An Analysis of Third Worldism in the International System

Third Worldism, as a movement challenging the hegemony of the dominant order in the international system, dates back to the early years of the Cold War era in the 1950s. With its origins in the anti-colonialist and nationalist struggles of the 1950s, as symbolized, among others, by Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Third Worldism also came to be influenced by anti-capitalist and anti-Western radical and socialist/Marxist currents. The present paper looks into the phenomenon of Third Worldism from its early days and traces its development over time across the entire Third World – or the developing world as it later came to be known. The paper attempts to explore the particular challenges and opportunities of Third Worldism in the post-Cold War period. While addressing the paradoxes of this movement during the Cold War era, we try to explore its fortunes in the international system following the end of the Cold War. Our study is based on the main hypothesis that Third Worldism faces a number of serious challenges, but we conclude that it can still serve an effective factor in the North-South dichotomy.