The end of the Third World'?

The end of the Cold War has contributed to the dramatic globalisation of market economics and electoral democracy. But the significance of global capitalism and the substance of the democratic transitions of the past few years are subjects of considerable debate. Some observers continue to emphasise that the end of the Cold War represents the triumph of liberalism and it is only a matter of time before the former Soviet Bloc along with the rest of the world (led by the 'newly industrialised countries' (NICS) of East Asia) arrives at the capitalist prosperity and democratic stability currently seen to prevail in North America, Western Europe and Japan.' Certainly the end of 'state socialism' in Eastern Europe and the former USSR has made an important contribution in symbolic and substantive terms to the demise of socialist development models generally and 'state socialism' in the 'Third World' more particularly.2 Nevertheless, although the so-called Asian Tigers (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore) are at the centre of a major economic boom which is lifting them out of their 'Third World' status and shifting the axis of global political economy to the Pacific Rim, the 'neoliberal' governments of the rest of Asia, the former Soviet Bloc, Latin America, Africa and Oceania are not necessarily guiding their people to consumer capitalism and parliamentary democracy. Democratic transitions, where they have taken place at all, have often remained superficial, while neoliberal economic policies have stimulated economic growth without necessarily improving the quality of life for the majority of the population. The acceleration of economic and political globalisation which attended the end of the Cold War has contributed more to the resurgence of ethnic and national conflicts than it has to international peace and stability.3 The social formations which are emerging out of the ferment of Soviet collapse are not characterised by democratic order and dynamic economic 'development', but by unstable parliamentary-authoritarian governments, considerable dependence on the IMF and World Bank and transnational capital, and growing 'ideological' and even 'cultural' subordination to the United States and Western Europe. While East Asia may be leaving the 'Third World' much of the former Soviet Bloc can be said to have (re)joined it.4 At the same time, the rise of East Asia, the demise of the 'Second World' and the onset of a new era of global capitalism, throws the problems associated with the continued use of the term 'Third World' into sharp relief. The term (along