Geography A-level Edexcel - Unit 4, Topic 7 - Superpowers exam question on how contrasting ideologies affect relationships between developing and developed countries. My answer received 8/8 marks (A+). Contains a clear structure with neatly written paragraphs.
EDEXCEL A-LEVEL GEOGRAPHY - SUPERPOWERS 8 MARK QUESTION
Explain how contrasting cultural ideologies may affect the relationships between
developing and developed countries (8)
An ideology is a particular set of ideas which a person or group holds e.g capitalist,
communist. Similarly, a cultural ideology is based on a particular culture e.g western culture,
islamic culture.
An ideology can affect the decisions a country makes since it provides explanations for facts
and problems in life, and since different countries have different ideologies, they may
disagree with each other which will create conflict between them. For example, back when
the world had a bipolar power between the USSR and US, there was a huge difference
between the cultural ideologies of these powers which led to indirect conflict. The US
allowed freedom of speech and freedom of religion while it also had a democratic and
individualistic view. On the other hand, the USSR had a more autocratic system which
focused on state ownership and communist views rather than individualism. This difference
in ideology (and political rivalry) between these former allies during world war ll quickly grew
tension and competition between them, which started the Cold War as a result, which lasted
for about 45 years. During these 45 years, the USSR and US didn’t directly battle, they
instead used their power to provoke and antagonise each other through political
manoeuvring, espionage, propaganda, economic aid and proxy wars between other nations.
Therefore, it is clear to see that what started as a disagreement between the US and USSR
alone, grew into a war which affected many other countries around the world.
In more recent times, the US with its ‘western’ ideology has had many military conflicts with
Middle Eastern countries and their islamic and autocratic ideology. Huntingtons ‘clash of
civilisations’ theory said that in the post-Cold War world these wars are caused by peoples
cultural and religious differences, a rise in cultural superiority. He argued that future wars
would be fought not between countries, but between cultures, which could explain
September 11th and the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). On the other hand,
Edward Said thought that these conflicts occur since people in the West believed their
culture is better than the Islamic culture. However, some say that this is really an issue
involving resources (e.g. oil) and territory (Mackinder's theory - controlling strategic areas to
exert influence) from the Middle East.
Therefore it is unclear to see whether the relationships between countries are happening
due to cultural and religious differences or due to other factors such as oil and territory since
in many cases, it would be a mix of these more or less.
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