Third World Quarterly

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‘Third World’: the 60th anniversary of a concept

that changed history

Marcin Wojciech Solarz

To cite this article: Marcin Wojciech Solarz (2012) ‘Third World’: the 60th anniversary
of a concept that changed history, Third World Quarterly, 33:9, 1561-1573, DOI:
10.1080/01436597.2012.720828

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2012.720828

Published online: 12 Oct 2012.

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Third World Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 9, 2012, pp 1561–1573

‘Third World’: the 60th anniversary of

a concept that changed history
MARCIN WOJCIECH SOLARZ

ABSTRACT The term ‘Third World’ was coined in 1952 by the French scientist
Alfred Sauvy. From the start the meaning of both the phrase itself and its
geographical reference have been ambiguous. Generally speaking the term has
always had both a political and a socioeconomic meaning, even though at first,
during the Cold War, the political sense was more widely applied. The term
gained popularity quickly and it became one of the most important and
expressive concepts of the 20th century. From the very beginning, however, it
was strongly criticised. Its critics have pointed out many different problems,
which is why some people have argued that the notion of the ‘Third World’
should be abandoned. These voices were particularly widespread after the end of
the Cold War. Nevertheless, the concept ‘Third World’ is still valid and it
remains one of the most frequently used terms for describing the global South.
The factors that made the concept of the ‘Third World’ popular are still valid.

The well-known Polish philosopher and phenomenologist Józef Tischner

(1931–2000) once stated that history invents words only for those words to
then change history. If there is a concept to which this general statement does
indeed apply, then it is surely ‘Third World’, one of the most important terms
invented in the 20th century, 60 years ago this year, and still present in
discourse about the world, its structure and developmental problems.1

The authorship of ‘Third World’

The concept of ‘Third World’ as a synonym of the underdeveloped world was
introduced by the French scholar Alfred Sauvy on precisely 14 August 1952
in a short article entitled ‘Three worlds, one planet’, published in
L’Observateur, a French weekly of socialist orientation. Sauvy’s authorship
cannot be doubted, despite discussion on the subject in which other potential
authors have been suggested—Frantz Fanon, Georges Balandier, Claude
Bourdet.2 In 1982 Sauvy himself pointed out that he had already written

Marcin Wojciech Solarz is in the Institute of Regional and Global Studies, Faculty of Geography and
Regional Studies, University of Warsaw, Karowa Street 20, 00-324 Warsaw, Poland.
Email: mwsolarz@uw.edu.pl.

ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/12/091561–13

Ó 2012 Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com
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 MARCIN WOJCIECH SOLARZ

about three worlds in 1951 in a Brazilian review, although, as he acknow-

ledged, he did not use the term ‘Third World’ at that time.3
There is, however, additional complexity to the question of the authorship
of ‘Third World’, as the concept has a range of meanings and so the circle of
paternity should perhaps be widened to include authors of meanings other
than those clearly and literally assigned by Sauvy. Thus we should possibly
include such figures as Bertil Svahnstrom and Fenner Brockway.4 Finally, the
authorship of ‘Third World’ undergoes even further complication when we
consider the fact that the term appeared in literature and journalism at the
end of the 19th century with a completely different meaning from those used
in the second half of the 20th. In 1892 V I Lamansky, a famous Russian
Slavist of the day, published a paper concerning the three worlds of the
Eurasian continent, where, according to him, apart from Europe and Asia
there also existed a ‘third world’—Russia5. In a text dating from 1922 on the
subject of Russia, the Polish scholar and journalist Marian Zdziechowski
also used the concept of ‘third world’.6
However, the role played by Alfred Sauvy was exceptional, as he was the
author of the specific linguistic form, so rich in associations and implied
meanings, of the concept we are considering. The semantic richness of this
term is not, it would seem, as clearly and immediately obvious in English and
many other languages as it is in French. In his 1952 article Sauvy generally
used the ordinal number to express the concept (‘troisième monde’). In
addition, the title of the article—‘Trois mondes, une planète’, ie ‘Three
worlds, one planet’—refers to the number of worlds. So it would seem that
the ‘correct’ French name for ‘Third World’ should in fact be ‘troisième
monde’, which would be analogous to the French ‘numerical’ names for the
two remaining worlds—highly developed and communist. However, in
French the concept ‘Third World’ is clothed in a distinct and striking
linguistic costume: ‘Tiers monde’. The French scholar used this special form
only once in his L’Observateur article, in the very last sentence.
The uniqueness of the French form of the concept is that the adjective
‘tiers’ points not to the hierarchy of worlds, but to the share that one world
has in the international community (one third).7 What is more, the form
‘Tiers monde’ automatically directs the thinking of every educated person,
especially a Francophone, towards the term ‘tiers état’, which carries a whole
baggage of important political, social and economic associations.
In fact, when creating the new term, Sauvy consciously took as his
reference point the famous pamphlet by Father Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès
published in January 1789 under the title ‘What is the Third Estate?’, and
coined the term ‘Third World’ by analogy with the concept ‘third estate’. This
analogy is even clearer if we take into consideration the fact that the most
famous sentence in Sauvy’s article is a paraphrase of Sieyès.8 Thus in the
historical circumstances prevailing after the Second World War—in the
context of a growing wave of decolonisation without any quantitative
precedent in history, of an intensifying global conflict between superpowers
representing two different systems of universal values, and at the same time
of the marginal position (politically, economically, culturally) of the newly
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 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF A CONCEPT THAT CHANGED HISTORY

independent countries in the international community, together with their

great ambitions—the term ‘Third World’, built on the analogy to the ‘third
estate’, also took on its characteristics. It adopted its overtones, hopes,
demands and expectancy with regard to future events rooted in an awareness
of the course of events that took place in the real world at the end of the 18th
and beginning of the 19th centuries: no consent to existing reality, the
expectation of fundamental change and ultimately the fulfilment of a
revolution to overthrow the ancien re´gime. Furthermore, this term did not
hierarchise the international community, but drew attention to its structure,
announcing the emergence of a new entity encompassing the non-Western
world, different from the First and Second Worlds, but equal. And certainly
these were factors which at least facilitated the global popularisation of this
term, even if they did not actually prove decisive from the outset.

The meaning of ‘Third World’

The dominant interpretation of the concept ‘Third World’ at the present time
is economic or socioeconomic, focusing on the phenomenon of under-
development. Thus in general the Third World is currently taken to mean
poor, undeveloped countries with an unsatisfactory quality of life. By
contrast, in discussions on the origins of this term, its political genealogy—
linking its roots to the concepts of ‘third force’ and ‘third way’—is clearly
dominant.9 And this political meaning of ‘Third World’ obscured, at times
completely, its socioeconomic meaning. For example, in 1979 Leslie Wolf-
Philips argued in Third World Quarterly that ‘Third World’ had became
synonymous with the term ‘the underdeveloped countries’ at about the
beginning of the 1960s.10 An essentially similar view was repeated in 2007 by
Alastair Greig, David Hulme and Mark Turner, who wrote that the original
meaning of the term, referring to non-alignment and international relations,
gradually started to lose ground to the developmental understanding of it
only in the 1970s.11
Sauvy himself in his article of 1952 made reference to a few meanings of the
expression he had coined. First, he referred at once directly to the
socioeconomic sense of the term ‘Third World’, in the first paragraph
identifying it with underdeveloped countries. Thus the socioeconomic
dimension of ‘Third World’ in no way appeared later than its political
content. Second, Sauvy assigned a political–international meaning to the
concept in that he associated the idea of the Third World with the Cold War.
From this perspective the Third World was undoubtedly both a field on
which inter-bloc rivalry played out and an obstacle on the road to the
peaceful coexistence of the two blocs, and even the root cause of many
disasters within the boundaries of each of these two worlds individually and
the world system as a whole. It was also a victim of the Cold War. Third,
however, in light of the last sentence of the article, which paraphrases Sieyès,
a different political–international interpretation of ‘Third World’ is
permissible. For it can be interpreted in terms of the aspiration on the part
of the Third World to become a third pole of influence (‘third force’) in the
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contemporary international order, independent of and equal to the two

already existing worlds (thus having its own ‘third way’), and perhaps even
being the most important.12 It would seem that the context of inter-bloc
rivalry led to the depreciation of the first meaning of ‘Third World’, whereas
ignorance of the entire Sauvy text and use of the last sentence taken out of
context caused the second meaning to be obscured by the third, which was in
fact the least developed meaning in the Frenchman’s article. This would
appear to provide a rational explanation for the long neglect by many
authors of the socioeconomic meaning of the ‘Third World’ concept, and for
the predominant explanation of its origins. Ultimately, however, with the end
of the Cold War both political–international interpretations became out-
dated and the attention of users of the term ‘Third World’ became focused on
its socioeconomic meaning.

The popularisation of ‘Third World’

There is no agreement concerning the pace at which the term ‘Third World’
became popularised and the moment from which it can be regarded as a
universally known and understood concept. Divergences of views on these
questions are highly visible. Apart from anything else, opinions on this
subject are also often imprecise, subjective and intuitive.13 Nevertheless, as
early as 1956 a team of scholars led by Georges Balandier published a book
dedicated to Sauvy entitled Le Tiers Monde: Sous-développement et
de´veloppement (The Third World: Underdevelopment and Development).14
Then in 1959 the French economist François Perroux founded a journal with
the title Tiers Monde.15 Finally, in 1964 Peter Worsley published a book
which he regarded as possible and sufficient to entitle simply The Third
World, as if the term was already universally accepted and understood.16
These facts suggest that most probably ‘Third World’ achieved global
recognisability in a period of no longer, or not much longer, than a decade,
no later than at the end of the 1950s or beginning of the 1960s. However, in
spite of the lack of agreement as to the pace and moment of popularisation,
there is no doubt about the fact that the term was successfully and universally
received. This occurred thanks to a combination of many factors.
Although Sauvy’s article admittedly appeared in a journal read principally
by certain groups of the Parisian leftist intelligentsia,17 it had the great
advantage of being published in very special historical circumstances
conducive to its global reception. The period from the end of the Second
World War through to the late 1950s was once dubbed by Malcolm X the
‘tidal wave of color’.18 This expression was accurate if only because the
postwar period brought with it a tsunami of decolonisation which swept
the old colonial empires away. The newly emerging countries were young.
Their situation led to them being very sensitive (at least verbally) to actual
and alleged violations of their recently gained independence, although of
course their practical margin of sovereignty was very varied. In this context it
was significant that the numeral ‘third’ (and similarly the noun ‘world’) had
associations of ‘other’, ‘different’, ‘independent’, ‘sovereign’. Thus the
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 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF A CONCEPT THAT CHANGED HISTORY

concept ‘Third World’ implied otherness, independence and sovereignty in

relation to the two powerful political–military blocs, as well as a claim to
equal status, and this at a time when aggressive global rivalry seemed to be
dividing the international community lastingly and deeply into just two
separate camps. So the expression ‘Third World’ was very attractive to the
countries of the global South, for it expressed and fulfilled their deep
expectancy of independence, sovereignty and equality.
The concept of ‘Third World’ suited the climate of anticipated indepen-
dence, sovereignty and equality also as a result of associations coming from
its roots in the term ‘third estate’. While the ‘third estate’ demanded freedom,
equality and brotherhood in 18th century France, over 150 years later the
internal and international situation of countries and territories within the
Third World also brought into the foreground demands for freedom
(decolonisation), equality (sovereign states in relation to the ancient
metropolises and contemporary superpowers) and brotherhood (help in
overcoming backwardness and poverty).19 The realisation of these demands
within the international community after the Second World War was directly
connected to the development and strengthening of the newly gained
independence of the countries of the global South. Moreover, since the ‘third
estate’ had successfully carried out a revolution in France, demolishing the
hierarchy of the ancien re´gime which had discriminated against it, and on the
ruins had made an attempt to build a new world in which it was to be an
independent and sovereign actor in society, as happened over a century later
in tsarist Russia in relation to the proletariat, it was possible to construct an
analogy, accepted no doubt at least by some, between the ‘third estate’ and
the Russian proletariat, on the one hand, and, on the other, the Third World,
which at least partly in terms of the Marxist vision, was viewed in the role of
the global proletariat.20 These associations also served to facilitate the
reception and popularisation of the term ‘Third World’ in the community of
developing countries. The term carried hope of a global revolution which
would not only bring freedom from the West, but also complete and total
independence by means of the destruction of the hierarchy of a world built by
Europeans which discriminated against the global South. This way of
thinking influenced at least the radical segment of the elites and public
opinion in the global South, and in the cold war period it dominated and set
the tone for the underdeveloped world.
The newly independent countries also generally had great expectations as
to the role they should play in international relations. This ‘desire for
importance’ can be seen clearly, for example, in an article from 1959 by
Leopold Sédar Senghor in which the author not only compared the Bandung
Conference to a clap of thunder accompanying a lightning strike (avait e´clate´
le coup de tonnerre), but also argued that since the Renaissance and the epoch
of great geographical discoveries there had not been an event in world history
of equal importance.21 The term ‘Third World’ also suited this expectation
and this could have further added to its popularity. It corresponded to the
global South’s need for significance, and even power, because the concept of
‘Third World’ at least nominally identified a third pole of influence in the
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world order which was therefore, at least formally, equal to the remaining
two. Furthermore, the very noun ‘world’ in the context of a division of reality
into many worlds points to their equal weight or at least lays claim to that.
An expectation of community and unity was also formulated in the
countries of the South. This expectation can be seen in a text such as Jean-
Paul Sartre’s commentary on Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth,
published in 1961, in which Sartre states that the Third World speaks
through Fanon’s voice.22 Again it is worth noticing that the linguistic form of
the concept ‘Third World’ also firmly expressed and promoted this
expectation, as the word ‘world’ carries the implication of an interconnected
whole.
Thus these great expectations of a newly emerging segment of the
international community—the Third World—the expectations of indepen-
dence, sovereignty, equality, significance and community so very well
expressed in the phrase coined by Alfred Sauvy, were also conducive to
and surely the decisive factor in the global popularisation of the term ‘Third
World’.23

‘Third World’ 60 years on

The concept ‘Third World’ found itself under fire directly and indirectly (the
latter manifested itself for instance in the search for alternative expressions
such as ‘developing countries’ and ‘the South’) almost from or even precisely
at the moment of its birth.24 For example, Ignacy Sachs claimed that, at the
same time as the term ‘Third World’ was coined by French scholars, the
Americans were promoting the concept ‘Middle World’.25 Criticism of
the term ‘Third World’ was formulated across the entire continuum of the
political spectrum.26 This related to a wide variety of issues. Primary among
them was that the expression ‘Third World’ conveyed a distorted and
oversimplified reality with pejorative overtones; after the Cold War ended it
was also noted that, in the absence of a Second World (the global socialist
system), it was no longer possible to count to three and that globalisation,
with its unifying force, was erasing the borders between the worlds.27
Meanwhile, one is tempted to say, paraphrasing Mark Twain, that
rumours of the death of the ‘Third World’ concept are greatly exaggerated.
This is proven both by the numerous institutions in whose names the
expression ‘Third World’ is still found, as well as the titles of publications on
the lists of prestigious international publishing companies.28 Further proof,
albeit imperfect on account of its sample size, that the expression ‘Third
World’ enjoys a degree of longevity was furnished by a survey conducted in
2009 among three groups of students from Poland, Germany and the United
Arab Emirates.29 Participants had the task of choosing from three names—
‘Third World’, ‘developing countries’, ‘the South’—the best term to designate
underdeveloped countries or to suggest another, if they considered all three
available choices for some reason to be incorrect. In the case of students from
Germany, 13 out of 18 votes were for the name ‘developing countries’, three
for ‘the South’ and two for ‘Third World’. In the case of Poland, 10 out of
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 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF A CONCEPT THAT CHANGED HISTORY

16 votes were for ‘developing countries’, five for ‘Third World’, and one
person suggested another name— ‘emerging markets’. Finally, of the 61
students participating from the United Arabic Emirates 24 voted for
‘developing countries’, 18 for ‘Third World’, two for both of these names,
two for ‘the South’ and as many as 15 did not have an opinion.30 It is
interesting that the proportion of votes for ‘Third World’ was similar in the
groups from Poland and the UAE, but radically different in the case of
Germany. These results are certainly not decisive; they merely prove that the
term ‘Third World’ is still current in discourse concerning the structure of the
world, and what is more, in the language of young people from the various
worlds of the world.
In light of the above, the question arises as to the reasons for the ongoing
popularity of the concept ‘Third World’. It can be argued that paradoxically
one of the most significant factors in the continuing vitality of the term is in
fact its heavily criticized linguistic form and related negative associations.
The number ‘three’ designates not only a determined order (and in a
hierarchy third is lower than first, and so is worse—backward, impaired, with
fewer rights), and it is also associated with being third-rate, ie belonging to a
lower category suggesting insignificance, inferiority and mediocrity.31 In the
context of reflection on levels of development reached by individual societies
‘third’ thus corresponds to such adjectives as ‘backward’, ‘underdeveloped’,
‘marginalised’, ‘worse’ etc and, as we know, the global South by definition is,
in a developmental sense, backward, underdeveloped, marginalised, worse
(of course these very general expressions, characterising a single but very
diverse reality, require precise definition in terms of their meaning at specific
moments in history32). These adjectives communicate in general terms the
deepest characterisation of this segment of the international community (lack
of high development), and therefore also the term ‘Third World’ de facto
addresses the essence of the North–South divide. Moreover, the actual
picture of the situation in many areas of the global South only continues to
confirm the accuracy of such associations.
Perhaps paradoxically then, in addition to the power of more than half a
century of habitual usage of the term ‘Third World’, its linguistic form
implying or even directly provoking negative associations connected with the
adverse picture of the situation in many areas of the South is one of the
strongest factors in its ongoing vitality, despite the changing international
order. First, it implies an appropriate evaluation of Third World reality in
relation to that of the First World (lack of high standards). Second, because
in the discourse conducted in the First World the expression ‘Third World’,
with its negative overtones and connotations, panders to stereotypes about
the global South and indirectly boosts the image of the highly developed
segment of the international community, it confirms and communicates the
latter’s superiority and excellence, and last but not least allows the
stigmatisation of drastic departures from the standards of high development,
including those occurring within the First World’s own borders. Third, the
term ‘Third World’ contains a ‘subliminal’ message about the poor condition
of this segment of the international community, and thus de facto has great
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international and domestic integration potential, because, based on this

message it is possible to build a narrative speaking of persecution,
exploitation, injustice and inequality. Thus, fourth and finally, the term
‘Third World’ facilitates (although this is also used as an accusation by critics
of the term) the glossing over of the extreme wealth inequalities within the
global South as a whole and also inside individual Third World countries (the
term suggests that everyone in these places is poor and exploited), and
instead builds the illusion of solidarity between the elites and societies of the
Third World, who from this perspective seem to stand together on the
opposite pole to the global North. This is of course for many reasons very
comfortable for the local elites.33 Thus a negatively stigmatised concept
‘Third World’ fits in well with the popular narrative in which the global
South can be found both in the highly developed world as well as in
underdeveloped areas. Last but not least in this context it is worth
considering the role of the contemporary mass media in maintaining the
popularity of the term ‘Third World’, bearing in mind the power of the media
and its focus on the search for sensation, ie on what is bad rather than what is
good. The media generally communicate and perpetuate a negative image of
the global South, so well suggested by ‘Third World’, while probably at the
same time through reflexivity reinforcing the use of the term. Photographs,
films, news bulletins, press articles, as well as—paradoxically—even the noble
initiatives of nongovernmental organisations continually buttress the Third
World’s appalling image.34
In the context of the continuing popularity of the concept of ‘Third World’
it should also be noted that to date none of the demands which were decisive
in the popularisation of this expression some 50–60 years ago—the
expectation of independence, sovereignty, equality, significance and commu-
nity—have been met (certainly not in full), and at the same time the term still
superbly articulates them. Finally, the imprecision of ‘Third World’,
expressed in the indefiniteness and changeability of its exact definition and
geographical reference, can in fact also be a virtue, as this makes the term
enormously flexible, open to even the most far-reaching changes in reality.35
It can be argued therefore that the longevity of the term results from the fact
that, in spite of all its defects and imperfections, it still helps us to describe,
explain and change the world.
A separate issue is the problem of the current validity of the concept ‘Third
World’ in the context of the end of inter-bloc rivalry and the decomposition
in 1989–91 of the world communist system. The end of the Cold War, linked
in popular belief with the collapse of the Second World and as a result with
its elimination from discourse upon matters of the world, strongly under-
mined the validity of using the expression ‘Third World’ in the opinion of
many. They argued that quite simply at the latest after 1991, following the
collapse of the Soviet Union, it was not possible to count to three, and the
term ‘Third World’ was thus an anachronism.36 Nevertheless, contrary to
appearances, the question of whether the communist world survived the end
of the Cold War is not without sense, and in fact it is possible to attempt to
create a list of communist states currently in existence. One such attempt was
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 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF A CONCEPT THAT CHANGED HISTORY

made by John Swift who identified the contemporary ‘‘surviving communist

world’’ in 2002 as limited to five states (and on the whole this is still valid):
China, Laos, North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam.37 However, limiting the
communist system to this handful of countries does not mean that its post-
cold war remains have been entirely marginalised and no longer count for
anything in the contemporary world. Not only in this context is it necessary
to remember the political and economic power of China, but also the fact
that no fewer than 21% of the world’s population still live in communist
countries (in 1980 at the height of the power of the Soviet Union, the
population of the Socialist countries constituted ‘only’ 32.6% of the world’s
population38). All in all, the question as to how the communist world should
be understood today, taking into consideration the changeability and
imprecision of its definition over time and the way it should be geographically
defined, is a completely separate problem. There is, however, little doubt as
to the fact of its existence.39 For example, in Central and Eastern Europe
socialism died as a state system (perhaps with the exception of Belarus), but
still lives in the minds of the people, which has a very practical significance
since the majority of these states practice democracy. In this region in 2005 as
many as a quarter of the population considered that socialism was superior
to democracy, while one-third were indifferent to the type of political system
in place.40 Hence Randall and Theobald are right to argue that, although at
the end of the 1980s the majority of communist countries rejected this system,
there remain certain grounds for treating the former socialist countries as a
distinct group, because their extensive experience of communism will
probably have an influence on the direction of their development for a long
time to come.41 Moreover, since in our times as a result of globalisation the
North–South divide functions on very different levels—from the global to the
local—it may perhaps be that the socialist system has undergone a similar
decentralisation and ‘glocalisation’; even its alleged disintegration on a global
scale did not have to mean its decline in terms of other spatial scales.42 Since
it therefore still remains possible to count to three, then for this reason too
the concept of ‘Third World’ should still be considered valid and its use in
discourse concerning the development and the structure of world justified.

Conclusion
The term ‘Third World’ was coined 60 years ago in 1952. It gained popularity
very quickly and it embodied one of the most important and expressive
concepts of the 20th century. The writer Victor Hugo once commented that
‘nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come’. And in the 20th
century, 60 years ago, it was time for ‘Third World’.
The term ‘Third World’ is a label used to name a certain group of
countries. In this sense it certainly qualifies as a spatial, geographical concept
since specific regions, countries and communities underlie it. Nevertheless, its
spatial dimension, though in itself unusually interesting and at the same time
controversial, constitutes only one aspect. The term ‘Third World’ was also,
and still remains, the conveyor of certain ideas, meanings, hopes, illusions,
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emotions—some already existing when the term was first used and some that
emerged thereafter. On the one hand, ‘Third World’ is, or rather was, an
ideological concept, born in particular historical circumstances and in a
specific intellectual environment. In at least some approaches it had its own
‘political awareness and orientation’, and at least part of its content belonged
to the sphere of political myths and demands. Not only did it name reality, it
also attempted to create it.43 On the other hand, however, the term also was
and is an analytical category, with the help of which scientists, journalists,
commentators and also ordinary people try to distinguish, name and
characterise a certain very important part of the world. The meaning of the
term was originally made up of various elements, but today those of a
political–international character seem to belong irreversibly to the past,
having given way entirely to an interpretation based on social, economic and
political–domestic factors. The way the Third World is perceived is far from
precise and is burdened with defects varying in nature and importance. In
daily use it seems that the term ‘Third World’ often simply functions in the
role of an unthinking slogan, a mental shortcut, a foundation for stereotypes.
Nevertheless, it is one of the most important terms coined in the 20th century
and designates the most populous part of the international community. The
concept was and continues to be a tool serving to channel our thinking about
a large part of the past, present and future world.44
When a phenomenon is named, at least two conditions should be fulfilled.
First, the name should be as short and concise as possible and, second, it
should be as informational, substantial and unambiguous as possible. So a
good name is one that conveys a succinct and clear message. It is able to
capture the essence of the thing in a short and simple form. From this
perspective, in the context of a world divided according to differences in
levels of development, the term ‘Third World’, although not too short, is at
least suggestive and meaningful. In the discourse concerning development,
the concept of the ‘Third World’ continuously and pointedly draws attention
to the absolutely essential issue, from the perspective of the countries of the
Third World, of the underdevelopment of these countries, but equally and no
less importantly it locates this problem in an international context and
defines it as a global issue.
In fact, it is perhaps easier to show the relevance and appropriateness to
today’s world of the term ‘Third World’, which is currently often deemed to
be anachronistic, than of the popular expressions such as ‘developing
countries’ and ‘the South’. The latter concept used today is not only more
misleading than ever (during the Cold War it was possible with some
conviction to defend the North–South opposition, both from a geographical
and developmental point of view), but it seems that it also serves to block in
no small degree any progress in the discussion and knowledge concerning the
location of the contemporary boundary line dividing developed countries
from underdeveloped, imposing a priori a set of geographical associations
and ideas. The gene of geographic determinism contained in the terminology
of ‘North’ and ‘South’, which is in deep and irrevocable contradiction to the
character of development processes constituted by movement and change, is
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absent in the concept of ‘Third World’ as it is geographically open and

undefined. The concept of ‘Third World’ is also not in (at least such obvious)
conflict with knowledge about the contemporary world and common sense as
is the still very popular term ‘developing countries’. However, should this be
enough to persuade participants in the discourse on development and the
structure of the world to stick to the old but pejoratively perceived term
‘Third World’? Certainly not.
Since the very beginning the concept of ‘Third World’ has been strongly
criticised. That is why some people have argued that the notion of ‘Third
World’ should be tossed into the dustbin of history.45 However, the term
‘Third World’ is still valid and it is still one of the most popular terms
describing the less developed countries. Paradoxically, thanks to its contested
hidden negative meaning, ‘Third World’ better expresses the essence of the
undeveloped world— underdevelopment. Perhaps in the case of the concept
of ‘Third World’ and its better known, later alternatives— ‘developing
countries’ and ‘the South’—the saying ‘first thought, best thought’ is true
after all.

Notes
1 I write more about the concept of the Third World in MW Solarz, Trzeci S´wiat. Zarys
biografii poje˛cia (Third World: A Short Biography of the Concept), Warsaw: Warsaw University
Press, 2009.
2 A Sauvy, ‘Trois mondes, une planète’, L’Observateur, 118, 1952; Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia,
New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1986, p 323; J Lacouture, ‘Bandung o u la fin de l’ère coloniale’, Le
Monde diplomatique, April 2005, pp 22–23, at http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2005/04/LACOU
TURE/, 2012.03.24; M Nouschi, ‘L’émergence du tiers-monde’, in P Boniface (ed), Atlas des relations
internationales, Paris: Hatier 2003, p 28; and P Worsley, ‘How many worlds?’, Third World Quarterly,
1(2), 1979, p 101.
3 A Sauvy, ‘Note sur l’origine de l’expression ‘‘Tiers Monde’’ par Alfred Sauvy’, Le Magazine de
l’Homme Moderne, at http://www.homme-moderne.org/societe/demo/sauvy/3mondes/html, accessed
20 March 2012; and M Tamim, Le spectre du Tiers-Monde: L’Education pour le De´veloppement, Paris:
L’Harmattan, 2002, p 29.
4 JT Marcus, Neutralism and Nationalism in France, New York: Bookman Associates, 1958, pp 33–34,
60; and MT Berger, ‘After the Third World? History, destiny and the fate of Third Worldism’, Third
World Quarterly, 25(1), 2004, p 35.
5 W Lamanski, Tri mira azijsko-jewropejskawo matierika (Three Worlds of the Asian–European
Continent), St Petersburg, 1892. See also M Zdziechowski, ‘Trzy światy: Europa, Rosja, Azja’ (‘Three
worlds: Europe, Russia, Asia’), in Zdziechowski, Wybór pism (Selected Writings), Kraków:
Wydawnictwo Znak, 1993, p 366.
6 Zdziechowski, ‘Trzy światy’, pp 361, 382, 384.
7 See JL Love, ‘‘‘Third World’’: a response to Professor Worsley’, Third World Quarterly, 2(2), 1980, pp
315–316.
8 W Gieł_zyński, Trzeci S´wiat—dwie trzecie s´wiata (Third World—Two-thirds of the World), Warsaw:
Młodzie_zowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1984, p 9; J-Y Calvez, Tiers Monde . . . Un monde dans le monde:
aspects sociaux, politiques, internationaux, Paris: Editions Ouvrières, 1989, p 7; Sauvy, ‘Note sur
l’origine de l’expression ‘‘Tiers Monde’’’; and Love, ‘‘‘Third World’’’, p 316.
9 See W Safire, The New Language of Politics: An Anecdotal Dictionary of Catchwords, Slogans &
Political Usage, New York: Random House, 1968; Safire, The New Language of Politics: A Dictionary
of Catchwords, Slogans & Political Usage, New York: Collier Books, 1972; Worsley, ‘How many
worlds?’; Worsley, The Three Worlds: Culture and World Development, London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1984; RB Potter, T Binns, JA Elliott & D Smith, Geographies of Development, Longman:
London, 1999; M Power, Rethinking Development Geographies, London: Routledge, 2003; BR
Tomlinson, ‘What was the Third World?’, Journal of Contemporary History, 38(2), 2003; Berger, ‘After
the Third World?’; and A Greig, D Hulme & M Turner, Challenging Global Inequality, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, pp 307–321.

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10 L Wolf-Philips, ‘Why Third World?’, Third World Quarterly, 1(1), 1979, p 106.
11 Greig et al, Challenging Global Inequality, p 50.
12 See Sauvy, ‘Trois mondes, une planète’.
13 See, for example, Love, ‘‘‘Third World’’’, p 316; Worsley, The Three Worlds, p 307; Tomlinson, ‘What
was the Third World?’, pp 308, 309, 311; J Haynes, Politics in the Developing World: A Concise
Introduction, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002, p 6; HA Reitsma & JMG Kleinpenning, The Third World
in Perspective, Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1989, p 23; Potter et al, Geographies of Development, p
17; AB Mountjoy, The Third World: Problems and Perspectives, London: Macmillan Press, 1980, p 13;
Wolf-Philips, ‘Why Third World?’, pp 106–108; Wolf-Philips, ‘Why ‘‘Third World’’? Origin, definition
and usage’, Third World Quarterly, 9(4), 1987, pp 1311–1312, 1318; and W Clark, ‘Preface’, in A
Moyes & T Hayter, World III: A Handbook on Developing Countries, Oxford/New York: Pergamon/
Macmillan Company, 1965, p xiii.
14 Love, ‘‘‘Third World’’’, p 316.
15 Ibid.
16 Wolf-Philips, ‘Why Third World?’, pp 106–107.
17 Marcus, Neutralism and Nationalism in France, pp 46–47, 53–54.
18 RDG Kelley, ‘A poetics of anticolonialism’, Monthly Review, 51(6), 1999, at http://www.monthlyr-
eview.org/1199kell.htm, accessed 15 March 2012.
19 See P Deszczyński, Kraje rozwijaja˛ce sie˛ w koncepcjach ekonomicznych SPD: Doktryna i praktyka
(Developing Countries in the Economic Concepts of the SPD: Doctrine and Practice), Poznań:
Wydawnictwo Akademii Ekonomicznej, 2001, p 20.
20 See HW Arndt, Economic Development: The History of an Idea, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1987, p 42.
21 L Sédar Senghor, ‘Bandoeng’, in P Braillard & M-R Djalili (eds), Tiers Monde et Relations
Internationales, Paris: Masson, 1984, p 67.
22 J-P Sartre, ‘Posłowie’ (Epilogue), in F Fanon, Wykle˛ty lud ziemi (The Wretched of the Earth), Warsaw:
Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1985, pp 219–220.
23 V Prashad noticed that ‘during the seemingly interminable battles against colonialism, the peoples of
Africa, Asia and Latin America dreamed of a new world . . . They assembled their grievances and
aspirations into various kinds of organizations, where their leadership then formulated a platform of
demands . . . The ‘‘Third World’’ comprised these hopes and the institutions produced to carry them
forward.’ Quoted in JD Sidaway, ‘Geographies of development: new maps, new visions?’, Professional
Geographer, 64(1), 2012, p 52.
24 For one of the latest critiques, see Sidaway, ‘Geographies of development’, pp 49–62.
25 I Sachs, Kształt niepodległos´ci: Wprowadzenie do polityki Trzeciego S´wiata (The Shape of
Independence: An Introduction to Third World Politics), Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, 1966, p 16.
26 MW Lewis & KE Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography, Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1997, p 208; and V Randall & R Theobald, Political Change and
Underdevelopment: A Critical Introduction to Third World Politics, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998, p 13.
27 See, for example, Wolf-Philips, ‘Why ‘‘Third World’’?’, pp 1314–1315; Haynes, Politics in the
Developing World, pp 7–8; Randall & Theobald, Political Change and Underdevelopment, p 15; and BC
Smith, Understanding Third World Politics: Theories of Political Change and Development, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp 17–19.
28 Some institutions active in the post-cold war period, based in both the North and the South, are the
Third World Network, Third World Media Network, ENDA Tiers Monde (Enda-tm, Environnement et
Développement du Tiers Monde), Action Solidarité Tiers Monde (ASTM), Carrefour Tiers-Monde
(CTM), Forum du Tiers Monde, Médecine pour le Tiers Monde, Instituto del Tercer Mundo (ITEM),
Third World Organization for Women in Science (TWOWS), Stowarzyszenie Sprawiedliwego Handlu
‘Trzeci Świat i my’, and Ruch Solidarności z Ubogimi Trzeciego Świata ‘MAITRI’, etc. See the list of
recent books, for example, from Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan or L’Harmattan. See also Solarz,
Trzeci S´wiat, pp 129–130.
29 I would like to thank Dr Izabella Łe˛cka (University of Warsaw) and Dr Robert M Arthur (University
of United Arab Emirates) for their help in carrying out my survey.
30 See also MW Solarz, ‘Wste˛p’ (‘Preface’), in Solarz (ed), Kraje rozwijaja˛ce sie˛ na pocza˛tku XXI wieku:
Wybrane problemy (Developing Countries in the early 21st Century: Selected Problems), Warsaw:
Warsaw University Press, 2011, p 11.
31 See Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, p 323.
32 See, further, MW Solarz, ‘North–South, commemorating the first Brandt Report: searching for the
contemporary spatial picture of the global rift’, Third World Quarterly, 33(3), 2012, pp 559–569.
33 See A Leszczyński, ‘Kto sie˛ rozwija, kto sie˛ zwija’ (‘Who is developing, who is collapsing’), Polityka,
52–53, 2004–05, p 72.

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34 See B Lisocka-Jaegermann, ‘Geografia wobec problemów Trzeciego Świata’ (‘Geography and the
Third World’), in W Maik, K Rembowska & A Suliborski (eds), Geografia a przemiany współczesnego
s´wiata: Podstawowe idee i koncepcje w geografii (Geography and the Changing Contemporary World:
Basic Ideas and Concepts in Geography), Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Wy_zszej Szkoły Gospodarki,
2007, p 165.
35 See, further, Solarz, ‘North–South, commemorating the first Brandt Report’.
36 See Haynes, Politics in the Developing World, p 8.
37 J Swift, The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of the Cold War, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2003, map 50.
38 J Barbag, ‘Mapa polityczna świata’ (‘Politcal map of the world’), in Barbag (ed), Geografia s´wiata
(Geography of the World), Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1985, p 698.
39 See Solarz, ‘The communist world from dawn till dusk: a political geography perspective’, Miscellanea
Geographica—Regional Studies on Development, 16(1), 2012, pp 1–6. www.versita.com/mgrsd/
40 According to a survey by the Hungarian TARKI Social Research Institute. The survey was conducted in
Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia,
Slovenia and Ukraine. See Solarz, ‘The communist world from dawn till dusk’; ‘Nie mija te˛sknota za
socjalizmem’ (‘Socialism is still missed’), Gazeta Wyborcza, 8 March 2006, at http://wiadomosci.ga-
zeta.pl, accessed 12 March 2006; and ‘Nostalgia za komunizmem’ (‘Nostalgia for communism’),
Rzeczpospolita, 9 March 2006, p 2, at http://archiwum.rp.pl, accessed 12 March 2006.
41 Randall & Theobald, Political Change and Underdevelopment, pp 14–15.
42 Solarz, ‘The communist world from dawn till dusk’.
43 As V Prashad wrote: ‘The Third World was not a place. It was a project.’ Sidaway, ‘Geographies of
development’, p 52.
44 Power, Rethinking Development Geographies, p 111.
45 See Potter et al, Geographies of Development, p 22.

Note on contributor
Marcin Wojciech Solarz is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Geography
and Regional Studies at the University of Warsaw. He is the author of
North–South: A Critical Analysis of the Division of the World into Highly
Developed and Underdeveloped Countries (2009, in Polish), Third World: A
Short Biography of the Concept (2009, in Polish) and The Language of Global
Development: A Misleading Geography (Routledge, forthcoming); editor of
Developing Countries in the Early 21st Century: Selected Issues (2011, in
Polish).

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