Fundamentals of Political Science
Dr. Sujian Guo
Professor of Political Science
San Francisco State Unversity
Email: sguo@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/sguo
Development and Underdevelopment
• Development refers to a state of human well-being or the
actual process of changing or making a progress toward
some sort of expansion, improvement and completeness in
terms of economic productivity, social well-being, quality
of life, and political structure.
• Underdevelopment is mainly used in the sense of a group
of nations being underdeveloped by some outside forces,
as the result of the historical process of global capitalist
development, as well as referred to as a state of
dependency and marginality in the periphery nations which
creates obstacles for the development of these countries.
Problems of Development
•
Politically marginalized: these countries lack the political and
economic power to play an active role in global and regional affairs,
largely rely upon foreign aid and official development assistance,
and are largely forced to react to global changes rather than play
significant part in influencing those changes;
•
Economically marginalized: they are usually in a disadvantageous
position when they trade with the industrially developed countries,
with a limited economic base and financial resources, rely heavily
on agriculture, on one or two major exports, such as coffee, oil,
copper, fruit, and on imported manufactured goods and machinery;
Problems of Development
• Problems of economic development: these
countries seek economic development and
modernization, but suffer from political instability,
economic underdevelopment or stagnation, and
other social problems;
• Problems of political development: these countries
seek political development, facing such
fundamental challenges as nation-building, statebuilding, participation, and distribution.
Problems of Development
•
Political regimes and institutions: most of these countries have
weak and unstable civilian political institutions, with low levels
of legitimacy and public acceptance, primarily dominated by
personal rule, military dictatorships, and one-party rule; (India,
Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Colombia, and Jamaica are a few
exceptions) Most are undemocratic, while many are making
transitions to democracy.
•
Historical legacies: most of these countries were for a
considerable period of time colonies of one of European
nations, and one of colonial legacies is a weak sense of national
identity among the inhabitants within a given territory, in terms
of their ethnic, tribal, religious, or linguistic differences. This is
mainly because their borders were laid down by competing
European powers, with little regard for local differences.
National identity is the minimum prerequisite for political
stability and development in a country.
Contending Theories
 Modernization Theory
 Dependency Theory
 World-system Theory
Modernization Theory
1. divides all societies into traditional and modern;
2. emphasizes that economic development is
prerequisite for democracy;
3. emphasizes the need to enhance the capacity of
political system;
4. emphasizes the role of political culture in the
transformation of traditional societies into
modern societies;
Modernization Theory
5.
emphasizes the effects of economic growth in the
transformation of traditional societies into modern
societies;
6.
assumes that all societies will travel from tradition to
modernity, and that industrial and democratic Western
countries are the model for the latecomers to emulate;
7.
assumes that modernization will inevitably dissolve the
traditional traits of the Third World countries, and
traditional values and structures must be replaced by a
set of modern ones;
Modernization Theory
8.
defines the nature of the relations between the North and
the South as interdependence based upon the principles
of comparative advantages and free trade;
9.
the solution or policy implication the modernization
theory suggests is that the traditional and backward
Third World societies should look to the modern and
developed Western societies for guidance, while the
Western countries should transmit more modern values,
institutions, technology, financial investment to the Third
World countries.
Major critics
•
modernization theory is criticized as biased and
ethnocentric, that is, the development categories,
stages, and processes involved are all derived
from the Western experience rather than from
the developing countries. There are other paths
available to the Third World countries, and these
alternatives neither have to use democratic
institutions nor do LDCs need to reach a
Western level of development to be considered
successful.
Major critics
•
modernization theory misinterprets the
role of traditional values and institutions
in the economic development, social
coherence, and political stability. It was
often possible for a Third World country
to retain their own traditional cultural
attributes along with a modern economy;
Major Critics
•
some radical critics even charge that
modernization theory is a political
ideology that is tended to promote the
Western values and used to justify Western
dominance and to keep the Third World in
control or “in chains” by which they could
resist communist appeals.
Dependency Theory
1. divides the world into core and periphery countries;
2. dependency is seen as a general process applicable to all
Third World countries;
3. dependency is understood to be an external condition,
imposed by the historical experience of colonialism
and the perpetuation of the unequal international
division of labor;
4. dependency is largely a result of the flow of economic
surplus from Third World countries to Western
capitalist countries;
Dependency Theory
5. the political economy of the periphery had been totally
restructured by Western colonialism to meet the needs
of the core countries, thereby leading to the
underdevelopment;
6. dependency is regional polarization of the global
economy -- underdevelopment in the periphery
countries and development in the core countries are
two aspects of a single process of capital accumulation;
7. dependency is seen as incompatible with the
development, although minor development can occur
during periods of the de-association with the core
capitalist world;
Dependency Theory
8. defines the nature of the relations between the North and
the South as dependency based upon
political/economic/cultural/technological dominance of the
core countries and inequality exchange between periphery
and core countries;
9. the solution or policy implication the dependency theory
suggests is that peripheral countries should sever their ties
with core countries and adopt a self-reliance model -relying upon their own resources and planning their own
paths of development so as to achieve independence and
autonomous national development.
World-system Theory
1.
divides the world into core, periphery, and semi-periphery
countries – the central core of industrially advanced capitalist
states, a periphery of industrially undeveloped countries, and a
semi-periphery of a mixture in between those of core and periphery;
2.
the world economy is not composed of individual independent
national economies that happen to trade with each other, but tied
together by a complex network of the capitalist world economy;
3.
the uneven development of the world capitalist system leads to an
unequal international economic division of labor;
4.
the relations among core, periphery and semi-periphery countries
are conditioned and shaped by an integrated single capitalist worldsystem.
World-system Theory
5.
defines the nature of the relations between the North and
the South as the dominance-dependence and the
inequality in industrial capacity and state power. That is
to say, the core countries control or dominate the
economic, political and cultural life of the periphery
countries on one side, while the periphery countries are
subjected to the development and expansion of the core
countries in the global system and lack the internal
dynamic which could enable them to function as
independent and autonomous entities on the other side.
6.
Therefore, the solution to the problem of economic
underdevelopment can only be found in the reform of the
world-system -- “an equalitarian world-system.”
Major Critics
(1) The above discussion has shown that both world-system
and dependency theorists, while somewhat different from
each other, share the same methodology – “looking
outward” and attributing underdevelopment to its external
relations in the world market and international system that
are governed by the interests of dominant nations and of
certain classes and groups in them. However, both
dependency and world-system theorists overlook the
impact of the internal constraints of the underdeveloped
countries -- the economic, political, social, and cultural
characteristics and structures of these countries -- upon
the development of the underdeveloped areas and
countries.
Major Critics
(2) For the policy implications under this category,
breaking-up of the old system is seen as
necessary before the establishment of “an
equalitarian world-system;” in the meanwhile,
the periphery states should cooperate to offset
the power of the core. However, this involves
them in a problematic relation with the global
economic dynamics that underlies the change of
the world-system and the possibilities in the
direction of development at every occurrence of
upward and downward turns in the worldeconomy.
Who is right?
Three theories have provided three solutions to the
Third World development:
- Increase of modernity
- Independence and de-linking from the world economy
- Reform of the world system
Q: Which side do you think has more power for
explaining the Third World development in the
last several decades?