Quite often in literature you can find such a thing as the countries of the West, which is a kind of legacy from the Cold War, when the world was divided into two parts in relation to one or another economic system, which at that time had two - capitalist and socialist. Today, the world has changed significantly, the capitalist economy has spread everywhere, but its structure has become much more complicated.
The Berlin Wall as the boundary of systems
After World War II, a political system was established in the world, which is commonly called Yalta, since the meeting, as a result of which Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agreed on the political borders of Europe, took place in Yalta in 1945.
Thus, Europe was divided into socialist and capitalist parts. At that time , Western countries included the Federal Republic of Germany, also called West Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Great Britain and Greece. It can be seen from this list that “Westernism” is not so much a geographical as a political characteristic.
With the formation in 1949 of the military-political bloc of NATO and the Warsaw Pact Organization in 1955, the list of capitalist countries of the West began to be determined by the membership of a country in NATO. At the same time, all countries related to the Warsaw Pact belonged to the socialist camp. A symbolic border between the two worlds was the wall that divided Berlin into two zones of occupation - the Soviet and Western countries (USA, Great Britain and France).
Western countries in a wide context
In a broader sense, Western states include all the states of Europe and North America, that is, the country of the so-called "Western written civilization." It is worth noting that very often theorists build the genealogy of the Western world to two empires - Roman and Byzantine.
Western countries also have a common religious, political and cultural history. Politics plays an important role, although it has recently yielded under the pressure of the economy. From learned sociologists and economists, one can increasingly hear the opinion that countries such as Japan and South Korea also belong to Western countries. Of course, Australia applies to them.
Western countries, or the first world
With the growth of social stratification and economic inequality in society, one can increasingly hear the opinion that the division into West and East is no longer relevant, and we should talk about the Global North and South, since the most economically developed states are located in the Northern Hemisphere, in while the least developed countries are concentrated in Africa and Southeast and Central Asia.
There is also a difficulty in assigning Russia to a particular system, because, despite the general cultural genealogy, the country has long been isolated from the capitalist community. In addition, not all residents of Russia are ready to identify with Western countries. At the same time, they give preference to their own path, both in politics and in the economy.
The list of Western countries is as follows: Great Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Italy, Austria, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg.