How to Categorize the World

There are many ways to categorize the regions of the world whether it is by economic status or mode governance.  All categories possess strengths and weakness because it is hard to find the perfect category that will incorporate all qualities of a country that can also be used broadly enough to incorporate other countries as well.

There are four methods to categorize the world:

1.  Developed/Developing World:  

This type of categorization is good because it allows political scientists to differentiate between countries that have industrialized/post industrialization and the rest of the world.  This allows political scientists to view the world in terms of the economic wealth derived from industrialization.  The downside to this is that “the rest of the world” includes countries that are not industrialized, those that are working hard to become industrialized, and those that are perhaps almost completely industrialized. A country that may even now be industrialized, like China is still considered to be developing because it did not develop in sync with the other developed countries.

2.  The First/Second/Third World:

This mode of separating the world is just a more in depth version of the developed/developing world model.  The developed world is seperated into the First and Second World based on the mode of governance (democratic vs. communist) and who your alliances were during the Cold War.  The third world encompasses everyone else. This is a good method if for a political scientist who’s studying the Cold War era and how relationships and wealth were distributed.  However, the USSR is no longer in existence and multiple countries that were once communist are now moving towards democracy.

3.  Global North/Global South:

Using Global North and Global South is a great way to compare countries mode of governance as well as their economic success.  The democratic wealthy countries are Global North and the remaining countries form the Global South.  These terms do not incorporate the intermediate countries that are transitioning to democracy.  The terms are also misleading, as it tends to make people think that North refers to the Northern hemisphere, which is not the case.  A lot of criteria must be fulfilled before become part of the Global North; therefore this is not a great method for comparison.

4.  Entrenched democracies/ Transitional democracy/ Authoritarian state:

This model focuses on the mode of governance within a country.  This model eliminates the wealth component in seen in the Global North/Global south method and adds a middle category to incorporate all those intermediate countries.  The trouble with this model is that there is an exact checklist as to what makes a country and entrenched democracy or a transitional democracy (the edges are blurry).  This might make placing some countries into a category more difficult.  Unlike the other models, such as the First/Second/Third World, this method allows countries to be able to move between categories (entrenched democracy, transitional democracy, and authoritarian state) a lot more simple.

Based on my analysis of each mode of categorizing the world I believe the use of the entrenched democracy/ transitional democracy/ authoritarian regime is the best model to use for comparison in todays time.  The problems with this model do not seem as substaintial as the other models, in this case the pros out way the cons.   Nevertheless depending on what you wish to compare another method might present better range of variables.