The Nature of Political Process in the 3rd

World

Introduction
The International state system and the modern state, as we
know it today, are rather young. The treaty of Westphilia of
1648 is said to be the beginning of the system of sovereign states.
Pre and post Westphilia, several things have remained
unchanged. Wars were fought and peace treaties were signed.
But this treaty drew up a list of core principles which redefined
the concept of the state.

Huge Empires sprawled across the globe and dynasties

frequently changed. Political boundaries were almost fluid, being
drawn and violated repeatedly. The treaty changed this,
Territories were fixed and marked as inviolable. Sovereignty of
the state or supremacy of the state became an accepted norm. The
treaty of Westphilia was strongly influenced by two events: The
French and The American Revolutions. Both lent the treaty
certain credibility and deepened the norm of the sovereign and
territorial inviolability. The Westphilia world order was based
on the three principles:

i) Rex EST imperator in regno suo (The king is master in his

land)
ii) The king decides the state religion

Iii) The principle of Balance of Power.

These principles were established to prevent and check the

Hegemonic ambitions of a state. Thus, led to the development of
the modern day International Law. International Law could
be defined as a code of conduct, which states adhere to, both in
times of war and peace. As Jeremy Bentham in the 1780
described it as the laws of a state and its primary purpose was
to regulate the relations between states. The birth and evolution
of Capitalism, which os the strongest pillar on which the West
rests, is closely linked to Protestantism. Max Webber, the
German Sociologist, has elegantly developed this argument in his
book The Protestant Ethic and the Rise of Capitalism

The Third World

Third World, former political designation originally used (1963)

to describe those states not part of the first worldthe
capitalist, economically developed states led by the U.S.or the
second worldthe communist states led by the Soviet Union.
When the term was introduced, the Third World principally
consisted of the developing world, the former colonies of Africa,
Asia, and Latin America. With the end of the Cold
War and the increased economic competitiveness of some
developing countries, the term lost its analytic clarity.

The picture of the Third World in this respect is becoming more

complex with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the 1
emergence of a number of independent states that were formerly
part of it. Most of these, such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan,
rank as lower-middle-income countries along with, for example,
Senegal, Thailand and Peru.

A significant variation in Third World status is the length of

time that countries have been independent from their colonizers,
with most Latin American countries gaining political
independence in the early nineteenth century and most African
only after the Second World War. However, the legacy of
imperialism and colonialism was everywhere profound,
transforming political institutions and processes. New geo-
political boundaries were drawn. Reactions against alien rule
mobilized new political forces and alliances. Indigenous social
structures and political systems were altered by European
economic interventions and settlement. Most Third World
countries are poor by international standards.

The majority are found in the low-income or lower-middle-income

categories used by the World Bank and defined in terms of
gross national income per capita. Differences in per capita
incomes vary greatly between regions of the world and, the
regions of the Third World continue to lag behind the developed
economies. Low per capita incomes have been related historically
to the Third Worlds economic dependence on agriculture.
Incomes tend to rise as countries industrialize and the size of
the manufacturing sector increases. These are important goals
for developing countries.

Despite progress in human development over the past 30 years,

measured by life expectancy, educational attainment and the
purchasing power of incomes, there are still substantial contrasts
between the developed and developing worlds, as well as between
groups of poorer countries. Although human development
remains a severe challenge for poor countries, variations in levels
occur between developing countries regardless of wealth. For
example, Vietnam has achieved more in human development than
Pakistan, despite similar levels of per capita GDP.

Variations also occur within developing (and developed)

countries between regions, classes, ethnic groups, men and
women, and urban compared with rural areas. The structural
adjustment programmes required of many developing countries as
a condition for receiving assistance from international
development agencies such as the World Bank and IMF have
had far-reaching political consequences for the governments
concerned. Public enterprise reforms and privatization have
usually meant substantial job losses. Another threat to
democracy in the Third World is posed by the rise of forms of
religious fundamentalism which violate principles of toleration
and equal rights. In India, for example, Hindu nationalism is
believed by The Idea of a Third World 9 some experts to
threaten the very survival of the political system as a pluralist
democracy (Chiriyankandath, 1994, p. 32). To a considerable
extent such movements reflect disillusionment with political and
economic developments which leave large sections of the
population marginalized both materially and politically as power
is accumulated in the hands of new ruling classes. Religious
fundamentalism provides an ideological focus which asserts the
relevance of forms of traditionalism to the modern world.

The concept of a third world

Gunnar Myrdal, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics in
1974, once said that in the relationship between rich and poor
countries there has been diplomacy by language, meaning that in
the developed, and to a lesser extent the underdeveloped, countries
there has been a constant search for an acceptable label for this
latter group. No one has come up with a label that claims
universal acceptance. The search is fraught with difficulties, not
least ideological ones. As Coulbourne points out, the
terminology of comparative politics, particularly as far as the
Third World is concerned, is largely expressive of attitudes
rather than precise analytical concepts. The idea that advanced
societies secured their own advancement by under developing poor
countries is at the heart of dependency theory. Such difficulties
form the substance of the rest of this chapter. The purpose of
examining the concept of the Third World is that one can gain a
preliminary insight into some of the problems experienced by such
countries by examining the validity of using a single category for
such an amorphous group. To be able to evaluate the different
positions adopted by those who have entered into dispute about
whether Third World is a meaningful concept it is necessary to
separate out the different perceptions that people have about the
countries which they think deserving of the label. The original
meaning of the term Third World referred to a group of non-
aligned countries outside the great power blocs. There has been a
lot of discussion as to who used the term first, but it is
generally accepted that it was the French demographer and
economic historian, Alfred Sauvy, who The Idea of a Third
World 11 coined the term in the early 1950s.

The idea of a Third World thus tries to capture a common

experience of exploitation by richer and more powerful societies.
All Third World countries have experienced such exploitation
to some degree, and it was strongly felt by many Third World
leaders that it was persisting even after independence. since the
early 1970s Third Worldism has reflected a campaign for a new
international economic order under which developing countries
would secure greater national control of their natural resources,
and try to protect their economies by collectively agreeing on the
prices of raw materials upon which so many of their economies
were dependent.
Third Worldism has been to some extent driven by a sense of
grievance against the developed countries who appear to have
rigged the rules of the international economy against less
developed countries (Rothstein, 1977, p. 51). The objective has
been to strengthen through collective action the position of
individual Third World countries vis--vis their main trading
partners and sources of foreign investment. Through
UNESCO Third World countries are also trying to act
collectively to resist the pressures from the Westernized mass
media, and the cultural, educational and scientific imperialism
which introduces inappropriate technology and educational values
into their societies.

Finally there the problem of poverty. Although some of the

countries that would conventionally be thought of as part of the
Third World are relatively rich, particularly in the Middle
East, nevertheless poverty continues to be a real and significant
feature of Third World countries. This aspect of Third
Worldism increased between 1975 and 1990. Some progress was
made in the reduction of Third World poverty in the 1960s and
1970s, but the 1980s were the lost decade for the poor.
CASE STUDY

Exhibit A