Hans Rosling is a doctor that utilizes the quantitative approach to global health and development in an entirely new and interesting way. He founded the non-profit Gapminder and his first TED talk "The best stats you've ever seen" in 2006 is a great introduction to the data service and shows some misconceptions people have about the so-called "developing world." This is one of the most informative, enlightening and entertaining TED talks out there about global issues. Watch his latest TED talk here before you answer the questions below.
After watching both Rosling talks and reading chapter 9 in Oneil on LDCs and NICs, do you agree more with Rosling or Oneil about the categorization of countries into developing and developed? Or do you think that what they say is similar? Explain the similarities and differences you find in their arguments and point anything you agree or disagree with. Let me know of any other links or info you think might be helpful to this discussion.
Oneil takes the more traditional approach in categorizing countries and focuses more on the economic deficiencies in developing nations. Rosling, on the other hand discusses humanitarian aspects and standards of living as a measure of whether a country is "developing" or not. Rosling mentions that economic growth and humanitarian growth, such as a reduction in child mortality, should be interwoven. As a country's economy increases by some percent, their humanitarian growth should increase by the same percent. But that is not always the case. Therefore it is important to not only focus on economic growth, but aspects such as child mortality and disease spread as well. I don't believe a country can be classified without taking a look into both aspects. Oneil mentions civil society as something developing countries need as well and focuses on the need for education, a point Rosling makes as well as a way to decrease child mortality. I do agree with Rosling that the standard way of categorizing countries is outdated and flawed and fails to consider many things.
ReplyDeleteBoth Oneil and Rosling emphasize the importance of a strong economy in the classification of a country as "developed;" however, they emphasize the effects of this economic development in different ways. While Oneil emphasizes those aspects of an economy that have a direct reflection its success, such as the versatility of job markets, Rosling was more inclined to look at the social effects of this economic development. His emphasis on child health and mortality rate, while I agree is an important aspect of development, seemed too narrow. Rather, I think Oneil, though outdated in some aspects, takes more factors into account. While I understand that a TED talk is too short to have a full discussion, I feel that if Rosling had looked at all the factors important to the UN that he mentioned in the beginning, rather than looking at just one, I would have been more inclined to agree with his definition of a developed country.
ReplyDeleteWhen O'Neil described NICs and LDCs, he stated that they were categorized by economic development and political institution. Rosling likes to base the progress of countries by the UN's development goals, which focused on more social aspects, such as education and gender equality. It makes sense, however, because social aspects do have effects on the economic ones, and vice versa. O'Neil also looked at LDCs and NICs in a larger perspective, while Rosling focused on more narrow topics, such as child mortality and gender equality. Of course, Rosling didn't have the time to cover every UN development goal in detail, and I believe that he did a good job covering the ones he did.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to give a solid standard for categorizing countries, because so many factors are put into doing so, but I think that both O'Neil and Rosling had good things to consider when trying to place a country in a category.
Biased by my national identity I have come to disagree with Oneil's categorization of countries. Page 221 cites Taiwan as a part of the LDCs and NICs which I understand coming from a rational standpoint but I am also hurt by this pejorative categorization of my country; however, I do like how Oneil differentiates between China and Taiwan, good on you sir. Oneil emphasizes the economic criteria for the labeling of developing and developed which is reasonable because the world is just a function of the economy. However, the economy is not the only indicator of a developed country. Rosling comes from a humanitarian point of view and argues that child mortality rates are more of an indicator for these countries. The question then is which is a function of which? Does fewer child mortality rates lead to a better economy or does a better economy mean fewer child mortality rates? It could be that both are arguing two sides of the same argument. There is an inherent disconnect between some developing and developed countries and Rosling acknowledges this both subconsciously and consciously when he made the two boxes around the graph dividing "Western" countries for others and when he tore out the categorization page in that paper. It may be that the categorization of countries is justified because those that are developed have a responsibility to help that are developing. But this argument is founded on the good will of the people. Regardless of categorization there will be a trend towards globalization. The question is: how we will accelerate this process?
ReplyDeleteI am inclined to follow the traditional classification presented in the O'neil book. Both sources comment on how a strong economy is needed, but after that they diverge, with O'neil talking about economic opportunity and job market successes, Rosling talks about social development and advances. O'neil seems to cover more aspects as well, while Rosling only really focuses on social development (particularly child mortality rates). He was speaking on a short time frame though (TED talks aren't the best platform to pitch an entire idea, only a snippet) and that could be why I view the O'neil definition as more reliable and a better system of classification. O'neil also presents a traditional definition accepted in the west, and it is a classification I am familiar with, leading toward my bias for it.
ReplyDeleteI think that O’Neil focuses more on the economies in the countries that it is categorizing when deciding whether to classify it as industrialized or as a less developed country. It follows the idea that it is the economy that decides other factors like education and health. While O’Neil simply looks at the ways that the economy affects other factors in a country, Rosling looks more toward social factors when categorizing countries. In the TED talk, Rosling feels that improving education for the women who are going to be having children will decrease the child mortality rate in the country. I agree with both O’Neil and Rosling. I think that having a good economy makes it easier to implement things like good healthcare to decrease the child mortality rate, but, as Rosling said, educating people will also help to decrease it, by getting the parents in better shape to take care of their children.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rosling's concept of a modern system of "categorizing" countries into being developed or less developed. ONeil seems to represent an antiquated system of political science that only looks at the economic and political health of a country, but Rosling is concerned more with the social health aspects of a country. However, I think that these aspects often go hand in hand- Rosling pointed out that the child mortality rate of most countries decreases with the education of females, which is interesting if considering the UN classification of certain countries as developed but which also prevent women from being educated. I think that the best model would be one that includes aspects from both Rosling's data and ONeil's concepts. However, as we studied earlier in the year, quantitative data is not always the best method- qualitative data allows room for differences between countries, as every country has its own history and current issues.
ReplyDeleteI think that the formats of the two systems of classification do make the O'Neil system seem better. The TED talk makes Rosling's system look very limited, as he is exploring in great depth few specific examples, rather than providing a more general overview like the O'Neil book. I personally prefer Rosling's system, though, because I think that the many social issues offer a more accurate and comprehensive approach rather than a limited, economically-centered approach. While I do think that the economy is an indicator of a country's development, and that economic development may help to fix the economic issues, I think that Rosling's multiple goals offered a more well-rounded view, which would allow for a more accurate classification.
ReplyDeleteI agree more with Rosling on the categorization of countries. I liked that he was quick to emphasize that we should not take averages of regions to make assumptions about progress, and that he seemed more emotionally invested in the issues. Now, perhaps this is not always the best method, but I think that some subjectivity is important in approach. Rosling focused on solutions - women's education, tangible healthcare - things that can benefit the quality of life for the population rather than a rating, which to me seems detached.
ReplyDeleteI think that both perspectives held similar ideas about big picture causes - economic systems that failed like "overimporting"/"underimporting", as well as neocolonialism and lack of education. But the distinguishing factor was focus on specifics - like Rosling who focused on civil wars, higher education rates (specifically in Sweden), and access to health care/AIDS as causes for specific statistics. This being said, I think that even though the process will be much more in depth/strenuous, that the end result is much more cumulative and accurate in representation of the actual conditions of the country.
Oneil's account of LDCs and NICs demonstrated a large focus on the economic factors involved in categorizing a country as developed or developing. He had a very classic approach that seemed very logical. Roslings account gave a greater emphasis to humanitarian and social factors such as the aforementioned child mortality rates and gender equality. Although I tend to agree with Oneil, I believe although Rosling was very specific due to his short amount of time in a TED talk, he provided a categorization that took vital factors into account, as social factors are definitely important. I also thought the Gapminder website and his idea of compiling UN's stats for the public was neat :)
ReplyDeleteThe problem is categories try to find common characteristics and vastly oversimplify the complexities of international systems and politics. Sure, there are some smaller regional categories that make sense,such a grouping Norway, Sweden, and Finland into the "Scandinavian" countries. And there are also similarities that make categories such as the "Arabic" countries, "Latin America", and "Southeastern Asia" make sense. But to pretend that these countries are similar enough beyond the fact that they are "Less Developed" to be put into a "Third World" group is absurd. These countries all reached their current state through vastly different means, and to put them all into an "Other" category makes no sense. This is why I disagree with O'Neil's method. The page which was simply a list of "Third World" countries all grouped together was almost appalling. Chile, Ghana, India, Qatar, Singapore, and South Korea, all in the same group. Really? Any Third Grader could see that's not right. A label that's put on essentially half of the world is not a category, it's a poor attempt at classifying the rest of the globe that is not "First" or "Second" world. Rosling takes a much more practical approach. Countries do not fall neatly into little labelled boxes like in the physical sciences. Each one is essentially a case study and, while trends are visible, each country is its own exception.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Rosling is much more correct in his analysis, and that is built on a combination of generalizations and the outdatedness of O'Neil. O'Neil places many countries together that simply do not belong together, such as Singapore and Cambodia.
ReplyDeleteDuring Worldquest (And I'm just going to post the link to the main WQ study guide rather than each site, as I'll be referencing many sites on here http://www.worldaffairscouncils.org/2011/images/insert/AWQ2014StudyGuide.pdf), I learned that Singapore is the 2nd strongest economy in the world, behind Switzerland. Is it appropriate to place Singapore in the same "developing" title as Cambodia, who has cemented their place in the high 90s? Of course not. The countries in this general description are far to varied to be grouped together on every scale. Politically, Poland is much more liberal than Thailand. Economically, South Korea is more advanced than Ghana. Socially, Singapore is much more accepting than Angola. And yet, all of these countries are grouped together under the banner of "Third World" or "Developing".
To categorize a country in itself among only two possible choices like developing or developed is already difficult, but after I read Oneil and watched Rosling’s presentation, I found myself agreeing more with Rosling’s point of view on the categorization of countries. Economists as he mentions, have the tendency to average and conjoin everything together , but what this does is create misleading statistics. In the Oneil book an example of LDC or less-developed country is Ghana. In relation to other countries of the western world or Europe, Ghana is less developed, but the placement of it under this category would be invalid considering how Ghana is one of the most developed African countries. However, one argument towards Rosling that I have is how he presented his data. During certain moments of his presentation he relied on statistics within 10 year fragments instead of 50 or more to suggest how information can be misleading, but then in other moments he strongly encourages long-term achievements. It just seemed like manipulated what he presented at times. Overall Rosling still in my opinion suggested a concept that is helpful in understanding world relations and how economically countries are developed or developing. It took into account how each country is individualistic rather than associated completely.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with Rosling completely because one of the major points to his entire presentation was contextualization. I think the categories that exist presently are antiquated, and that their liberal application by the media, and also by people in general is harmful, because it reinforces skewed world view. Averages in statistics, and generalizations in concepts are helpful in grouping data, but they hinder true understanding because they exclude key points. With the limited time he is given, Rosling chooses to focus more on human development and health as indicators for a country’s progress. O’Neil’s more traditional view includes economic development, corruption, and political systems are defiantly more complete, think as a text book O’Neil provides a more general and varied application of industrial, and third world, while Rosling encourages the reluctance to use the terms that O’Neil tries to explain.
ReplyDeleteThe saying, "correlation doesn't prove causation" is highly applicable here. Quantitative data is highly important for statistical testing; however, qualitative data can provide multifaceted viewpoints. With more information, exacting conclusions can be drawn with less generalization, uncertainty, and inaccuracy. Each country is an individual entity, by combining and categorizing the countries, there is more room for incorrect classification. Rosling's holistic approach eradicates the impracticality of the O'Neil system which leads to incorrect generalizations/categorizations as it is comprehensive and precise.
ReplyDeleteCategorization is the result of a natural human propensity to classify objects by similar attributes and is a necessary skill for making sense of the world. However, by its very nature it prompts emphasis on certain aspects over others, thus often prompting us to lose sight of the big-picture. Dividing countries into developing and developed is no different as Rosling and Oneil’s methods of categorization demonstrate. Both researchers seem to have the same goal of categorization but neither provides a process that is all-encompassing of every factor that we would associate with a developed country. Instead, Oneil and Rosling choose to focus on, in my opinion, different elements of country development. Oneil discusses civil society, economic growth, and state capacity as paths towards development and therefore, the characteristics that set developed countries apart. Although this approach in a sense seems to account for social, economic, and political factors in a country, it is still somewhat limited. This is because Oneil approaches all of these factors in way that fundamentally relates them all back to political stability which in his opinion involves democratization. Rosling, on the other hand, zeroes in one specific aspect of the social development of a country by emphasizing child mortality. Despite being very narrow, I think it is a refreshing change from the traditional links that are assumed between a country’s economic growth and its development. Rosling takes a much more humanitarian perspective at country development that discusses the actual well-being of citizens as inherent aspect of development and if nothing else helps spark conversation about the limitation of traditional views. Rosling makes this point most poignantly when we rips apart the UN’s categorization paper and I agree that categorization leads to such discrepancies as the richest country in the world being marked as developing. I also agree with his point that Sub-Saharan Africa should not all be lumped together. In WorldQuest, we have been reading over some of the analysis on UN MDGs and Sub-Saharan Africa is almost always referred to as if they are this united entity. Though many of the problems facing Sub-Saharan Africa are similar across the region, they are not uniform and the countries that will have to combat them are definitely not either. Nonetheless, for both these points I can still understand why categorization is sometimes necessary since it certainly provides a simplified way of quickly grasping some of the issues facing a country.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rosling more than O'Neil. Rosling is better at showing how to categorize countries because unlike O'Neil, he does not mainly focus on economic factors. He takes into account the different historical events, health factors, and also relations in assessing how a country should be categorized, leading to a more accurate distribution of LDCs and NICs.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rosling because I think that the factors he includes offer more of a wide-ranged approach to evaluating countries. He looks at multiple aspects of a country. O'Neil's method of evaluation is not as wholistic when approaching a country and its multiple components that determine its level of development.
ReplyDeleteI think Rosling's method is better, as it takes into consideration not just a country's economic status, but also the status of the people via population growth, the health of the people, etc. I personally feel the O'niels approach is sort of dehumanizing because it focuses so much on the economic factors, rather than the people. Which, although both Rosling and O'niel talk about the economics, Rosling is more all encompassing, by also relating it to various other factors that make the economics of the country mean more than just numbers, which alone (at least to me) seem superfluous.
ReplyDeleteI understand what you are saying Desia about the implications of Oneil's focus on economics rather than the people themselves. However, I would not go as far as to day than the data, and the focus on that data, is dehumanizing because it does give a baseline for understanding country classifications. To me, once that level of understanding is achieve on then, can one see the benefit of Rosling's perspective on the comprehensive quality that country data and classification should have.
DeleteRosling's considerations of different factors besides economy makes it a better way to categorize a LDC. O'neil's way of categorizing the countries seemed one dimensional. In other words, there were not as much considerations the way Rosling analyzed the countries. Rosling used more of a contextualize approach as opposed to O'neil which led me to believe that his way was better and more justified.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I didn't get the chance to read Oneil to make comparisons with Rosling, I am leaning toward agreeing with Rosling on the methods of determining whether a country is developed or developing. Rosling combats the traditional characterization of a country by its economic capacity with the considerations of other features. These including: child mortality, fertility rate versus population, health, standard of living and family size versus life expectancy. I agree with Rosling's perspective because I believe the quantitative data versus the qualitative data show more of the country's growth which isn't seen when determining it's status based solely on its economy. I disagree with Rosling when he says that there is no gap between the rich and poor anymore. For me it's blatantly clear there is a significant gap. Like in the US the use of the saying the "one percent" is a reflection of how the rich are the overwhelming minority.
ReplyDeleteI agree more with Rosling because today I keep hearing about developing countries getting better, like india who now has a brand new aircraft carrier from what I hear.
ReplyDeleteRosling has only pointed out the obvious that I didnt see before and china could be the most known of a developing country that has is becoming more like a developed country with lesser families,higher income,and longer lifes. They may not be on par with the developed countries but I can see that they are geting there and who knows when china will finally surpass United states in Gdp.
Practically, I think Oneil's model makes more sense--for the only practical way to remove a country from the classic third-world categorization is to have education, advanced jobs, infrastructure, and industry.
ReplyDeleteArguing that certain social-centric statistics are a result of poor education is true...to an extent. The real question that needs to be asked is why the level of education is not higher--and the reason that it is not higher is because there isn't an economy that's strong enough to value such education. If there was a "good" enough reason to have good education, it would be there, because the economy would demand it.
Because of this, Oneil's model is superior because it focuses on the primary reason behind the status of a particular country: its economic state.
Both Oneil and Rosling look to a strong economy to categorize countries as NICs and LDIs; however, they think differently on certain aspects of a country. While Oneil focuses on the economic aspects, Rosling delves more into the social aspects. Both offer good arguments and I have to agree with both. In order to grow, develop, and industrialize, a country must be concerned with economic growth and stability, as Oneil discusses, but also an overall growth of the well being of the country, as Rosling talks about in his Ted talk about population and and gender equality. While I have to say that Oneil's model is more pragmatic, I happened to like Rosling's argument on social aspects of a country to add to the many factors that categorize countries as NICs and LDIs.
ReplyDeleteBoth the Oniel and the Rosling classifications focus a lot on the strength of a nation's economy. However, I feel that Oniel's is too shallow, in a sense that it does not analyze everything about a country. Rosling's is the best in my opinion because it looks at a lot of the social aspects, and offers a more broad approach. Focusing on the social parts of a country, and not just the economy, is useful because it shows how a country is using it's money, which separates it from other countries that have the same level of economic development. One would hardly call a country developed if it had an extremely high level of infant mortality and low levels of female education, even if it had a high GDP. This can easily be seen by using the Gapminder tools, making Rosling's method better in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI agree more with Rosling because it looks at more aspects of a country than just GDP to assess the development of a country. Not understanding fully how a country is and only looking at it through a western lens has had some bad consequences. Like during Soviet Russia, many countries wrote off Russia because of it's high economic out put but if one really looked into the country you would see all of the human rights laws it was violating, that would not be tolerated today. So it is important to take in account differences in gender income child morality and other things other than GDP and economic output.
ReplyDeleteIt's especially important to look at many aspects when categorizing someone, because in all aspects of life pre-mature categorization can lead to problems. Also the Rosling edition of categorization better shows the changes and shift in a countries development.
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