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12 - Was the Rise of the ‘Third World’ a Theory Effect?

International Relations and the Historicity of Economic Expertise

from Part III - Global History and the Imperial Fundaments of International Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2023

By
Daniel Speich Chassé
Edited by
Klaus Schlichte  and
Stephan Stetter
Klaus Schlichte
Affiliation:
Universität Bremen
Stephan Stetter
Affiliation:
Universität der Bundeswehr München
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Summary

The notion of a ‘Third World’ rose to prominence in international political discourse around 1960 and vanished around 1990. I argue in this article that the term needs to be situated in a larger history of the perception of global difference. I take the ‘Third World’ to be an effect of theory. That is not to play down the material weight of inequality between rich and poor parts of humanity. The point is rather to highlight the importance of discourse in historical change. To what extent were colonial and imperial formations functional for the emergence of the said notion? The peculiar career of the concept is connected to the history of economic thought. The paper thus focuses on the emergence of the term around 1960 and investigates the irrelevance of economics in late colonialism as opposed to the prominence of economic experts in the post-1945 world order.

Keywords

North-South ConflictThird WorldHistory of Economic ThoughtHistory of Global Differencecolonial situation
Type
Chapter
Information
The Historicity of International Politics
Imperialism and the Presence of the Past
 , pp. 247 - 266
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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