Differentiation Theory and the Global South as a Metageography of International Relations

Abstract

In this article, I argue that while the Global South has replaced the Third World as the prevalent term for describing structural global inequalities in International Relations, little research is directed at its theoretical implications. I discuss the conceptual evolution of the term from the Third World narrative, interpreting the literature as an implicit rejection of myopic ontologies relying on economic, cultural, or political hierarchies. I then suggest connecting the terminology to the theory of functional differentiation. By avoiding forms inherited from classical social theory, the Global South can be conceptualized in a more productive way that is better attuned to contemporary theoretical discussions.

FORUM: COVID-19 and IR Scholarship: One Profession, Many Voices

“…This essay argues that what Imad Mansour (2017) , Jochen Kleinschmidt (2018) , and others, portray as a Global South perspective on IR theory could help us explain tensions in the relations between the United States and China in the aftermath of COVID-19, and reconsider the relationship between the Global South and the Global North. Although the ongoing epidemiological outbreak has confirmed the unequal distribution of the advantages of medicine and public health in the modern era ( Bashford 2006 , 1), it has also demonstrated how much nations and individuals all over the world share independent of geographic boundaries.…”

“…In this essay, I discuss the new Cold War between the United States and China, and put forward a broad-based definition of the Global South that prioritizes global social processes over strictly geographic criteria. As Kleinschmidt (2018) points out, spatialized inequalities were the main concern of students of the Third World or even North–South relations. By contrast, Global South scholars do not take for granted the ontological priority of territorial units over social and cultural processes that exceed geographic boundaries.…”

Aproximaciones a las realidades de seguridad en el Sur global desde América Latina: una agenda crítica en construcción

“…Para el contexto africano hay una serie de trabajos referentes vinculados a las tensiones de poder en zonas mineras con los conflictos étnicos, tribales y de órdenes autoritarios. En esta oportunidad, los esfuerzos de Asmal y Suresh (1998) con el apartheid y su idea de control social en Sudáfrica, se destacan por analizar elementos clave de las transiciones y lógicas de otredad (Kleinschmidt, 2018). Así, el trabajo de Meagher (2012) sobre la hipótesis de gobernaza híbrida en Nigeria y en la República Democrática del Congo promete una comparación y contraste sobre los sistemas de seguridad locales, los operadores oficiales y la construcción de legitimidades con impactos sociales (p. 15).…”

Reclaiming the politics of South-South cooperation

“…Operating at an international scale, this spatially clearly demarcated South-North binary is manifested in such formations as BRICS and NATO. On the other hand, critical scholarship, and the decolonial literature in particular, conceptualize the Global South (commonly capitalized, see Berger, 2021;Grosfoguel, 2007;Kleinschmidt, 2018;Mahler, 2018;Mignolo, 2011a) also as transnational relational space produced by/through people's and places' shared historical experiences of and resistances to colonial/imperial subalternisation, exploitation, and the ensuing material and epistemic structural injustices: the globalized South as coexisting with the globalized North within and across nationstate territories (countries) in both the geographical north and south (Muhr, 2016, p. 638). 3 Conversely, the Global North, as for instance embodied in the transnational capitalist class (TCC), means that re-Westernisation, and perpetuation of the colonial matrix of power, also involves agents in South countries (usually Westernised elites and petty bourgeoisies), aligned or compliant with the coloniser/imperial powers (Maldonado-Torres, 2011;Mignolo, 2021, pp.…”