The queer Third World

This article attempts to align ‘queer’ and ‘Third World’ – grouping them in their common inheritance of subjugation and disparagement and their shared allegiance to non-alignment and a politics aimed at disrupting domination and the status quo. In assembling both terms one is struck by how, in the mainstream discourse of international development, the Third World comes off looking remarkably queer: under Western eyes it has often been constructed as perverse, abnormal and passive. Its sociocultural values and institutions are seen as deviantly strange – backward, effete, even effeminate. Its economic development is depicted as abnormal, always needing to emulate the West, yet never living up to the mark (‘emerging’ perhaps, but never quite arriving). For their part, postcolonial Third World nation-states have tended to disown and purge such queering – by denying their queerness; indeed often characterising it as a ‘Western import’ – yet at the same time imitating the West and pursuing neoliberal capitalist growth. I want not only to make the claim that the Western and Third World stances are two sides of the same discourse but, drawing on Lacanian queer theory, also to suggest that a ‘queer Third World’ would better transgress this discourse by embracing queerness as the site of structural negativity and destabilising politics.     

Emigration and expulsion in the Third World

We routinely refer to pharmaceutical patents as intellectual property rights. The argument in this article is that pharmaceutical patents represent a ‘bargain’ between government, business and society. The pharmaceutical patent system constitutes a social institution with social goals that go well beyond solely providing incentives to proprietary pharmaceutical companies to develop innovative drugs. Therefore we need to assess this institution in terms of what is referred to here as its social effectiveness, that is, its ability to accomplish the social goals it was set up to achieve. Such assessment has to take into account the fact that the pharmaceutical patent system has now become global, a development that has made its social ineffectiveness more apparent and worrisome. The severity and gravity of unmet global and local public health needs compels urgent scrutiny of the pharmaceutical patent system, as well as of alternatives to it, such as prizes for pharmaceuticals.     

Third World foundation news

This paper examines the evolving role of the UN specialised agencies in international responses to 'complex' emergencies, with particular reference to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Despite some shortcomings in both the organisation and execution of interventions, FAO does indeed - as it claims - have the capacity to be a 'key player' in complex emergencies in terms of emergency and longer-term rehabilitation as well as preparedness and early warning, and is playing this role with increasing confidence and competence. A main constraint is donor reluctance to fund the kind of operations in which FAO specialises, despite their potential cost-effectiveness and capacity, with careful design and implementation, to mitigate crises and reduce relief needs. This is seen as part of a wider donor failure to provide adequate support for responses to complex emergencies which go beyond 'pure' relief in acute, high profile situations-something which has increasingly become a preoccupation within and outside the UN system and points to the need for improved coordination and monitoring and evaluation systems.     

Ethnic politics and Third World development: Some lessons from Sri Lanka’s experience

Sri Lanka has been in the forefront among LDCs, always implementing development strategies that are fashionable for a given period of time. Beginning with a capitalist structure in the 1950s, it embraced features of a planned economy in the 1960s. By the mid-1970s it had taken up market-orientated growth policies. Yet its record of achievement is a disappointing one. The primary reasons for this are to be found in the ethnic politics Sri Lanka has been engaged in ever since the end of colonial rule. The political economy of ethnicity is traced through four stages where the common element has been a lack of compatibility between economic policies and political strategy.     

Third world prize 1982

Mozambique: who calls the shots. by Joseph Hanlon, London: James Currey. 1991. 301pp. £11.95pb

Renamo: terrorism in Mozambique. by Alex Vines, London: James Currey. 1991. 176pp. £7.95pb

Behind the Intifada: labor and women's movements in the occupied territories. by Joost R Hiltermann, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 265pp

Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel. by Benjamin Beit‐Hallahmi, London and Concord: Pluto Press 1992, 218pp

Living Together Separately: Arabs and Jews in Contemporary Jerusalem. by Michael Romann and Alex Weingrod, Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1991. 258pp

Veiled Half‐Truths: Western Travellers’ Perceptions of Middle Eastern Women. by Judy Mabro, London: IB Tauris. 1991

Ethnicity and Nationalism: theory and comparison. by Paul R Brass, New Delhi/Newbury Park/London: Sage Publications. 1991. 358pp

Policy Options for the Singapore Economy. by Lim, Chong‐Yah and Associates, London and Singapore: McGraw‐Hill. 1988. 499pp $US42.50 hb

Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore. edited by K S Sandhu and Paul Wheatley, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 1989. 1134 pp $US89. hb and $US59.90 sb.

Ethiopia: Transition and Development in the Horn of Africa. by Mulatu Wubneh and Yohannis Abate, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1988. 224pp. £32

Storm Signals: Structural Adjustment and Development Alternatives in the Caribbean. by Kathy McAfee, London: Zed Books. 1991.

The Significance of the Commonwealth 1965–90. by W David McIntyre London: Macmillan (Cambridge Commonwealth Series). 1991. 305pp

Multiple‐Shift Schooling: Design and Operation for Cost‐Effectiveness. by Mark Bray London: Commonwealth Secretariat. 1989. 155pp. £4.00pb     

Third World Military Spending

This article critically examines the concept of 'partnership', ubiquitous in contemporary development aid discourses. It investigates whether the language of 'partnership' signifies a change in aid relations away from the stark exertion of power characteristic of the conditionality decades of the 1980s and 1990s, or, conversely, whether 'partnership' is merely the latest guise behind which power-based relations continue to operate. A conceptual framework facilitates the deconstruction of the recently established 'Partnership for Governance Reform' in Indonesia, posited as a co-operative venture between national stakeholders and the international community. Elements of partnership or of power are sought through an examination of decision-making structures and activities. Findings are of the largely rhetorical and instrumental use of 'partnership' by international actors. Although there is nominal control by Indonesian actors, decision-making bodies are constructed in a manner which ensures that the reform agenda of international agencies remains relatively unchallenged, both in terms of what is included and excluded. Contrary to the official discourse of partnership as encouraging locally formulated reform strategies, the notions of 'partnership' and 'local ownership' simultaneously disguise and legitimise the interventions of international agencies in domestic reform processes, serving to mystify power asymmetry.     

Third world lecture 1983

Our Common Future. World Commission on Environment and Development, London and New York: Oxford University Press. 383 pp.

Decolonising India

National Thought and the Colonial World. Partha Chatterjee, London: Zed Books, 1986

Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias. Ashis Nandy, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987

South Africa in Transition

Power Plays: Bargaining Tactics for Transforming South Africa. Pierre du Toit, Halfway House: Southern Book Publishers. 150pp R43.99 pb

Transition to Democracy: Policy Perspectives 1991. Robin Lee and Lawrence Schlemmer (eds), Cape Town and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. 278pp £13.95

Political Organisations in South Africa A‐Z. Hennie Kotzé and Anneke Greyling, Translated from Afrikaans by Cecilia van Zyl, Cape Town: Tafelberg Publishers, 1991. 255pp R55.95 pb     

The challenge of the creative Third World

This article is a contribution to recent literature on the shape of the polycentric world order. It argues that the Third World remains a valid concept for describing the interests and ideas that shape the foreign policies of many key non-Western states. However, the Third World has changed in a fundamental way. The article describes the historical emergence and contemporary manifestations of a ‘creative’ Third World in contrast to the ‘protest’ Third World of the past. It describes the nature of this shift and how it is reshaping Western leadership. It argues that the main challenge for the West is to create a coherent pluralism in international order that embraces this creative Third World.     

The Cold War and Third World revolution

Much of the Cold War took place in the Third World. The three works authored by Gregg A. Brazinsky, Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry During the Cold War; Jeffry James Byrne, Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order; and Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World, are reviewed here and they provide historical details. A consistent theme that emerges is the importance of ideological factors in driving the events are discussed. It is also clear that the Third World states were not passive objects of pressure from great powers but had agendas of their own. These books provide useful material for theorists of international relations and policy makers.     

Emigration and expulsion in the Third World

The right of individuals to leave their country, and conversely their right not to be forced to leave, are generally recognized tenets of international law. In developing countries, 2 patterns of assault on these rights are apparent. 1 pattern concerns political and ethnic pressures associated with the pain and tribulations of nation building in new societies, which tends to produce refugees. The 2nd pattern is an effort to block the brain drain of skilled personnel to more developed countries. The desire to be rid of those who don't fit in and the desire to make those with needed skills fit in explains much of the apparent inconsistency and vacillation of governments on both issues. States with no tradition of statehood often turn to authoritarian models to create cohesion. Where ruling elites attempt to strengthen national unity, they tend to turn on groups whose language ethnicity, religion, culture, political beliefs, or socioeconomic status do not fit in. The 2nd pattern of constraint on Third World emigration is a reaction to the threatened loss of manpower. While Sudan lost only 1% of its labor force to emigration, this included 70% of its medical graduates and such high percentages of high level clerical personnel as to become an obstacle to efficient government. It is not the least developed countries that suffer most from the brain drain; they have less competition for available openings and adjustment to developed country life is more difficult for their citizens. Many "drainees" feel political pressure to leave, although the decisive motivation appears to concern working conditions and employment. the "drained" countries not interested so much in imposing restrictions on themselves as in gaining recongnition of the responsibility of the industrialized nations to developing ones; they want compensation for losses incurred.     

Using and abusing the concept of the Third World: geopolitics and the comparative political study of development and underdevelopment

This article argues that, while the notion of a ‘Third World’ retains relevance and usefulness in the context of geopolitical analysis, generalisations about Third World politics are no longer helpful or justifiable. It begins by reviewing the historic rationales for the notion of the Third World together with criticisms made of these arguments. It then considers reasons why the term may retain some value at a geopolitical level: in signalling a major axis of inequality, providing a symbolic basis for collective action and, possibly, as an alternative to less attractive perspectives. The article then turns more specifically to the field of comparative politics, suggesting that in the past the notion of a Third World could be justified pragmatically as a response to the insularity of Western political science and because there was, up to a point, a common paradigm of Third World politics. Such justifications have been undermined by the growth in specialist knowledge of individual Third World countries or regions together with increasing differentiation among them.     

Global capitalism and major corporations from the Third World

Most major transnational corporations (TNCs) are domiciled in the First World and are owned and controlled largely by citizens of these countries. On the basis of an analysis of the largest corporations outside the USA by revenues published annually by Fortune magazine since the 1950s, this paper demonstrates that there have been major corporations from the Third World for decades. Most of the literature on Third World TNCs concentrates on the large number of relatively small companies that have operations abroad in low technology sectors. The argument of this paper is that systematic study of major corporations from the Third World is important for debates about the national bourgeoisie, comprador capitalism and the controversy that currently surrounds the contentious concepts of the developmental state and globalization.     

USSR's Third World orphans: Deterring desperate dependents

Making the Most of the Least: alternative ways to development. Edited by Leonard Berry and Robert W Kates, New York: Holmes &; Meier. 1980. 282pp. £17.25

The Study of Political Adaptation. James N Rosenau, London: Frances Pinter. 1981. 235pp. £15.00. £6.00pb

Perspectives on World Politics. Edited by Michael Smith, Richard Little and Michael Shackleton, London: Croom Helm. 1980. 431pp. £12.95

Vodka‐Cola: the explosive cocktail of detente. Charles Levinson Horsham, England: Biblias. 1980.328pp. £9.95

White Supremacy: a comparative study in American and South African history. George M Fredrickson, New York: OUP. 1981. 356pp. £12.50

The Third World Calamity. Brian May, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1981. 274pp. £8.95

Reflections on Economic Development and Social Change: essays in honour of Professor V K R V Rao. Edited by C H H Rao and P C Joshi, Oxford: Martin Robertson. 1979. 486pp. £19.50

Circle of Poison: pesticides and people in a hungry world. David Weir and Mark Schapiro San Francisco: Institute for Food and Development Policy. 1981. 101pp. $3.95pb

United States Food Aid in a Global Context. Mitchell B Wallerstein, London: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1980. 299pp. £21.00

The World of States. J D B Miller, London: Croom Helm. 1981.179pp. £12.50

The Development Gap: a spatial analysis of world poverty and inequality. J P Cole Chichester, England: John Wiley. 1981. 454pp. £16.80

Agribusiness in the Americas. Roger Burbach and Patricia Flynn, London: Monthly Review Press. 1980. 314pp. £3.25

A Plough in Field Arable: western agribusiness in Third World agriculture. Sarah Potts Voll London: University of New Hampshire. 1981. 213pp. £7.25

Food Policies. John R Tarrant Chichester, England: John Wiley. 1980. 338pp. £15.00

The Political Economy of EEC Relations with African, Caribbean and Pacific States: contributions to the understanding of the Lomé Convention on North‐South relations. Edited by Frank Long, Oxford: Pergamon. 1980. 192pp. £10.50

EEC and the Third World: a survey. Edited by Christopher Stevens, London: Hodder &; Stoughton. 1981. 150pp. £5.00pb

A Framework for Development: the EEC and the ACP. Carol Cosgrove Twitchett, London: George Allen &; Unwin. 1981. 160pp. £12.00

The EEC's Generalised Scheme of Preferences and the Yaoundé and Other Agreements: benefits in trade and development for less developed countries. Delsie M Gandia Montclair, US: Allanheld Osmun. 1981. 178pp. $20.00

The Trade Union Movement in Africa: promise and performance. Wogu Ananaba, London: C Hurst. 1979. 260pp. £9.00

Organise... or Starve: the history of the South African Congress of Trade Unions. Ken Luckhardt and Brenda Walls, London: Lawrence &; Wishart. 1980. 520pp. £7.95. £3.50pb

Conflict and Intervention in the Horn of Africa. Bereket Habte Selassie, London: Monthly Review Press. 1980. 211pp. £8.00

The Development of Corporate Capitalism in Kenya 1918–77. Nicola Swainson, London: Heinemann Educational. 1980. 306pp. £3.95pb

Soviet and Chinese Aid to African Nations. Editd by Warren Weinstein and Thomas H Henriksen, New York: Praeger. 1980. 184pp. £13.00

Nepal in Crisis: growth and stagnation at the periphery P Blaikie, J Cameron and D Seddon, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1980. 311pp. £17.50. Electoral Politics in the Middle East: issues, voters and elites. Edited by Jacob M Landau, Ergun Özbudun and Frank Tachau, London: Croom Helm &; Stanford: Hoover Institution. 1980. 335pp. £19.95

Survey of Economy, Resources and Prospects of South Asia. M L Qureshi Colombo: Marga Institute (in association with Third World Foundation). 1981. 274pp. np

Sociology of Southeast Asia: readings on social change and development. Edited by Hans‐Dieter Evers Oxford University Press. 1981. 292pp. £17.50.

State Manufacturing Enterprise in a Mixed Economy: the Turkish case. Bertil Walstedt, London: John Hopkins (for the World Bank). 1981. 354pp. £6.00

The Political Economy of Income Distribution in Turkey. Edited by Ergun Özbudun and Aydin Ulusan, London: Holmes &; Meier. 1980. 533pp. £22.95

Minangkabau Social Formations: Indonesian peasants and the world economy. Joel S Kahn, Cambridge University Press. 1980. 228pp. £15.00

Industrial Growth, Employment and Foreign Investment in Peninsula Malaysia. Lutz Hoffman and Tan Siew Ee Oxford University Press. 1980. 322pp. £19.50

Egypt: economic management in a period of transition. Khalid Ikram, London: John Hopkins University Press. 1980. 444pp. np

Korea: a decade of development. Edited by Yunshik Chang Seoul National University Press. 1980. 312pp. $10.00

Pakhtun Economy and Society. Akbar S Ahmed, London: Routledge &; Kegan Paul. 1980. 416pp. £15.00

Chinese Educational Policy. Jan‐Ingvar Lofstedt Stockholm: Almqvist &; Wiksell. 1980. 203pp. SKr 185

The Caribbean Issues of Emergence: socio‐economic and political perspective. Vincent R McDonald, Washington DC: University of America. 1980. 356pp. $21.25. $11.95pb

The Structure of Brazilian Development. Edited by Nuema Aguiar New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books. 1979. 258pp. $14.95

Literacy and Revolution: the pedagogy of Paulo Freire. Edited by Robert Mackie, London: Pluto Press. 1980. 166pp. £3.50pb

Theories of Imperialism. Wolfgang J Mommsen, London: Weidenfeld &; Nicolson. 1981. 180pp. £8.50

Colonialism 1870–1945: an introduction. D K Fieldhouse, London: Weidenfeld &; Nicolson. 1981. 151pp. £8.95     

The Third Wave: Muslim Migration to Europe

In this age of confrontation, the secular Turkish model has been seen as a bridge between Islam and the West as well as the link between Europe and Asia. Now that model faces the most severe test in its history. How the current crisis is settled will frame future relations between Islam and the West no less than the events of 9/11.     

Violence and ordering of the Third World: an introduction

Abstract

The decisive role violence has played in the ordering of the Third World cannot be ignored or consigned to the past. Accordingly, we argue for a more systematic and determined attention to the connections between the devastation unleashed by colonialism, imperialism, and other forms of large-scale violence in the post-independence periods. In contradistinction to situating violence in and against the Third World as a backdrop of incomplete modernization, we recognize that its proper location is in the larger dynamics of racialized and colonial international relations. The articles in this volume address these dynamics of violence.     

Manhunt Presidency: Obama,race, and the Third World

Abstract

President Obama’s commitment to a creedal narrative of American exceptionalism and his understanding of the Third World as a space of ontological deficit together made for a presidency that could neither mitigate the structural racism of the United States nor deflect a racist foreign policy premised on an unending war against terror. By examining the murders of two American teenagers – Trayvon Martin and Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki – this essay argues that the very self-fashioning narratives that propelled Obama to the presidency of the United States rendered him incapable of effecting any substantive changes in the racism than animates its domestic and foreign policies.     

Third Way decomposition and the rightward shift in Finnish and Swedish politics

Recent elections in Sweden and Finland are of note for contemporary politics. They confirm that the rightward shift in Nordic politics is not confined to Norway and Denmark but forms a more general trend. This includes increased appeal of both mainstream conservatives and populist radical right forces. This article contextualises this phenomenon within broader European developments. In accounting for the shift in question, the article stresses the cumulative effects of choices made by erstwhile centre-left hegemonic agents, most notably the consequences of the so-called Third Way. This perspective has the merit of providing a way for holding politicians accountable, and it avoids the fatalism entailed in invoking ‘inevitable’ structural developments.     

Informed powerlessness: child marriage interventions and Third World girlhood discourses

Child marriage has gained increased international prominence over the past decades. Organisations working with the issue have promoted empowering girls as the best strategy to address it. Informed by postcolonial feminist theory, this article will locate these discourses in broader ‘turn to the girl’ and ‘turn to agency’ in international development, analysing how Third World girlhood, agency, resistance and voice are conceptualised. Girls are constructed as threatened by their families and communities, with agency exercised through resistance and materialised by their voice. I argue that this ignores the complexity of decision-making processes and broader structural factors related to child marriage, so that interventions providing ‘empowerment-as-information’ for girls to be agents of change instead leave them in a state of informed powerlessness.     

Recreating the Third World Project: possibilities through the Fourth World

Abstract

In this paper, we make a theoretical argument that the Third World be returned to its political origins to inspire an updated Third World Project (TWP), revived as a global movement for progressive, anti-imperialist forces, through the Fourth World movement, which highlights internal colonialism. Both the TWP and the United Nations recognise only nation states as full members. We examine how a Third World strategy that brings in the Fourth World, or indigenous, minority and/or stateless groups, can help oppressed groups gain more autonomy and rights through a transnational solidarity rooted in empathy. We trace the intellectual roots and history of the TWP and consider obstacles in bringing together the TWP and the Fourth World movement. A Fourth World strategy corrects the TWP’s implicit approval of an underlying imperialism, and the TWP provides the Fourth World movement a model to accomplish its goal of resisting uncritical modernity.     

Re-crossing a different water: colonialism and Third Worldism in Fiji

This article will discuss the idea of the Third World in Fiji by analysing the internal tensions of the term and the plurality of trajectories emerging from the transnational spaces in which Fijian society must reconstitute itself after decolonisation and the coups of 1987 and 2000. The ethnic issues in Fiji have led to the employment of a number of strategies by both the indigenous and the Indian communities. Some consist of networking within transnational spaces and negotiation with external political and cultural flows, while others are more inward in their everyday strategies. This situation offers a non-reductive way to think about decolonisation, cultural transformation and notions of autonomy and Third World solidarity. The article assumes that cultural forms will always be made, unmade and remade. Communities can and must reconfigure themselves, drawing selectively on remembered pasts. The relevant question is whether, and how, they convince and coerce insiders and outsiders, often in power-charged, unequal situations; for example, the issues of indigenous versus migrant rights to land and franchise in Fiji. Thus, what is lost and rediscovered in new situations becomes part of the realm of normal political or cultural activity.