Editing Third World (section)

== Related concepts ==
{{More citations needed section|date=August 2023}}
=== Third World vs. Three Worlds ===
{{Main|Three World Model|Three Worlds Theory}}
The "Three Worlds Theory" developed by [[Mao Zedong]] is different from the Western theory of the Three Worlds or Third World. For example, in the Western theory, China and India belong respectively to the second and third worlds, but in Mao's theory both China and India are part of the Third World which he defined as consisting of exploited nations.

=== Third Worldism ===
{{main|Third-Worldism}}

Third Worldism is a political movement that argues for the unity of third-world nations against first-world influence and the principle of [[Non-interventionism|non-interference]] in [[Westphalian sovereignty|other countries' domestic affairs]]. Groups most notable for expressing and exercising this idea are the [[Non-Aligned Movement]] (NAM) and the [[Group of 77]] which provide a base for relations and diplomacy between not just the third-world countries, but between the third-world and the first and [[Second World|second worlds]]. The notion has been criticized as providing a [[fig leaf]] for human rights violations and [[political repression]] by [[dictatorship]]s.<ref>{{cite report |last=Pithouse |first=Richard |date=2005 |url=http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?3,28,11,1994 |title=Report Back from the Third World Network Meeting Accra, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111028163706/http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?3,28,11,1994 |archive-date=2011-10-28 |publisher=Centre for Civil Society |pages=1–6}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=July 2023}}<!--Having read the whole article, the closest statement to the claim it's cited as a source for is the observation that 'Third Worldism is popular among Third World autocrats'. Nothing about 'providing a [[fig leaf]] for human rights violations and [[political repression]] by [[dictatorship]]s'. Moreover, the author defines Third Worldism in a way very different from this section, namely 'the idea that Third World elites were the privileged historical actor (that will deliver the world from the tyranny of capital)'.-->

Initially, the term “third world” meant a nation was under-developed or impoverished.<ref>{{cite journal | title=Third Worldism and Internationalism | date=2003-01-01 | doi-access=free | last=Nash | first=Andrew | journal=[[African Sociological Review]] | volume=7 | issue=1 | issn=1027-4332 | doi=10.4314/asr.v7i1.23132 | quote=Third Worldism can be defined roughly as the political theory and practice that saw the major faultline in the global capitalist order as running between the advanced capitalist countries of the West and the impoverished continents of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and saw national liberation struggles in the Third World as the major force for global revolution. Third Worldism was the form of internationalism specific of an age in which colonial rule was coming to an end -an age in which the economic power of western capital remained intact, but its global political dominance was contested. It was the internationalism of an age in which the capitalist divide between economic and political power was in the process of being globalised but was not yet firmly established, in which formal equality among nation-states accompanied continuing and thengrowing inequality in the global economy.}}</ref> Nowadays, it means “developing".{{fact|date=March 2025}}

=== Great Divergence and Great Convergence ===

Many times there is a clear distinction between First and Third Worlds. When talking about the [[Global North and Global South]], the majority of the time the two go hand in hand. People refer to the two as "Third World/South" and "[[First World]]/North" because the Global North is more affluent and developed, whereas the Global South is less developed and often poorer.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mimiko |first=Oluwafemi |year=2012 |title=Globalization: The Politics of Global Economic Relations and International Business |journal=Carolina Academic Press |pages=49}}</ref>

To counter this mode of thought, some scholars began proposing the idea of a change in world dynamics that began in the late 1980s, and termed it the [[The Great Convergence|Great Convergence]].<ref name="cliodynamics.ru">{{cite journal |last1=Korotayev |first1=A. |last2=Zinkina |first2=J. |url=http://cliodynamics.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=361&Itemid=1 |title=On the structure of the present-day convergence |journal=Campus-Wide Information Systems |volume=31 |number=2/3 |date=2014 |pages=139–152 |doi=10.1108/CWIS-11-2013-0064 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008181304/http://cliodynamics.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=361&Itemid=1 |archive-date=2014-10-08}}</ref> As [[Jack A. Goldstone]] and his colleagues put it, "in the twentieth century, the [[Great Divergence]] peaked before the First World War and continued until the early 1970s, then, after two decades of indeterminate fluctuations, in the late 1980s, it was replaced by the Great Convergence as the majority of Third World countries reached economic growth rates significantly higher than those in most First World countries".<ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://cliodynamics.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=378&Itemid=1 |title=Phases of global demographic transition correlate with phases of the Great Divergence and Great Convergence |journal=Technological Forecasting and Social Change |volume=95 |date=June 2015 |page=163 |doi=10.1016/j.techfore.2015.01.017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150703063805/http://cliodynamics.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=378&Itemid=1 |archive-date=2015-07-03|last1=Korotayev |first1=Andrey |last2=Goldstone |first2=Jack A. |last3=Zinkina |first3=Julia }}</ref>

Others have observed a return to Cold War-era alignments ([[Mark MacKinnon|MacKinnon]], 2007; [[Edward Lucas (journalist)|Lucas]], 2008), this time with substantial changes between 1990&ndash;2015 in geography, the world economy and relationship dynamics between current and emerging world powers; not necessarily redefining the classic meaning of ''First'', ''Second'', and ''Third World'' terms, but rather which countries belong to them by way of association to which world power or coalition of countries, such as the [[G7]], the [[European Union]], [[OECD]]; [[G20]], [[OPEC]], [[Next 11|N-11]], [[BRICS]], [[ASEAN]]; the [[African Union]], and the [[Eurasian Union]].