GURU GOBIND SINGH INDRAPRASTHA UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW AND LEGAL STUDIES

LAW AND JUSTICE IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD

ASSIGNMENT 4

SUBMITTED TO: DR. ANUJ VAKSHA

SUBMITTED BY: DIKSHA [LL.M. (REGULAR) 2022-23]
 THIRD WORLD PERSPECTIVE TO POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND LEGAL
PROCESSES
Politics doesn't show great differences in all parts of the world. Aims, targets, conflicts are the same in
every region. So, third world (third world) politics don't show big differences when we compare them
with other politics. The difference does not come from the characteristics of people but from the
unique circumstances. The term ''third world'' contains Americas on the south of us, Africa, Asia
without Soviet Union, China, Japan and ocean islands but not New Zealand and Australia. This nearly
takes the half of world population inside. We can’t categorize these countries according to wealth or
geography. Some third world countries are extremely poor, on the other hand we have to keep in mind
that Kuwait is also considered as a third world country. But, third world countries have some common
parts; nearly most of them gained independence after 1945. What differs third world countries from
the other parts of the world is their peripherally. They are separate from the major economic power
countries. Only small part of third world population lives in the same standards with the population in
western world. We can also define third world countries by saying that they are ''non-western''. Their
political and economic institutions are different from the western institutions. Most of third world are
governed by ''single-man leadership'' and they are facing problems on maintaining a stable and
healthy bureaucracy. There are third world contrasting theories which try to describe third world
countries. First can be called as ''nationalist approach''. This approach tries to find regularities in the
international evolution of each state and defines the situation as ''development''. Samuel Huntington
refuses the term ''political development'' and uses ''political order'' instead. The other approach can be
called as Marxist and Leninist school which believes that third world countries need to incorporate to
the global system. This second group is known as ''internationalists''. Internationalists focus on Latin
America and claim that the economy is the biggest power behind the political change. Both
nationalists and internationalists have right aspects but, they are not enough to explain third world
individually.

COLONIAL STATE AND ITS DEMISE/EUROPEAN COLONIALISM:

A single world system is needed to define third world. If a global political system and a global
economy don't exist, then there would be no reason countries to be categorized as third world.
European colonialism is the main power behind the forming of global world order. Many countries
are affected by this development, changes are observed in inner politics and also many states are
linked to this global system via various international institutions. All of the third world countries used
to be a colony of a European state once. Although they are independent at the moment, European
effect remained in some areas.

THE IMPOSITION OF COLONIAL RULE:

The imposition of European colonialism shows differences in third world countries. Colonial rule was
imposed some of them in 15th century while the others stayed independent till 19th.colonialism was
the result of technical developments in Europe. The motive was economic. European states wanted to
use their technologic advantages in favour of being wealthier. The invention of ocean-going ships was
the starting point of colonialism. Europeans hoped to find rich territories but on the other hand, they
were looking for easy control on the resident. From this point of view, Americas was the best place. It
was rich but easy to control. The colonial rule imposed to Americas was very violent. Europeans
destroyed all cultural heritages in Americas. Populations are kept away from social, economic and
political life. Europeans used colonials for rich minerals, food and especially in Africa they used
slaves.in general, Asia and Africa colonialism show similarities but colonialism in Americas,
especially Latin America is totally different. They became independent nearly a century before the
others. For long years, Europe took colonies only on the coasts, then they began to come into the
continents. For example, central parts of Asia became colony only in 19th century. For centuries,
south east Europe and northern Africa was under Ottoman control. After Ottoman's collapse, France
and Britain governed many colonies of old Ottoman territory in cooperation with local dynasties.
Africa used for man power and the only state which could have survived its independence was
Ethiopia. In Africa, local people were separated into different colonies and after colonial period,
separate states were built in the continent according to early colony maps.

THE STRUCTURE OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENT:

We can’t speak about a single colonial government structure, there were differences according to the
region and who governed. But of course, there are some common characteristics: in all colonies there
were no borderlines before, colonism brought territorial boundaries. This is the main point of
independent states after post-colonial period.one other important point is that the colonial states
brought some kind of political arrangement in each colony. Colonial states based their political
arrangement on absolute power. The amount of this power was different but something was common
for local people: they thought that resisting to colonial powers would not change anything. Of course,
there was a big gap between the third world and the technologies of colonies people and Europe. The
structure of colonial power was both centralized and authoritarian. The core was Europe, there was a
governor in the central colony and there were commissioners in the region colonies. The structure is
nearly the same in every colony. There are also some other effects of colonization. New colonial
economy, new behaviours and social life occured in colonization period. Long roads and railways
were built to transfer mineral, food and slaves. Many colonial states lost their authorities in the 19th
century, only Britain and France left as colonial imperials. After French Revolution, France wanted
those indigenous people of colonies assimilate into French culture and nation. By contrast, Britain
never accepted this approach. According to Britain, those people could never become English. The
British system was more centralized in comparison with French experience but anticolonial
movement were observed earlier in British colonies. Colonial powers forced people to use a common
language, established an education system, so, colony people lost contact with other colonies. There
are three reasons for the different colonial government structures: economic change, structure of
indigenous people and exercises of different colonial states.

THE NON-COLONIAL STATES:

In the Americas there were colonies everywhere but in Asia and Africa there were indirect colonies.
In Asia and Africa some regions were non-colonial but in fact they were close to being a colony. The
indigenous elite had contacts with colonial western countries, established European like institutions
inside the country. Thailand, İran and Ethiopia are the examples. These indigenous rulers preferred
centralized authority in order to maintain stability inside and continue relations with capitalist powers.
They did never have sympathy for political participation, thus, there were bloody upheavals in non-
colonial states.

DECLINE OF WESTERN EUROPEAN COLONIALISM:

The end of western European colonialism happened within a short period of time. 20 years after
Second World War there were nearly no colonies which belonged to these states. Only a few micro
colonies left which were totally composed of islands. The western powers always claimed that,
colonialism would end either by independence or assimilation. The case of independence was much
more seen than assimilation. There were third world super powers after the war and none both US and
USSR did not support the understanding of colonialism. There were also come other reasons that
could explain the fall of colonialism. First of all, the economic income reduced after the war because
all colonies were affected by the war. Secondly, western Europeans had security concerns. Security
was about to be one of the major objectives of these states. And of course we have to keep in mind
that post war governments of Europe had been mentioning equalities and democracy. These ideas
don't accept any relation with colonialism. While Britain was making arrangements to transfer power,
there were problems in French colonies especially in Indochina and Algeria. Since the coming of
Charles de Gaulle in power, France continuingly faced problems in colonies. In Portugal colonial
upheavals put government into a very difficult situation and there happened a revolution in 1974. We
must not forget that colonial period caused changes not only in colonial states but in the colonies as
well. Colonies had always thought that, no one could win against colonial powers, but most of them
got disappointed when they saw that colonial states could not stop the occupation of the enemy. The
breaking point of colonialism was the end of war. Many powers could not maintain stability in their
colonies after the war.

THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS:

Although external conditions and war had an effect on the fall of colonialism, the main reason was the
nationalist anti-colonial movements raised in the colonies by time. The indigenous opposition wanted
to get rid of the colonial power but never wanted to turn back to their pre-colonial state conditions.
The indigenous elite was very much effected by the colonial education and their thoughts. In some
colonies, especially in Africa, indigenous people considered colonial powers as a force for
development, demanded equal rights and same systems with Europeans. In the second phase, there
were some preparations for self-governance but these were not strong enough. After a while, these
thoughts gained the support of large populations. In many colonies, leaders of national movements
aimed to control the rural groups and their nationalism was moderate. And last but not the least, there
were religion, ethnic and other kind of disputes came to surface even before independence. We can
say that nationalist period in the colonies was transient and peculiar.

THE COLONIAL RESPONSE AND THE TRANSFER OF POWER:

The nationalism came to surface as a reaction to the injustice exercises of colonial powers. The
governors were trying to maintain stability in colonies and since this was the final goal, they could
have used violent tactics when necessary. They had to find a balance be third world been growing
nationalism and their behaviour’s. They should stop colonization and give permission to
decolonization period. What they did first was to hold elections for limited participation to political
life, and while doing this, they hoped to suppress radical movements inside. British followed this way,
they were successful in some places but not in Zimbabwe and South Africa, because they transferred
power so early to white minority. French did not look for decolonization till 1958 but the assimilation
policy of France formed a necessary base for decolonization. On the other hand, Belgians accepted the
possibility of independence but did not do anything to create a base or group to take the power. That's
why in Belgian colonies there happened fights among groups to take the power.

THE NATURE OF THE THIRD WORLD STATE:

The state is the main force and element in the structure of third world country. But the power balance
in the state is different in these third world countries comparing with the other states of world and the
main characteristic of the state is its fragility. In the first years of independence there was a hard
struggle between third world and political parties but systems stood alive and survived. Third world
states generally had totalitarian structures. States usually did not present commonly shared values.
The state in its origins was to preserve of the dominant immigrant group and used as an agency of
control. The dominant group was generally white and they were slave owners. We can say that there
wasn't any healthy relations between third world state and its society. Of course, this gap affected the
political, social and economic developments of newly independent third world countries.

FORMS OF AUTHORITY:

Modern states are based on rational, legal authority and they individuals have an important role. It
was the common values and aims of individuals that bring people together in a state. Short after
independence, third world countries prepared their constitutions but these constitutions showed great
sensibility to the opposition and minority demands. Because of these constitutions there was a danger
of quick reversing of regimes in these sates. Third world countries changed many constitutions since
then, they were unable to continue their political life with a single constitution. Charisma had an
important role in political leadership. The system is held together by loyalty to state but this loyalty
was mostly for the leader himself. Third world were not feudal systems but we can not speak of pure
patrimonialism here, we can define the situation as "neo-patrimonialism". Officials who were in the
key parts of bureaucratic system exercised their powers in favour of the private property. In the neo
patrimonialism there were tribal societies in which loyalty to one's kin group was the primary social
value. Although third world countries are closer to modern states at the moment, we can still observe
some characteristics of neo patrimonialism. Corruption: when state officials use their powers in
favour of private aims, this can be called as corruption. In a patrimonial system, corruption doesn't
have meaning because the ruler owns everything the state owns. But in a neo patrimonial system
exists since the state is based on the concept of rationality and legality. Corruption is one of the main
problems in all third world countries. The main problem is that the officials and politicians don't
support and work for long term projects or plans, they are just trying to save the day. People in third
world countries are suspicious about their political and economic future. One other important result of
corruption is the distance between third world and those who exercise power and those who suffer
from the corruption of the system and power is not equally shared by these third world groups. Some
officials can not even be supervised by their own superiors and effective control of corruption looks
difficult. One important aspect of corruption is the relations with external world. These relations are
needed to do something with the money collected from inside. And external relations are also sources
for further corruption, for example relations with big companies, various agreements can be used as a
source for corruption. There are some kinds of corruption which can be observed in third world
countries, these are: parochial, distributive, market or extractive kinds of corruption.

PATRONS AND CLIENTS:

There are third world groups in a third world state one side is the people who take the power and
second group does not have the power and they are who are not willing to participate social and
economic life. Third world rulers tried to extend their support beyond important groups who could
play a role in rulers' political advantage and competition. The regimes in third world countries were
searching for support the characteristic solution to this problem can be defined as "patron client
relationship. This is the way to define relations in a neo-patrimonial system. The patron gives security
and protects the client while the client supports patron in his leadership. The term "security" can be
both used political, social, regional and economic aspects. This kind of relations are generally applied
in countries in which class divisions are sharp. Political party leaders are in contact with local leaders
in order to take the support of regions via local leaders. When these political leaders come to power,
they let local leaders to get benefit from their governance as a appreciation for the former support.
This system works differently when there are weak local governments. For example in Jamaica which
is a urbanized country, trade unions do the same work of local leaders and try to increase the support
of his ruler. The main dangerous part of this system comes when ethnic identities are mobilized. Since
most of third world countries are artificial, playing on ethnicity card may turn into a dangerous game.
The process of state consolidation: in all over the world, although politics are made in favour of large
populations, only small number of people are interested in politics. But, situation is even worse in
third world countries. Non governmental political institutions are either weak or even don‘t exist in
these countries. The state looks authoritarian and in fact it is very fragile. The small elite which has
the power tries to increase effectiveness of of state and also tries to get support of larger populations
without taking any risk to its political status. Elite tries to strengthen the concept of state. Elite used
third world methods to obtain its obstacles. First, ideological, second in political practice. On
ideological base, elite develops thoughts and arguments which can justify their aims and existence. In
political practice, they don‘t have tolerance to other political institutions. They consider these
institutions as a challenge to their power, thus, destroy the institutions. On the other hand, these
institutions are the only linkage between third world ruler and large populations, the number of people
who are interested in politics never increases.

THE IDEOLOGIES OF INDEPENDENCE:

We can define ideology as‚ ‘set of beliefs’. It can either be true or false but it must be based on
experience and expectations of people. In the nationalist leaders’ ideologies of third world countries,
the main concept is the identity. The main part of the ideology is composed of what we can call
as‚ ‘unity’. Nearly all post-colonial period ideologies focus on the concept of unity. According to
people on power, using unity helps to cover the sharp class divisions inside the country. Secondly,
unity is a good concept if we consider the ethnic structure of third world states. Since ethnic diversity
is much, third world countries nationalists defined nationhood not on ethnic structure but on the idea
of sharing common boundaries. When opposition groups based their opposition on religion or ethnic
grounds, they were accused of being racist or tribalist. If a nationalist movement is strongly anti-
colonial, we observe that it has less tolerance to opposition. On the contrary, if it is less anti-colonial
then the elite considers itself in security and becomes more tolerable to other political groups. Since
the level of education is low in third world countries, the political leaders thought that they had right
to decide everything in favour of their population. In the pre independence period of third world
countries, there was strong relation between third world and these people and populations but after
independence things have changed and these third world factors separated. On ideological base, there
were also few states which accepted Marxist ideology. The examples to these states are Ethiopia,
Cuba and Vietnam. The consolidation of state control: after colonial period nationalist policies used
third world institutions to strengthen their own power. These were: political parties which they had
formed and formal administrations of colonial regimes. Nearly in all newly independent former
colonies, power was transferred from the party to the state. Party was the main institution in political
life and there wasn‘t any remarkable opposition. In some cases, opposition leaders were sent to exile
or imprisoned. Opposition parties never had the chance to obtain the governance. Even in federal
systems, opposition party could not show effectiveness to central government. The potential sources
of opposition like trade unions or labour were without any effect, too. These groups were divided
among themselves and could not ever create a significant union against the current political power. In
short terms, consolidation of state can be described as ‚‘‘returning to the authoritarianism of colonial
rule‘‘. In the first stage, colonial administration let nationalist parties to work then built constitutions.
There are three differences when we compare colonial and indigenous governments: first, colonial
rulers could not build a bureaucracy, on the other hand indigenous leaders succeeded to create it.
Secondly, indigenous rulers were searching for political and social development, thus they used nation
state as a tool. Third was a result of above mentioned third world factors; there were much more
indigenous trained and educated people in these countries compared with the colonial period. The
management of the core: after independence state consolidation became intensive, but it was unable to
solve the question on how to manage the state. The ruler and the court: in third world countries, top
leadership had always been personal. In third world, there wasn‘t any immediate institutional
constraint on rulers.it is strange that military governing looks like more institutionalized than the civil
political parties. Military rulers used the concept of collective leadership instead of one man rule. But,
military governments were not willing to replace themselves for civil administrations. As a result of
this they usually lost their power by another coup. In third world, we can say that a successful ruler is
the person who can get loyalty and support, who can demolish political enemies and who gets the
sympathy and closer cities and support of the external world. External political and economic support
was one of the key elements for third world rulers. These leaders preferred bureaucrats to other
politicians because they had the authority to replace bureaucrats. In addition to authoritarian leaders,
Jackson and Rosberg claim that there are some other types of leadership like tyrants or prophets. But
if we look closely we will see that there is no big difference bethird worldeen these and an
authoritarian leader. In fact, political and economic structures of the third world states supports the
idea of strong leadership. We can define court as the inherent factional form of political organization.
The main problem of one man leadership is the succession. Some third world leaders could have done
positive achievements in political and economic life but all of these always had the risk to collapse
with the coming of a new leader. Since ruling does not base on continuous efforts, new leader could
have started from another subject and left his precedessors efforts incomplete.

MAINTAINING A RULING COALITION :

Political leaders have to be good strategists and tactic experts. In order to continue their leadership,
they have to build a coalition considering the aims of different groups and the will of various ethnic or
religional minorities, on the other hand, they have to build this coalition so carefully that, this
coalition will not be a threat to their leadership and legitimacy. The role and the methods of coalition
building in western democracies is very well defined and clear, but not the same in third world states.
The norms are not defined well. Even in one man leadership or military governments, there has to be
a coalition building understanding. One of the main component of this coalition is ethnicity. Many of
the third world states have heteregenous ethnicity, thus this ethnicity provides a form of political
identity. Leaders should not exclude some ethnic minorities from the participation to political life.
This is a dangerous approach which can take the country into a civil war like in the cases of ethiopia
or sudan. In these examples, central government lost much of its territory after the civil war. The
situation is more difficult when there are third world major power groups inside the country nearly in
equal Size and political structure. In this case, coalition has to be built carefully. But in all cases, there
are some unsatisfied ethnic groups and these become a threat to political stability of the country. One
another important problem is that there are some differences and separations even in the same ethnic
group. That is why it is better to base this coalition on class concept rather than ethnicity. In Latin
America we observe that coalitions are grounded on class. In industrialized countries, the main classes
that take place in the coalition are working or middle class, but in third world we can speak about
urban and rural dwellers. In the urban coalition building, the emphasis is made on towns because the
main institutions of this urban life are in towns. The most important factor has always been the
bureaucracy. In rural based coalition building, bureaucratic authoritarianism is being observed. Trade
unions are also another important factor especially in countries where people have bad living
conditions and standarts. The other supporters of urban coalitions are the intellectuals and students.
Coalitions are governed via political parties. A political party can be considered as an umbrella which
can gather different groups in the single framework.

HOW REGIMES FAIL?:

One of the common characteristics of third world political life is the military coups. Nearly all of
them had the experience of military governing after independence. In fact third world leader have
many advantages to come to power and endure their leadership comparing with the leaders of western
world. The state is more powerful and they have the instrument to supress opposition groups. The key
is the individual success of the ruler. If he can able to supress opposition, get good contacts both
inside and outside, he can stay in power for so long. Third world countries are also fragile in
economic field. They have little participation in global economy but on the contrary they are
dependent on international economy. They have weak national identity but strong political authority.
These third world factors put obstacles on the formation of institutions which can bring stability to
political and economic life. One other reason of instability is sometimes authoritarian leaderships give
wrong decisions, they use wrong tactics, since non-governmental reaction is low, the mistakes can last
long. The most difficult problem in political management is that of responding to a shrinkage in the
ruling coalition. Before they come to power they give promises which are impossible to keep. After
coming to power, they disappoint the populations. This may end the coalition short after the
formation. The result of this disappointment is either a military coup or the riots, upheavals inside the
country. The central governments are sometimes even unable to control their own territories. There
appears local warlords which establish their own governance against the central leadership.

THE POLITICS OF ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT:

There were third world options for third world states on economic field after independence. They
would close either socialist or capitalist approaches. For third world states main objective of economic
management is to maintain and consolidate of state. They accepted Marxist approach as an easier way
to maintain these objectives. Economic management is considered as a tool for political control. There
are third World main control managements; one is the imposition of force and the other is the
manipulation of economy. Many third world states preferred the manipulation option. These states
generally used socialist policies in order to strengthen their own political power. Links and relations
with external powers play an important role in the control of economy. For example there are few
states who accepted the foreign contribution so much that they even left the inner authority to these
external powers. These states are called‚ ‘banan republic’. But we have to keep in mind that these
cases are exception. Most of third world countries , in one way or another succeeded to maintain
control on economies. The concept of competition is vital in economies in general. Third world sates
generally accepted competition as a threat to their existence. They used competition by calling for
investment, their aim was to find financial support to strengthen their political existence in the
country. In order to fulfil their economic goals, third world states needed to impose a single economic
strategy. The result of this understanding is the creation of development plans. They usually prepared
long and short term development plans but only a small part of them were able to be imposed
properly. Since these plans required the power to be shared among local and central leaderships,
central leadership put obstacles on these plans for their own political considerations.

GOVERNMENT REVENUES AND EXTERNAL DEPENDENCE:

The revenues of third world governments were highly dependent on external trade. In western world,
states have various revenue sources such as sales taxes, the third world economies were dependent on
external transactions. They continued the economic habit of formal colonies and encouraged export
production. This dependence on external-oriented revenues had also political impacts. Because their
economies were based on external trade, they never had the chance to form development plans which
includes and foresees any reduction in external trade. The governments of third world were depended
on revenues but they were facing with an important problem of smuggling. The control on borders is
very important for every economy in the world, but this dependence makes it more important for third
world. Smuggling is still one of the main economic problems in third world. Capitalist and socialist
government differ on the subject of border control. Socialists apply non convertible currency and this
currency helps state to maintain better control on its borders. The relations between third world and
governments and transnational corporations had also a key role in economies. Corporations were
interested in importing minerals from third world, but they were not willing to share the profit with
third world. The governments were trying to increase their surpluses, if they had no chance left, they
prefered nationalization of these corporations. Nationalization gave governments to increase their
control on these corporations. Sometimes these corporations played risky games and got involved
with the domestic policies of host country. By doing this, they also lost popularity and support of
people.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING AND INTERNAL TRANSFERS:

Third world countries faced with similar problems in government spending they had faced in
government income. There was a gap be third World’s income and expenditure of third world
countries and this made them more and more dependent to external world than ever. Because they
were trying to fill the gap by using external loans. It is not easy to say that these government used
external sources in order to fulfil their social development aims such as education and health. On the
contrary, statistics showed that there had not been any significant change in the defence expenditures
of these countries. Thus, the main problem is not the external source they have used but how they
distributed it. The main portion of this money was used for the payments of government employees.
This means that the money was generally spent for capital and big cities. This did not only create
economic problems but also they created social problems as well. The difference be Third World
cities and other areas deepened.