Third World
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War and it was used to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada and their allies represented the "First World", while the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and their allies represented the "Second World". This terminology provided a way of broadly categorizing the nations of the Earth into three groups based on political divisions. Due to the complex history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition of the Third World.[1] Strictly speaking, "Third World" was a political, rather than economic, grouping.[2]
Since most Third World countries were economically poor and non-industrialized, it became a
In the Cold War, some European democracies (Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, and Switzerland) were neutral in the sense of not joining NATO, but were prosperous, never joined the Non-Aligned Movement, and seldom self-identified as part of the Third World.
Since the
Etymology
The demographer, anthropologist, and historian
Related concepts
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Third World vs. Three Worlds
The "Three Worlds Theory" developed by Mao Zedong is different from the Western theory of the Three Worlds or Third World. For example, in the Western theory, China and India belong respectively to the second and third worlds, but in Mao's theory both China and India are part of the Third World which he defined as consisting of exploited nations.
Third Worldism
Third Worldism is a political movement that argues for the unity of third-world nations against first-world influence and the principle of
Since 1990, this term has been redefined to make it more correct politically. Initially, the term “third world” meant that a nation is “under-developed”.[8] However, today it is replaced by the term “developing".
Great Divergence and Great Convergence
Many times there is a clear distinction between First and Third Worlds. When talking about the Global North and the
To counter this mode of thought, some scholars began proposing the idea of a change in world dynamics that began in the late 1980s, and termed it the
Others have observed a return to Cold War-era alignments (
History
Most Third World countries are former colonies. Having gained independence, many of these countries, especially smaller ones, were faced with the challenges of nation- and institution-building on their own for the first time. Due to this common background, many of these nations were "developing" in economic terms for most of the 20th century, and many still are. This term, used today, generally denotes countries that have not developed to the same levels as OECD countries, and are thus in the process of developing.
In the 1980s, economist Peter Bauer offered a competing definition for the term "Third World". He claimed that the attachment of Third World status to a particular country was not based on any stable economic or political criteria, and was a mostly arbitrary process. The large diversity of countries considered part of the Third World — from Indonesia to Afghanistan — ranged widely from economically primitive to economically advanced and from politically non-aligned to Soviet- or Western-leaning. An argument could also be made for how parts of the U.S. are more like the Third World.[12]
The only characteristic that Bauer found common in all Third World countries was that their governments "demand and receive Western aid," the giving of which he strongly opposed. Thus, the aggregate term "Third World" was challenged as misleading even during the Cold War period, because it had no consistent or collective identity among the countries it supposedly encompassed.
Development aid
During the Cold War, unaligned countries of the Third World
By the end of the 1960s, the idea of the Third World came to represent countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that were considered underdeveloped by the West based on a variety of characteristics (low economic development, low life expectancy, high rates of poverty and disease, etc.).
Perceived "End of the Third World"
Since 1990 the term "Third World" has been redefined in many evolving dictionaries in several languages to refer to countries considered to be underdeveloped economically and/or socially. From a politically correct standpoint the term "Third World" may be considered outdated, which its concept is mostly a historical term and cannot fully address what means by developing and less-developed countries today. Around the early 1960s, the term "underdeveloped countries" occurred and the Third World serves to be its synonym, but after it has been officially used by politicians, 'underdeveloped countries' is soon been replaced by 'developing' and 'less-developed countries,' because the prior one shows hostility and disrespect, in which the Third World is often characterized with stereotypes.[14] The whole 'Four Worlds' system of classification has also been described as derogatory because the standard mainly focused on each nations' Gross National Product.[15]
The general definition of the Third World can be traced back to the history that nations positioned as neutral and independent during the Cold War were considered as Third World Countries, and normally these countries are defined by high poverty rates, lack of resources, and unstable financial standing.[16] However, based on the rapid development of modernization and globalization, countries that were used to be considered as Third World countries achieve big economic growth, such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia, which can no longer be defined by poor economic status or low GNP today. The differences among nations of the Third World are continually growing throughout time, and it will be hard to use the Third World to define and organize groups of nations based on their common political arrangements since most countries live under diverse creeds in this era, such as Mexico, El Salvador, and Singapore, which they all have their own political system.[17] The Third World categorization becomes anachronistic since its political classification and economic system are distinct to be applied in today's society. Based on the Third World standards, any region of the world can be categorized into any of the four types of relationships among state and society, and will eventually end in four outcomes: praetorianism, multi-authority, quasi-democratic and viable democracy.[18] However, political culture is never going to be limited by the rule and the concept of the Third World can be circumscribed.
See also
References
- ^ S2CID 162982648.
- ^ Silver, Marc (4 January 2015). "If You Shouldn't Call It The Third World, What Should You Call It?". NPR. Archived from the original on 1 April 2020. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
- ^ Sauvi, Alfred (August 14, 1952). "TROIS MONDES, UNE PLANÈTE". www.homme-moderne.org (in French). Retrieved 2023-03-27.
- ^ Literal translation from French
- .
- ^ a b Gregory, Derek, ed. (2009). Dictionary of Human Geography. et al. (5th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
- ^ Pithouse, Richard (2005). Report Back from the Third World Network Meeting Accra, 2005 (Report). Centre for Civil Society. pp. 1–6. Archived from the original on 2011-10-28.
- ISSN 1027-4332.
- ^ Mimiko, Oluwafemi (2012). "Globalization: The Politics of Global Economic Relations and International Business". Carolina Academic Press: 49.
- doi:10.1108/CWIS-11-2013-0064. Archived from the originalon 2014-10-08.
- doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2015.01.017. Archived from the originalon 2015-07-03.
- ^ "Third World America" Archived 2014-02-13 at the Wayback Machine, MacLeans, September 14, 2010
- ^ a b Westernizing the Third World (Ch 2), Routledge
- JSTOR 3990587.
- JSTOR 3991655.
- ISBN 978-0-415-19882-0. Archived from the original on 2021-07-15. Retrieved 2020-11-22 – via Google Books.
- JSTOR 40548016.
- JSTOR 3993172.
Further reading
- Aijaz, Ahmad (1992). In theory: Classes, nations, literatures. London: Verso Books.
- Bauer, Peter T. (1981). Equality, the Third World, and economic delusion. Cambridge, MA: ISBN 9780674259850.
- Chaouad, Robert. (2016) Emergence: genesis and circulation of a notion that has become a category of analysis, International and Strategic Review, vol. 103, no. 3, pp. 55-66.
- Escobar, Arturo (2011). Encountering development: The making and unmaking of the Third World (revised ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Furtado, Celso (1964). Development and underdevelopment. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Lawrence, Mark Atwood. The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam War Era (Princeton University Press, 2021)
- Melkote, Srinivas R. & Steeves, H. Leslie. (1991). Communication for development in the Third World: Theory and practice for Empowerment . New Delhi: SAGE Publications.
- Sheppard, Eric & Porter, Wayland P. (1998). A world of difference: Society, nature, development. New York: Guilford Press.
- ISBN 9780887386015.
- Smith, Brian C. (2013). Understanding Third World Politics: Theories of Political Change and Development (4th ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Aijaz, Charles K. (1973). The political economy of development and underdevelopment. New York: Random House.
- Parrott, R. Joseph; Lawrence, Mark Atwood, eds. (2022). The Tricontinental Revolution: Third World Radicalism and the Cold War. Cambridge University Press.