Social and Political Systems

1
Social and Political Systems

• Chapter 10
• International Futures
• Barry B. Hughes

2
Development and Sociopolitical Change

• 2 conditions
• Individual Life Condition
• Income, Life expectancy, Literacy rate, Fertility
  rate, Calorie availability / nutrition level,
  Access to safe water and air.
• Social Organizational Condition
• Democratization, Social status of women, Income
  distribution, Extent of corruption to economic
  and political life.

3
Important Fact

• The average GDP per capita of Western European
  countries at the beginning of the 20th century
  was only 2,899, about that of the median country
  in the world today.

4
Progress on Individual Life Conditions

• Life expectancy in the richest Western European
  countries in 1900 was 50 years of age compared to
  the life expectancy today of more than 65 in
  countries with GDP per capita around 2,900.
• Since 1960, global life expectancy has increased
  from 55 to 66, the total fertility rate has
  dropped from 4.9 to 2.9, and food calories per
  capita have advanced by about 15.
• Over the same period In low-income countries,
  life expectancy advanced from 48 to 63, the
  fertility rate dropped from 6.1 to 3.3 births per
  women, calories per capita advanced by 25, and
  literacy grew from under 30 to 65.

5
Advances on measures of domestic social
organization

• A third wave of global democratization began
  running in the late 1970s and accelerated with
  the collapse of communism in the early 1990s.
• The number of nongovernmental organizations with
  some kind of intercountry connection has grown
  from 69 in 1900 to more than 40,000 today.
• Countries that we could call democratic have
  varied between 20 and 40 percent of the total
  independent countries in the world since 1900.

6
Varying degrees in the relationships of
development

• Sweet Spot At low but increasing levels of GDP
  per capita, social conditions improve rapidly,
  but at higher levels that improvement slows.
• Common in relationships involving individual life
  conditions
• Steady Slog Across a wide range of GDP per
  capita, social conditions change, but at a fairly
  consistent rate regardless of the level of GDP
  per capita
• Common for social organization
• Systemic Shift Factors other than GDP per
  capita are at work in determining social
  conditions.

7
More Important Facts

• Globally, we (the U.S.) have now reached an
  average GDP per capita of 4,500.
• Global inequality is so great-nearly 100
  countries with total population of 4.2 billion
  people (nearly 75 of the global population) have
  GDPs per capita below 3,000.

8
Conclusion

• The systemic shifts suggest the uncertainty
  that we have with respect to the dynamics of
  sociopolitical change. It is so difficult to
  predict how technology or ideas may change
  underlying relationships.