{
  "id": "north-south-divide.regional",
  "term": "north-south divide",
  "sense": "regional",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 17,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A collective self that divides into an in-group and an out-group along a line between its north and its south, each reading its walls as set in different places.",
  "folk_gloss": "a gap in wealth, opportunity or outlook between the northern and southern parts of a country or of the world",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "collective-self.shared",
      "boundary.limit",
      "north.direction",
      "south.direction",
      "line.geometric",
      "difference.relation",
      "set.fix",
      "division.process",
      "in-group.inside",
      "out-group.outside",
      "along.spatial",
      "read.information",
      "wall.range-end",
      "space.extent"
    ],
    "interaction": "A line on the land becomes a line in the self model; wealth and reach read as differing across it, and each pole reads the other as the reason.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a compass line made a group line",
      "each pole reading the other as the cause"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The 1980 Brandt Report drew a line dividing the world's richer North from its poorer South.",
      "domain": "economics"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "heartland.core",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "heartland reads one region as the core; the divide names two poles"
    },
    {
      "id": "us-versus-them.split",
      "type": "is-a",
      "note": "the divide is a split drawn on a map"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "global north",
    "global south",
    "north south divide",
    "the north south divide"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-north-south-divide.regional"
}