Developing World

Countries and regions that are described as part of the developing world typically are characterized by low levels of average income; high rates of poverty; wide social, economic, and spatial inequalities; and high levels of dependence on the markets and products of advanced industrial countries. Also referred to as less developed countries, nonindustrialized countries, the Third World, or the South, these countries also share similar histories of colonial rule or indirect domination. The term developing world, however, is more than a simple way of classifying countries and regions. The term has operated historically as part of the discourse of development with its faith in Western notions of progress and modernity and its naturalization of the knowledges and social practices required to achieve it. The designation as developing world, therefore, has deep roots in a particular social imaginary of the world, one that ranks countries by the extent to which they differ economically, socially, and institutionally from Western countries considered at the apogee of modernity.

Defining regions as either developed or developing is a problematic exercise because, depending on the social or economic characteristics on which one is focusing, the numbers of countries and regions included can vary significantly. For example, although the United Nations (UN) does not have an established convention for designating countries as either developed or developing, it generally regards the 115 countries of Asia (excluding of Japan), Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand), the Americas (excluding Canada and the United States), Africa, and the Caribbean as the developing world. Even within this broad definition, however, exceptions exist. For example, Israel and the Southern African Customs Union are usually considered developed regions for international trade purposes, and the countries of the former Yugoslavia, although European, are treated as developing regions. Similarly, the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet countries in Europe are not considered part of either the developing or developed world, even though many exhibit levels of poverty and inequality found in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. Equally problematic to establishing a coherent definition is the fact that countries categorized as part of the developing world need not actually be in the process of increasing levels of wealth or social welfare and, in fact, may be in deep crisis. Often the clear contradictions between the category and reality are resolved through acknowledgment or by the creation of more detailed systems of classification. The World Bank, for example, warns that the use of the term developing country in their publications does not imply either that all of the economies belonging to the group are actually in the process of developing or that those not in the group have necessarily reached some preferred or final stage of development. However, the UN has developed additional categories, such as least developed countries (LDCs), land-locked developing countries (LLDCs), [Page 98]small island economies (SIDs), and countries in transition from centrally planned to market economies, to draw attention to specific constraints facing particular national territories. In 2005, 50 countries held the distinction of being LDCs given their extremely low levels of income per capita, social welfare, and high levels of economic instability.

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