week 7- Chapter 33 Flashcards
middle powers
The end of the Cold War led to the emergence of new regional relationships. Increasingly assertive middle powers, countries with significant economic influence either to their neighbours or in broader trade networks, competed for regional leadership.
Mexico, both highly industrialized and economically integrated with the
The United States emerged as the leader of the Spanish-speaking Americas. Brazil, a rapidly industrializing country with 200 million people and vast territory and resources, emerged as the dominant nation-state in South America. France and Germany re-emerged as central economic powers in Europe. Nigeria and South Africa became the leading powers in sub-Saharan Africa. Turkey, Egypt, and Israel were also regional powers in the Middle East, and Iran increasingly projected its influence over neighbours like Iraq. China, India, and Japan all became leading regional powers, and several other Asian countries
bazaar economy
Most of the growing urban poor earned precarious living in a bazaar economy of petty traders and unskilled labour. In the bazaar economy, which echoed early preindustrial markets, regular salaried jobs were rare and highly prized, and a complex world of tiny, unregulated businesses and service occupations predominated. Peddlers and pushcart operators hawked their wares, and sweatshops and home-based workers manufactured cheap goods for popular consumption. These workers typically lacked job security, unemployment insurance, and pensions.
megacities
Cities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America expanded astonishingly after 1945. Many doubled or even tripled in size in a decade. In 1950, there were only eight megacities (5 million or more inhabitants), and only two were in developing countries. Forty-eight of the fifty-nine megacities anticipated to exist by 2017 will be outside North America and Europe.
multinational corporations
A striking feature of global interdependence beginning in the early 1950s was the
rapid emergence of multinational corporations, or multinationals, which are
business firms that operate in a number of different countries and tend to adopt a
global rather than a national perspective. Their rise was partly due to the revival of
capitalism after the Second World War, increasingly free international economic
relations, and the worldwide drive for rapid industrialization. Multinationals treated
the world as one big market, coordinating complex activities across political bound-
aries and escaping political controls and national policies.
global warming
Environmentalists today are especially concerned about global warming, the
increase of global temperatures over time caused by the buildup of carbon in the
atmosphere that captures heat. As a result of global warming, average temperatures
have increased worldwide in recent decades, a trend that most scientists expect will intensify without curbs on carbon emissions.
feminization of poverty
The disproportionate number of women living in extreme poverty applies to even the wealthiest countries, where two out of every three poor adults are women. There are many causes for this phenomenon. Because
women are primarily responsible for child care in many cultures, they have less time
and work opportunities. Male labour migration increases the number of households headed by women and, thus, the number of families living in poverty. Job restrictions, discrimination, and limited access to education reduce women’s employment options, except in the “informal economy” of domestic service, prostitution, and street vending. Birthrates are higher among poor women, particularly among adolescents, who make up many of the estimated 585,000 women who die every year during pregnancy and childbirth. The poorest women usually suffer most from government policies, usually legislated by men, that restrict their access to reproductive health care and family planning.
green revolution
Plant scientists continued to develop new genetically engineered and hybridized
seeds to suit particular growing conditions. The first breakthrough came in Mexico
in the 1950s when an American-led team developed new strains of wheat that
enabled farmers to double their yields, though the plants required greater amounts of fertilizer and water for irrigation. Mexican wheat production soared. A similar innovation in Asia introduced a new “miracle rice” that allowed farmers to plant two to four crops yearly rather than one. Thus began the transformation of agriculture in some poor countries—
the so-called green revolution.
digital divide
When Windows XP was released in 2001, a Nigerian cocoa labourer would have had to save his or her entire year’s earnings to buy the Home Edition.’ The uneven production and consumption of computer technology has resulted in a digital divide, meaning the gap in access to the Internet, computers, and telecommunications resources. This gap is the greatest between nations like the United States, western European countries, Japan, and nations in Africa and South and Southeast Asia. The digital divide also exists between the wealthy and poor and between urban and rural areas within countries. As the Internet becomes more integral to business, education, and government, communities with no or limited access face growing disadvantages.
How have migration and the circulation of capital and technology continued to shape the world?
digital divide
What challenges did social reformers address at the turn of the twenty-first
century?
gay rights
How have science and technology kept pace with population change?
Green revolution
