From global to local and back: the ‘Third World’ concept and the new radical left in France

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Kalter
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Third World ◽  
Global Dynamics ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
World Concept ◽  
Radical Left

AbstractIn the second half of the twentieth century, the transnational ‘Third World’ concept defined how people all over the globe perceived the world. This article explains the concept’s extraordinary traction by looking at the interplay of local uses and global contexts through which it emerged. Focusing on the particularly relevant setting of France, it examines the term’s invention in the context of the Cold War, development thinking, and decolonization. It then analyses the reviewPartisans(founded in 1961), which galvanized a new radical left in France and provided a platform for a communication about, but also with, the Third World. Finally, it shows how the association Cedetim (founded in 1967) addressed migrant workers in France as ‘the Third World at home’. In tracing the Third World’s local–global dynamics, this article suggests a praxis-oriented approach that goes beyond famous thinkers and texts and incorporates ‘lesser’ intellectuals and non-textual aspects into a global conceptual history in action.

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, 1961–1968

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregg A. Brazinsky
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Third World ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Diverse Group ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War

Even as the PRC sought to win over radical and neutralist Afro-Asian states through diplomacy, it also sought to gain prestige in the Third World by becoming a leader of revolutionary forces. The PRC befriended a diverse group of Afro-Asian and insurgents guerilla that espoused Maoist doctrines during the 1960s. They believed that doing so would help to spread Mao Zedong thought throughout the world, raising the status of both the PRC and its leader. America’s fear that insurgent victories in countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and the Congo would enhance Chinese prestige and legitimate Maoism played a key role in precipitating some of the most dramatic and costly instances of U.S. intervention of the Cold War.

6. Cold wars at home

2021 ◽  
pp. 102-119
Author(s):  
Robert J. McMahon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Third World ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Third ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
State Relations ◽  
At Home

‘Cold wars at home’ highlights the domestic repercussions of the Cold War. The Cold War exerted so profound and so multi-faceted an impact on the structure of international politics and state-to-state relations that it has become customary to label the 1945–90 period ‘the Cold War era’. That designation becomes even more fitting when one considers the powerful mark that the Soviet–American struggle for world dominance and ideological supremacy left within many of the world’s nation-states. The Cold War of course affected the internal constellation of forces in the Third World, Europe, and the United States and impacted the process of decolonization, state formation, and Cold War geopolitics.

4. American foreign policy during the Cold War

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Saull
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Third World ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter offers a theoretically informed overview of American foreign policy during the Cold War. It covers the main historical developments in U.S. policy: from the breakdown of the wartime alliance with the USSR and the emergence of the US–Soviet diplomatic hostility and geopolitical confrontation,to U.S. military interventions in the third world and the U.S. role in the ending of the Cold War. The chapter begins with a discussion of three main theoretical approaches to American foreign policy during the Cold War: realism, ideational approaches, and socio-economic approaches. It then considers the origins of the Cold War and containment of the Soviet Union, focusing on the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. It also examines the militarization of U.S. foreign policy with reference to the Korean War, Cold War in the third world, and the role of American foreign policy in the ending of the Cold War.

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