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Redefining the
Third World
Edited by
NanaPoku
Senior United Nations Researcher
and
Lecturer in Security Studies
Department ofP olitics
The University of Southampton
and
Lloyd Pettiford
Lecturer in International Relations
Department ofI nternational Relations
The Nottingham Trent University
Foreword by Peter Vale
Professor of Southern African Studies
University of the Western Cape, South Africa
First published in Great Britain 1998 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-26968-6 ISBN 978-1-349-26966-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-26966-2
First published in the United States of America 1998 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-21671-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Redefining the third world I edited by Nana Pom and Lloyd Pettiford.
p. cm. - (International political economy series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-21671-9 (cloth)
1. Developing countries-Economic conditions. 2. Developing
countries-Foreign economic relations. 3. Developing countries
-Foreign relations. 4. Developing countries-Civilization.
I. Pom, Nana, 1971- . II. Pettiford, Lloyd. m. Series.
HC59.7.R348 1998
37.1"172'4-dc21 98-19805
CIP
Selection, editorial matter and Chapter 3 © Nana Pom and Lloyd Pettiford 1998
Foreword © Peter Vale 1998
Chapter 1 © Georg SlM"ensen with Nana Pom and Lloyd Pettiford 1998
Chapter 11 © Nana Pom 1998
Chapters 2, 4-10 © Macmillan Press Ltd 1998
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1998
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
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The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in
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This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98
Contents
List of Tables vii
Foreword by Peter Vale viii
Acknowledgements xviii
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xix
Notes on the Contributors xxi
1 Introduction: Redefining the Third World?
Georg S(Jrensen with Nana Poku and Lloyd Pettiford 1
2 Redefining the Third World for a New Millennium:
An Aching Towards Subjectivity
Stephen Chan 16
3 A Call for Complexity in Third-World Research:
Challenging the False God of Theoretical Parsimony
Nana Poku and Lloyd Pettiford 24
4 Modifications to the State-in-Society Approach:
A Sharper Focus
Mehran Kamrava 44
5 Globalism, Regionalism and the New Third World
Bjorn Hettne 69
6 Globalisation and Sovereignty: Implications for the
Third-World State
Norman Lewis 88
7 World Cities, Capital and Communication
Peter Wilkin 107
8 Urbanisation and the Third-World City:
The Need for a Reconsideration
Giok-Ling Ooi 132
9 Neo-Liberalism in Latin America: ''friumph' and
Institutional Deficiencies
Frank 0. Mora and Karl Kaltenthaler 147
v
vi Contents
10 Southeast Asia in the 1Wenty-First Century:
Human Security and Regional Development
Fahimul Quadir and Timothy M. Shaw 172
11 Security and Development in Africa:
Cold War and Beyond
Nana Poku 199
Index 217
List of Tables
3.1 GNP per capita annual rates in Third-World regions,
1985-90 31
3.2 Areas of analytical focus in explaining various
political phenomena 38
7.1 The classification of cities 119
8.1 Urban population growth patterns in selected
developing countries 140
8.2 Urban population in urban areas by major regions,
1950-90 140
vii
Foreword
Why is the Third World always second? This deadly question hides
within it the fact that, by any measure, more and more wealth, and
consequently power, is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer
people. Others have made the point, but 20 per cent of humanity
controls 85 per cent of the world's wealth: the bottom 20 per cent
must make do with 1.4 per cent of this wealth;1 'grinding poverty
remains the most important characteristic of much of Third-World
existence, where high infant mortality rates, chronic underemploy
ment, and inadequate shelter and health care are the stuff of every
day life.'2 In other words, it is the spectacles of sickness, ignorance
and premature death, as well as the violence, ugliness and despair
of daily life which distress most people about the Third World.
The accompanying poverty and underemployment underline the per
ception of economic fatality. In this context, the critical theme of
this book is crucial, and the observations offered here are centred
around the notion of power and conceptions of powerlessness, sub
sequently addressed by the various contributors and in various ways.
As a prelude to the reflections to follow in this book, it is crucial
to understand the framing which shape both understandings and
interpretations of international events.
THE CONSTRUCfION OF THE THIRD WORLD
In addition to methodological or theoretical considerations, this
endeavour has a deep and abiding interest in real world problems,
which explains why it is driven by questions that aim to unsettle
the orthodoxy. The interest is in both explanation of the everyday
conduct of international relationships and in enabling a process of
transformation to take place; with Karl Marx therefore, this book
is interested in interpreting the world and in changing it. All disci
plines, including International Relations and Development Stud
ies, for whose students this work may have particular appeal, are
surrounded by myths that works such as this aim to debunk. Al
though attention is directed towards aspects of the relationship
between etymology,3 security, economics and the idea of the Third
viii
Foreword ix
World, the paradoxical nature of the use of words is highlighted;
the world is not what words suggest it is.
An anglicised version of the French term, Tiers Monde, which
was used by French writers in the 1950s, has been used as a 'port
manteau term for the states in Central and South America, Africa,
the Middle East, Asia (excepting Japan) and the Pacific islands
(excepting Australia and New Zealand) which have experienced
decolonisation over the last two centuries'.4 If, as some suggest,
there was a 'three worlds' theory, it consisted of the comparative
analyses of economic (and to some limited extent political) condi
tions of the three worlds, and to setting these within frames of
'ideal' types within which the dominant ones - capitalism and com
munism - were desired goals. This remains a powerful strain in
discourses which include the idea of the Third World as a depre
cating and pejorative term.
While its roots lie in a seemingly innocent moment of the im
mediate post-Second World War period, its ranking in the hier
archical patterns of analysis so popular at the time, suggest that to
all intents and purposes it was to be no more than the third level
in the real business of politics that were to be conducted between
the self-styled First World and the appropriately-designated and
suitably-distanced Second World. In its initial setting, it drew from
the idea of the 'Third Estate' in pre-Revolutionary France. In passing,
therefore, we should note its patronising tone, although it must be
clear that the tiers mondalists were much more appreciative of, and
sensitive to, the plight of colonial people that was to become in
creasingly associated with the term.
Located within these interpretations is the idea of the Third World.
No small part of this is the notion of civilisation within the inter
national system, who sets its terms and how it plays out. As Gerrit
Gong writes, 'for many of these countries, part of their common
experience with colonial patterns and the struggle for freedom was
confrontation with the standard of civilisation'.s As Gong goes on
to argue, it was a double standard having to be measured against a
foreign standard of civilisation and to have mainly been found
wanting; it was humiliating for non-European countries to have been
declared 'uncivilised'. Further, it was even more agonising for them
to have their traditional standards of 'civilisation' cast aside as being
effete or inferior. The continued association of military and moral
superiority, and of military and moral inferiority, linger on.6
The popularisation of the rankings (First, Second and Third) within
