These theoretical perspectives allow us not only to clarify concepts, to. Comparison of dependency theory with modernization theory. Pdf dependency theory and africas underdevelopment. Modernization theory maintains that there is a traditional element of society that prevents development, and that a relationship to the developed world is necessary for development. Modernization, dependency, rural underdevelopment, african renaissance. Development theory, cluster of research and theories on economic and political development. Modernization theory and the culture of dependency among third world democracies modernization theory is a description and explanation of the processes of transformation from traditional or underdeveloped societies to modern societies. In other words, the relation between underdevelopment and dependency is explained in a circular manner. Development rostows of development and ist relevance in. The causes of underdevelopment in the third world and. Modernization theory both attempts to identify the social variables that contribute to social progress and development of societies and seeks to explain the process of social evolution. Change is resisted because it brings in elements of uncertainty. I may briefly add that, according to this theory, underdevelopment doesnt mean a simple backwardness that may be caught up upon, nor merely an intermittent stage in a general process of modernization. According to dependency theory, underdevelopment is a product of capitalist development.
Still, since our purpose is not the piecemeal criticism of one or another version of modernization theory but. Development and underdevelopment in the third world. One of the first major theories to surface as a solution to this new issue of underdevelopment was the modernization theory. The main objective of this document is to synthesize the main aspects of the four major theories of development.
The stages of economic growth published in 1971 and popularized the views of baran. This has necessitated the evocation of dependency theory in explaining africas cum nigerias underdevelopment situation, hence africas underdevelopment has been linked to two categories of factors. Modernization or dependency 72 95 modernization theory and underdevelopment dependency theory and underdevelopment dependency in a specific historical context. Theories developed by development economists have encompassed the theoretical underpinnings of empirical facts drawn across the board from socio economicpolitical realms of life of many poor countries.
Pdf the causes of underdevelopment in the third world. Modernization and dependency theories are two attempts to explain the current state of underdevelopment in the world today. Contributions of andre gunder frank to the theory of. Modernisation theory historical context 1940s and 50s by the end of ww2 it had become clear that despite exposure to capitalism many of the countries of the south had failed to develop. Frank is of the view that the world capitalist system involves both development and underdevelopment as the two aspects of the same system. Modernity and modernization oxford research encyclopedia. The theory arose around 1970 as a reaction to some earlier theories of development like the modernization theory which said that all societies progress through similar stages of development, and that underdeveloped areas are thus in a similar situation to that of todays developed areas at some time in the past, and that therefore the task in. International journal of development and economic sustainability vol. In the words of one of the major proponents, historically, modernization is the process of change towards those types of social, economic, and.
Modernization theories backwardness theories according to modernization theories, internal factors in the countries, such as illiteracy, traditional agrarian structure, the traditional attitude of the population, the low division of labour, the lack of communication and infrastructure, etc. Rostow 1971 suggested that following initial investment, countries would then set off on an evolutionary process in which they would progress up 5 stages of a development ladder. The thesis argues, in fact, that dependency theory must be rejected as an analytical framework for the reason that it locates the crucial deter minant of uneven levels of development in the realms of circulation and of exchange, and not at the level of production. The basic assumption of this theory, in any of its versions, is that there is one general end page 157 process of which democratization is but the final stage. A critique of modernization and dependency theories in. The main weakness of dependency theory lies in explaining the origin of underdevelopment. The theories of underdevelopment are essentially dependency theories. The discourse pins hope on the african renaissance theory of development. These are the principal theoretical explanations to interpret development efforts carried out especially in the developing countries. For instance development strategies such as new partnership for africas development nepad were. Modernization and its discontents 1 the crisis in modernization theory 5 towards a sociology of knowledge 11 2. Concepts of the underdevelopment and dependencies politics. Difference between modernization theory and dependency. Read this article to learn about the dependency theory of underdevelopment.
Still others critique modernization theory for failing to account for the unsustainable nature of the project, in an environmental sense, and point out that premodern, traditional, and indigenous cultures typically had much more environmentally conscious and symbiotic relationships between people and the planet. In response to this theory, andre gunder frank in 1966 propounded his. Pdf on jan 1, 2010, prateek goorha and others published modernization. Generally, modernization theory and dependency theory are antipodal theoretical approaches. Towards a politics of modernization and development. Critics of dependency theory social science theories. Paradoxically, the continent languishes in poverty as evidenced by high prevalence of famine, disease and. Modernization theory is also a development theory that emerged before the dependency theory. Pdf conceptualizing development and underdevelopment. Critiques of modernization theory are then documented, notably the rise of dependency theory and notions of underdevelopment.
Dependency theory of underdevelopment social development. Although it is true, to a large extent, that modernization approach is still valid for the economic, social and political development of the countries, the approach has appeared questionable to many scholars of the field. As a group of young scholars interested in how global economic. It is a us and europeancentric normative model of development. Modernisation theory development and underdevelopment. However, nobody can deny that dependency theory opened up a new perspective on the realities of international political economy. Dependency theory, an approach to understanding economic underdevelopment that emphasizes the putative constraints imposed by the global political and economic order. Modernization, dependency, rural underdevelopment, african. They have critically evaluated the continued unequal relationships between countries, which have their history partly in colonialism and imperialism. Dependency theory itself believes that the only way out of underdevelopment is socialism, however a structuralist argument, closely linked with the ideologies of dependency theory believes that with the eastern worlds social collapse, this will not provide an alternative to underdevelopment, therefore reforming a capitalist system was believed to help development. Why africa remains underdeveloped despite its potential. Modernization versus dependency in the context of colonial. This highlights the positive role played by western countries in modernizing and facilitating development in the nonwest.
Modernization theory, underdevelopment and multiple modernities. They are one because wealth entails not only consumption but also waste, not only. The case of bengal chapter iv potentialities of capitalist transformation. The aim of this essay is to examine how traditional dependency theory, which was popular in the 1960s and 1970s as a criticism of modernization theory, can still be a useful tool for explaining global inequalities despite the challenges of the 21 st century. A critical introduction to third world politics 2nd ed.
Development theory economics and political science. Modernization theories and the illusion of trickle down. Modernization theory modernisation theory has been defined as a theory reyes, 2001a that uses a systematic process to move underdeveloped countries to a more sophisticated level of development. The basic assumption of this theory, in any of its versions, is that there is one gen. Anupam debashis roy howard university, usa before discussing the causes of development and underdevelopment in the third world, we must address the debated controversy of what constitutes the definitions of the key terms. Modernization theory has been one of the major perspectives in the sociology of national development and underdevelopment since the 1950s. Society for comparative studies in society and history.
The concept of development has been variously discussed in literature especially in the social sciences such that its definition has negated a single generally accepted definition. The use of the term development to refer to national economic growth emerged in the united states beginning in the 1940s and in association with a key american foreign policy concern. Modernization consists of a gradual differentiation and specialization of social structures. Andre gunder frank proposed the notion of the development of underdevelopment to explain how certain kinds of hierarchical. When it comes to a solution to the problem, it is right to say that the contexts of countries are different and the solutions for their economic and. The most wellknown version of modernization theory is walt rostows 5 stages of economic growth. Modernisation theory explained the underdevelopment of countries in asia, africa and latin america primarily in terms of cultural barriers to development, basically arguing that developing countries were underdeveloped because their traditional values held them back. Modernization theory an overview sciencedirect topics. The causes of underdevelopment in the third world and possibility for human development. The theoretical assumption common to them which justifies this categorization is that the underdeveloped. Most economics students have either never encountered the theory in their curriculum, or have only heard of it as a theory employed in the past.
However, the question if have these theories evolved throughout the years. Dependency theory emerged to contest modernization theory, which contended that development would diffuse from the developed to the underdeveloped societies by means of certain kinds of contact between the two. Modernization theory is subject to criticism originating among socialist and freemarket ideologies, worldsystems theorists, globalization theorists and dependency theorists among. In this context, in the late 1940s, modernisation theory was developed.
The first subsection of this article will discuss the controversy surrounding the definition of each term and ultimately reach to a final. Modernisation and dependency repub, erasmus university. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, modernization theory has been one. A critique of modernization and dependency theories in africa.
The second part finishes by drawing attention to current critiques of the way in which social anthropology has inherited the narrative of temporal rupture from sociology, in so doing conflating. The modernization theory has changed over level of three waves. The dependency theory is an important tool for understanding latin americas relative underdevelopment. Dependency theories have provided an alternative approach to looking at unilinear growth models. Franks theory of underdevelopment your article library. Modernization theory describes the transformative processes of societies from underdevelopment to modern societies. Introduction africa houses plentiful economic resources. While the dependency theories have provided a welcome critique from the south about the north, they. Human nature has a propensity to resist change in favour of the status quo. This theory conceived underdevelopment as an original state, as something characteristic of a traditional society, as something that has internal origin. In this sense, the dependency theory can be viewed as a reaction to modernization theory. The endogenous explanation is a modernization theory.
He, in the beginning, criticized the wellrecognized contribution of rostows. Historical research demonstrates that contemporary underdevelopment is in large part the historical product of past and continuing economic and other relations between the satellite underdeveloped and the now developed metropolitan countries. The internal factors, nnadozie said, fan the ember of. A thesis submitted to the school of graduate studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree master of arts mcmaster university august1983. This has necessitated the evocation of dependency theory in explaining africas cum nigerias underdevelopment situation, hence africas underdevelopment has been linked to. In examining modernization, postmodernization and dependency theories the emphasis is on outlining briefly the thrust of geographical studies before tying them. Which theory can help africa to develop open acc biostat bioinform. Modernization theory economic dimension alone is not sufficient requires institutional and social change social practices, beliefs, values and customs are barriers removal is critical backward internal structures cause underdevelopment not external factors theories of. Paul baran, in his work the political economy of growth 1973, first published in 1957, pioneered the theory of underdevelopment. This is a theory which presents a historical account of the relationship of dependency of the less developed countries on the rich european ones. This model relates to the scholars like andre gunder frank, samir amin, immanuel wallerstein and h. Modernization theory is a description and explanation of the processes of transformation from traditional or underdeveloped societies to modern societies. Modernization theory is a theory used to explain the process of modernization that a nation goes through as it transitions from a traditional society to a modern one. However delinking in this sense can be seen to be somewhat a complex notion, since globalization has increased interdependence in the world binding economic, social, political relations of the world together and so isolation from the world economic system would only give impetus to underdevelopment.
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