Superpowers Flashcards
7.1 - What is a superpower and hegemony?
‘A superpower is a country that has the capacity to project dominating power and influence anywhere in the world, and sometimes, and in more then are region of the globe at a time and so many attain the status of global hegemony.’ Alice Lyman Miller 2006
Hegemony - dominance of one state over others.
- EG - USA’s global hegemony is ensured by its impressive military spending
Britain’s navy made it hegemonic in the nineteenth century
7.1 - How can you ‘project power’?
How can you “project power”?
- Geography
- Natural resources
- Demographic
- Cultural
- Political
- Economic
- Military
7.1 - What is hard, soft and smart power and what is their effectiveness based upon?
Hard power eg German Invasion into Poland in 1939
- Based on military intervention, coercive diplomacy and economic sanctions
- Relies on tangible power resources such as armed forces
Effectiveness: Traditional tools such as large armed forces - High national income - Essentially a good economy
Soft power eg USA global dominance via TNC’s such as Coca cola
- The capacity to persuade someone to do what one wants (Wilson) - Associated with intangible power resources such as culture, ideology etc(Nye)
Effectiveness: Persuasive skills - Attractiveness - How good a country is at distributing culture
Smart power: Draws from both hard and soft resources - Underscores the necessity of a strong military but also invests heavily in alliances, partnerships and institutions
7.6a - What is a superpower?
A nation which has the ability to project its influence around the world
7.1 - What evidence is there for uneven patterns of consumption of world resources?
China consumed around half the worlds steel in 2014
- Global steel consumption has increased since 1995 - the entire growth is made up from China
7.6a - What evidence is there that rising superpowers are increasing demand for commodities?
Demand for things such as cars has increased as wealth has risen, in the US (2007) there are 820 cars per 1000 people
7.6a - What evidence is there that rising superpowers have increased demand for food?
World grain production has doubled since 1982
- Increased since 1975 0 the enviro consequences of this include increased greenhouse gases
7.6a - What evidence is there that rising superpower have increased demand for energy?
World coal fired electricity has doubled since 1992
- increased CO2
J - renewable increasing too
7.6a - Explain how superpower resource demand can cause enviro degradation?
- With an increase in demand for food, energy and commodities, CO2 output has risen causing air pollution and the increase in factories to supply commodities has led to water pollution as waste is often dumped into bodies of water
7.6a - What environmental degradation can superpower resource demand cause?
- Commodity demand
- Urbanisation
- Food and energy production
- CO2 output
- Climate emergency
- Soil degradation
- Air and water pollution
- Loss of biodiversity
7.6c - How are global middle class numbers changing and where do they live?
Global middle class numbers are defined by living on $10 to $100 a day
- 2009 - 1.6bil
- 2030 - 5bil - almost all the growth in Asia and the Pacific
Hotspots - Japan, South Korean and Europe
7.6c - What are things the middle class demands?
- Travel (mostly by air)
- Fast food
- Heating/air conditioning
- Cars
- Housing - build cities
7.6c - What are the implications of world middle class growth?
- E-waste
- Global travel
- Rare-earth mining
- Rapid economic growth
- Population growth
- Enviro Kuznets curve
7.6c - What is e-waste and how might it effect the environment and the availability and cost of resources?
Rise in middle class = rise in electronic goods thrown away - contain toxic and valuable materials
Enviro - backyard businesses resort to hammers and burning = local pollution and health impacts - toxic materials in e-waste eg mercury and lead pollute area
A+C of resources - sharp rise in discarded electronics - generating millions of tonnes of hazardous waste putting pressure on valuable resources - risk future production of devices + high costs without recycling
7.6c - What is global travel and how might it effect the environment and the availability and cost of resources?
Higher incomes = affordability of travel - 6400 employees of a Chinese company went to France
Enviro - high carbon emission from airplanes and travelling in 146 buses - pollute local enviro
A+C of resources - more than 4700 rooms booked at 140 hotels - shortage of rooms - potential cost of other rooms rise to bring demand down
7.6c - What is rare earth mining and how might it effect the environment and the availability and cost of resources?
Illegal mining and overcapacity of rare earth = producers making a loss
Enviro - over extraction can lead to harming the earth - smelting the metals = pollution
A+C of resources - price of rare earths may continue to decrease and oversupply will continue to occur
