What is the Global South and How Can It Help Topple Western-Led World Order?

Academic and public interest in the term “Global South” has surged over the past year-and-a-half amid the fundamental transformations being observed in the global political, military and economic order during the ongoing NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine and a US-led effort to constrain China’s growing global economic might and geopolitical influence.

As South Africa prepares to host dozens of leaders from Africa and other Global South nations at the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg next week, US business media have sounded the alarm about the Global South's growing refusal to toe Washington’s line on policy against Russia, or the standoff with China. Instead, many have shown a growing readiness and ability to act as sovereign and independent actors on the world stage.

The term “Global South” first emerged during the Cold War to refer to the broad economic divisions between richer, generally industrialized northern nations and developing countries of the south, many of which until as late as the 1960s and 1970s remained part of Western European colonial empires or continued to be subjugated by Western neocolonialism.

Carl Oglesby, an American writer, academic and political activist is widely credited with being the first to use the term Global South in its contemporary meaning, doing so in 1969 in reference to the Vietnam War and to explain how the “dominance” of the Global North through centuries of exploitation gave rise to an “intolerable” global “social order.”

Being a Global South nation can have all sorts of implications, from higher infant mortality rates and lower life expectancy to lower education rates, high levels of poverty, and a higher propensity to migrate in search of a better life abroad (which can in turn cause other economic and social problems, such as a dearth of educated professionals at home, and difficulties integrating in the new home country). At the same time, many of the problems created by wealthier, industrialized Global North nations, such as waste and pollution, often disproportionately affect Global South countries.

The disappearance of the Soviet-led political and economic bloc in 1991, the rise of the BRICS countries in the late 2000s, the trend toward deindustrialization in many Western countries and other developments have sparked academic debates about the validity of a term like “Global South” in the modern world. However, the clear division recently demonstrated between the West and the developing nations in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis, and the lack of willingness by the latter to break off economic relations with Russia and slap sanctions on Moscow, shows that the term continues to retain at least some measure of relevance and validity.

Most contemporary maps showing the divide between Global North and Global South nations run roughly along the Tropic of Cancer, with Mexico and much of the Caribbean, South America, most if not all of Africa, the Middle East, Central, East and South East Asia (but not Japan, Australia or New Zealand) indicated as members of the Global South. The Global South represents upwards of 85 percent of the world's population, and close to 40 percent of global GDP.

While some Global South nations have made dramatic strides in lifting large swathes of their populations out of poverty (and in the case of the BRICS bloc even coming to rival leading Western countries in terms of combined economic might), many, including China and Turkiye, continue to identify themselves with the Global South, with such identification thought to assist in differentiating them from the West and its legacy of colonialism or neocolonialism, and helping to build new political and economic connections based on a sense of solidarity and belonging.

In January 2023, India hosted the first-ever Voice of the Global South Summit, a virtual forum which Delhi characterized as “a common platform to deliberate on the concerns, interests and priorities that affect…developing countries and also to exchange ideas and solutions, and most importantly, to unite in voice and purpose in addressing the concerns and priorities.”

The summit was a success, with representatives from some 125 countries taking part, and the gathering becoming “the largest digital conference of the leaders and ministers of the developing world” ever assembled, according to India’s Foreign Ministry.

While the future potential of the Indian-led initiative is yet to be seen, it is perhaps the most significant attempt of its kind since the 1961 establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement to create a bloc-independent grouping of Global South nations in the 21st century.

The continued rise of the BRICS bloc, which includes four Global South nations (Brazil, India, China and South Africa), plus Russia, a non-Western member of the Global North seeking to establish the foundations of a multipolar world order, justifiably gives rise to hopes that the present socio-economic imbalances and inequalities between the North and South can gradually be resolved via the rise of alternatives to Western institutions and blocs to facilitate the South’s development and independence.

At the same time, growing concerns in Western countries about the rise of alternative power centers in the developing world indicates that the transition from unipolarity led by the United States and its allies to multipolarity probably won't occur without attempts by Western countries to hang on to their former colonial possessions using any and all available means.