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potentially providing indications of their future plans and how to manage relationswith them.It should still be noted that to study any form of idea or ‘ideology’ in foreign policyis to engage in a cautious task of ascribing motives to actions, where direct causalarrows cannot always clearly and accurately be drawn. Furthermore, as Robert Coxnoted in 1979, “(i)deological analysis is… a critic’s weapon and one most effectivelyused against the prevailing orthodoxies which, when stripped of their putativeuniversality, become seen as special pleading for historically transient but presentlyentrenched interests” 72 . To what extent ‘internationalism’ in the developing world 73serves as ‘special pleading for…transient interests’ is a question that has beenanalysed before, with reference to the establishment of the OPEC oil cartel, thecalls for a New International Economic Order (NIEO), and more recently, theleadership assumed in multilateral trade negotiations and certain peacekeepingoperations by large developing countries such as India, Brazil and South Africa.Internationalism is an ‘ideal type’ category of foreign policy orientation, and as suchthere are many real-world variants and limitations on its practice. Nonetheless, it isstill possible, and indeed necessary, to analyse the impact of professedinternationalism on the foreign policies of states of all types, as it is in the name ofinternationalism that many far-reaching foreign policy decisions are made.72 Robert Cox, “Ideologies and the New International Economic Order: Reflections onSome Recent Literature”, International Organization, 33, No.2 (1979): 257.73 The terms ‘Third World’ and ‘developing world’ are used interchangeably in this thesis.I have chosen not to enter the worthy debate on the labelling of this group of countries,but to allow my arguments to rest on the assumptions of 1) a common perspective withregard to international economic relations, and 2) colonial histories, to serve as myguide in using these terms. My analysis will proceed to two countries that haveunequivocally identified with the developing world. For further discussion of theterminology, see Mark T. Berger, “The end of the ‘Third World’?”, Third World Quarterly,15, No.2 (1994), and Leslie Wolf-Phillips, “Why ‘Third World’? Origin, Definition andUsage”, Third World Quarterly, 9, No4 (1987). The World Bank defines ‘Developingcountries’ as “countries with low or middle levels of GNP per capita [USD755-USD9, 265in 1999] as well as five high-income developing countries – Hong Kong (China), Israel,Kuwait, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates” (World Bank website, Glossary). TheBank justified the inclusion of the latter five in spite of their high per capita incomebecause of the structure of their economies, or because of official positions taken bytheir governments A further reason for my reluctance to define the Third World and listthe countries that inhabit it, is because the thesis questions precisely the use of the ideaof the ‘Third World’, and its attendant ideologies, in the furtherance of specific foreignpolicy aims.53