World Politics since 1989. Jonathan Holslag
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thus not materialized. Nationalism never entirely vanished. Memories of previous wars and territorial disputes continued to hang as a dark shadow over trading states like China, South Korea, and Japan. In Europe, despite decades of integration, center politicians continued to struggle with nationalist parties and the vast majority of citizens still identified themselves more as national citizens than as European ones.
Figure 1.5 Economic and political globalization: economic globalization index, share of free countries, and share of world population living in liberal democracies (%)
Sources: KOF, Freedom House, Anna Lührmann, Sandra Grahn, Richard Morgan, Shreeya Pillai, and Staffan I. Lindberg, 2019. State of the world 2018: Democracy facing global challenges. Democratization, 26(6), 895–915.
China vs Global South
During the early post-Cold War period, there was enthusiasm about the rise of the Global South, about Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. But this area was eclipsed by China. China’s growth was the fruit of the hard work of hundreds of millions of citizens and a government that did a better job in attracting the foreign investment that came with technology and experience. This had important consequences.
Figure 1.6 Accumulated length of border fences and walls (km)
Source: Verified news sources. For instance: India building new “steel fence” along Pakistan, Bangla borders. Economic Times, January 10, 2020; Tom Head, 2020. SA’s new R37m border fence with Zimbabwe badly damaged. The South Africa, April 13, 2020; Ilan Greenberg, 2006. Kazakhstan: Fence for part of Uzbek border. The New York Times, October 20, 2006.
The Global South remained beset by poverty. The World Bank stressed that the $1.90 poverty threshold is too low to measure economic distress and proposed higher thresholds. Figure 1.7 shows the number of people below the threshold of US$5.2 per day. US$5.2 per day barely covers food purchases and basic needs. It is not extreme poverty, but it remains poverty. The number of people in the Global South, Africa, Latin America, and South Asia living below this threshold grew by about 500 million.
A critical problem for the Global South concerned the limited availability of jobs. Once more, the difference from China was striking. Between 1990 and 2019, China’s population between 15 and 64 years of age increased by 245 million. At the same time, it created 207 million additional jobs. Between 1990 and 2019, the combined population between 15 and 64 years of age in Africa and South Asia increased by 870 million. But the total number of jobs only increased by 170 million. In 2019, 16 percent of the South Asian population between 15 and 64 years was employed, 15 percent in Africa. Many thus remained dependent on self-employment in agriculture or informal employment in cities (figure 1.8). Yet, subsistence farming in the agricultural sector was threatened by climate change, water shortage, and cheap products exported by the West, and the informal sector in the cities by inflation, crime, and cheaper goods dumped from China.
Figure 1.7 People living below US$5.2 PPP per day (million)
Source: WDI.
Figure 1.8 People employed as share of people between 15 and 64 years old (%)
Source: WDI.
Figure 1.9 Deaths caused by homicide, armed conflicts, and terrorism (thousands)
Note: All data are approximate.
Sources: UCPD, WDI, GTD.
Security
Economic uncertainty is an incubator of insecurity. It is often argued that the world has never been safer than during the high age of globalization. This is correct. In many countries, the homicide rate, which is the number of murders compared to the total population, decreased. Compared to the brutally violent first half of the twentieth century, fewer people were killed in wars. In absolute terms, however, the number of people killed by violence slightly increased, particularly between 2010 and 2019 (figure 1.9). Organized crime, rebellion, and terrorism infested large parts of the world. There can be discussion about the degree to which, for instance, murders and terrorist incidents are now more frequently reported. The fact remains that over half a million people were killed by violence each year. In relation to the population, the death rate dropped. Yet still, many people lived in the dark shadow of endemic violence.
Figure 1.10 shows that globalization has not advanced security throughout the world. Between 1990 and 2004, the number of armed conflicts decreased, but rebounded in the following 15 years. The number of wars remained small. The most lethal wars were those in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Many of these conflicts were protracted and lasted many years, so that international attention diminished. Highlighting the increase in conflict is the number of forcibly displaced people. These include refugees and people who are forced to leave their home but remain inside the country. Between 2004 and 2017, the number of forcibly displaced people more than doubled. The majority were located in Africa and the Middle East.
Figure 1.10 Number of armed conflicts (left axis) and forcibly displaced people (million, right axis)
Note: Major wars have at least 1,000 battle-related deaths.
Source: UCPD.
Global military spending, calculated in constant American dollars, also bounced back to Cold War levels (figure 1.11). Most countries reduced the number of soldiers, but spent much more on modern weapons systems. The United States intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Western global war on terror became one of the most expensive military campaigns in recent history. Russia used military force to repel the West from what was left of the Soviet sphere of influence. China embarked on a massive military build-up to drive the United States out of its adjacent seas. Thousands of ballistic missiles were deployed as a cheap deterrent against US naval prowess. Major geopolitical tensions resurfaced between close trading partners, like China and the United States, and Russia and Western Europe.
