Rethinking the Third World

Dr. Mark T. Berger is Director of the US-México Security-Development Partnership Project and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, USA. He has published and taught widely on development and security issues, international studies and modern international history. His latest books include The Crisis of Global Modernity and the Fate of Humanity: From a World of Empires to a World of Sovereign Nation-States to a New Global Order for the 21st Century (Forthcoming: 2014). Heloise Weber is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Development at the University of Queensland, Australia. She researches and publishes on the global politics of development and inequalities, and poverty reduction strategies, including on theoretical and methodological aspects. She is co-editor (with M. T. Berger) of Recognition and Redistribution: Beyond International Development (Routledge 2013) and editor of Politics of Development (Routledge, 2014). She is currently working on a monograph on the global politics of microcredit and poverty.

The book is organized chronologically, encompassing the late colonial to post-Cold War era … In a world where the core principles of the modern nation-state system are increasingly under pressure by non-state and some state actors, any discussion which problematizes our assumptions about sovereignty, development, and security should be encouraged. In this respect, Rethinking the Third World is a critical and fascinating starting point to stimulate such debates.

• 1. Introduction: International Development, World Politics and Global Modernity2. Global Modernity and International Development: The Origins of the Third World3. Third World Rising: Decolonization, the Cold War and Third Worldism4. The Golden Age of Third Worldism: International Development, the Cold War and the Contradictions of Global Modernity5. Third Worldism in Decline: International Development, the End of the Cold War and the Crisis of Global Modernity6. The Resurrection of Nation-Building and Modernization: Security and International Development in the Third World after the Cold War7. A New Agenda for Negotiating Global Modernity: A Regional Development-Security Framework After Third Worldism8. Conclusion: Rethinking the Third World.