What is the Third Worldism project? What was its impact upon world politics? This Third World Quarterly article analyses the political merits and highlights the limitations of the Third Worldism project. The article first provides a brief historical explanation of the origins of the Third Worldism project and its key elements as well as some of its underlying assumptions. This is followed by the development of a string of arguments which illustrate the main contradictions of the Third Worldism project which rendered its practical application problematic and contradictory at times. The article concludes with a word of hope by challenging the need for an alternative method to achieve development by recognising the interconnectivity between the wider social and political relations and national development.
By the 1970s, most former colonies had been given independence. From this emerged the possibility of the powerless being considered for dialogue amongst the powerful. This had a direct impact upon traditional social and political relations, with the ramification of dramatically changing the dynamics of world politics. However, over time the assumption and institutions which were necessary to support the Third Worldism project were in crisis or evolved to reflect a dramatic change which promoted ‘genuinely existing’ liberal capitalism instead of focusing on redistribution.
The Third Worldism projected new expectations through the promotion of minimal redistribution and a fairer international political economy. The project initially consisted of two fundamental elements:
- It was built on emancipatory nationalism and promoted the idea that pursuit of autonomy through the political institution of the sovereign nation-state and membership in the United Nations.
- Third Worldism encouraged notions of restorative justice, and the importance of the politics of struggle as alternative forms of socio-political organisation.
The authors highlight key contradictions which were always present in the Third Worldism project and which limited the impact of the struggles which enable the project in the first place. These contradictions included:
- How emancipatory nationalism could be seen as solution for the challenges postcolonial states faced.
- Economic challenges and deviance often intensified existing tensions between, and among, ethnic and religious groups in decolonised states where populations were extremely diverse.
- The pursuit of national development as an end in itself trumped the actual needs and aspirations of the majority of the population.
- The pragmatic assumption that power associated with recognition of development and vice-versa would secure autonomy and recognition of equality informed aggressive development strategies that relegated everyday needs and aspirations to a perpetual future.
- The triumph of ‘genuinely existing’ capitalism as the model for global development further constricted any residual notions of salvaging at least elements of emancipatory nationalism and the redistributive politics it implied.
- With the end of the Cold War the task turned from being merely about the expansion of ‘genuinely existing’ economic and political liberalism towards both its consolidation and its enshrinement as the only path of global development.
The article concludes that it necessary to understand these contradictions in order to open up opportunities for hope which would (re)imagine radical and more humane alternatives. The authors highlight the need for the development of an alternative method to achieve development by recognising the interconnectivity between the wider social and political relations and national development.
