Originally, a synonym for those nations that aligned themselves with neither the West nor with the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. Today, the term is used to denote nations with the smallest UN Human Development Indices (HDI). There is no objective definition of Third World or ‘Third World country’, and these countries are also referred to as ‘the South’, developing countries, and least developed countries. H. Arendt (1970) argues that ‘the Third World is not a reality but an ideology’. D. H. Aldcroft (2007) refers to ‘Europe’s third world’ when considering the puzzling persistence of economic backwardness outside the north-western European core; but see Sidaway (2007) PHG 31, 3 on the decline of third worldism.

http://twnnews.net/ The Third World Network.