Unit 9: Globalization

Globalization

the spread of ideas, products, and practices from one place to another, facilitated by advances in transportation, communication, and technology. 

Social, Political, Human-Environment Interaction, Cultural, Economic, and Technology

Main Events

1918-1919: Spanish Flu infects one-fifth of the world’s population. Deadlier than the Bubonic plague

• Spread through military personnel

• Death toll worldwide was 80 million, 4 times the black death

  • Killed more Americans than war did

1928: Alexander Fleming invented penicillin—antibiotics are born

• Medicine has increased life span of humans and new research and technologies continue to do so

  • Antibiotics such as penicillin were used for soldiers and disinfectant

    • Antibiotics created the risk of superbugs if overused

  • Penicillin interferes with formation of bacterial cell walls and can be taken orally or injected

• Vaccines became widely distributed after 1900

  • Treated polio, measles, smallpox, mumps, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough 

    • Malaria vaccine in progress

  • Vaccines prevent as many as 3 million deaths annually and if they got better could save an additional 1.5 million people

    • Some areas have low access to vaccines

1945: United Nations formed

• 1920, allies powers established the league of nations but U.S. didn’t join and after WWII it disbanded

  • UN established in1945 with 51 member states with main goal of maintaining world peace and establishing international cooperation

• Works through agencies like the IMF and World Bank to provide technical advice and loans to developing nations

• Assemblies of the United Nations

  • The General Assembly

    • Representatives from each state

    • Discusses security and issues

  • Security Council

    • Matters of security and peace, prevents conflict on a large scale

    • 5 permanent members, China, Russia, UK, USA, France

    • 5 permanent members have veto powers

  • Secretariat

    • Administrative arm - set agenda and keep order

  • International Court of Justice

    • Settle territorial and worldwide disputes

    • Often countries with significant power can refuse to work with the laws made by the justice

  • Economic and Social Council

    • Improve standards of living and improve human rights

    • UN works to help developing countries

  • Trusteeship Council

    • Works to help territories become independent countries

    • Not in place anymore, stopped after 1970

• Peacekeeping actions

  • First actions in 1948 related to the arab-israeli conflict

  • Expansion in 1990

  • Not all missions are successful → 1994 rwanda genocide

  • Challenges for Peacekeeping Missions

    • Democratic process is slow

    • Requires debate and consideration so slow changes to problems

    • Expectations of UN troops

    • Cannot pick one side, can only keep peace.

1948: United Nations adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• Using enlightenment principles for declarations of basic human rights such as equality, freedom from slavery

• Other UN Priorities

  • Protecting refugees

  • Establishing camps for rights

  • Feeding the hungry through the World Food Program (WFP)

  • Supporting education, science, and culture

1950s: Green Revolution begins worldwide

• Green revolution was a response to world hunger by new types of food such as wheat, rice, and GMO grains that were resistant to disease, pests, and drought

  • Through biological engineering such as crossbreeding and genetic engineering

  • More fertilizers and pesticides as well as new farming technologies

  • More land allocated for farms

• Small farmers could not keep up with large farms and were forced off of land to large landowners

  • Chemicals and fertilizers damage soil and runoff hurt rivers

  • More automation led to loss of jobs

  • GMO organisms are also debated of whether they would interfere with ecosystems or not

1950s: Artificial birth control

• Birth control pill in 1950s decreased fertility rates and reshaped gender roles

  • Gave more freedom to women

1971: Greenpeace founded to protect the environment

• founded in 1971 to help the environment

  • Multinational agency in over 55 countries

  • Fights against deforestation, desertification, global warming, overfishing

• Works through lobbying, education, direct action such as confronting whaling boats

1976: Ebola outbreak

• Ebola was discovered in 1976 in Congo and is a disease infecting fruit bat, humans, and primates

  • From exposure to fluids of people or animals

  • Causes bleeding, organ failure, often death

  • 2014 outbreak was stopped through public effort

1977: Green Belt Movement begins to combat deforestation

• Started in 1977 with Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai

  • Response to environmental degradation from colonial experience

  • Streams were drying up and food supply was unpredictable

• Green belt movement helped women work together to plant trees to help reestablish water and soil

1980s-1990s: AIDS epidemic

• HIV caused AIDS killing 25 million people by weakening immune system 

  • Spread through exchange of body fluids through unprotected sex, and needles

    • Disease was associated with drug addicts and homosexual men leading to a social epidemic of low funding for research

  • Mid 1990s treatment created to strengthen immune system

    • Treatment was expensive so treatment was hard in poor areas

      • Brazil created policy of free antiretroviral drugs and actually saved government money with less people in hospitals

  • After 2000, WHO, U.S. government and other groups fund prevention and treatment 

    • Still common around world

1981: Deng Xiaoping’s Economic Reforms

• In 1981, Deng Xiaoping became the Chinese leader and the CCP moved away from economic equality for economic growth

  • He said ‘let some people get rich first” in order to grow the economy

  • Steps in economy:

    • Replaced communes with peasant owned areas of land to sell to markets

    • Created surpluses

    • Factories were allowed to make more products for consumers

    • Asked foreign companies to set up factories in economic zones

• Foreign firms worked well in china because of low wages and relaxed environmental laws

• Reopened Shanghai stock market and some private ownership of businesses

1989: Tiananmen Square

• Some chinese believed the economic reforms and political reforms should be paired

  • Wanted freedom of speech and press

  • Resulted in a peaceful student demonstration in 1989 in Tiananmen Square in Beijing

    • Government using guns and tanks killed hundreds of people to stop the demonstration

1994: NAFTA formed

• U.S., canada, and mexico created NAFTA (north american free trade agreement)

  • U.S. and canada were encouraged to build maquiladoras (factories) in mexico to create tariff free goods

  • Many of the workers were exploited for labor in these factories, especially young women

• Labor unions in U.S. complained about NAFTA for unethically taking jobs from them because the conditions in mexico were much harsher for workers

  • Honduras started to use sustainability to manufacture goods

  • More fair labor and education/housing for workers

1995: World Trade Organization (WTO) formed

• General agreement on Tariffs and trade (GATT) reduced restrictions on trade

  • Protective tariffs are taxes on foreign imports and they were lowered by GATT

  • Tariff rates sunk below 5 percent by the 1990s

• World Trade Organization (WTO) took over GATT in 1995

  • They were criticized for having closed meetings favoring corporate interests

  • Some countries could  be sanctioned by WTO for not buying sweatshop labor clothing

  • Battle of Seattle in 1999

    • Protests against WTO in a conference in seattle

1997: Kyoto Protocol first agreement to reduce carbon emissions worldwide

• Developed nations argued that developing nations need to lower carbon dioxide emissions

  • The US refused and china and india did not agree completely

  • Paris agreement in 2015 which the us withdrew from in 2017

• Climate activism

  • Greta thunberg’s activism

  • extinction Rebellion (2018-): civil disobedience in London to bring attention to climate

2001: One day terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. by airplanes 

• The September 11 attacks, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by the militant Islamist extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States on September 11, 2001

2010s: “Arab Spring” revolutions 

• overthrow dictators in North African countries

• Series of anti govt protests throughout North Africa and Middle East organized on social media

2016: British voters agreed to leave EU (Brexit)

• Britain was founding member of EU in 1993 but conservative politicians argued the EU interfered with britains rights to govern itself

  • British prime minister Theresa May failed to create a deal acceptable to both EU and her own political party and resigned in 2019

List of organizations

• Countries join together to create organizations for trade

  • European economic community, Mercosur (SA), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

• GATT, WTO

• NATO

• Warsaw

• World Bank and IMF

  • IMF and World Bank were created after an agreement to fix the  economy

    • IMF to create fixed exchange rates → making all currency in relation to the USD (gold standard)

    • World Bank goal was to give financial assistance to countries that needed to rebuild after the war

  • Now they have changed. Nixon removed USD gold standard dissolving the fixed exchange rate system from IMF

    • Now IMF fights financial crises around the world by keeping tabs on global economy by enacting economic policies to respond

    • IMF = Policies, World Bank = Projects

    • World bank goals to reduce poverty by instituting projects in poor countries around the world

  • World bank and IMF both have criticized for not addressing specific economic issues