Early Perspectives in ‘Development Discourse’
I. Modernization Theories: 50s and 60s
Major writers: Rostow (stages of growth), Foster, Eisenstadt.
Modernization = the economic, technological and socio-cultural systems of
northern Europe and North America.
 Believed that changes to ‘traditional’ societies would follow the same
path that northern Europe and North America experienced in its
process of transition to industrial capitalism.
 Modernity included:
o Machine technology
o Industrialization of production
o Urbanization
o Market economy
o Centralized and bureaucratic structures of political
administration.
o Decline in the importance of kinship groups
o Decline in ascriptive social ties.
o Growth of non-kinship and non-community forms of
organization, e.g. political parties, unions, professional
associations.
o Achievement orientation rather than ascriptive orientation.
o Attitudes that favoured growth, change and profit-taking.
Modernization theories tried to locate the barriers of ‘traditional’ societies
that stood in the way of modernization, particularly of economic
development.
Economics: Modernization entails a change from subsistence to market
orientation, from exchanges in kind to exchanges with money.
Labour: Rather than kin recruitment, labour markets would evolve in which
people would be hired on the basis of merit, more impersonally.
Political Institutions: Local mechanisms for political control, e.g. kingdoms,
kin groups, chieftainships would give way to bureaucratic organizations
such as political parties, elections, trade unions that replace face to face
organizations.
Psychological/Cultural: Shift from community orientation to individual
achievement orientation.
Early Feminist Development Theory
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Assumed that increasing gender equality would follow the same path
as North American women.
Advocated the entry of women into the labour market world-wide.
Assumed that male/female relations were the same world-wide:
‘traditional’, rural women were the same as North American women,
but more exploited and victimized.
Was ethnocentric
Example: the fish-smokers of Guinea-Bissau
Dependency Theory: 70s and 80s.
Major writers: Andre Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Emmanuel Wallerstein
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Inversion of Modernization Theory
o Underdevelopment was the historical result of the relations
between northern Europe, North America and the rest of the
world.
o Underdevelopment was NOT therefore a result of neglect, but
the result of the assymetrical relations that had emerged
between the West and the Rest through, e.g. colonialism.
o There have been interlinkages between modern and traditional
societies, and between modern and traditional sectors of
‘Third World’ countries.
The nature of these interlinkages has been exploitative.
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Andre Gunder Frank and Dependent Development
o World characterized by a single system since about 1500 A.D.
o Critique of dualistic theory which held that there was a
separation in ‘Third World’ countries between the modern and
traditional sectors, between urban and rural areas.
o Relations between parts of this world economic system were
characterized by metropolis/satellite relations.
o At each node in the relationship, there was a transfer of
‘value’, or surplus.
o This was referred to as ‘unequal exchange’, which could
include transfers due to differences in productivity or transfers
where there were similarities in productivity.