People rarely analyze their life in terms of the impact of world processes on it. Ordinary citizens are mostly concerned about their personal lives and income levels, less often - the state of the environment, the work of social institutions and so on. But the world is becoming more and more “small” every year. Global political problems are expanding, reaching for each person with their tentacles. And hide from them will not work. Their scope and tension are so great that no one can escape or sit out "in the bunker!" There is only one thing left - to combine efforts. So what are global political issues? How do they affect life? How to deal with them? Let's get it right.
What is global in politics?
First you need to understand the concepts. Loud phrase “global political problems” is now commonly called many phenomena, some of which are not related to it at all.
To independently separate the grains from the chaff, let's analyze this concept into its component parts.
The word "global" means "relating to all of humanity." This is not a problem of one state (albeit a very important one). Thus, the phenomenon of an all-planetary scale is characterized.
The second word, “political,” is especially important. It, in fact, discards part of the problems, makes them secondary to what the term describes. Only those questions that can be resolved by political means remain. That is, this word denotes negative phenomena of a planetary scale, regulated by long-term management decisions .
Let us look for global political issues in everyday life to understand their essence. Think of the people who live nearby. Do they all eat their fill, allow themselves to buy the necessary, have a good job and prosperity? Most likely, the answer will be no.
Now take a look at the news feeds. All of them are full of messages about the discussion of state debts. You can also look out the window. What is the location of your area? Is it so safe as nature intended? Just a few views on the sides, and we have already stumbled upon the consequences of global politics, which did not lead to the heyday of civilization.
What are called problems in global politics?
Now we can move on to the list of those phenomena that are discussed at almost all meetings of heads of state and experts, designed to guide the development of civilization. The first of these is poverty. More than seven billion people live on Earth.
And most of them live in poverty. People don’t have enough money for a piece of bread. This problem concerns not one state. The situation harms the development of all mankind. People simply die from disease or exhaustion. In addition, their potential (labor, creative, and so on) is not realized.
The second problem is debt. This is not about the means that must be paid to households (in the terminology of economists). The debts of countries are now so great that scientists cannot offer any intelligible way out of the situation.
The third is ecology. Man, as experts say, has been conducting rash activities for a long time, thereby creating global global problems. The state of the environment is a clear confirmation of this. We ourselves can see some of the negative results of this activity. In cities - smog, in the fields - soil erosion, forests no longer occupy as much space as before. And the climate presents unpleasant surprises that are not predictable.
Global problems of the world concern not only the physical condition of the planet and its inhabitants. The behavioral aspects of population groups also conceal a threat to humanity. This refers to terrorism. Today it is gaining enormous proportions. Already, terrorist states began to arise.
These are the main global problems of our planet. They are united by several features, which are described in more detail below.
Basic features
Scientists have analyzed and systematized the characteristics of the above negative phenomena. Here are the conclusions they came to. World global problems are distinguished by the following features:
- are planetary in nature;
- threaten the existence of mankind;
- urgent, that is, they need speedy resolution;
- interconnected;
- can be overcome exclusively by joint efforts.
I must say that under such criteria, a lot of issues that society faces. And over time, there are more and more of them. If earlier mankind was actively engaged in ecology and disarmament, now it began to worry about the reduction of resources, the state of the oceans, the radicalization of society and much more.
Causes of Global Issues
These negative phenomena were born and formed in the depths of society along with its development. It cannot be said that the global problems of the world are caused by only one priority factor. Everything affects them: both the huge production capacities that mankind has accumulated, and the growth of the population, and its worldview.
Economic opportunities turn from a positive factor into a negative one. Nature suffers from consumer attitudes towards it. Factories and factories not only process resources at a gigantic pace, they pollute space and destroy the earth. But they cannot be stopped in the current paradigm of human development, as this will lead to terrible wars for consumer goods.
The population is increasingly striving for the thoughtless use of complex and expensive things. That is, perhaps, a mistake crept in the direction of our development. We strive to consume more and more without thinking about how expensive this planet is. It turns out that only the activities and direction of human development give rise to global political problems. Examples can be found in each country. Everywhere there are poor and unhappy. Each state is faced with environmental problems or terrorism. And there are so many weapons on the planet that the Earth can be completely destroyed. The causes of global problems must be considered comprehensively.
The birth of one pulls the appearance or escalation of the other. All of them are closely interconnected. And together they become a source of new ones. Perhaps after some time the opposition of ideas will be included in their list.
Global political problems, examples of which we can study, already demonstrate the features of the emergence of new ones. The loss of the meaning of existence by many members of modern society is one of them. As Russian thinkers say, a national idea is needed.
Poverty
I must say that the global problems of politics have been studied for a long time. Scientists speak at various levels about the fact that many people live below the poverty line. The fact is that this problem is circular in nature. Due to low income levels, people are not able to get an education, and therefore, to engage in highly productive labor. Society has no potential for development. After all, the economy can be built up only if there are (except for the funds) highly qualified specialists. In a poor society there is nowhere to take them; one has to attract foreigners. In addition, there are no investments in troubled countries due to multiple risks. Poverty leads to an escalation of social tension, unrest. Such countries suffer from revolutions and regime change. New ones, by the way, fall into the same vicious circle. Poverty raises yet another global problem - terrorism. And it affects not only developing countries. Armed specialists are able to move freely around the planet.
There are almost no countries that are not territories of interest to terrorists. The results of their activities in individual states directly depend on the success of the special services.
Debts
The global political problems of mankind are sometimes artificial. These include the debt crisis. Its roots are believed to go back to the seventies of the last century. Then, in developed countries, a sufficient amount of loan capital was formed, which needed to be invested.
People who regulate cash flows decided to direct them to the development of the Asian region. Investments have done their job. Industry in this region gained momentum, which, unfortunately, did not save from the crisis. The fact is that not all countries were able to repay interest on debts. They had to declare bankruptcy. After the first such incident, it became clear that the monetary system could collapse at once, if no efforts were made to stabilize it.
The world is interdependent, including in the financial sphere. The inability to fulfill obligations by one or more players leads to problems for the rest. And if we take into account that there are not so many countries without debts, it is clear why they began to compare the world economy with a soap bubble.
In general, humanity is obliged to pay much more than it produces. Here, the rules and principles of the economy are already creating socio-political global problems. It turns out that developing on credit is unprofitable for states. They simply do not have time to build up their resources in such an amount as to repay loans. We have to reduce social obligations, which leads to tensions.
Environmental issues
When considering the global political problems of our time, we also name the negative impact of a person on the state of the environment along with others. We have one planet.
But, unfortunately, while we are destroying it. Industry as a whole influences global processes on the planet. Here we should talk about climate shifts, melting glaciers, a change in the direction of ocean currents, and so on. Any of these processes can lead to such climate changes that human life will be in jeopardy.
Some experts believe that society cannot affect negative phenomena, they go on their own. That is, the melting of glaciers is the same regularity as the change of magnetic poles. Nevertheless, the ecosystem requires close attention and, of course, extremely careful attitude.
Global Challenge: Terrorism
The above contradictions, exciting society from the inside, have led people to take up arms. If you approach the problem in a global sense, you can see that their actions are not based on the desire to implement certain aggressive plans, but on the desire to achieve justice.
Nevertheless, society is under constant threat of total destruction. After all, terrorists can gain access not only to small arms. Now there are opportunities to create or capture a more terrible weapon of mass destruction, the consequences of using which a separate group of people are scared to think. In addition, dangerous industrial enterprises (for example, nuclear power plants) can also become targets of attack. It is clear that man-made disasters will affect the whole planet. There are already examples. This is the Chernobyl disaster or the accident at Fukushima. Terrorism as a global problem of our time is of the most urgent and urgent nature.
A complex approach
To cope with challenges and contradictions, a simple approach is not enough. All problems are interconnected and firmly intertwined. It is believed that they can be solved using conceptual methods. That is, an in-depth program should be developed that affects the basic worldview aspects of the existence of mankind. For example, the idea of reducing consumption, reorienting to other values can reduce the level of tension in several areas at once.
Attempts to work in this direction are ongoing. Here you can indicate the movement of the "green". A lot of them. They try to prove that the resources are not unlimited, they must be treated with care. Only work is going on at the community level, which is clearly not enough. Problems accumulate much faster than the development of the tendencies necessary for their resolution in society.
The work of international organizations
Global issues are dealt with by many institutions. Considerable funds are allocated for this. Specialists of various directions constantly monitor the situation, conduct research. Naturally, managers at the global level receive their conclusions and recommendations. The difficulty here is that the solution cannot be simple. It is necessary to take into account the interests of states, which often contradict each other. Consensus building takes considerable time.
The world is changing, it is necessary to correct the decisions made again. Just that is not enough. The international bureaucratic machine does not cope with challenges, sometimes it slows down the implementation of decisions already made. Humanity is facing the need for radical changes. A system built in the last century is failing. We need conceptual solutions that would allow us to radically change approaches to the formation of ways to get rid of global challenges. Otherwise, we simply may not have time to respond to another disaster.
Science provides increasingly unfavorable forecasts of climate change. Unfortunately, they are confirmed by the realities of life. The Gulf Stream, for example, is slowing down, glaciers are melting faster. But these phenomena concern every person. It turns out that you should look for ways to save the planet together. Once the intergovernmental bodies fail, the public needs to get involved. By the way, this may be a kind of incentive to reduce the level of relevance of several global risks at once. The mere mass awareness and understanding of existing problems in itself leads to a change in behavioral and ideological habits.