You are viewing a free preview of this lesson.
Subscribe to unlock all 10 lessons in this course and every other course on LearningBro.
Spec mapping (AQA 7037): Paper 2, §3.2.1 — patterns of global inequality and the development gap; the role of global governance in addressing inequality and injustice; "issues associated with attempts at global governance" including equity and the unequal power within institutions. Strong synoptic links to §3.2.4 (Population, Resources and Development — the development gap, demographic transition, resource access) and to §3.2.2 (Changing Places — intra-national inequality such as the UK's regional divide). AOs: AO1 (measures, the Brandt Line, the BRICS, theories — Rostow, Frank, Wallerstein), AO2 (explaining and evaluating why inequality persists and whether governance can address it) and AO3 (interpreting HDI tables, the Gini coefficient and the Lorenz curve, % change).
Global inequality — the uneven distribution of wealth, income and opportunity between and within countries — is a defining feature of the contemporary world and the ultimate consequence of the systems examined throughout this course. Understanding its patterns, causes and theoretical explanations is essential for evaluating whether global governance can close the development gap.
There are multiple ways to measure inequality, each capturing something different:
| Measure | What it captures | Limitations |
|---|---|---|
| GDP per capita | Average output per person | Hides distribution; ignores informal economy |
| GNI per capita (PPP) | Average income, purchasing-power adjusted | Still an average; conceals within-country inequality |
| Human Development Index (HDI) | Composite of health (life expectancy), education (schooling) and income | Omits political freedom, environment, security |
| Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI) | HDI discounted for internal inequality | Complex; data-hungry |
| Gini coefficient | Income/wealth distribution (0 = perfect equality, 1 = perfect inequality) | One dimension only (income/wealth) |
| Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) | Overlapping deprivations in health, education, living standards | Omits political exclusion |
The Human Development Index (HDI), devised for the UNDP by Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen (1990), was a deliberate move beyond GDP — capturing that development is about capabilities (what people can be and do), not just income. It combines three dimensions equally:
HDI=3Ihealth×Ieducation×Iincome
where each dimension index is normalised to 0–1. The geometric mean (rather than a simple average) means a country cannot offset terrible health with high income — balance across dimensions matters. Sen's deeper point, in Development as Freedom (1999), is that development should be measured by the expansion of human freedoms and capabilities, a profoundly important corrective to purely economic framings and a frequent source of high-level evaluation in essays.
In 1980 the Independent Commission on International Development Issues, chaired by former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, published North–South: A Programme for Survival, drawing the Brandt Line dividing the rich, industrialised "North" from the poorer "South". It runs roughly along 30°N but dips south to place Australia and New Zealand in the "North".
| North | South |
|---|---|
| Western Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, NZ | Africa, South/Central America, most of Asia (except Japan) |
| Industrialised, high-income | Primarily agricultural, low/middle-income |
| High education and healthcare | Lower human development |
| Powerful in global institutions | Marginalised in global governance |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| Communicated global inequality powerfully to a mass audience | Binary division oversimplifies a complex world |
| Highlighted the structural nature of the divide | Ignores the rise of the BRICS (China, India) |
| Put development on the political agenda | Ignores inequality within the North (Appalachia, northern England) |
| Stimulated governance-reform debate | Ignores inequality within the South (Gulf wealth, urban elites) |
| Identified the need for structural change | Static — frozen in 1980; the world has since transformed |
Exam Tip: Always evaluate the Brandt Line's continued relevance. Acknowledge its historical force while arguing it is an increasingly inadequate map of a more complex, multipolar inequality — the rise of the BRICS, and deep inequality within both "North" and "South", break the simple binary.
The BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa — challenge the North–South binary, and have built alternative governance institutions:
| Country | GDP (≈, 2023) | Population | Key features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil | ~US$2.1 trillion | ~215 million | Agricultural power; severe inequality (Gini ~0.53) |
| Russia | ~US$2.0 trillion | ~144 million | Energy power; declining population; authoritarian |
| India | ~US$3.7 trillion | ~1.4 billion | Fastest-growing major economy; tech; persistent poverty |
| China | ~US$17.7 trillion | ~1.4 billion | World's 2nd-largest economy; lifted ~800 million from poverty since 1978 |
| South Africa | ~US$0.4 trillion | ~60 million | Most industrialised African economy; highest inequality (Gini ~0.63) |
The BRICS created the New Development Bank (2014) and a Contingent Reserve Arrangement as alternatives to the Western-led World Bank and IMF — a direct challenge to the governance of inequality, not just its existence. In 2024 the group expanded (adding Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE and others), signalling a wider push for a multipolar order and reform of the Bretton Woods voting structures (Lesson 4).
Walt Whitman Rostow (1960), in The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, argued all countries pass through five stages:
| Stage | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. Traditional society | Subsistence agriculture; limited technology |
| 2. Preconditions for take-off | Infrastructure, education and institutions develop |
| 3. Take-off | Rapid industrialisation; growth becomes self-sustaining |
| 4. Drive to maturity | Industry diversifies; technology spreads |
| 5. High mass consumption | Consumer economy; welfare state; high living standards |
graph LR
A[1. Traditional Society] --> B[2. Preconditions for Take-off]
B --> C[3. Take-off]
C --> D[4. Drive to Maturity]
D --> E[5. High Mass Consumption]
| Strengths | Criticisms |
|---|---|
| Clear, optimistic, linear framework | Assumes one path; ignores colonial legacies and structural barriers |
| Identifies real drivers (investment, industrialisation) | Cold-War, explicitly anti-communist — ideologically loaded |
| Fits early industrialisers (UK, USA) | Cannot explain countries "stuck" despite decades of effort |
| Emphasises investment and entrepreneurship | Ignores the global system (cf. Frank, Wallerstein) |
| Implies development is achievable for all | The UK path is not replicable — Britain industrialised partly by exploiting colonies |
André Gunder Frank (1967), in Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, directly inverted Rostow: underdevelopment is not an early stage but a manufactured product of the global capitalist system.
| Rostow (1960) | Frank (1967) |
|---|---|
| Underdevelopment is a stage all pass through | Underdevelopment is caused by the global system |
| Integration promotes development | Integration on unequal terms perpetuates underdevelopment |
| The Western model is universal | The Western model is not replicable (built on colonial exploitation) |
| Investment + modernisation → growth | Structural change in the global system is required |
| Optimistic — all can develop | Pessimistic — the system is designed for the core |
Frank's dependency theory shares its structural logic with Wallerstein's world-systems theory (Lesson 2): both see inequality as systemic and relational rather than a matter of countries simply being "behind".
Exam Tip: Rostow and Frank are opposed paradigms — use them as the evaluative spine of any development-gap essay. China since 1978 is the killer test case: it partly vindicates Rostow (massive investment and industrialisation) yet defies both — it did not follow Rostow's neat stages, nor did it simply "underdevelop"; it used state-directed capitalism to climb Wallerstein's hierarchy on its own terms, suggesting agency and governance matter as much as either structural model allows.
The development gap is the disparity in living standards between the most and least developed countries. Some metrics have improved globally, yet the gap remains vast:
| Indicator | High-income countries | Low-income countries |
|---|---|---|
| GNI per capita (PPP, 2022) | ~US$52,000 | ~US$1,850 |
| Life expectancy (2022) | ~80 years | ~63 years |
| Under-5 mortality | ~5 per 1,000 | ~67 per 1,000 |
| Access to electricity | ~100% | ~47% |
| Internet users | 90%+ | ~25% |
| Secondary-school enrolment | 95%+ | ~40% |
The answer depends on what you measure and which countries you examine:
A strong answer can explain the development gap, not just describe it. The causes are multiple and interacting, and they map onto the theoretical debate above — modernisation theory blames internal factors; dependency and world-systems theory blame the structure of the global system.
| Category | Cause | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| Physical / environmental | Climate, disease, landlockedness, hazard exposure | Tropical disease burden (malaria) and aridity depress productivity; landlocked states face high trade costs; hazard-prone states lose development gains repeatedly |
| Historical | Colonialism | Extractive institutions, arbitrary borders and commodity-dependent economies were designed to serve the colonial core (the dependency/Frank argument) |
| Economic | Commodity dependence; declining terms of trade; debt; value-chain capture | Prebisch–Singer treadmill; debt service crowds out investment; the smile curve concentrates value in the core (Lessons 2–4) |
| Political / governance | Weak institutions, corruption, conflict | Rent-seeking and the resource curse (Nigeria); conflict destroys human and physical capital; weak rule of law deters investment |
| Demographic | Rapid population growth; the demographic trap | High dependency ratios and pressure on services where growth outpaces economic capacity (synoptic link to §3.2.4) |
| Social | Low human capital; gender inequality | Under-investment in health and education limits Sen's "capabilities"; excluding women from education and work halves a country's productive potential |
The crucial evaluative point is that these causes are contested and interacting. A modernisation theorist (Rostow) stresses internal under-investment and weak institutions, implying the remedy is investment and good governance within the country. A dependency theorist (Frank) stresses the external structure — colonial legacy, unequal trade, value-chain capture — implying the remedy is structural change in the global system. The reality, as China's trajectory suggests, is that both matter: countries with the agency to build capable developmental states and capture higher-value activity (the East Asian "tigers", China) have closed the gap, while those locked into commodity dependence under weak governance (much of sub-Saharan Africa) have not — which is why neither pure theory fully explains the pattern.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the essential case study of a region where the development gap has not closed, and it illustrates every cause above.
| Dimension | Detail |
|---|---|
| Marginalisation in trade/FDI | The region accounts for around 1–3% of world trade and a similar share of FDI despite holding a large and fast-growing share of world population — the "switched-off" geography of Lesson 1 |
| Commodity dependence | Many economies depend on one or two primary exports (oil, copper, cocoa), exposing them to the Prebisch–Singer treadmill and the resource curse (Nigeria) |
| Demography | The world's fastest population growth raises dependency ratios and pressure on services (synoptic link to §3.2.4) |
| Poverty concentration | The majority of the world's people in extreme poverty now live in sub-Saharan Africa |
| Climate vulnerability | Among the lowest historic emitters yet most exposed to drought and flooding (the CBDR equity problem, Lesson 8) |
| Signs of change | Rapid mobile/digital adoption (M-Pesa mobile money in Kenya), the AfCFTA regional integration project, and rising Chinese FDI offer routes to upgrading |
Sub-Saharan Africa shows that the development gap is not simply a matter of "being behind on Rostow's stages": it reflects a structural position in the global system (commodity dependence, marginal trade share, value-chain capture by the core) combined with internal challenges (governance, conflict, demography). It is the empirical heart of the inequality debate — and a reminder that the "good news" of falling global poverty largely bypasses this region once China is excluded.
Foreign aid (Official Development Assistance) is the most direct governance instrument aimed at the development gap, and the debate over its effectiveness is a rich source of AO2 evaluation. The arguments are genuinely contested, with prominent economists on each side.
Subscribe to continue reading
Get full access to this lesson and all 10 lessons in this course.