For: Global South (Anglican)

Third World is a categorical label used to describe states that are considered to be underdeveloped in terms of their economy or level of industrialization, globalization, standard of living, health, education or other criteria for 'advancements'.

Etymology

French economist and demographer Alfred Sauvy, in an article published in the French magazine L'Observateur, August 14, 1952, coined the term Third World in referring to countries currently called either "developing" or "under-developed", especially in South Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Oceania, that were unaligned with either the Communist Soviet bloc or the Capitalist NATO bloc during the Cold War (1945–1989)..

Third World was a reference to the Tiers État, the Third Estate, the commoners of France before and during the French Revolution, opposed to the priests and nobles who composed the First Estate and the Second Estate. Like the third estate, wrote Sauvy, the Third World has nothing, and "wants to be something", implying that the Third World is exploited (as was the third estate) and that its destiny is revolutionary. Moreover, it conveyed the second concept of political non-alignment with neither the industrialized Capitalist bloc nor the industrialized Communist bloc.

Definition

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 that were considered to be 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. 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.

History

A number of "Third World" countries were former colonies and with the end of imperialism many of these countries, especially the smaller ones, were faced with the challenges of nation and institution-building on their own for the first time. Due to this common background a lot of these nations were for most of the 20th century, and are still today, "developing" in economic terms. This term when used today generally denotes countries that have not "developed" to the same levels as OECD countries, and which are thus in the process of "developing".

Further reading

• A. R. Kasdan, The Third World: A New Focus for Development. (1973)
• E. Hermassi, The Third World Reassessed. (1980)
• H. A. Reitsma and J. M. Kleinpenning, The Third World in Perspective. (1985)
• J. Cole, Development and Underdevelopment. (1987)
• Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. (1992)
• A. Escobar, Encountering Development. The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. (1995)
• P.T. Bauer, Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion. (1981) ISBN 0-674-25986-6.