Unpacking the ‘developing’ country classification: origins and hierarchies

Abstract

The division of the world into ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ countries has grown increasingly problematic in the past decades. Nonetheless, it remains embedded in legal documents, foreign policy discourse, and colloquial use. This paper explores this complexity by unpacking the different ways in which the ‘developing’ label is used in the international system. It argues that understanding the complexity around its use requires a rigorous analysis of the label’s diverse meanings and consequences. This is done by introducing a taxonomy that intersects two elements: (1) the source of the classification (External or Internal) and (2) the kind of hierarchy implied in the classification (Narrow or Broad). This two-by-two matrix generates four approaches in which the ‘developing’ vs ‘developed’ dichotomy is used: Technocratic, Elective, Northern Gaze, and Southern Solidarity. Each approach is explored empirically, illustrated by cases connected to international organizations and multilateral treaties. In doing so, the paper teases out the underlying reasons why the use of the dichotomy is so challenging, based on what kinds of contestation it generates, and which actors are pushing for demise or longevity (and where).

Keywords:

• Hierarchy
• classification
• differentiation
• developing countries
• international organizations
• ranking

Introduction

The classification of countries as ‘developing’ or ‘developed’ is (still) ubiquitous.¹ It is present in a myriad of settings, including Intergovernmental Organizations’ reports, treaties and other legal documents setting differentiated responsibilities; countries’ foreign policy discourse; statistical analyses; academic research; lists of development assistance beneficiaries, etc. Nonetheless, the division of the world based on this dichotomy has a long history of contestation and disagreements, with no converging view on what precisely defines a country as ‘developing’ or not, nor on the goal of using this classification.

This research is situated in this context, and structured around the following question: why is the ‘developing’ country classification so contentious? In this paper, I argue that using the word ‘developing’ to label countries can reflect distinct ontological assumptions. These assumptions draw from different origins and yield different hierarchies. As such, there is a cacophony of (mis)understandings over what is meant by ‘developing’, and whose details have not been properly analyzed. The paper shows that the origins of the ‘developing’ label point to fundamental conflicts in its use. This is because, since its inception, the label has been used to refer to conflicting descriptions of countries’ development status deriving from different processes and with different legal consequences. To properly develop this argument, a typology is introduced to tease out the main approaches to the classification’s use in the international system. This is undertaken with direct attention to the concept of hierarchy.²

This paper reflects the growing interest in hierarchy in studies on the international system (Donnelly, 2017; Duque, 2018; Fehl & Freistein, 2020; Lake, 1996, 2011, 2017a, 2017b; Mattern & Zarakol, 2016; Pouliot, 2016; Zarakol, 2017). The intersection between hierarchy, classification, and power is strong, as ‘the structures of differentiation at the core of hierarchical systems are deeply implicated with power’ (Mattern & Zarakol, 2016, p. 625). This analysis directly engages with Fehl and Freistein (2020) and Mattern and Zarakol’s (2016) call to flesh out a hierarchy-centered research agenda through empirical investigation. To do so, it (1) uses a hierarchy ‘lens’ to understand the different uses of the ‘developing’ country classification in the international system and (2) illustrates how these varied conceptions appear in empirical debates over ‘developing’ countries, focusing on the context of international organizations and treaties. More importantly, the paper introduces a novel typology outlining four different uses of the ‘developing’ label, analyzing it theoretically and empirically. It shows that external approaches to labelling countries have yielded much more variation and change than when based on an internal one, i.e. since the label appeared, very few countries have changed their self-identification from developing to developed.

This paper starts by introducing a typology pertaining to the different processes and uses attached to the ‘developing’ country classification. Then, it presents a historical background of the ‘developing’/’developed’ world division, focusing on the period between the 1940s and 1960s. This overview provides the necessary context for understanding the consequent emergence of varied meanings and uses of the dichotomy. The core of the paper is the section, titled ‘“Developing” countries typology: Empirical analysis’, where the typology is explored and illustrated with several current examples of its use in the international system, particularly in the context of international organizations. This section is followed by a reflection over who is empowered and what kind of contestations are more likely to arise regarding each case in the typology, followed by the paper’s conclusion. Ultimately, the paper shows that even if the label is considered to be ‘out of fashion’ or not ideal, it remains legally and politically relevant.

‘Developing’/’developed’ division: a typology

This section introduces a typology of the different uses of the ‘developing’ country classification. I argue that the conceptual distinctions of the ‘developing’ classification should be represented in observance with two analytical dimensions: (1) who is doing the classifying and (2) what are the implications of such classification. In the first dimension (‘Origin’), the variation pertains to the actor(s) assessing which countries are, or should be, called ‘developing’. Here, the label is either assigned to other(s) (‘external origin’), or it emerges from a process of self-identification as ‘developing’ (‘internal origin’). The identification of a country as ‘developing’ (or not) is always an expression of power. But as the empirical analysis will show, there are important variations. For example, it can be used to disempower as well as to empower, and can be strategically manipulated by both ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ countries. Thus, outlining who does the classification is important but not enough to adequately understand these power implications.

The typology’s second dimension is attentive to the implications of the label vis-à-vis two different approaches to hierarchy: ‘Narrow’ and ‘broad’. Following Mattern and Zarakol (2016, pp. 627–631), the former refers to hierarchy as legitimate forms of authority; the latter, to hierarchy as intersubjectively organized forms of inequality. I embrace the authors’ conceptual division of hierarchy and adapt it for my proposed framework, using their concepts to empirically analyze types of hierarchies. In this paper, the narrow understanding denotes a formalized hierarchy. The focus is mostly on hierarchy (re)produced under legal settings, wherein ‘law privileges some principles and norms over others. Law reshapes the playing field on which the struggle over principles and norms takes place’ (Lake, 2017b, p. 28). For the present typology, a narrow hierarchy involves the establishment of a list where countries are individually classified as either ‘developing’ and/or ‘developed’ (or an equivalent term) based on some explicit criteria. It is attached to defining explicit boundaries for which countries are (or are not) ‘developing’, which is why it is commonly used to set legally-binding differentiated treatment. The quest for formal/legal clarity is generally found in official documents, such as treaties, reports from intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and individual countries’ lists used to unilaterally determine eligibility for foreign aid or trade preferences (for example: Generalized System of Preferences—GSP). In this typology, a narrow hierarchy is frequently based on ‘objective’ criteria, but this is not a rule. On the other hand, a broad conception of hierarchy does not negate the logic of legal hierarchical structures but sees them as manifestations of an underlying power hierarchy. Viewed from this perspective, the division of the world between ‘developing’/’developed’ is an example of how the social production of space ‘is bound with the production of differences, subjectivities, and social orders’ (Escobar, 2011, pp. 9–10). In the typology, the broad hierarchy reflects an understanding of the ‘developing’ country label that draws primarily from a historical and contextual lens, resonating with different world divisions (such as core/periphery and civilized/uncivilized) and is centered upon the political realm (as opposed to the legal one).

These two axes of internal/external Origins and narrow/broad Hierarchies yield a two-by-two matrix (Table 1), producing a typology of four contexts where the ‘developing’ label is used. The first context (‘Technocratic’) is external in origin and rests upon a narrow hierarchy: A country is formally designated ‘developing’ based on selected criteria. The second (‘Elective’) originates internally by also reflecting a narrow hierarchy: A country formally announces it wishes to be labeled as ‘developing’ in a particular legal context, where the formal criterium is self-identification. The third (‘Northern Gaze’) is external and its hierarchy is broad: A top-bottom outsider’s perception of another country as ‘developing’. The last context (‘Southern Solidarity’) is also attached to a broad hierarchy but ‘developing’ reflects a country’s self-declared (bottom-up) foreign policy identity and of belonging to a collectivity of likeminded states.

Table 1. ‘Developing’ countries typology: origins and hierarchies.

Hierarchy
		Narrow	Broad
Origin	External	Technocratic	Northern Gaze
	Internal	Elective	Southern Solidarity

As with most theoretical and parsimonious depictions of the social world, empirical observation reveals porosity in the matrix’s internal borders, hence the proposal is one of ideal-types. This analysis will show that the four quadrants are directly and/or indirectly interconnected by spillover effects, path dependent processes, and unintended consequences. These distinctions give room to appreciate why the ‘developing’ country label is so challenging and to tease out the variations in the specific tensions between actors, settings, and grievances that emerge in each context. This breakdown is useful in many ways, as it allows for a nuanced and systematic understanding of the distinct uses of the ‘developing’ label. This is a unique contribution to existing literature. By identifying the core of each type of tension, this analysis provides clarity over the possible outcomes of said contestations, as well as over the demise and/or resilience of the label for the future (see Farias, 2019).

‘Developing’ countries: background

The binary division of the world into the categories of ‘developed’ vs. ‘developing’ countries emerged in the 1940s. The latter term was used concomitantly with words such as ‘underdeveloped’, ‘undeveloped’, and ‘subdeveloped’. Some of the first uses of these labels appeared in economic writings during the intra-war period (e.g. Warren, 1937; Grattan, 1939; Kindleberger, 1943; Rosenstein-Rodan, 1944). Such outside assessment of a country’s relative economic development in the context of the international system would very soon be accompanied by the word’s use as a means of self-identification.³ Such was the case during negotiations over the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 (see Helleiner, 2014) and the International Trade Organization’s (ITO) discussions between 1946 and 1948 (see Toye, 2003; Narlikar, 2020, pp. 34–45). In this initial period, there seemed to be little dissonance over the external or internal designation of the label. Industrialization was the main barometer for both assessments and, as a general rule, countries deemed ‘developing’ also saw themselves as such, and vice-versa.

In the 1940s, self-identifying ‘developing’ countries were those who saw themselves as located in the periphery in the international economic system.⁴ Through such a lens, this system was seen has having been designed to impose and reproduce a particular hierarchy whose underlying goal was to keep a select few countries on top and the rest on the bottom. Countries’ self-identification as ‘developing’ involved more than individual manifestations: It represented a collective identity of the have-nots in the multilateral context.⁵ Not only did these countries consider their economic development as subpar due to lagging industrialization, but they also sought to join forces in order to change what they identified as a problematic global economic structure, ruled by already industrialized nations. It was up to the group (‘Southern Solidarity’) who saw themselves as ‘kept down’ by the system to join forces in order to change the status quo. However, this was not the only broad take on the hierarchy of ‘developing’ vs. ‘developed’. An abstract and outside impression of what ‘developing’ countries ‘look like’—the ‘Northern Gaze’—also reproduced a particular hierarchy that perceived ‘developing’ countries as inferior and backwards, drawing from the older world division of countries as ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized’.

By the early 1960s, the ‘developing’ label was firmly consolidated in the international system’s lexicon. This occurred through myriad paths: In the language used by IGOs (see Hoffmeister, 2020, pp. 6–12) and treaties; in the foreign policy discourses of self-identifying ‘developing’ countries; as a way for countries who did not self-identify as ‘developing’ to reference those who did; by academics for the sake of parsimony; as a replacement for the (un)civilized world division, etc. The word used—’developing’– was the same, yet what was meant, and the implications from these different meanings, was never homogenous. Moreover, the following 60 years have seen a growing sense of misunderstanding and controversy over its use. Over time, a paradox has emerged: The external means by which countries are designated ‘developing’ has become progressively muddled, while self-identification has remained exceptionally stable (Farias, 2019). The next section tackles these different origins and hierarchies in order to untangle the various contestations attached to the use of the ‘developing’ label, with a focus on contemporary issues.

‘Developing’ countries typology: empirical analysis

Technocratic

The first use of the ‘developing’ label to be discussed bears an external origin and narrow hierarchy. Here, the label is allocated to countries based on ‘objective’ material indicators, under a positivist epistemology, to draw a clear and formal boundary between the ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ groups. This approach can be traced back to the aftermath of WWI, before the ‘developing’ label itself was used. At the very beginning of the 1920s, one fundamental challenge of the newly created International Labor Organization (ILO) was finding consensus over how to identify which countries were to be considered ‘of chief industrial importance’. This made the ILO the first IGO to ‘objectively’ classify countries based on non-military power criteria (Farias, 2023). Being identified as a country ‘of chief industrial importance’ carried significant weight: They would have significantly more power in the ILO’s decision-making process. The lack of consensus over how to rank countries based on industrial power led to the creation of a special committee on the topic in 1921. One of the committee’s invitees to analyze the case was Italian statistician Corrado Gini, the same person who would become a reference on measuring inequality. In his memorandum with his findings, Gini proposed a solution⁶ but explicitly pointed out epistemological and methodological challenges associated with any solution to ranking states, writing: ‘We [the committee] do not claim that it is the only logical system, but we have not succeeded in finding an alternative’ (ILO, 1921). A full century later, Gini’s observance of the difficulty in outlining the correct ‘objective’ criteria to rank and classify individual countries under an inherently subjective context—e.g. which criteria are ideal? which cut-off point is appropriate?—remains valid.

The external/narrow technocratic approach presents itself as an ‘apolitical’ stance, typically adopting numerical-based criteria for the classification process. It is a path of differentiation embraced by some IGOs, especially when lists are set by technical staff (as opposed to country-negotiated arrangements), such as in the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).⁷ This observation overlaps with Barnett and Finnemore’s (2004, pp. 20–25) point that IGOs’ authority lies in their ability to present themselves as impersonal and ‘neutral’ sources of expertise. Expert authority enables these organizations to be powerful by creating the appearance of depoliticization. The greater the appearance of depoliticization, the greater the authority associated with the expertise.

The technocratic approach to classifying countries is useful for presenting clear legal boundaries (based on explicit criteria), individually identifying who is entitled to different rights or mandated to follow different obligations. Yet, it does not have to be used to impose legal consequences. It can ‘simply’ be used to formally define in/out group boundaries based upon a top-bottom process. The common thread is that each country’s classification is determined by a technical staff, and the result produces a list of countries individually named. For example, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) separates countries into ‘Advanced Economies’ and ‘Emerging market and developing economies’, and its goal ‘is to facilitate analysis by providing a reasonably meaningful method of organizing data’ (IMF, 2020, p. 118).⁸ This classification bears no direct legal consequence in this institution,⁹ which does not mean it is meaningless (in terms of power) in the global system. A country’s removal from the ‘Advanced Economies’ group—which has not happened so far—would very likely yield symbolic and material consequences beyond the IMF context, as a possible bellwether of a country’s unravelling economic structure. The World Bank is another interesting case. Until 2016, it used the ‘developing’ label as a proxy for lumping Low- and Middle-income countries (and ‘developed’ as synonymous for High-income countries) without attaching an internal differentiated treatment to this division.¹⁰ The reasoning to ditch the use of the development-based labels was that the ‘developing’/’developed’ world categorization was becoming less relevant and useful for global analyses (see Khokhar & Serajuddin, 2015; Farias, 2019). However, due to the longstanding use of the World Bank’s old proxy system, coupled with the appeal of the income group quantitative classification’s allure of objectivity, several external actors continue to use the income-based system to underpin their own ‘developing’ country classifications.¹¹

In the case of universal IGOs where there are no direct legal consequences to being classified as ‘developing’, contestations are more likely to be managed from within through internal bureaucratic processes. Staff can decide when and what to change and have a great deal of control over any change introduced. But when a universal IGO’s classification leads to legal impacts, contestations to the criteria are more likely to involve country representatives than only technical staff. A recent and visible example was US President Trump’s criticism of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) due to, what he saw as, the unfair advantages in postal rates given to ‘developing’ countries, especially China. This is a key component of the global ecommerce market, estimated to be valued at over US $4.2 trillion in 2021 (Forbes, 2021). The UPU uses a complex econometric calculation to determine countries’ postal development indicator (PDI) and divides countries into four groups.¹² Group 1 is commonly referred to as the ‘developed’ countries group, while Groups 2 to 4 are ‘developing’. The group classification number is the only classification that legally matters, but President Trump’s understanding that ‘developing’ countries were accruing unfair benefits from the structure was powerful enough for him to push for a change in the criteria used. A US proposal for new criteria was put forth, and when negotiations failed, his strategy was to threaten the US’s departure from the organization (see Galbraith, 2019; Cumming-Bruce, 2019). Ultimately, a consensus was reached by tweaking some criteria and thresholds while keeping the overall classification relatively untouched.

In ‘closed’ (non-universal) organizations, such as the EU and OECD, classification can have significant impact over the provision of trade and development assistance. However, non-members have little-to-no power to demand adjustments in eligibility criteria, so change prompted by outsiders is quite unlikely. The odds are even slimmer for one country to contest another’s choice of criteria for designating countries as ‘developing’. In a domestic context, each country is free to choose the criteria by which they designate others as ‘developing’ or ‘developed’. A result of this latitude in criteria-setting is visible when comparing the number of ‘developing’ country beneficiaries in different countries’ GSP tariff schemes, which range from almost 150 benefitted countries—such as Australia (148) and Turkey’s (143) GSP lists—to less than 50 countries being classified as ‘developing’, as the cases of Iceland (48) and South Korea (47) demonstrate.¹³ This unilateral classification of countries invites a rewriting of Wendt’s (1992) famous take on anarchy to ‘developing is what countries make of it’. Contestation of classification in this context can exist but is poised to be dealt with through bilateral negotiations, with the designating country having full legitimacy over its choice over who is considered ‘developing’.

This research posits that in universal IGOs and treaties, the technocratic designation is probably the most prone to contestation, although not the hardest one to change. Following Gini’s century-old evaluation, decisions about criteria and thresholds for ranking countries are inherently open to questioning over whether and how they can be improved to better capture the ‘real’ world. In fact, it could even be expected for contestation to always take place, since no criteria selection and design is ever perfect. As material capabilities and social meanings change over time, why shouldn’t the proxies used to classify the world also change? This understanding makes the World Bank’s decision to rethink their use of the ‘developing’/’developed’ world division and President Trump’s contention over UPU’s criteria reflect a natural phenomenon. Nevertheless, modification of an existing classification’s criteria is more likely to be resisted if it entails legal changes to differentiated treatment, especially when those affected by such change feel they are losers in an unfair process. If too many players consider a classification system to be wrong (and impossible to change), it will likely be replaced eventually. At the extreme, unwillingness to adapt criteria could push some countries to (threaten to) withdraw from the IGO or document and create a new organization (or document) with their preferred criteria to ‘compete’ with the status quo one.

Elective

The combination of an internal origin with a narrow hierarchy occurs when countries choose to come forward and label themselves as ‘developing’ for a specific context. Here, the challenge over quantitatively assessing which countries should be considered ‘developing’ is purposefully set aside. In its place, the onus shifts to each individual country. The criterium is straightforward: Each member is required to choose which list they want to be placed on, which is legally binding only to that document. Social identity as ‘developing’ might be present but, unlike in the Southern Solidarity case (soon to be discussed), is not necessary. In the elective case, the decision to place oneself in a ‘developing’ countries list (or not) is calculated by each country vis-à-vis each particular document. The result does not yield any legal implication beyond the confines of that particular document. While the Technocratic designation of someone (usually technical staff) externally determines which countries belong to the ‘developing’ or ‘developed’ group, typically relying on quantitative criteria, in the Elective case, the criterium is qualitative and emerges internally from a country’s choice of self-identification. Unless there are legally set caveats, in theory, any country can claim to self-identity as ‘developing’ (or not).

This type of arrangement can be found in some multilateral legal documents (IOs and treaties) that establish eligibility for legally binding differentiated treatment. The first and the most well-known case of elective self-identification as ‘developing’ was set by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), later on incorporated by the World Trade Organization (WTO).¹⁴ In 1964, GATT members discussed the introduction of a new section (Part IV) to its legal base. Entitled ‘Trade and Developed’, it aimed at expanding the trade of ‘less-developed’ (sic) countries through differentiated treatment. While debating the contours of the upcoming new section, the GATT’s Committee on Legal and Institutional Framework had to figure out a way to identify which countries were to be classified as ‘less-developed’. Their decision was essentially to resort to countries’ choice of self-labeling (at least for the time being) dealing with classification problems as they arose or pending GATT members later determining specific criteria. As then said by committee members in a meeting over this exact topic:

On the one hand, some members considered that it was not at this stage either necessary or feasible to attempt a definition of a less-developed contracting party and that if a problem as to identification arose such a problem could be dealt with at that time. On the other hand, some members felt that it was possible by a systematic identification of either less-developed contracting parties or developed contracting parties to resolve the matter at a later stage (GATT, 1964; emphasis added).

In practice, the GATT never reached this ‘later stage’. As decades passed, a number of self-identifying ‘less-developed’ countries began participating in its negotiation rounds. By the time that the Uruguay Round (1986–1994) was over, elective self-identification had become a fundamental component of the newly created WTO. Contestation over countries’ formal elective self-identification as ‘developing’ is a relatively recent phenomenon. The WTO has been the main locus of debate (with growing attention to the climate change regime as well), mostly concomitant with the growing economic strength of so-called emerging powers in the 2000s (see Narlikar, 2005; Rolland, 2012; Kahler, 2013; Weinhardt, 2020; Weinhardt & Schöfer, 2022; Hopewell, 2022). China is the most significant example of clashes between external and internal assessments of development status. By the second half of the 2000s, China had surpassed the United States and Germany in exports of merchandise (all products) and of high-technology exports (over four times Germany and five times US numbers in 2020), and since the late 2010s it is the world’s richest country.¹⁵ Can a country with such undeniably impressive economic indicators still legitimately claim self-identification as ‘developing’? Perhaps more importantly, who (or what) can be considered the just arbiter for assessing such legitimacy?

In 2019, for the first time in WTO history, the US defended a complete overhaul of the organization’s method for classifying ‘developing’ countries with the following worldview: ‘[T]he WTO remains stuck in a simplistic and clearly outdated construct of “North-South” division, “developed” and “developing” countries. Each is a seemingly static set, regardless of economic, social, trade, and other indicators. This binary construct does not reflect the realities of 2019’ (WTO, 2019a, p. 2). This followed a proposal for eliminating self-determination, replacing it with this combination of (external) indicators: No ‘developing’ country could be a member of the OECD or G20, or a High-Income country, or account for more than 0.5% of global trade (WTO, 2019b). While China was clearly the main target of this change,¹⁶ this novel approach, if accepted, would affect a total of 34 countries, or over half of the global population (Kwa & Lunenborg, 2019). Ten ‘developing’ countries put forth a rebuttal to the US position, arguing that ‘self-declaration of “developing” Member status, a fundamental rule in the WTO, has proven to be the most appropriate classification approach to the WTO’ (WTO, 2019c, p. 11). Ultimately, the US proposal to eliminate self-determination in the WTO did not go forward, being unable to amass support, at least publicly.¹⁷ The current Biden administration has given no signal of intending to pursue the proposed change.

Much is discussed about relatively wealthy ‘developing’ countries, such as China, trying to use elective arrangements to gain and/or secure unfair advantages (see also Wilkinson & Scott, 2008; Kennedy, 2015; Nordhaus, 2015). Yet, an interesting phenomenon has been mostly unexplored: Countries that do not present themselves as belonging to the ‘developing’ country group yet have chosen the ‘developing’ label in some documents. Such is the case of Israel, who has a ‘developing’ country status in the GATT/WTO context.¹⁸ Such a choice stems from the document’s design: Each country was asked to inform their chosen label upon entering the GATT, whose decisions were grandfathered in upon the creation of the WTO.

Another even more interesting case refers to several members of the European Union in the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD). Here, the default position is that countries are ‘developing’ unless they declare themselves ‘developed’. The Convention’s Art. 20 §2 establishes that ‘developed’ country Parties should provide new and additional financial resources to help ‘developing’ country Parties meet the agreed costs of implementing measures to fulfil the obligations of the document. The decision over defining which countries were ‘developed’ was to establish a ‘list of developed country Parties and other Parties which voluntarily assume the obligations of the developed country’ (CBD 1994, Art 20 §2, emphasis added). The CBD list was established in 1994 then updated in 2006, with 25 nations then voluntarily self-identifying as ‘developed country Parties’ (CBD, 2006). It was determined that the list would continue to be open to any country wishing to come forward as ‘developed’. However, the list has remained unchanged since 2006. A close observation of this list reveals several noteworthy absentees. Among the countries who have not (yet) come forward in self-identifying as ‘developed’ in the CBD are Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Liechtenstein (which has the world’s highest GDP per capita¹⁹), Lithuania, Malta, and Slovakia. Almost all of them are considered ‘developed’ by both narrow and broad accounts. In addition to the CBD, other curious cases of formal self-identification within the ‘developing’/’developed’ dichotomy are (1) Kazakhstan’s request to be moved from non-Annex (‘developing’) to Annex (‘developed’) countries in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); and (2) Tajikistan’s request to self-identify as a non-Article 5 (‘developed’) Party in the Montreal Protocol, even though its GDP per capita is less than US$ 900,²⁰ on par with many Least Developed Countries (LDCs.) Notwithstanding these examples, the use of elective self-labeling as the formal criterium for differentiating countries in IGOs and treaties is relatively uncommon (Farias, 2022).

My assessment is that an Elective arrangement will always be harder to change than the Technocratic one. In the latter, there will always be challenges over the ‘right’ criteria to be used or to the adopted threshold for cut-off, and it is natural that countries get recategorized over time. Under an Elective setting, a country either is or is not ‘developing’. Unless there is some legally embedded condition, it is up to the country alone to determine which group it wants to be placed in. There is much less room for accommodation in cases of external contestation, like what was reached in the UPU case. The only viable alternative for change appears to be a replacement of the elective identifying arrangement altogether, which would likely to be followed by a fierce battle over which new path for classification would be most appropriate. Awareness of the path dependent impact of a new classification would make such replacement highly disputed.

In the case of (quasi) universal multilateral settings, such as the WTO, an added layer must be factored in: Countries that see themselves as ‘developing’ make up the numerical majority of the world. Any country or group wanting to eliminate elective self-identification must find a way to face this voting bloc. A significant splintering of the elective ‘developing’ group would probably require two elements. First, most of them would have to feel harmed or threatened by powerful yet self-identifying ‘developing’ countries (China, India, Brazil, etc.). Second, that siding with ‘developed’ countries to dismantle the current system would bring the less-powerful ‘developing’ countries greater advantage. A simpler solution seems to keep the elective self-identification arrangement but add a new system or criteria that is valid only for future agreements (‘ex nunc’ legal effects). For example, existing differentiated treatment could be maintained for self-identified ‘developing’ countries, yet new differentiation rules would be applicable only to the LDCs or countries fitting specific criteria (e.g. GDP per capita and Gini index above/below certain thresholds).

Similar to the Technocratic case, a widespread perception of too much abuse of the Elective structure with little/no possibility of change in the structure could pose a risk for the legal document itself. For example, if a significant number of countries—or even a few ‘key’ countries—decided to withdraw their ratification from an agreement (or the institution resting upon the agreement), this could make it irrelevant from a political perspective.

Northern gaze

In the typology, the ‘Northern Gaze’ is when an external observer informally designates countries as ‘developing’ (or not), with no structured criteria or specific boundaries to who is in or out. A country is ‘developing’ because, in the eyes of the beholder, it looks like one. In its simplest use, the external origin and broad hierarchy represents a colloquial understanding of which countries are rich or poor, with no clear point of reference except one’s own understanding of the division’s broad contours. While not inherently incorrect regarding which countries could be called ‘developing’, its main problem has been the preconceived notions attached to the label. This gaze can be fed by a deeply judgmental facet. For example, industrial laggards in Western Europe (e.g. Portugal, Spain, Greece) were not so distant from some Latin American countries in the first decade after WWII.²¹ More importantly, even decades after the direct negative effects of WWII could be the underlying reasons for weak indicators, lagging economies in Western Europe were not portrayed as being part of the ‘developing’ (decolonized) world. The threshold(s) for being labeled a ‘developing’ country have always been set in a way that these countries never fit the bill: Being ‘developing’ is a characteristic of former colonies, not (former) European empires.

Beyond an economic perspective of development, a country’s ‘developing’ status in this external and broad hierarchy has commonly been followed by a perception that a country’s people/culture are not developed. ‘Developing’ in this context serves as a politically correct version of ‘uncivilized’, a widely used term until WWII. Awareness of the potential problems that old language could cause in the international context were evident by the early 1960s, facilitating the renaming of ‘uncivilized’ as ‘developing’. In 1961, a memorandum from US President John Kennedy’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs to members of the National Security Council Staff illustrated the importance of terminology in foreign policy, writing:

The U.S. Information Agency has been evaluating certain words that are commonly used in our official output and public statements. They have found that certain words do not translate well or have an unfavorable impact on target groups. As a result, instructions have been issued 82within the USIA that certain words be no longer used. The words or phrases to be discontinued are “under-developed countries,” “undeveloped countries,” “backward countries,” and any similar terms … The words which translate best in all languages and are positive in their connotations are “developing countries” and “modernizing countries.”²²

The development-based label served a sanitized way of referring to ‘certain’ people in the post-WWII setting, a convenient dog whistle for racist belittling drawing from the civilization-based lens. In this sense, the inferiority inherent to being labeled uncivilized was transferred to the label ‘developing’. The idea of the superior status of countries labelled as ‘developed’ can inform a scenario where countries strategically self-identify as ‘developed’ even if most objective criteria would place them among the ‘developing’ group, such as Kazakhstan in the UNFCCC and Tajikistan in the Montreal Protocol (discussed in the Elective approach).

Setting aside the civilization-based hierarchical connotations of the ‘developing’ label, it is surprising to see that many IGOs and treaties use the ‘developing’/’developed’ dichotomy with no criteria to separate one from the other. A good example is the United Nations’ Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use list, simply known as ‘M49’. When it introduced the development-based classification, it was explained as follows:

There is no established convention for the designation of “developed” and “developing” countries or areas in the United Nations system. In common practice, Japan in Asia, Canada and the United States in northern America, Australia and New Zealand in Oceania and Europe are considered “developed” regions or areas. In international trade statistics, the Southern African Customs Union is also treated as a developed region and Israel as a developed country; countries emerging from the former Yugoslavia are treated as developing countries; and countries of eastern Europe and the former USSR countries in Europe are not included under either developed or developing regions. (UN, 1996, p. ii)

After that, very few countries had their classification changed: Israel and Cyprus were moved to ‘developed’, South Africa to ‘developing’, all European countries in the post-Soviet space were incorporated into the ‘developed’ group, and all post-Soviet-non-Europeans were defined as ‘developing’. However, in December 2021, ‘following consultation with other international and supranational organizations active in official statistics, the concept of “Developed regions” and “Developing regions” was removed from M49’ (UNSTATS, n.d.).²³ Nonetheless, the list—from the ‘neutral’ UN’s Statistical Division—is still used by several IGOs, such as: The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the International Telecommunications Union (UTU), the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Akin to the IMF previously discussed, the UN’s intention with the M49 list was ‘statistical convenience’ and also set by technical staff. But while Technocratic (and Elective) cases have one/some formal criteria to guide their classification, in the Northern Gaze, such as the M49, there is no formal criteria: Countries are attributed a label under an implicit assumption of ‘common use’, of being externally perceived as ‘developing’ or ‘developed’.

The replacement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) illustrates the intersection of M49’s lack of criteria with ontological questions over the loose classification of countries as ‘developing’. When the MDGs were launched in 2000, the focus was on ‘developing’ countries only. In 2015, the SDGs introduced an important change: The goals were to be sought in and by all countries. The dichotomy was not fully abandoned, as 38 out of 232 targets of the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development are still defined with reference to ‘developing’ countries (Hoffmeister, 2020, p. 4). Nonetheless, in 2016, a decision was made to have all SDG reports explicitly move away from the ‘drawbacks and inconsistencies’ found in the former classification of ‘developing’/’developed’ labels (see UNSTAT, 2016). Since then, the basis for country groupings in these reports are geographic regions. Similarly, in March 2021, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) informed that they would also ‘use geographical regions as their primary criteria for the classification of economies’ although the M49’s ‘developing’/’developed’ regions would not be completely eliminated (UNCTAD, 2021). This case is particularly meaningful because UNCTAD emerged in 1964, following a Joint Declaration of Developing Countries, under an explicit mandate to ‘accelerate the economic development of developing countries’ (UN, 1964, p. iii; emphasis added). As such, it moved from ‘developing’ as an internal and broad classification (Southern Solidarity), to the UN M49’s external and broad (Northern Gaze), to now giving little importance to the classification’s use altogether. This sparks a reflection of whether UNCTAD’s move away from the ‘developing’ country category could have comparable elements to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after the end of the Cold War: Organizations adapting their ‘original’ mission to reflect changes in the international system and justify their continued existence.

Finally, the OECD is another interesting case as a subject of the external and subjective gaze. The organization was founded for the cooperation of ‘economically more advanced nations’ (OECD, 1960). Although it did not explicitly claim to be the organization of ‘developed’ countries, membership in the OECD came to be perceived as a valid proxy for identifying a ‘developed’ country. This is reflected in the fact that several IGOs and treaties have used this membership as a criterium for assessing which countries are not ‘developed’. For example, when the UNFCCC was established in 1992, the designation of Annex 1 countries—those with more legal responsibilities—was based solely on membership to the OECD at that time; and both the US and Switzerland’s GPS automatically rule out OECD members from their list of beneficiaries. It should be noted that OECD expansion in the past twenty years, especially in the last couple of years, has put into question the direct proxy of ‘OECD membership = developed’. For one, the organization has strongly de-emphasized the ‘economically advanced’ component of membership and replaced it with candidate countries’ alignment with OECD legal instruments, policies, and practices. This change has brought in countries that are mostly externally classified as ‘developing’ and self-identify in all settings as ‘developing’. Current full members of the OECD include Chile, Costa Rica, and Colombia, and discussions are under way to (potentially) add Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Peru, and Romania. Such an expanding membership is poised to raise the question of whether embracing the OECD as an informal reference to the ‘developed’ label will still make sense in years to come.

Many scholars and practitioners from countries considered ‘developed’ have sought to overcome the negative connotations of a ‘Northern Gaze’ by adopting the Global North/South nomenclature. Whether this is good—or good enough—is not a topic for this paper. But some caveats are worth pointing out. First, the term ‘Global South’ is not used to establish differentiation in legally binding documents (Elective), nor is it commonly used in foreign policy (Southern solidarity): Countries still say they are part of the ‘developing’ world, not the Global South. This means that in some circumstances, the correct terminology is in fact ‘developing’, not Global South. Second, there is no guarantee that the Global North/South language is shielded from also being used to designate some countries, cultures, and/or people being considered superior or inferior to others. The problem stems not from designation itself nor from material characteristics (e.g. small number of doctors per capita), but rather from intersubjective attributes assigned to them (e.g. ‘…because people from this place are not smart enough’).

Southern solidarity

The last case in this typology combines an internal origin of classification with a broad hierarchy, where ‘developing’ is embraced as part of the country’s identity. Overlap with the Elective self-identification case is evident. In both settings, countries identify themselves as ‘developing’. However, in the Southern Solidarity context, being ‘developing’ (1) is not prompted by formal criterium and (2) its effect is diffuse (i.e. not confined to a specific document). It stems from any inner ethos and sense of collectivity as belonging to the ‘developing’ country group.

Southern Solidarity refers to seeing the ‘developing’ label as expressing a political stance. It signals two intertwined elements. First, the adoption of a worldview that finds the international system unfair and biased towards ‘developed’ countries. Second, a foreign policy position that implies a greater likelihood of alignment with other ‘developing’ countries in multilateral settings in order to challenge such deep flaws. Being a ‘developing’ country in this context expresses a shared understanding of where power lies in the international system and, more importantly, a collective strategy for navigating within this system. Borrowing from ‘critical’ language, the goal is emancipation.

Unlike elective case-by-case self-identification, under Southern Solidarity the ‘developing’ identity is pervasive in a country’s interactions in the international system. This systemic approach draws on a longstanding history of contestation of oppressive world divisions: Colonialism, imperialism, Western/European superiority, racism, etc. Joint criticism of such perverse broad hierarchies by countries that would later embrace the ‘developing’ identity were visible in the design of new multilateral institutions in the early twentieth century. In the 2nd Hague Conference of 1907, Latin American countries joined forces and halted the creation of an international arbitration court that was seen as introducing an unfair system for assigning jurors (see Finnemore & Jurkovich, 2014), then again in the design of the ILO. As noted in the background section, ‘peripheral’ countries—non-European and not-great powers—engaged with growing frequency and intensity as a new world order was forged in the 1940s, at which time ‘developing’ and similar terms began to be used.

In the following decades, the ‘developing’ country group surged in numbers alongside the increase of newly independent nations. More importantly, the term’s ‘thickened’ political element reflected a common desire to contest a global structure biased in favor of Europe (former colonizers) and/or the Cold War superpowers. This was seen in the Bandung Conference in 1955, the UN’s Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in 1960, and the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961, to name a few. The creation of the Group of 77 (G77) in 1964, in tandem with UNCTAD, represented a milestone in this process: An organization explicitly made by and for ‘developing’ countries. As per their first ministerial meeting, G77 members were ‘the representatives of developing countries… united by common aspirations and the identity of their economic interests and determined to pursue their joint efforts towards economic and social development, peace and prosperity’ (G77, 1967; emphases added).

Much has changed in the world since 1964. Yet, G77 membership has remained exceptionally stable in its general profile. In the decades following its creation, almost all decolonized countries joined the organization, and membership almost doubled in numbers. Yet not all newly independent countries have followed this path. None of the new nations formed by the dissolution of Yugoslavia (one of G77’s founding members) are currently in the organization, and only three of the 15 sovereign states that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union (never a member) joined the G77: Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan (G77, n.d.). Only a handful of countries have chosen to leave the organization in its almost 60 years. These are Cyprus, Malta, Mexico, Romania, and South Korea. To be or not to be a ‘developing’ country seems to be a question few countries ask themselves, and even fewer are the ones who have decided to change their answers. Even Mexico and South Korea did not eliminate the label from their foreign policy vocabulary.

The Northern Gaze approach highlights the typical negative connotations associated with the ‘developing’ label. But the incredibly small number of countries that have left the G77 provoke an intriguing question: Why have relatively rich ‘developing’ countries continued the association with the ‘developing’ country group? Put differently, why would a country not want to move to the supposedly ‘higher’ status of ‘developed’? A simple answer could be a cost-benefit take, i.e. to secure accrued advantages from differentiation. Under this logic, it would be too tempting for any country to voluntarily abdicate a free-riding status, especially if significant material gains are involved (such as in the WTO). At a first glance, this is a very reasonable explanation. But as the Elective subsection showed, a ‘developing’ spirit is not necessary for choosing to self-label as such in legally binding documents.

The Southern Solidarity scenario suggests that the internal and subjective approach involves other ‘rational’ and normative power considerations in addition to securing legal differentiation. The collective voice of ‘developing’ countries in multilateral settings is bound to be more powerful and more likely to achieve its goals than a diffuse response. This does not mean that all countries identifying as ‘developing’ have the same interests in all settings; climate change negotiations are the prime example of diverging goals within the group. Yet, when faced with the interests of a powerful group of ‘developed’ countries, a sub-optimal collective ‘developing’ position can still be the best (or only) option. Returning to the case of China, continued identification as a ‘developing’ country comes with opportunities and risks. On the one hand, it is an opening for claiming leadership and framing debates. Legitimately or not, China can present itself as a leader (or one of the leaders) of the ‘developing’ countries group. It can defend positions in negotiations with ‘developed’ countries under the reasoning ‘this is what developing countries want, not what I want’, and portray its development assistance as inherently different from that of traditional OECD donors, under the banner of South-South Cooperation (see Farias, 2018).

But there are limits to (ab)using the ‘developing’ identity. Acting in self-interest and against the group’s majority interests, and/or having a welcoming discourse around aid but acting similarly as other former imperial powers is bound to breed calls of hypocrisy from other ‘developing’ countries. Unlike the Elective scenario, Southern Solidarity is anchored in intersubjectivity. There are two main paths by which a country may no longer be considered part of Southern Solidarity. One is intersubjective ‘illegitimacy’, i.e. a substantial number of ‘developing’ countries no longer consider a self-proclaimed ‘developing’ country to be one. The other is a country’s decision to shift its foreign policy identity, consciously detaching itself from the ‘developing’ label and worldview by embracing a new identity. Adjustments in foreign policy direction are common to all countries, operating hand-in-hand with changes in domestic leadership. Change to a country’s collective foreign policy identity is a more politically complex process, especially if the identity being changed is well established in the populace’s collective ‘we’ (see Abrams & Hogg, 1990; Jenkins, 2014; Risse, 2012; Ruggie, 1997; Todd, 2018). Assuming it is easier to (de)emphasize than renegue an ingrained identity can help explain why so few countries have dropped the ‘developing’ identity even when they could claim a ‘developed’ status and/or have left the G77, which is taken here as a proxy for self-identification as ‘developing’.²⁴

Returning to the first approach in the typology, it is not surprising that classification in the Technocratic designation is bound to clash with Southern Solidarity’s: They are based on fundamentally conflicting ontologies and epistemologies. Under the latter, ‘developing’ is an identity and norm-based political stance, based on shared historical experiences and worldviews. In the former, it is an assessment based on formalized and explicit criteria that assess ‘objective’ socio-economic indicators. Neither is inherently better or worse at determining what makes a country be classified as ‘developing’. They simply draw on different histories and goals, then come to different understandings of what designates a country with the label. When these two approaches confront one another in the design of universal multilateral settings, Southern Solidarity starts with a numerical advantage: More countries in the world (still) embrace ‘developing’ as an identity, meaning that the axis of power is (relatively) tilted towards this group if they come to negotiations as a unified bloc.

Implications and contestations

As the empirical analysis showed, categories are ‘more than merely markers of distribution of material power identity’ (Hopf, 2002, p. 2). They have an important role in producing, contesting, and/or reinforcing power—both material and symbolic—whether intentionally or not (Beerli, 2017; Bourdieu, 1989; Broome & Quirk, 2015; Cohen & Lefebvre, 2005). The findings show that contestations over power and hierarchy related to the development-based division happen in different ways depending on whether the hierarchy is narrow or broad (as these concepts are used in this paper). Concerns over subjectivity are present in both cases but over different elements. Under a narrow structure, contestation over (re)design of formal boundaries separating the distinct groups is mostly concerned with criteria, i.e. what specific measurements should be used when classifying countries? Under the broad one, contention revolves around intersubjectivity and positionality: The meanings embedded country classification depend on who is doing the classification.

Labels can evoke and also attribute power and powerlessness. The paper’s empirical findings resonate with and expand Narlikar’s (2020) discussions over the empowerment of the powerless. The bottom-up internal path to be classified as ‘developing’ embraces ‘powerlessness:’ It has been used by countries as a way to leverage power basically since the label appeared in the political space. This has taken place most visibly in the trade context but can also be seen in other spaces of multilateral negotiations (e.g. environmental issues). Contestation over this path is generally linked to issues of legitimacy: Who has legitimacy to be ‘developing’? Subjectivity here is situated in the normative space and seeks to tease out who is ‘rightfully’ entitled to leverage power-through-powerlessness. This is particularly the case involving countries with (1) conflicting quantitative indicators of pointing to ‘developed’ but with a historical foreign policy identification as ‘developing’; and (2) inconsistent quantitative indicators for assessing development status, such as having high GDP (total) but relatively low GDP per capita (e.g. China), relatively high GDP per capita but high-income inequality (e.g. Kuwait), or relatively high quality of life but low technological prowess (e.g. Serbia). In addition, the label can be—and has been—used by powerful countries to maintain and/or gain power over less-powerful countries in the international system. The uses based on the ‘external’ origin can reinforce and reify perceptions of ‘developing’ countries as backwards and still ‘uncivilized’. It is no surprise that such different conceptions lead to clashes and disagreements in the international system.

Each of the framework’s cases points to different answers over (1) who is empowered and (2) what is the most common/likely contestation to rise in each case. The Technocratic setting is more likely to directly empower IOs (especially bureaucracies), as they are in charge of setting parameters to determine which countries are ‘developing.’ From a Realist lens, this means already-powerful countries are expected to benefit the most: IOs are used 82to establish standard-making and benchmarking to reflect these country’s interests. Yet, bureaucracies, especially in universal IOs, can also (be forced to) resist a greater empowerment of already-powerful countries’ interests if they want to retain an image of ‘neutral’ expertise and legitimacy of universal representation. Empirically, contestation in this space is likely to be over fairness and adequacy regarding selected criteria and thresholds. A Technocratic approach is bound to face systematic calls for corrections: Even if a criteria arrangement is settled, changes in the international system over time will eventually push for updates. At the extreme, high dissatisfaction with a classification system in a particular context—prompted by an IO’s bureaucracy and/or countries—could eventually make the classification be seen as obsolete and/or inadequate.

In the Elective case, empowerment is unclear a priori. In theory, any country can be ‘empowered’ by choosing their preferred label to accrue more material or symbolic gains. Each country’s preference in each setting is not predetermined, as (theoretically) power can be accrued by choosing to be formally classified as ‘developing’ as well as ‘developed’. In practice, countries that have ‘ambiguity’ to their perceived development status (e.g. Brazil, South Korea) have more opportunities for strategizing how to explore variation in classification than those who do not (e.g. Canada, Mali). The most likely element of contestation in this case is fear of free-riders, as theoretically each country could choose to identify in the most advantageous way for them. At the extreme, a generalized perception of abuse of formal self-identification to skirt legal/financial obligations combined with an impossibility of change to what is established could lead to ‘killing’ an IO or treaty, if a significant number of countries withdrawing from it.

The Northern Gaze empowers those who see themselves as being a part of it. It essentially reaffirms the superiority of countries considered ‘civilized’ in the early twentieth century, notably in (Western) Europe, plus a few others (e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). Contestation is usually drawn from outsiders who reject the unwritten sense of cultural superiority deriving from this hierarchy, which posits the embrace of so-called ‘Western’ values, norms, and visual identity (e.g. ‘whiteness’) as the reference for being ‘developed’. In this context, ‘developing’ is accused of being used to represent a sanitized version of ‘uncivilized’, i.e. same criteria for classification just under a different label/word.

Southern Solidary is explicitly based upon a desire to empower countries who see and/or portray themselves as being part of the ‘developing’ world. As a group, it has the potential to impact global governance arrangements perceived to be biased against them. However, growing in-group heterogeneity (power-wise) has significant potential to weaken the group’s unity and, consequently, its power to cause changes the international system. Intersubjective contestation in this space means that even if a country unequivocally sees itself as ‘developing’, it can still be involuntarily excluded from the group.

Finally, the empirical analysis of the typology reveals distinct facets of country classification impacting those using these labels. One implication for scholars is the awareness that not all readers will interpret the ‘developing’ label in the same way. This journal has several examples of authors focusing on the category ‘developing’ countries but with an underlying different take on what they are actually talking about. For example, Woods and Lombardi’s (2006) study of developing countries’ representation in the IMF (the label ‘developing’ by itself does not produce legal consequences) is a story of political alliances and constituencies (Southern Solidarity). Scholars working on WTO and related trade matters, such as Gallagher (2007), Verger and van Paassen (2013), and Hopewell (2019), are attentive to the legal and political consequences of this Elective structure. Hearson et al. (2022) highlight the gaps that still exist in understanding the power ‘of rest’ in crafting global governance, and the pitfalls of a Northern Gaze that dismisses agency from ‘developing’ countries. And Burchi and De Muro (2016) discuss challenges related to measuring human development in high-income (‘developed’) countries, a case that resonates with Technocratic context. While all of these scholars are (correctly) using the same word, they are not exactly referring to the same thing. The label conjures clashing ontologies and epistemologies that must be teased out and properly understood, as they entail different power dynamics. These examples reaffirm the value of the typology in teasing out what can be meant by ‘developing’ countries and the importance of clarity in language.

Conclusion

The goal of this paper was to unpack the use and contestations attached to the classification of countries using the ‘developing’/’developed’ dichotomy. The starting point for this unpacking was the realization that the ‘developing’ label has concurrent and conflicting uses, reflecting the classification’s heterogeneous applications since it emerged. To do so, it introduced an original framework, presenting the different uses of the ‘developing’ label by using a 2 × 2 matrix. On one axis, the division was structured around the source of the classification: Whether it was attributed to a country or was determined through self-identification. On the other axis, the focus was on hierarchy. That is, whether the differentiation reflected a narrow (formal, criteria-based division) or a broad (informal, intersubjective perception) hierarchy in the international system. These two axes yielded four uses of the label, each one having different characteristics leading to different points of contestation. ‘Developing’ has been (and continued to be) used by different groups to disempower and to empower countries attached to the label. The former, when used to reproduce value-laden hierarchies of countries based on an old ‘civilizational’ status: A place of laggards and uneducated people, the literally not-developed. The latter use signals global solidarity in the longstanding struggle against a still unfair international system. Whether such an identity is sincere or not is another discussion. For this analysis, what matters is highlighting the strategic choice that countries make in embracing this identity or not.

Finally, this article showed why there is still a long way for anyone to claim the development-based classification is obsolete. It might be in some contexts (as in the case of the World Bank and the SDGs), but it is very much alive in climate change and trade regimes, and—most importantly—as an identity. Even if, hypothetically, all IOs and scholars stopped using this label, as long as countries continue to embrace ‘developing’ as part of their foreign policy and seek power as a group, the label will still matter theoretically and empirically.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 A category is a subsection of a group, created by putting together those with perceived similarities. A label is the name given to each category. Classification is the process of determining how each unit should be categorized; When used inside single quotes, the words ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ imply its use as a label; without the quotes, it refers to the verb (to develop).

2 This paper’s working definition of hierarchy draws from Mattern and Zarakol (2016, p. 624): ‘broadly as any system through which actors are organised into vertical relations of super- and subordination.’

3 Still, as noted by an anonymous reviewer, while countries in the periphery might have agency in identifying themselves as ‘developing’, most of them had little real influence over the creation of this category.

4 The concept of the core/periphery division in the international system can be found in Raul Prebisch’s writings as early as 1946 (Love, 1980, p. 64).

5 As noted by the US’ Director of the Office of International Trade Policy, Clair Wilcox, in October 1946: ‘Members of the undeveloped-nations bloc’ were already urging ‘affirmative provision be made for the industrialization of undeveloped areas’ in the ITO’s charter (Wilcox, 1946, emphasis added).

6 Gini suggested the ranking of countries based on their industrial importance be drawn from a system of eight indices: Four absolute (e.g., Value of the total net production) and four relative indices (e.g., Ratio between the amount of special trade and the value of the total net production).

7 UNIDO uses an adjusted value of manufacturing value added (MVA) per capita (at PPP), obtained as a product of two ratio variables: MVApc (adjusted)_j = GDPpc (at PPP)_j x s_j, where s_j = MVA_j/GDP_j (UNIDO, n.d82.). ‘Industrialized Economies’ (IEs) include economies with adjusted MVApc higher than US$2,500 (PPP) or a GDP/pc higher than $20,000 (international PPP); all other countries are considered ‘Developing and Emerging Industrial Economies’ (DEIEs) (UNIDO, 2021, p. 184).

8 According to the IMF (2021; emphasis added), the main criteria used to classify countries ‘are (1) per capita income level, (2) export diversification . . . and (3) degree of integration into the global financial system . . . Note, however, that these are not the only factors considered in deciding the classification of countries . . . This classification is not based on strict criteria, economic or otherwise, and it has evolved over time.’

9 IMF voting, for instance, is determined by a quota system that is completely unrelated to this classification. Low-income countries (a World Bank classification) can have access to IMF loans at lower/zero interest rates, but this is not extended to all countries in the ‘Emerging market and developing economies’ group.

10 Each income band is determined based on gross national income (GNI) per capita data in US dollars, converted from local currency using the World Bank Atlas method (World Bank, n.d82.); These groups are different than the ‘Least Developed Country’ (LDC) classification, which yields important consequences for those labeled as such. While it is amply used by the World Bank (and several other IGOs), this list is set by a group of independent experts that report to UN’s ECOSOC.

11 Such is the case of the European Union’s Generalized Systems of Preference (GSP), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the OECD’s criteria for Official Development Assistance (ODA) eligibility.

12 See UPU (2013, pp. 316–319) for full details.

13 These numbers are taken from each country’s GSP schemes, available on UNCTAD’s website: https://unctad.org/topic/trade-agreements/generalized-system-of-preferences.

14 The origins of this approach can be traced further back to the concomitant negotiations to establish an International Trade Organization (ITO) and GATT in the late 1940s - where only the latter was successful. While open to all nations, only 23 signed the GATT, all of which had an advanced industrial profile, and sought to reduce tariffs for manufactured goods. In 1958, a GATT-commissioned a study on the trends in international trade (known as known as the Haberler Report) came out, focusing on situation of ‘less developed’ countries.

15 Measured in Gross National Income (PPP; current international $); numbers from World Bank database.

16 In the first document (WTO 2019a), China is mentioned 55 times, India 21 times, South Korea 20 times, Brazil nine, Israel eight, and Russia seven times.

17 Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, an open supporter of Pres. Trump, stated his indirect support for the initiative, stating Brazil would no longer self-identify as developing in upcoming WTO negotiations.

18 As per last Trade Policy Review of Israel (drawn up by the WTO Secretariat): ‘Israel has developing country status in the WTO’ (WTO, 2018, item 2.5).

19 Based on World Bank data (https://data.worldbank.org/).

20 Based on World Bank data (https://data.worldbank.org/).

21 In 1950, Spain’s GDP per capita (measured in US dollars at 1990 PPPs) was lower than that of Mexico, and Argentina’s was less than 5% smaller than that of France (Van Zanden et al., 2014, p. 67).

22 Kennedy Library, White House Central Files, Subject Files, Executive, Box 184, FG 296 U.S. Information Agency 1-20-61–7-31-61 (emphasis added).

23 The concept of ‘developing regions’ detailed which countries were considered developing. There is no explanation over why the word ‘regions’ was used instead of ‘countries.’ One possibility is it could have been to avoid claims of recognition of some jurisdictions as sovereign states.

24 A recent example involved Brazil: Pres. Bolsonaro (2019–2022) opened the path for Brazil to no longer be automatically treated as ‘developing’ in future WTO negotiations and gave little importance to Brazil’s ‘developing’ country alliances but did not discuss (at least not publicly) taking the country out of the G77.