Like it or not, the Global South expresses a new geopolitical reality

It has been a good year for the Global South. The term refers variously to the world’s poorer and more marginalised states; to their cross-state, postcolonial alliances; and to the spaces these create for their resistance to Northern and Western states’ domination of global economic and political structures.

“Global” signifies the much greater interconnectedness brought on by opening up international markets and investment since the 1990s. “South” subsumes the older Third World and core-periphery vocabulary used to describe and analyse international inequalities, and adapts them to a more multipolar world demanding greater equalities. Overall, the term Global South refers to a shift from a central focus on development or cultural difference toward an emphasis on geopolitical relations of power.

The point was made last May by the British-US policy analyst Fiona Hill in her prescient analysis of how the rest of the world reacted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As she sees it, middle powers or swing states in the major world regions – such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria or Turkey – seek to cut the United States down to size, assert their own interests and values in their neighbourhoods, and exert more influence on world affairs. “They want to decide, not be told what’s in their interest. In short, in 2023, we hear a resounding no to US domination and see a marked appetite for a world without a hegemon,” Hill said.

The pattern is even more marked after the Israeli-Gaza war. The US is seen in the Global South as having sided decisively with Israel after the Hamas atrocities and failing to respond to Israel’s hugely disproportionate assault on Gaza; and the same applies to the European Union, despite its divided views on a lasting ceasefire. Voting in the United Nations General Assembly clearly displays these patterns, with massive support for a ceasefire despite US resistance and vetoes.

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The Singapore-based analyst Kishore Mahbubani says: ‘Where many people in the rest of the world once saw the west as the answer to their problems, they now realise that they will have to find their own way’

Hill says a new vocabulary to describe the emerging world is needed. “Why in fact are they labelled... the ‘Global South’, having previously been called the Third World or the Developing World? Why are they even the ‘rest’ of the world? They are the world, representing 6.5 billion people. Our terminology reeks of colonialism.”

[ Is Ukraine becoming a proxy war between the West and the rest? ]

Those who defend the term argue that it catches the new sense of political empowerment flowing from emerging multipolarity in demands that institutions of world governance such as the UN, the International Monetary Fund, as well as climate decisions, match this new reality more equally.

[ Belt and Road Initiative now more modest yet it has seen China deepen links with Global South ]

The Singapore-based analyst Kishore Mahbubani says: “Where many people in the rest of the world once saw the West as the answer to their problems, they now realise that they will have to find their own way. But does this mean a total decoupling of the West and the rest is inevitable? Absolutely not. We still live in an interdependent world which faces many pressing common global challenges. We have to talk to each other. But we must do so as equals. The condescension must end. The time has come for a dialogue based on mutual respect between the West and the rest.”

Other analysts point to the new diplomatic assertiveness of China in the Middle East, Brazil on Ukraine or the continuing shift towards Asia as the centre of economic dynamism, to argue the same case.

The international liberal order represented for so long by “the West” is giving way to a much more heterodox diplomatic and geopolitical reality. The greatly increased use of the term Global South may well reflect this moment

But does the sheer heterogeneity of states in the Global South not take away from their effectiveness? How can Mexico and Turkey be compared? Look at the income disparity between Malaysia and Zambia. Are regional groupings such as ASEAN in southeast Asia or the African Union not more likely to act together than a comparatively incoherent Global South?

[ Global South is demanding changes to world power structures ]

World politics is definitely in flux, whether seen through the lens of military security, climate policy, or more equal economic governance. The international liberal order represented for so long by “the West” is giving way to a much more heterodox diplomatic and geopolitical reality. The greatly increased use of the term Global South may well reflect this moment and associated demands for change rather than describing a sustained grouping of states or a way of analysing and understanding them. If this is true, 2023 nonetheless looks like the year of the Global South. The US and the EU had to bid into political competition from that quarter as they sought support for Ukraine or Israel.

China and India are in fact in the northern hemisphere, exposing the unreal geography at play in this debate; yet they both used the year to claim southern leadership vis-a-vis the hegemonic US.

From another perspective, the Global South expresses a new geopolitical reality that most of the world is resisting being classified in terms of a bipolar conflict between the US and China.