Third World Socialism was a variant of Socialism proponed by Kwame Nkrumah, Modibo Keïta, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Fidel Castro, Julius Nyerere, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, Michel Aflaq, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Juan Perón, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sukarno, David Ben-Gurion, Muammar Gaddafi, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Buddhadasa, Walter Lini and other such socialist leaders of the Third World who saw a non-Soviet version of socialism as the answer to a strong and developed nation. It could be argued that the new "turn to the left" leadership in Latin America (see Socialism of the 21st century), with its anti-Americanism, connection with less developed Eastern Europe, sense of undeveloped countries/developing countries unity and pro-Arabism/pro-Islamism is a new kind of Third World socialism.

It may be described as an ideologically specific form of Third-worldism, and it is made up of African socialism, Arab socialism, Nasserism, Peronism, Nehruism, Labor Zionism, Islamic Socialism, Buddhist socialism and Melanesian socialism.