South-South Relations Flashcards
(18 cards)
Global leadership by southern countries
- Emerging Southern powers have sought more regional economic and political integration
- For some powers, like Brazil, this has meant promoting economic development and democratic norms throughout the Global South
- Unlike Western countries, southern countries are not burdened with a history of colonization
Visions of South-South Relations:
Brazil (Leslie Elliott Armijo)
- sought a greater international profile, including a seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and a greater voice at the World Trade Organization (WTO)
- chart a path between orthodox US market capitalism and the new socialism promoted by such countries as Venezuela
- promoted a global development vision built around human security
Visions of South-South Relations: India
- PM Jawaharlal Nehru (in power
1947-64) was one of the three founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement, launched in 1955 at the Bandung conference in Indonesia - The NAM sought to chart a path for newly-independent nations that would steer clear of either superpower
India is now a net creditor to the International Monetary Fund
It contributes to the World Food Programme - It is a major contributor of troops to United Nations forces around the globe (the Blue Helmets)
BRICS
Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (coined in 2001 by Jim O’Neill, Goldman-Sachs banker)
developing or newly-industrialized countries with a growing international influence
- Combined, they account for over 40% of the world’s population and 22% of the Gross World Product (global GDP),
- & their economies and populations are growing faster than the global average promoted a credo of equality among nations, non-interference, and finding areas of mutual benefit
BRICS’ global economic outlook
2009: BRICS countries held their first annual summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia
Discussed the need for a new global reserve currency to supplant USD
2012: BRICS pledged to commit $75B to boost IMF lending power, in return for giving them more sway
2013: BRICS founded the New Development Bank (NDB), launched in 2015 as an alternative to the IMF and World Bank
The NDB’s brief was to assist southern countries with development, focusing on renewable energy resources and infrastructure projects
NDB has been criticized for lack of transparency and for funding ecologically harmful projects (Trans-Amazon Highway in Brazil; coal power in SA)
BRICS as a great-power instrument?
- aim to counter Western countries’ traditional power to shape development priorities
aligns with Chinese and Russian visions to undermine US and European geopolitical power, and to boost their own - 2014, after Russian forces invaded Crimea in the Ukraine, Australian FM Julie Bishop contemplated barring Russian President Putin from the upcoming G20 summit held in Brisbane
- BRICS countries’ foreign ministers issued a joint statement expressing concern;
The BRICS countries and Russia’s Ukraine war
- March 2022: 15 African countries abstained in UN vote to condemn - - Russia’s Feb. 2022 invasion of Ukraine
Jan. 2023: Russian FM Lavrov visits South Africa - South African FM Naledi Pandor said it would have been “simplistic and infantile” to demand Russia’s withdrawal and alluded to the “massive transfer of arms” from Western powers to support Ukraine’s military
Feb.2023: Joint Russian-South African-Chinese naval maneuvers
Climate Change as Security Threat
- reducing the availability of water for drinking and agriculture
accelerating desertification, soil erosion, and the loss of arable land - 2007, the United Nations Environment Program predicted “a succession of new wars” based on competition for food
- Governments in developing countries face increasing challenges ensuring populations’ access to food, and preventing competition from turning violent
- Some food-exporting countries have domestic food shortages
Asad Rehman,
War on Want, on Glasgow COP-26, Nov. 2021
“The rich have refused to do their fair share, more empty words on climate finance. You have turned your backs on the poorest who face a crisis of Covid, economic and climate apartheid because of the actions of the richest. It is immoral for the rich to talk about the future of their children and grandchildren when the children of the Global South are dying now.”
Accelerating climate change impacts
- Earth is transitioning from distributional to existential climate politics
- Distributional: Addressing climate change within states’ current economy; relates to climate change as a future threat
Ex.: Carbon tax vs. emissions caps, subsidies for green energy, transferring money to poorer states - Existential: Addressing climate change as an existential threat; relates to it as a present danger
Ex.: combatting forest fires, rising sea levels, worsening storm patterns
Impacts on Latin America, next 50 years
Rising climate change is a security menace
Total agricultural production could fall anywhere between 12% and 24%
Some countries’ production could be nearly wiped out
In Brazil, an estimated 46M people are food-insecure; such numbers will rise
Climate change as accelerant of instability
“We’re already seeing migration of large numbers of people around the world because of food scarcity, water insecurity and extreme weather, and this is set to become the new normal”
-Brig. Gen. Stephen Cheney, US Army
“Climate change is a strategic security threat that sits alongside others like terrorism and state-on-state conflict, but it also interacts with these threats. It is complex and challenging; this is not a concern for tomorrow, the impacts are playing out today”
- R Adm Neil Morisetti, Royal Navy
Brazilian President Bolsonaro (2019-2022)
Took office Jan. 2019 → forest fires increased 80%
Encouraged logging, burning of rainforest for pasture
Fired career politicians who took climate change seriously
Rejected an int’l aid package to fight forest fires
Created a parallel body to gather data on climate change after the Environment Ministry kept delivering unwanted facts
Sharp increase in murders of environmental activists
Impacts of Amazon burning
Up to 10% more carbon in the global atmosphere
A chunk of Amazon rainforest the size of a soccer field disappears every second
Already leading to more drought, higher temperatures
Highest Stakes
Amazon rainforest being devastated at unprecedented rate
Activists, mainly indigenous, who protect forests often turn up dead
Roads built into rainforest accelerate destruction, killings of indigenous people
Amazon deforestation
Building highways through the Amazon deliver promise of development for isolated communities
But they also facilitate illegal deforestation by armed gangs that kidnap and murder environmentalists
Berta Caceres, Indigenous human rights activist (1971-2016)
In Honduras, Caceres organized mainly indigenous rural communities against the Agua Zarca dam project
Caceres faced many death threats from shadowy forces connected to the state and private corporations (later murdered)
2015: Caceres wins the Goldman Environmental prize
International investors had worked with local authorities “to control, neutralize and eliminate any opposition”
Implications of Caceres’ murder
3 March 2016: Caceres is murdered in her home by gunmen
2017: Eight men are arrested for her murder; three have military Special Forces backgrounds
2021: The former President of a Honduran energy company is arrested for involvement in her murder
Environmental activists, often from indigenous backgrounds, are routinely killed across the Global South
