Introduction to Development
Studies
THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF ZANZIBAR
(SUZA)
DS 301 for diploma students third year.
Prepared by: Mr. Abdulrahman Mustafa Nahoda
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What is a Theory?
• Definition 1: A specific claim or argument that
leads to empirical predictions
• Example: Economic law of “supply and demand”
• Definition 2: General imageries about how the
world works
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Example: Marxist theory:
Theory is useful because
it generates a rich description of the world
Offers directives to guide research
produces many specific claims to be tested
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DEVELOPMENT THEORIES
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Modernization
Dependencia
Neo Classical economic, Neo Liberalism
Alternative development
Human development
Anti development
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Modernisation Theory
• Has cultural, political and economic component
• Different authors stress different aspects of the
argument
• After WWII, the poverty and backwardness of
some of the world countries became extremely
conspicuous
• The purpose of development economics has
been mainly to study the phenomenon of
underdevelopment, and to prescribe appropriate
policies to eradicate it.
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Modernization
• Modernization is an encompassing process of
massive social changes, that once set in
motion tend to penetrate all domain of social
life, from economic activities to social life, to
political institutions, in a self reinforcing
process.
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Modernization theory
• Background:
• An evolutionary theory predicting how societies develop
– Argument: All societies naturally pass through certain
stages of development
• All societies start out as “traditional” hunter-gatherers
• Then, they develop agriculture; towns & cities grow
• Eventually, they become “modern” industrial societies
– Movement from one stage to the next is driven by
things like population growth & new technologies
• Society becomes more complex; greater division of labor.
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Modernization theory
• Modernization theory was based on analyses
of European societies
• It was assumed that non-European societies would
have the same experience
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Five stages:
• WALT WHITMAN ROSTOW(1916–2003)
1) traditional society
2) preconditions for change
3) take-off
4) drive to maturity
5) mass consumption
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Traditional Societies
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Extended kinship
Little spatial and social mobility
Primary economic activities
Tendency towards autarchy of social units
Undifferentiated political structures with
traditional elites
• Hierarchical source of authority
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Traditional Societies
• Traditional societies are marked by their preNewtonian understanding and use of
technology. These are societies which have
pre-scientific understandings of gadgets, and
believe that gods or spirits facilitate the
procurement of goods, rather than man and
his own ingenuity. The norms of economic
growth are completely absent from these
societies.
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Preconditions for Take-off
• The preconditions to take-off are, to Rostow,
that the society begins committing itself to
secular education, that it enables a degree of
capital mobilization, especially through the
establishment of banks and currency, that an
entrepreneurial class form, and that the
secular concept of manufacturing develops,
with only a few sectors developing at this
point. This leads to a take off in ten to fifty
years.
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The Take-off
• Take-off then occurs when sector led growth
becomes common and society is driven more
by economic processes than traditions. At this
point, the norms of economic growth are well
established.
• Transition from traditional to modern
economy
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The Drive to Maturity
• The drive to maturity refers to the need for
the economy itself to diversify. The sectors of
the economy which lead initially begin to level
off, while other sectors begin to take off. This
diversity leads to greatly reduced rates of
poverty and rising standards of living, as the
society no longer needs to sacrifice its comfort
in order to strengthen certain sectors.
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Age of High Mass Consumption
• The age of high mass consumption refers to the
period of contemporary comfort afforded many
western nations, wherein consumers concentrate on
durable goods, and hardly remember the subsistence
concerns of previous stages.
• in the age of high mass consumption, a society is
able to choose between concentrating on military
and security issues, on equality and welfare issues, or
on developing great luxuries for its upper class.
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Policy Prescriptions of Modernization
Theory
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Urbanization
Education
Socialization
Industrialization
Free trade and openness
Property rights and law
Deregulation
Privatization
Democratization
• Key component was to
change culture and
attitudes of individuals
living in traditional societies
so that they are open to
modernization and
development, rationality
and reason
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Major critics
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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.
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Major critics
• The alleged ‘backwardness’ of ‘underdeveloped’
countries, regions and peoples, was itself a
product of the development of the core,
developed areas.
• Development and underdevelopment could not
be considered in isolation, and nor could it be
assumed that contact with ‘the West’ was a
benign process; indeed, the development of ‘the
West’ rested on the underdevelopment of ‘the
Rest’.
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Major critics
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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;
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Major Critics
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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.
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Major Critics
• You cannot simply ignore the structures of the global
economy
• The economic solutions it proposes will exasperate
poverty in the medium term
• Political solutions questionable?
• Does not properly delineate between different
societies
• All cultural explanations of growth pose problem of
hitting the target (Catholicism, Confucianism etc )
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References:
• Clark, D.A (2006)The Elga Companion to
Development studies. Elga: USA
• Scott, John. (2006) Sociology key concept.
Routledge. London
• Ritze, George. (2007) The Black well
encyclopaedia of sociology. Blackwell. USA
• Rapley, John. (2002) Understaning development,
theory and practice in the third world. Lynne
Rienner. London
• Simon, David. (2006) Fifty Key Thinkers in
Development. Routledge. London
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