VOCABULARY
DEVELOPMENT
A. Write the terms and key takeaways for the definitions given below. We will include examples, where applicable under our key takeaways.
Term
Definition
Key Takeaway/Examples
Key Issue 1: Why does Development Vary Among Countries?
Development is a narrow way of indicating human
progress. Why? (Doesn't necessarily bring happiness,
social stability, or environmental sustainability.)
Development is a relatively new idea (took hold after
IR)
Start with EF Schumacher: Why Germany developed
in ten years after WWII from nothing.
The only reason MDC/LDC labels makes sense or are
used is the sad fact that countries tend to cluster at
the high and low ends of the development
continuum.
To say and LDC is at an "earlier" point of
development or is "developing" or "emerging"
assumes what? (development is somehow natural or
inevitable)
1. Development
The process of improving the material conditions of people
through the diffusion of knowledge and technology.
2. More Developed
Country (MDC)
A country that has moved further along the continuum of
development. (aka: (relatively) developed country.)
3. Less Developed
Country (LDC)
A country at the lower (earlier?) end of the development
continuum. (aka: "developing" or "emerging" country)
4. globalization
The expansion of economic, political, and cultural processes
to the point that they become global in scale and impact.
5. Human Development
Index (HDI)
An United Nations indicator of level of development based on Note the HDI recognizes development is not based
income, literacy, education, and life expectancy.
on economic factors alone.
6. Gross National
Product (GNP)
The total value of officially recorded goods and services
produced by citizens of a country both inside and outside a
country's territory.
GDP per capita is rising in both MDC's and LDC's but
the gap between MDC's and LDC's is rising (GDP per
capita is faster in MDCs than in LDCs.)
7. Gross Domestic
Product (GDP)
The total value of officially recorded goods and services
produced within a country, usually measured over the course
of a year.
The value of the total value of goods and services produced in
a country divided by the population. This shows the average
Limitations of these measures:
1. Doesn't show variations of wealth within countries
or among individuals (a few wealthy people can skew
country statistics, and
8. GDP per capita
contribution made by individuals to a country's wealth in a
year.
9. Gross National
Income (GNI)
The value of everything produced in a country plus income
received from other countries minus payments to other
countries.
2. Only counts formal economy (much economic
activity in LDC's doesn't show up in these measures
of wealth. (that's why countries with GDPs per capita
of $1000 don't mean people are surviving on such a
low income)
3. Doesn't account for how far a dollar goes in
different countries.
4. Measures only economic outputs. Therefore even
negative economic activity (cleaning up an oil spill,
creating nuclear missiles or other weapons, sale of
cigarettes AND health care costs those sales create)
all show up as positive wealth. Energy efficient
devices LOWER GDP and these other measures.
But in general the higher GDP per capita , the greater
potential for citizens in that country to enjoy a
comfortable life.
Home gardens, illegal drug trade, black markets for
various goods, barter in rural areas. Big part of LDC
economies (also in former USSR)
10. informal economy
The uncounted or illegal economy that governments do not
tax and keep track of.
11. primary sector
The portion of an economy concerned with the direct
extraction of materials from earth's surface, including
agriculture, mining, fishing, and forestry.
12. secondary sector
The portion of the economy concerned with manufacturing
useful products through processing, transforming, and
assembling raw materials.
13. tertiary sector
The portion of the economy concerned with providing goods
and services for payment. This includes retail sales, banking,
education, law, etc.
14. quaternary sector
Service sector industries concerned with the collection,
processing, and manipulation of information and capital.
Note overlap with tertiary sector definition.
Examples include finance, administration, insurance, and legal
The relative share of GDP accounted for by these
various sectors of an economy varies between MDCs
and LDCs and helps to explain the gap in GDP and
development between them:
1. Primary sector share of GDP has decreased for
LDCs but remains higher than in MDCs.
2. Secondary sector (manufacturing) share has
declined sharply in MDCs and is now less than in
LDCs.
3. Tertiary sector share of GDP larger in MDC and
growing; declining or flat in LDCs.
services.
15. productivity
The value of a particular product compared to the amount of
labor needed to make it. Often measured by value added (the
value of a product minus costs of raw materials and energy
that went into it.)
16. Big Three consumer
goods
Cars, telephones computers are key indicators of
development because they are vital to the productivity and
efficiency of an economy.
17. literacy rate
The percentage of a nation's population that can read and
write.
18. Three health/welfare
indicators of
development
19. Five demographic
indicators of
development
Value added per capita: (write on board have kids
match countries with figures: Japan: $7,000 per
capita, US: $5,000, China: $500, India; $100)
REFLECTS: Why? (Technology, machinery, education)
There is a large gap in consumer good ownership in
LDCs. Who has them? Government officials,
urbanites, wealthy elites. Creates "have" vs. "have
nots" tensions. Cell phones as an example of skipping
a stage of technology.
MDCs spend lower % of GDP on education but LDCs
spend less overall on education.
Show maps have kids mark low and high regions.
Daily calorie and protein consumption, % of GDP spent on
health care, public assistance programs (to protect those
unable to work or care for themselves.
Show maps have kids mark low and high regions.
Life expectancy, Dependency Ratio, Infant Mortality Rate,
Natural Increase Rate, and Crude Birth Rate
LE: MDCs 70/LDCs 60
DR: 1:1 in stage 2 DTM countries vs. 1:2 in stage 4
NIR: 1.5% in LDCs vs. .2% in MDCs
CBR: 23 in LDC (per 1,000) vs. 12 in MDCs.
NOTE: Death rate higher in MDCs. Why? (diffusion of
medical technologies to LDCs AND more older people
in MDCs.)
Show maps have kids mark low and high regions.
20. Brandt Line (aka
North-South split)
Key Issue 2: Where are MDCs and LDCs located?
An imaginary line circling the globe about at 30° N latitude
which divide most MDCs (north of the line) from most LDCs
(south of the line).
Key Issue 3: Where Does Level of Development Vary by Gender?
21. Gender Related
Development Index
(GDI)
Hungary and Saudi Arabia similar GDPs but Hungary
A U.N. indicator of the level of women's development in a
higher GDI because of less disparity of income
country based on the HDI factors as compared to that of both
between women and men.
sexes.
Show maps have kids mark low and high regions.
22. Gender
Empowerment
Measure (GEM)
23. Self Sufficiency
Approach
24. import substitution
25. International Trade
Approach
26. Four Asian
Dragons/Tigers
27. Rostow's
Modernization
Model of
Development (aka
Rostow's Ladder to
Development)
Based on four factors: women's income as
percentage of men's, professional or technical jobs
A U.N. indicator of the measuring the ability of women to
held by women, percentage of women in
participate in economic and political decision making in a
administrative jobs, and percentage of women in a
country.
nations' parliament.
Show maps have kids mark low and high regions.
Key Issue 4: Why Do LDCs Face Obstacles to Development?
An approach to development that promotes development in
a country by spreading investment throughout all areas of a
country and all sectors of an economy and by shielding
domestic (inside the country) industries from foreign
competition.
The government policy, typically part of a Self Sufficiency
Approach to development, of encouraging local
manufacturers to produce goods to replace imports.
An approach to development that promotes development in
a country by developing only one or a few local industries in
which the country may have a competitive advantage and
then selling the resulting products on the world market.
Money from these sales can then be used to fund further
development.
A term used to refer to four Asian countries (South Korea,
Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) who achieved rapid
development despite a relative lack of natural resources by
concentrating on producing only a few manufactured goods
(mostly clothing and electronics). As such they were early
adopters of the International Trade Approach.
A model of development that maintains that all countries go
through the same five stages of development which lead to
self-sustaining economic growth and high levels of mass
consumption. The five stages are:
1. Traditional Society (subsistence farming (live off land with
little or no surplus), low technology), 2. Preconditions for
Takeoff (an elite group innovates and diversifies the
Criticism:
1. No context. Black box. Sees country's development
is isolation of global forces.
2. No place for cultural or political decision making
within a country.
3. Need of sixth stage: deindustrialization in MDCs.
4. No place for idea that rapid industrialization may
economy),
3. Takeoff (a few areas of economy receive technical
advances and grow rapidly),
4. Drive to Maturity (technology diffuses throughout
economy, incomes rise, and
5. Mass Consumption (production shifts from heavy industry
(steel, energy) to consumer goods and service industries.
A theory created by Immanuel Wallerstein that views the
world economy as one interconnected capitalist market with
a three tier structure:
1. Core: higher levels of education, higher salaries, higher
28. Wallertstein's World levels of technology. The core gains power by exploiting the
semi-periphery and periphery.
Systems Theory
2. Periphery: lover levels of education, , lower salaries, less
technologies.
3. Semi-periphery: places were both core and periphery
processes are taking place simultaneously. The periphery is
exploited by the core but exploits the periphery.
29. Traditional Society
(Rostow stage 1)
A society in which the dominant activity is subsistence
farming and technology is slow to change.
30. Foreign direct
investment (FDI)
Investment made by a foreign company in the economy of
another country.
31. Structural
Adjustment Program
32. Fair Trade
Economic policies imposed on less developed countries by
international agencies to create conditions encouraging
international trade, such as raising taxes, reducing
government spending, controlling inflation, selling publicly
owned utilities to private corporations, and charging citizens
more for services.
An alternative to international trade that emphasizes small
businesses and worker-owned and democratically run
cooperatives and requires employers to pay workers fair
wages, permit unionization, and comply with minimum
have high costs (social disruptions, loss of culture,
environmental degradation, pollution.)
Notes:
1. Unlike Rostow, Wallerstein does not assume all
countries can develop at the same time. Since core
countries depend on exploitation of the periphery,
SOMEONE has to be the exploited periphery. Not all
places can be equally wealthy at same time.
2. Core/Periphery analysis works on local level too
3. Tadpole analogy: all in same pond (world
capitalism), only some tadpoles can survive to
become toads.
4. Basic idea: Exploitation is a function of the basic
drive for profit in the global system of capitalism.
environmental and safety standards.
33. U.N. Millennium
Development Goals
34. stucturalist theory /
neocolonialism /
Dependency Theory
35. sustainable
development
A set of eight goals set by the U.N. to reduce the disparity of
wealth and development between MDCs and LDCs. They
focus on poverty, primary education, gender equality, child
mortality, maternal health, HIV/AIDS, environmental
sustainability, and aide from MDCs to LDCs.
A group of theories that maintain that MDCs continue to
control LDCs even though the poorer LDCs have officially
gained their independence and that the concentration of
wealth in MDCs make it difficult for LDCs to improve their
economic situation.
A pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs
while preserving the environment so that these needs can be
met not only in the present, but also for generations to come.
36. obstacles to
development
Exploitation by MDCs, malnutrition, natural disasters (without
preparedness), desertification, climate change, high
population growth, lack of education, foreign debt, corrupt
governments, political instability, disease (i.e. AIDS, malaria
(150,000 children dead per month!).
37. micro-credit
programs
Programs which offer small loans to poor people, especially
women, to encourage the development of small businesses.
38. maquiladoras
An example of an Export Processing Zone (EPZ) on Mexico's
northern border with the United States. These are special
zones within a country which offer favorable tax or trade to
foreign companies.
39. commodity chain
A series of links connecting the many places involved in the
production and distribution of a product for sale in the global
marketplace.
Is a response and criticism of Rostow: Rostow does
not see countries in global context. LDCs are facing
very different challenges to development than
countries that developed during Industrial
Revolution.
Many of these challenges mean that for the people in
the periphery of the periphery (the poorest citizens
of the poorest countries), the goal of development
takes a back seat to daily survival.
Commodity Chain is a key concept in understanding
uneven development because different links in the
commodity chain add more value to the product and
therefore more wealth for those involved at that link.