VCE Politics (Year 12) · Unit 3 — Global Cooperation and Conflict · 13m read

Other Global Issues — Development, Economic Instability and Weapons

Whichever global issue your class studies in depth, the same analytical framework applies. This topic gives you the key features of the other options so you can recognise and compare them.

Learning objective: Apply the global-issue framework (causes, consequences, significance, responses, effectiveness) to development, global economic instability and weapons.

By the end of this lesson you can:

• I can outline the main features of each global issue.
• I can identify the actors and responses involved.
• I can evaluate why cooperation succeeds or fails.

One framework, many issues. Like a toolkit that fixes different machines, the same questions — causes, consequences, responses, effectiveness — work for every global issue.

Three more global issues

DEVELOPMENT
• Persistent poverty, inequality and gaps in health and education between and within states.
• Responses: the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2015–2030), foreign aid, World Bank lending, debt relief, trade access.
• Debates: aid effectiveness, conditionality, debt burdens.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC INSTABILITY
• Financial crises spread through interconnected markets (e.g. the 2007–08 Global Financial Crisis), along with inflation shocks and supply-chain disruptions.
• Responses: G20 coordination, IMF lending and surveillance, central bank cooperation, financial regulation.

WEAPONS
• Proliferation of nuclear weapons, conventional arms trade, emerging technologies (cyber, autonomous weapons).
• Responses: the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Arms Trade Treaty, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and IAEA inspections.
• Obstacles: security dilemmas, great-power competition, non-signatories.

Worked example (Medium)

Using the framework, explain why the NPT has been only partly effective.

1. Success. Most states have joined as non-nuclear weapon states; IAEA safeguards verify civilian programs.
2. Limits. Some states with nuclear weapons remain outside the treaty, and recognised nuclear states have been slow to disarm.

Answer: The NPT has slowed proliferation with near-universal membership and inspections, but states outside it and slow disarmament by nuclear powers limit its effectiveness.

Common mistakes

• Describing an issue without responses The area of study is about global responses too. Fix: Always include who responded and how effectively.
• Generalising across issues Each issue has distinct actors and obstacles. Fix: Use issue-specific examples.

Practice questions

1. The Sustainable Development Goals run from:

   1. 1945–2000
   2. 2000–2015
   3. 2015–2030
   4. 2030–2050

   (1 marks)

2. Explain why global economic instability is a transnational issue.

   (3 marks)

Summary

• Development: SDGs, aid, debt, trade.
• Economic instability: contagion, G20, IMF, regulation.
• Weapons: NPT, Arms Trade Treaty, security dilemmas.
• Apply the same framework to every issue.