Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 2
Theories and models
The debate
At their simplest, the basic theories on regional development can be portrayed as
a left-wing versus a right-wing view of development. The right-wing view (also
termed “liberal” or “orthodox”) is that regional inequalities arise through the
operation of normal economic forces in the course of capitalist development, and
disappear also through the working out of these same economic forces. Left-
wing views (also “radical”, “structuralist”) also have regional inequalities as
coming about through the operation of capitalism, but interpret these differences
as being instrumental to the maintenance of capitalism, and actively promoted by
capitalist agents, whether firms, individuals or governments. Because of their
importance, the inequalities between regions are maintained by capitalist powers
and do not disappear through a process of convergence.
These two sets of ideas were present from the early writings after the Second
World War, and are epitomized in the opposition of views between Albert
Hirschman and Gunnar Myrdal in the 1950s. Hirschman (1958) envisaged a
spread of development out from centres, and Myrdal (1957) concentrated instead
on forces which would tend to maintain or increase differences between regions.
In the 1970s and 1980s, following this debate, other lines of thinking came
into fashion as it became apparent that neither left- nor right-wing analyses were
able to be translated into practical policies. Evidence accumulated that in many
parts of the world there were widening gaps of income and welfare both at an
international level, between different countries, and at an interregional level,
within individual countries. Ecodevelopment, Development from Below,
sustainable development and basic needs are some of the concepts that have been
discussed in this debate. In what follows we may generalize to call this the
“endogenous” school of thought, reflecting sources of the development impulse.
While there are many distinctive aspects of each of the concepts within
endogenous development, one common thread is a critique of the idea that
development has to come from somewhere else, that it is exogenous or from an
outside source. Instead there is the concept of local, endogenous development
based on local resources, both human and physical. In Riddell's (1981)
