External pressures Notes

What Are External Pressures?

1. External pressures are forces that originate outside an individual, community, or country but still influence what people can do, what they choose to do, and the outcomes they experience.
2. A useful way to study any case is to ask:
   1. What is the pressure (economic, political, environmental, social)?
   2. Who experiences it (which groups, where, and when)?
   3. Through what mechanism does it operate (prices, laws, borders, access to resources, social attitudes)?
   4. Who benefits, who loses, and who is affected even though they are not part of the decision?

How Are External Pressures Classified?

1. Real-world situations rarely involve only one pressure.
2. For example, a drought (environmental) can reduce harvests (economic), which may trigger protests (political) and increase tension between groups competing for scarce resources (social).

Pressures, mechanisms, and impacts

1. When you study a scenario, separate the pressure from the mechanism:
   1. A pressure is the broad category (for example, conflict, recession, climate hazard).
   2. A mechanism is how it changes real life (for example, price rises, restricted border crossings, loss of jobs, shortages of water).

What Are Economic Pressures?

1. Economic pressures often show up as changing prices, shortages, surpluses, and changes to employment and wages.
2. A key model is supply and demand, which explains how markets adjust through the price mechanism.

Supply and demand creates pressure

1. A change in market conditions can shift either supply or demand:
   1. If supply decreases (for example, poor harvests), the price tends to rise and quantity traded tends to fall.
   2. If demand increases (for example, a trend or population growth), price tends to rise and quantity traded tends to rise.

Surplus determines who gains in a market outcome

Even when a market reaches an equilibrium, different participants benefit by different amounts.

1. At the market price, some consumers would have been willing to pay more, so they receive consumer surplus.
2. Similarly, some producers could have supplied at a lower price, so they receive producer surplus.
3. These surpluses help explain why markets can increase welfare for participants.

What Happens When Markets Create Spillovers?

1. Markets do not always improve lives for everyone affected.
2. Sometimes the actions of buyers and sellers impose costs or benefits on people who are not part of the transaction.

Marginal thinking distinguishes private from social

Economists often compare marginal (additional) costs and benefits:

1. If there are no externalities, private and social values match, so markets tend toward an efficient outcome where marginal benefit equals marginal cost.
2. If there is a negative externality (for example, pollution), then the social cost is higher than the private cost. Society would prefer less of the good than the market produces.

What Are Political Pressures?

1. Political pressures include war, persecution, government policy, and border controls.
2. They can rapidly change safety, access to resources, and population distribution.
3. One major political pressure is conflict-driven displacement. In the Syrian conflict, many people were forced to leave their homes.
4. Some remained within Syria as internally displaced people, while others crossed borders and became refugees.

Political pressures changes societies

1. Political pressures reshape societies by:
   1. Changing population size and structure (for example, a loss of working-age people).
   2. Increasing demand for housing, schools, and healthcare in receiving areas.
   3. Raising political debates about responsibility, identity, and security.

Case study

Forced Displacement Under Conflict (Syria)

• Conflict led to large-scale internal displacement within Syria.
• Violence also caused cross-border refugee movements into neighbouring countries.
• Humanitarian needs increased sharply, including food, clean water, schooling, and medical care.
• Ongoing conflict often restricted access to humanitarian aid, especially in contested or besieged areas.
• The case shows how political and military pressures produce immediate human impacts.
• It also demonstrates how conflict can result in long-term population change through displacement and migration.

What Are Social and Cultural Pressures?

1. Social pressures include attitudes toward newcomers, discrimination, changes in community cohesion, and the challenge of integration.
2. These pressures can affect both migrants and host communities.

Case study

Mixed Impacts of International Migration (Mexico–USA)

• Host society (USA): can gain cultural diversity and new skills brought by migrants.
• Migration has contributed to wider use and education in the Spanish language in the United States.
• However, host societies may experience social tension, particularly during periods of high unemployment.
• Country of origin (Mexico): can benefit from remittances, which provide income for families and support local economies.
• At the same time, emigration can lead to the loss of working-age population.
• This increases the dependency ratio, placing greater pressure on those remaining in the workforce.

What Are Environmental Pressures?

1. Environmental pressures include droughts, storms, earthquakes, and long-term climate patterns.
2. These pressures often act as strong push factors for forced migration, because they can remove basic needs such as water, food security, and safe housing.
3. Environmental pressures frequently become economic pressures (reduced supply of crops, higher food prices) and political pressures (conflict over resources, state capacity to respond).

How Can You Analyze an External Pressure Scenario?

1. A reliable method is to:
   1. Identify the external pressure (economic, political, environmental, social).
   2. Describe the mechanism (prices, availability, border rules, access to aid, job competition).
   3. Explain winners and losers (which groups gain or lose, and why).
   4. Check for spillovers (are outsiders affected, suggesting an externality?).
   5. Evaluate short-term versus long-term effects (immediate shortages versus long-run demographic change).