ABSTRACT
The term the ‘Third World’ was coined in 1952 when the French demographer, Alfred Sauvy, used it to refer to the ‘underdeveloped’ countries outside the orbits of the two superpowers, the USA and the USSR. The historical context which gave the expression meaning was the Cold War, which polarized the globe between two hostile ‘worlds’ based on incompatible economic systems, capitalism and socialism. In this situation, Sauvy argued, the existence of a ‘third’ world of poor neutral states was in danger of being forgotten. Like the ‘third estate’ in pre-revolutionary France, the Third World was unrepresented in international fora and now wished to stand up for itself (see Lacoste, 1980, pp. 10–18).
