POLI 319 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: World-Systems Theory, Modernization Theory, Comparative Advantage
13 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
POLI319: Wednesday Feb. 21st, 2018
Midterm Information
- Be sure to arrive early
- Exam will last until 5:25 (i.e. the time that class ended before conferences began during which
the room us still
- Expectation to introduce a case we have studied in class and elaborating
- Prioritize intersection between readings and lecture
- Reeber author’s aes ad their arguets, aes of leaders, dates years
- Historical detail makes answer stronger and worth taking the time to commit to memory
- 5 sentences SA (explain concepts matters more in that instance), 1 and a half pages essay
Modernization Theory
- Arose among social scientists in 1950s North America and Europe
- Dependency emerged in Latin America as a rebuttal to modernization theory
- Explosion of scholarship (money poured into university) seeking to understand the world over
which it was seeking to project more of its power
- Brought a set of policy prescription to make “developing”
- Developed countries already achieved modernization and developing countries should catch up
and should be able to catch up
- Aimed to transform economies by changing societies and value systems (systematic but also
cultural modes)
“Traditional” Society
- Traditional hierarchy and kinship based political structure (kin = family or member of ethnic
group)
- Not much spatial or job mobility (often stayed in your hometown)
- People typically followed in footprints of their ancestor with little upward mobility
- Mostly rural population (people living in the country and engaged mainly in agriculture and
extraction of NRs
- “primary” economic activity
“Modern’ society
- Modern society: predominance of achievement (emphasized achievement, get education move
to city, process of urbanization that would bring job mobility and spatial mobility; choice of jobs
because you have the education); mostly urbanized; lots of job mobility and spatial mobility
- Upward mobility: could aspire to earn better than your ancestors
- “Secondary” economic activity
- manufacturing more modern parts of economic activity)
- Scholars and policy makers used this to help understand the global south, had policy
implications
- Traditional vs. modern
World Systems Theory
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- Rooted in Marxist thought looked at timing of country’s industrialization and argued that
countries which industrialized first benefitted from an economy which was wide enough
- UK; textiles and wool which would then be supplemented by cotton
- Barrington Moore (1966) about timing of industrialization
- argues after countries have industrialized, once it’s done nothing really left for poor
countries to start making what they want to make with comparative advantage, they have arrived
on the scene late
- After successive waves of industrialization, there’s not much opportunity left for poorer
countries (they have little comparative advantage to go for)
- Ongoing dependence on NRs
Dependency Theory
- The African and Latin American response to modernization theory
- Arose in the 1960s and 1970s
- Explained global political economy according to core-periphery dynamics
- Elaborated the notion of “underdeveloped” instead of “developing” countries
- Talks about underdevelopment rather than development, accurate way to describe
reality is to say that they are underdeveloped their development has been subverted by countries
which colonized and exploited them
- Theory that Global North’s great wealth arose from the exploitation of the Global South
- North got rich at the expense of the south (underdevelopment as the active undermining or
subversion of development)
Theotonio Dos Santos (cited in reading)
- “Dependency is…
- dependent countries put in backward posturing through which they face exploitation
Walter Rodney
- How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (read this book!)
- Walter Rodney, Guyanese Dependency Theorist (1942-1980)
- killed by car bomb
- Rodney says:
- Development and underdevelopment have this dialectical relationship where they help to
produce each other by interaction
Modernization Theory and Latin America (Valenzuela. 1978)
- Modernization theory focused on cultural characteristics of “new nations”
- 1960s US studies of Latin America emphasized
- Developed countries teach developing countries how to develop
Dependency Theory Emerges
- Rejects national society as the unit of analysis
- Modernization theory is ahistorical and relies on a current snapshot on what is going on in a
developing country at a cultural level to gain an understanding of their system which is not
rooted in history
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Exam will last until 5:25 (i. e. the time that class ended before conferences began during which the room us still. Expectation to introduce a case we have studied in class and elaborating. Re(cid:373)e(cid:373)ber author"s (cid:374)a(cid:373)es a(cid:374)d their argu(cid:373)e(cid:374)ts, (cid:374)a(cid:373)es of leaders, dates (cid:894)years(cid:895) Historical detail makes answer stronger and worth taking the time to commit to memory. 5 sentences sa (explain concepts matters more in that instance), 1 and a half pages essay. Arose among social scientists in 1950s north america and europe. Dependency emerged in latin america as a rebuttal to modernization theory. Explosion of scholarship (money poured into university) seeking to understand the world over which it was seeking to project more of its power. Brought a set of policy prescription to make developing . Developed countries already achieved modernization and developing countries should catch up and should be able to catch up. Aimed to transform economies by changing societies and value systems (systematic but also cultural modes)
