Political

• The political phrase promulgated by Mikhail Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush describing a "new world order" at the end of the Cold War.
• The description of the League of Nations as a new world order by commentators.
• The description of the post-World War II international system of the United Nations, Bretton Woods system, and various security alliances as a new world order.
• The conspiracy of the New World Order, using the phrase Novus Ordo Mundi. This phrase is often confused with the Virgil quote "Novus Ordo Seclorum" (text which appears on the one-dollar bill of the United States), which means "New Order of the Ages," not "New World Order."
• The idea of the creation of a world government.
• A precursor term to the idea of globalization.
• Two closely related terms, the "New International Economic Order" and the "New International Information Order," which were popular in the United Nations and its specialized agencies (especially UNESCO) in the 1970s and 1980s. They were used mainly by developing country groups (e.g., the G-77, the Non-Aligned Movement) to refer to the redistribution of wealth on a global scale, and the international control of the media to stop the "defamation" of third world countries. Western countries attacked these plans as an attempt to destroy capitalism and freedom of speech; and they were quietly dropped in the 1980s after Western countries threatened to withdraw from United Nation's bodies. (The U.S. and UK made good on this threat by withdrawing from UNESCO; both have since rejoined.)

Religious

• A religious phrase of the Bahá'í Faith. Bahá'u'lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá'í Faith used the term in His "Most Holy Book" on paragraph 181 (work completed in 1873).
• Pat Robertson's book The New World Order, published in 1991.
• The Fifth World of Native American mythology.