What is a 'Developed' Country? Crash Course Geography #40

Today we’re going to discuss what it means for a place to be “developed”. Development is often associated with economic success — that is countries with higher standards of living and material wealth like those found in Europe and North America. But as we’ll see, this perspective is only one way to compare countries on the global stage, has strong ties to colonialist histories, and doesn’t necessarily capture a place’s environmental and socioeconomic sustainability or even the population’s general happiness. We’ll focus on the region in the Middle East and North Africa, called MENA, and examine how the histories of the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon have resulted in drastically different development scores.

[Sources]
General
Getis, Bjelland, and Getis. Introduction to Geography, 15 ed. McGraw-Hill Education. 2017. ISBN: 978-1-259-57000-1

Gregory, Derek, Ron Johnston, Geraldine Pratt, Michael Watts, and Sarah Whatmore, eds. 2009. The Dictionary of Human Geography. 5th ed. Willey-Blackwell. ISBN: 978-1-4051-3288-6

Cracking the AP Human Geography Exam: 2020 edition. The Princeton Review.

Human development Indices

UAE Sources

Lebanon Sources

World Bank, IMF, and GDP Charts

still-looking-growth-model

middle-east-and-north-africa

China, Belt and Road

First/Third World

#CrashCourse #Geography #Development

Watch our videos and review your learning with the Crash Course App!

Thanks to the following patrons for their generous monthly contributions that help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever:
Dave Freeman, Hasan Jamal, DL Singfield, Jeremy Mysliwiec, Shannon McCone, Amelia Ryczek, Ken Davidian, Stephen Akuffo, Toni Miles, Erin Switzer, Steve Segreto, Michael M. Varughese, Kyle & Katherine Callahan, Laurel A Stevens, Vincent, Michael Wang, Stacey Gillespie, Jaime Willis, Alexis B, Burt Humburg, Aziz Y, DAVID MORTON HUDSON, Perry Joyce, Scott Harrison, Mark & Susan Billian, Junrong Eric Zhu, Rachel Creager, Matt Curls, Tim Kwist, Jonathan Zbikowski, Jennifer Killen, Sarah & Nathan Catchings, Brandon Westmoreland, team dorsey, Trevin Beattie, Divonne Holmes à Court, Eric Koslow, Jennifer Dineen, Indika Siriwardena, Khaled El Shalakany, Jason Rostoker, Shawn Arnold, Siobhán, Ken Penttinen, Nathan Taylor, Les Aker, ThatAmericanClare, Rizwan Kassim, Sam Ferguson, Alex Hackman, Jirat, Katie Dean, Avi Yashchin, NileMatotle, Wai Jack Sin, Ian Dundore, Justin, Caleb Weeks
__

Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?

[vagoerrante]

I'm a sociology college student, and I'm totally in love with this geography crash course, it gives not just a lot of information and tools for my studies, but also genuinely gives me a lot of joy just hearing all this stuff. And miss Alizé make this videos even more enjoyable, what a nice host, greetins from Chile!

[williamkarbala]

I think Argentina and other Latin American countries represent an interesting case study in 'development.' In the early 20th century Argentina had greater per Capita income than Canada and Australia, but years of military dictators and coups led to start political and economic instability.

[winjr]

As someone who studied Geography at the University level, I can only say this video is lacking in it's analysis.
The definition of a developing country never rested only on economic status of a country. Several indexes were and are considered.
These will include scientific and education, access to basic needs such as water, food, roads, etc. Also, the political status of the country, regarding the freedom of the people. And wealth distribution, resulting in indexes such as the gini coefficient.
And mind you most of these indexes are related. For example, a country with greater scientific production and education, can make products more efficient and of better quality, thus making more wealth. Which in turn means better wages. Better infrastructure. Better social and political stability, which in turn can affect all of previous factors.
Also consider that the prior to the industrial revolution, there was a chemical revolution and an agricultural revolution in Europe. These allowed certain European countries to gain an advantage in scientific knowledge, that provided the basis for industrialization.
And then there are the social and political revolutions in Europe that fomented the shift to more democratic states. Such as the French revolution. The Congress of Vienna. Or the revolutions of 1848. The rise of scientific socialism as a main political ideology. WW1 and several European countries increasing popular suffrage. And the list goes on.

[victorangeles]

okay my favorite model for like ranking a countries development is the world-system-theory, it separates countries into core economic countries that produce goods, periphery countries that provide resources that create those goods, and semi periphery countries that do a little bit of both

[isauro]

Would have been nice to mention that GDP per capita and the Human Development Index (HDI) have been observed to be directly correlated to how happy people report they are. There are caveats of course, but seems like a big omission while trying to promote alternative development measurements.

[EMan]

Glad to see a video breaking down the complexity of the term "developed" and how it carries a massive amount of weight in how we view the world, especially countries that are victims of colonization/imperialism.

[Joy-wdez]

How did i not realize crash course had a Geography section😅😭😂very interesting video. I love Geography!

[killercaos]

There is also a thing knows as the “Resource Curse”. Where a country is endowed with rich resources and minerals, yet get exploited, so they end up poor

[lubu]

global north and global south are such stupid terms trying to draw less stigma. We're third world countries with horrible standards of living and terrible economies, there's no need to try to soft it up

[sarasorrell]

This is such a great video. Thanks for making it!

[schnakenburg]

Why no mention of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore?

[hamzaqureshi]

Actually the idea of development should focus over intricate balance between the lives of individuals and nations collectively. The "perception" of "economic authority" and every nation correcting their course and pushing themselves sometimes in regress should be discouraged. Polarization begets polarization.

[russelljohnson]

I like this channel because they tell it like it is.

[lennartherix]

Saying that Europe largely developed by exploiting its colonies leaves out many other factors. For example Sweden never had significant colonial holdings and still is one of the most developed countries.

[mihailalexandris]

Small mistake at 0:15 in the map, that is not Bahrain, it is Qatar.

[chvhndrtntlr]

3:35 for me as south east asian that colonized by several western countries we already make peace with our past and learn from western colonizer atrocity back then, so please don't make yourself have a white guilt, we just want to see the world where people with different background have equal opportunity not dominated by only certain group of people, but white guilt is not the solution of that problem, because it makes non-white people take advantages of that situation, then make the race war become worst because the new generation will get discrimination without have ability to defend themselves and prolonged the hatred

[Luthies]

This is less "what is a developed country" video, and more "be ashamed if you live in a western country" video.

[stephans]

When mentioning how African countries are in debt to western nations, maybe you should also mention how most of the money from these loans ended up in the pockets of corrupt dictators? And without economic restructuring these countries would only end up further in debt?

[Dude]

A great video, as always, good job Crash Course

[billyboy]

The most unscientific scientific video... It never even tries to actually tell what is and what is not considered developed.