Third International Theory

The Third International Theory (Arabic: النظرية العالمية الثالثة), also known as the Third Universal Theory and Gaddafism, was the style of government proposed by Muammar Gaddafi on 15 April 1973 in his Zuwara speech, on which his government, the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, was officially based. It combined elements of Arab nationalism, Islamism, Nasserism, anti-imperialism, Islamic socialism, left-wing populism, African nationalism, pan-Arabism, and direct democracy. Another source that Gaddafi drew from is Islamic fundamentalism; he opposed formal instruction in the meaning of the Qur'an as blasphemous and argued that Muslims had strayed too far from God and the Qur'an. However, Gaddafi's regime has been described as Islamist, rather than fundamentalist, for he opposed Salafism, and many Islamic fundamentalists were imprisoned during his rule.

It has similarities with the system of Yugoslav socialist self-management in Titoist Yugoslavia during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s as developed by Edvard Kardelj. It was also inspired in part by the Little Red Book of Mao Zedong and the Three Worlds Theory. It was proposed by Gaddafi as an alternative to capitalism and Marxism–Leninism for Third World countries, based on the stated belief that both of these ideologies had been proven invalid.

The Higher Council for National Guidance was created to disseminate and implement this theory, and it found partial realization in Libya, a self-proclaimed utopian model state. The fall of Gaddafi and his assassination in 2011 led to the disestablishment of his system and its replacement by the National Transitional Council.