Seeing as Western Europe is largely developed and rich OTL, a far cry from it’s Eastern counterpart, what steps could be realistically taken with a POD of no earlier than 1792 to make it more poorer and less developed than OTL? It doesn’t have to be the entire region, but obviously more countries the merrier (for the sake of this challenge; I do not wish economic retardation on Western Europeans)
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Map of Western Europe
My personal definitions of Third World for this challenge. This is only what my interpretation of what “Third World” can mean.
Two out of three of these parameters should work.
- GDP per capita (nominal) lower than $15,000
- HDI lower than 0.800
- Corruption index lower than 50
Bonus points if it’s Switzerland, the Benelux or Scandinavia.
Disclaimer: In this case, the meaning of “Third World” is contextually used in regards to a country’s stage of economic development, not it’s Cold War bloc alignment. I had initially pondered on using “developing” instead of Third World, but the latter felt like a better description. I am aware that the term is a bit broad in it’s description, since it is also used as describing extremely underdeveloped failed states like Syria and Afghanistan, but in this situation ”Third World” can be countries like Mexico, which is economically poor but still a functional state not mired in civil war.