Third World
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The UN Human Development Index is a quantitative index of development which some use as a proxy to define Third World. However, the definition of Third World does not have a quantitative basis (see text for more details). |
The subjective terms
First World,
Second World, and
Third World, can be used to divide the nations of Earth into three broad categories. Third World is a term first coined in
1952 by French
demographer Alfred Sauvy to distinguish nations that aligned themselves with neither the
West nor with the
Soviet Bloc during the
Cold War. Today, however, the term is frequently used to denote nations with a low
UN Human Development Index (HDI), independent of their political status (meaning that the
PRC,
Russia and
Brazil, all of which were very strongly aligned during the Cold War, are often termed third world). However, there is no objective definition of Third World or "Third World country" and the use of the term remains common. Some in
academia see it as being out of date,
colonialist,
othering and inaccurate; its use has continued, however [
1] In general, Third World countries are not as
industrialized or technologically advanced as
OECD countries, and therefore in academia, the more
politically correct term to use is "developing nation".
Terms such as
Global South,
less wealthy nations,
developing countries,
least developed countries and the
Majority World have become more popular in circles where the term "third world" is regarded to have
derogatory or out-of-date connotations. Development workers also call them the
two-thirds world (because two-thirds of the world is underdeveloped) and
The South. The term
Third World is also disliked as it may imply the false notion that those countries are not a part of the global economic system. Some claim that the underdevelopment of
Africa,
Asia and
Latin America during the
Cold War was influenced, or even caused by the Cold War economic, political, and military maneuverings of the most powerful nations of the time. (See
Emerging markets)
The term
Fourth World (as
least developed countries) is used by some writers to describe the poorest Third World countries, those which lack industrial infrastructure and the means to build it. More commonly, however, the term is used to describe indigenous peoples or other oppressed minority groups within First World countries.
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First World*
Second World
