Using and abusing the concept of the Third World: geopolitics and the comparative political study of development and underdevelopment

Abstract

This article argues that, while the notion of a ‘Third World’ retains relevance and usefulness in the context of geopolitical analysis, generalisations about Third World politics are no longer helpful or justifiable. It begins by reviewing the historic rationales for the notion of the Third World together with criticisms made of these arguments. It then considers reasons why the term may retain some value at a geopolitical level: in signalling a major axis of inequality, providing a symbolic basis for collective action and, possibly, as an alternative to less attractive perspectives. The article then turns more specifically to the field of comparative politics, suggesting that in the past the notion of a Third World could be justified pragmatically as a response to the insularity of Western political science and because there was, up to a point, a common paradigm of Third World politics. Such justifications have been undermined by the growth in specialist knowledge of individual Third World countries or regions together with increasing differentiation among them.

Notes

Vicky Randall is in the Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK. Email: [email protected].

I should like to thank Mark Berger and Joe Foweraker for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

See for instance V Randall & R Theobald, Political Change and Underdevelopment, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998; MT Berger, ‘The end of the “Third World”?’, Third World Quarterly, 15 (2), 1994, pp 257–275; and B Smith, Understanding Third World Politics, London: Macmillan, 1996.

Details provided at http.//www.namkl.org.my.

P Cammack, D Pool & W Tordoff, Third World Politics: A Comparative Introduction, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993.

J-P The´rien, ‘Beyond the North–South divide: the two tales of world poverty,’ Third World Quarterly, 20 (4), 1999, pp 723–742.

C Thomas, ‘Globalization and the South’ in C Thomas & P Wilkin (eds), Globalization and the South, London: Macmillan, 1997.

The´rien, ‘Beyond the North–South divide’.

See The Economist, Special Report—Civil Wars, 24 May 2003, pp 23–25.

See reports in the Guardian during August 2002.

S Huntington, ‘The clash of civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, 72 (3), 1993, pp 22–49; and S Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

Randall & Theobald, Political Change and Underdevelopment, p 11.

G Hawthorne, ‘“Waiting for a text?” Comparing Third World politics’, in James Manor (ed), Rethinking Third World Politics, London: Longman, 1991.

As described in Randall & Theobald, Political Change and Underdevelopment, ch 2. The classic example of this revisionist approach is the Rudolphs' analysis of the interaction of the caste system and modern forms of political participation in India. L Rudolph & S Rudolph, The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1967.

For an overview, see A Foster-Carter, ‘The modes of production controversy’, New Left Review, 107, 1978, pp 47–77.

For a valuable account of the development of African studies in the UK, see the collection of essays edited by D Rimmer & A Kirk-Greene, The British Intellectual Engagement with Africa in the Twentieth Century, London: Macmillan, 2000, especially the essays by Kirk-Greene. I am grateful to Chris Clapham for bringing this to my attention. For a shorter but useful review of the development of Latin American studies in the UK, see L Bethell, ‘The British contribution to the study of Brazil’, Centre for Brazilian Studies, Working paper no. 37, 2003, at www.brazil.ox.ac.uk/papers.html.

On Latin American studies in the USA see MT Berger, Under Northern Eyes: Latin American Studies and US Hegemony in the Americas, 1898–1990, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, p 42.

Ibid, pp 40–48.

LE Harrison & SP Huntington (eds), Culture Matters, New York: Basic Books, 2000.

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MD Barr, Cultural Politics and Asian Values: The Tepid War, London: Routledge, 2002.

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‘Emerging areas’ has been part of the sub-title of this journal—Third World Quarterly: Journal of Emerging Areas—since it was first launched in 1978.