ABSTRACT
This chapter is not directly concerned with the economic plight of the third world-a subject, however important, about which a great deal has already been written. It is concerned with the management of the economy as a political problem facing third world governments. This problem is often presented in terms of the strategies for economic development between which governments can choose, especially in so far as these can be related to ‘socialist’ or ‘capitalist’ development paths. These are certainly part of it: many third world states have had a real (though variable) degree of choice, and the options which they have selected have had a significant effect on the well-being or otherwise of their peoples. But these choices have had to be made, not only within the context of an international economic system which imposes constraints of a broadly familiar kind, but equally within the context of the third world state structure itself.
