Third World

THE CONCEPT of the Third World is a product of two phenomena of the post-World War II period. The deepening Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union resulted in the alignment of other nations within the spheres of influence of the two superpowers. At the same time, the dissolution of the European colonial empires led to a dramatic increase in independent states in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific region.

The West and the East defined themselves largely against each other. In all regions of the world, the United States created alliances that were meant to check the spread of communism. Chief among these alliances was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which linked Anglo-American security with that of the western European states.

The Soviet sphere included its sometimes uneasy alliance with Mao Zedong's communist regime in China, as well as its support for a number of smaller client states scattered like strategic outposts across most regions of the world. But Soviet influence was centered in the Warsaw Pact through which it had formalized its domination of eastern Europe.

Although these two alignments of nations were seldom referred to as the First World and the Second World, the ostensibly nonaligned nations of the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific region became known, almost by default, as the Third World. At first, the label was rather neutral, but as the nations of the Third World became increasingly politically unstable, socially fragmented, economically dysfunctional, and environmentally distressed, the term Third World began to carry a deepening stigma. It became synonymous not only with general backwardness, endemic malnourishment, and rampant disease, but also with ruthless kleptocracies, bitter internecine conflicts, and intransigent social and economic issues.

Although the states of Central and South America have been independent since the early decades of the [Page 1066]19th century, they and most Third World nations that have more recently achieved independence have experienced frequent changes of government that have not necessarily signaled a substantive change in manner of governance.

In fact, beyond the immediate destruction caused by the coup d'état, most of the population may remain minimally affected by any specific change in government. Yet the political instability that results from such frequent changes in government discourages foreign investment and prevents the steady accumulation and expansion of the country's assets that are the basis of economic prosperity.