Editing Second World (section)

==Concept==
The concept of "Second World" was a construct of the [[Cold War]] and the term is still largely used to describe former communist countries that are between poverty and prosperity, many of which are now [[capitalist state]]s, such as Eastern Europe. Subsequently, the actual meaning of the terms "First World", "Second World," and "Third World" changed from being based on political ideology to an economic definition.<ref name="AndersenTaylor2006">{{cite book |first1=Margaret L. |last1=Andersen |first2=Howard Francis |last2=Taylor |title=Sociology: Understanding a Diverse Society |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LP9bIrZ9xacC&pg=PA250 |year=2006 |publisher=[[Thomson/Wadsworth]] |isbn=978-0-534-61716-5 |page=250}}</ref> The three-world theory has been criticized as crude and relatively outdated for its nominal ordering, and some sociologists have instead used the words "developed", "developing", and "underdeveloped" as replacement terms for global stratification (which have been criticized as displaying a colonialist mindset);<ref>{{cite web |last=Silver |first=Marc |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/04/372684438/if-you-shouldnt-call-it-the-third-world-what-should-you-call-it |title=If You Shouldn't Call It The Third World, What Should You Call It? |work=NPR |date=4 January 2015 |access-date=17 March 2018 |archive-date=1 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200401165708/https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/04/372684438/if-you-shouldnt-call-it-the-third-world-what-should-you-call-it |url-status=live }}</ref> nevertheless, the three-world theory is still popular in contemporary literature and media. This might also cause semantic variation of the term between describing a region's political entities and its people.<ref name=Sociology>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/sociology0005gidd |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/sociology0005gidd/page/42 42] |quote=second world countries communist. |title=Sociology |last=Giddens |first=Anthony |publisher=Polity |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-7456-3379-4}}</ref>