Theory three worlds- a conditional concept.

Today there is no clear division of territory according to this principle, however, there is a ranking of countries according to the level of GDP (the amount of internal national product per resident of the country).

Thus, states are conventionally divided into three groups:

  1. GDP per person is more than 9 thousand US dollars.
  2. GDP per person is over 6 thousand US dollars.
  3. GDP no more than 750 US dollars per person.

The third group includes third world countries. Wikipedia, citing data from Morgan Stanley, claims that all developing countries now account for half of the world's GDP.

History of the term

Dividing all countries into groups according to political economic basis was proposed by Mao Zedong. He included the superpowers - the USSR and the USA - in the first world; the second world was represented by intermediate powers - Europe, Canada, Japan. The Third World is all of Africa, Latin America and Asia.

There was also a Western theory of division into worlds, its author was Alfred Sauvy. On March 5, 1946, the cold confrontation between the USA and the USSR began. Differences arose over military, economic, ideological and geopolitical issues. In the Cold War, each side had allies. Soviet Union collaborated with Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, China and other countries.

Many European states, as well as Thailand, Turkey, Japan, and Israel, supported the United States. Some countries remained neutral in the Cold War, and they were called the third world or developing countries.

Since 1952, countries with low levels of economic development. By the end of the 20th century, some countries in this group were able to make a leap in their economy and overtake developed countries.

Developing countries today

According to UN terminology, the third world refers to developing countries. They share common characteristics in economics, politics and culture. Played a major role in the formation of common characteristics colonial period.

In these territories, manual production predominated; after independence, a sharp transition to industrial methods of labor organization began. Since there was no sequence of phases of economic development, sectors of the national economy were developed inharmoniously.

In developing countries, pre-industrial and modern types production. In most third world countries there is practically no foreign and private investment; the state itself has to play the role of an investor to increase the rate of economic growth. Except general characteristics, developing countries have a number of inconsistent characteristics.

Differences between developing countries

In the 21st century, many third world countries have the opportunity to develop thanks to economic ties with leading countries. The West invests in the economy, education, and medicine, but often civil unrest occurs in such countries, which slows down economic development. For many, the pressing question is whether Russia is a third world country. No, Russia is on this moment belongs to rapidly developing countries.

List of third world countries

There are several lists developing countries:

List of developing states according to the UN

Africa Asia Latin America and the Caribbean
Northern- Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco South - Angola, South Africa, Mauritius, Zambia, Namibia Central - Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Gabon Western - Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Liberia, Nigeria Eastern - Comoros, Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan. Eastern - K China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam South - India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka Western - Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Omar, Qatar, UAE, Syria, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. Caribbean - Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica Mexico and Central America - Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua South America - Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela

Unlike the UN, the IMF included among the developing countries of the CIS and Russia, as well as some European countries- Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Poland, Lithuania. In turn, the World Bank classifies Russia as a developed country. Such disagreements once again confirm that it is impossible to strictly divide the world along economic lines; all classifications are conditional.

In the 21st century, some states that were previously considered lagging behind are divided into a separate subgroup - oil-producing ones. It includes the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain. They have become the richest countries in the world, the largest exporters of oil, but the unidirectionality and imbalance of the economy does not allow them to become developed.

According to the classification of the UN, IMF and World Bank, countries with negative economic growth rates - Togo, Ethiopia, Chad and other countries in Africa and Latin America - are in the same group with the richest oil exporters. Up to 90% of their economy is the agricultural sector, which is not able to provide raw materials and food to the needs of the local market. Such states are united in a subgroup - underdeveloped.

The largest third subgroup are states with an average level of development - Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Algeria. Developed here international trade, the problem of hunger and poverty is absent. Thanks to internal resources these states great prospects development, but they have a large external debt and a significant technological gap with developed countries.

The theory of developing countries will exist in various systems under different names. The lists of states will be updated, as many states will be able to rise to the level of developed ones, overcoming the barrier of backwardness.

underdeveloped states belonging predominantly to the geopolitical South. At the Bandung Conference in 1955, a movement of developing countries emerged as an alternative to the North. Thus, the South acted as new element world order. Instead of bipolarity, a tripolarity of the West-East-South world was proposed.

Excellent definition

Incomplete definition ↓

THIRD WORLD

The term "third world" appeared in the years cold war and was used to refer to a number of new nation states(initially in Asia and Africa, and later in Latin America), which were not part of either the Soviet or Western blocs. Subsequently, the term was used in relation to economically underdeveloped states with a low level of industrialization and, accordingly, with a high level of poverty and numerous social problems, for example, illiteracy of the population. Many of these countries were formerly colonies of European states. Although they eventually gained political independence, their cultural and economic dependence on their former metropolises remained. Often, the term “third world” is preferred to another - “developing countries”, since “third” seems to indicate the low status of states on the world stage.

Third World countries exhibit the widest range of social, economic and political differences. Many of them are predominantly agricultural, although mining can also make up a significant share of the economy. Industrial enterprises often belong to foreign owners who locate their production in third world countries, wanting to take advantage of a number of favorable circumstances, in particular the low cost of labor. Poverty of the population (which is observed even where, as, for example, in Mexico, a high level of industrialization has been achieved) is aggravated by the significant debt of countries to industrial states. However, there are exceptions. Thus, the oil-producing countries of the Middle East are thriving and have significant influence on the world political scene, and a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region (for example, South Korea and Taiwan) have reached high level industrialization.

The political structure of Third World countries is also diverse, although liberal democratic political systems with true competition political parties for power and wide range civil liberties are rare. In many states, unstable oligarchic regimes are in power.

See also the articles “Civil Rights”, “Colonialism”, “Communism”, “Liberal Democracy”, “Dependency Theory”, “Totalitarianism”.

Excellent definition

Incomplete definition ↓

Traditionally, the world has been divided into groups of countries for quite some time now. There are countries of the first world - or the "golden billion", countries of the second world - many of them used to be socialist, and countries of the third world - or developing ones. IN last years in scientific circles they also began to single out the countries of the fourth world - these are the poorest states that cannot be called developing, because they are not developing anywhere at all, but are slowly rotting.

In addition to dividing countries into groups based on economics, it would be more correct to divide countries into 4 groups based on civilization. The most intelligent, civilized, cultural countries, in which in all populated areas everything is organized, written and tested, technologies are debugged to the point of automation - this is the first world.

The second world is where cities have a centralized layout, but there is often no novelty and luxury, the population is not always well educated, but nevertheless quite smart and savvy, access to the basic benefits of civilization such as water, light, communications is present.


The third world is huge number countries, in principle, very different. They are united by the primitiveness and downtroddenness of the local population ( hallmark in many of these countries - to shout “Uh-uh” or “Hello” at the sight of a foreigner and point fingers at him, which is not customary in the first and second worlds), people are native, wild and often primitive, villages are often characterized by medieval poverty and primitivism, and the cities are chaotic and absurd - with sidewalks clogged with vendors, dirty courtyards, streets crowded with cars. There are often problems with education and money in such countries.

Fourth world countries - where there are no basic things like light, water, telephone, food and shops, people often do not have clothes.

Now, after classification, I will try to sort many countries into these groups. What is the first world, and where is the third?

So, let's start with Europe.
1. First world. France is classic first world. Belgium, Holland, and Germany can easily be included in this category. Also First World are Eastern European Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as Hungary. World 1 includes Scandinavia and other Western countries. Europe. Of course, only Southern Italy is in question...

2. Second world. The classic second world is Russia, Ukraine. From Europe, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Montenegro, Serbia, Lithuania, Belarus, Estonia fall into this group (the last four countries are slightly similar in some elements to the first world, but they still have a very long way to go). Despite low salaries and a weak economy, Moldova can rightfully be considered the second world. IN Lately China is also moving from the third to the second world, but this process is lengthy.

2+. Slovakia stands apart here, which is in a transitional stage between the second and first worlds - it is stuck somewhere in the middle between them.

3. Third world. The classic third world is Egypt, India, Pakistan, Mongolia and most countries to the south of them. This group can also include many Arab countries, for example Syria. Interesting countries Central Asia, such as Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. Being essentially the third world, they retained in their appearance some features of the second world (in which, at least in large localities, they were located under the USSR). Nevertheless, these remnants of the second world in them are diminishing, and the third is becoming more and more obvious. The only country in the region in which elements of the second world remain in quantity and will remain in the future, although the country itself is rather in the third, is Kazakhstan.

3+. Some countries are on the path between the third world and the second and are completely stuck on this road with no chance of moving forward - typical countries for such a “Twine” - these are Türkiye and Kosovo. On the same road, but somewhat closer to the third world, are Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

It is also interesting that on the European continent there is one country from the third world - Albania. Iran is also curious - being for now an almost perfect third world, it has a chance in a few decades to become halfway between the third and second world - that is, to get closer to Turkey, there is some tendency towards this.

I can only talk theoretically about the fourth world; I have not been to these countries yet, but it traditionally includes Zimbabwe, the Democratic Party. rep. Congo, Chad, Afghanistan. This is what they call - it can’t get any worse.

This is the division, this is the classification. Every time I visit new country, it is very interesting in the first couple of days to classify it and place it on one of these four shelves. Or even, in difficult situation, hang between two shelves. :)

The term “Third World countries” appeared in the second half of the twentieth century to designate states that did not take part in the so-called World War that began twenty years after the end of the Second World War. We owe the modern understanding of this phrase to the Frenchman Alfred Sauvy, who published his article in 1952 in one of the popular publications at that time. In his work, Sauvy compared the concept of third world countries (developing) with the concept of the third estate of people in Therefore, the main feature of the third world countries from the 80s of the 20th century began to be considered low level per capita income, backwardness in economics, politics and industry from other world states.

In order to understand what third world countries are, you must first understand which countries are usually called developed. A developed country is a country whose government is able to provide its citizens with comfortable and healthy life against a safe background environment. The list of modern developed countries includes: France, Australia, Sweden, Italy, Israel, Germany, USA, Japan, Vatican, Portugal, etc. The main features of developing states today are: absence or weak manifestation of democracy, unstable market economy, absence social rights people and guarantees.

So, developing countries are countries with a low level of socio-economic development. All states are considered developing South America, Africa and most Asian countries. They are characterized by an outdated economic model, low income levels, and a weak education system. According to some estimates, 20% of all adults currently remain illiterate. Key ones, also called industrial ones, surpass the previous ones in terms of economic development. These include: South Korea, Turkey, India, Philippines, Singapore, Mexico, etc.

According to research by sociologists, third world countries differ:

Agricultural and raw material orientation of the economy;

Low quality of labor;

Existence in the past in the form of colonies;

Heterogeneity social structure.

Development still plays a decisive role in the economy of many of these states. Agriculture and folk crafts. Almost all third world countries existed as colonies until the 20th century, which could not but affect the development of their economy and industry. The world's most underdeveloped countries include: Ethiopia, Tanzania, Laos, Somalia, Honduras, Guatemala. It should be said that most developing countries South Africa are currently in dire straits. These states cannot provide their residents with the opportunity to eat normally, have a roof over their heads, or receive timely medical care, visit educational institutions. The mortality rate in such countries from hunger, epidemics and murders is extremely high. Residents of economically favorable regions and countries enjoy all the benefits of civilization and strive for financial independence, while some representatives of the human race continue to live in extreme conditions. unfavorable conditions or the far north.

A special feature of many developing countries is the development of tourism as the main activity. The endless flow of travelers ensures material well-being many of their residents. Today there is no place in the world that a curious traveler would not visit. Therefore, we can safely say that many countries that lag behind world powers in terms of economics surpass them in the annual influx of tourists.

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Books

  • From the third world to the first. History of Singapore (1965 2000) Buy for 2033 UAH (Ukraine only)
  • From the Third World to the First History of Singapore 1965-2000, Lee Kuan Yew. When tiny Singapore gained independence in 1965, no one believed that it would survive. How did a British trading post turn into a prosperous capital of Asia...