR FOR REPRODUCTION. intended

REFERENCES

Aldama, Prince Kennex. (2018). The Contemporary World. Rex Book Store, Inc.

Claudio, Lisandro. (2018). The Contemporary World. C&E Publishing Inc.

Emerging Asian Regionalism (n.d.). Asia Regional Integration Center. https://aric.adb.org/

emergingasianregionalism/pdfs

Fajardo, F. Economic Development. Katha Publishing Co.

Global governance or world order. (n.d.). SlidePlayer - Upload and Share your PowerPoint
presentations. https://slideplayer.com/slide/2476125/

SlidePlayer - Upload and Share your PowerPoint presentations.

https://slideplayer.com/slide/2476125/

This module is a property of Technological University of the Philippines Visayas intended for
EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY and is NOT FOR SALE NOR FOR REPRODUCTION.
 11

This module is a property of Technological University of the Philippines Visayas intended for
EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY and is NOT FOR SALE NOR FOR REPRODUCTION.