Globalization and Public Relations in Postcolonial Nations: Chal ...

The Uneven Landscape of Social Costs

What the dominant discourse of the BRICS economies does not mention, however, is precisely how middle class is defined. In India the majority of service-sector workers are earning between $23 and $45 per month (all dollar amounts quoted are in USD; Shrinivasan, 2010). Although the middle class is growing, it is not well off by the standards of many nations, and basic services are lacking. In India in 2004 there were only six doctors for every 10,000 inhabitants (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2007). The problem is not that India lacks citizens who have trained to be doctors but that many were educated outside India and did not return, contributing to brain drain, a common problem for postcolonial nations. Also often overlooked are the costs of soaring energy needs to power developing industries, which have led to increasing pollution. All but three of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in either China or India (Meredith, 2008). Whereas public relations practitioners in Asia in the 1990s advised that “green doesn’t sell,” now the environment is often the number-one concern in public polls, and practitioners are advising their clients on green strategies (Devereux & Peirson-Smith, 2009; see chapter 5 for more).

Despite these social costs and issues, the BRICS nations remain the model of globalization success, a reality that has contributed to an atmosphere of competition and jealousy among those postcolonial countries whose economies are growing at a slower pace. For example, South Africa repeatedly lobbied the BRIC governments for membership before eventually gaining it, and Indonesia continues to argue that it should be granted recognition as part of the group (“Indonesia’s Place,” 2010).

The Discourse of Change:
Emerging and Transitional Economies

Those countries whose economies are neither at the top nor at the bottom of economic growth scales are often labeled emerging or transitional economies, but these categories are fluid and not well defined. Depending