Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
At the global scale, European ideas of the state and
economic exchange diffused throughout the world via
colonialism, bringing much of the world into the capi-
talist world-economy. The Industrial Revolution and
colonialism made colonies dependent on the colonizers
and brought wealth to the colonizers. Even after the
end of colonization, the economic, political, and social
interlinkages of the world economy persist. In the
capitalist world economy, the fl ow of capital changed
little after decolonization. Many development schol-
ars argue that today the poor are experiencing
neo-
colonialism
, whereby the major world powers continue
to control the economies of the poorer countries, even
though the poorer countries are now politically inde-
pendent states.
Development scholars have produced a number of the-
ories that take into account the context of neo-colonialism;
these theories are called structuralist theories. A
struc-
turalist theory
holds that diffi cult-to-change, large-scale
economic arrangements shape what can happen in fun-
damental ways. The development of the global economy
brought into being a set of structural circumstances,
such as the concentration of wealth in certain areas and
unequal relations among places, that make it very diffi cult
for poorer regions to improve their economic situation.
Structuralists argue that these countries face a very differ-
ent set of development circumstances than those faced by
the countries of western Europe that Rostow looked at in
constructing his modernization model.
Stages of
Progress
CORE COUNTRY
(Highest) 5
MODERN
4
Historical
Interpretation
Futuristic
Speculation
3
2
PERIPHERAL COUNTRY
(Lowest) 1
TRADITIONAL
PAST
FUTURE
Time
NOW
Figure 10.5
Rostow's Ladder of Development.
This ladder assumes that
all countries can reach the same level of development and that
all will follow a similar path.
Adapted with permission from:
P. J.
Taylor. “Understanding Global Inequalities: A World-Systems
Approach,”
Geography
, 77 (1992): 10-21.
of today are really “postindustrial,” in that industrial pro-
duction has now shifted away from some of the wealthiest
parts of the planet (Chapter 12).
Dependency Theory
Structuralists have developed a major body of develop-
ment theory called
dependency theory
, which holds
that the political and economic relationships between
countries and regions of the world control and limit the
economic development possibilities of poorer areas.
Dependency theorists note, for example, that colo-
nialism created political and economic structures that
caused the colonies to become dependent on the colo-
nial powers. They further argue that such dependency
helps sustain the prosperity of dominant regions and
the poverty of other regions, even after decolonization
occurs.
Many poorer countries tie their currency to a
wealthy country's currency, either by tying the value of
their currency to the wealthy country's currency or by
completely adopting the wealthy country's currency
as their own, creating a signifi cant link between the
poor and wealthy countries' economies. For example,
El Salvador went through a process of
dollarization
,
whereby the country's currency, the colon, was aban-
doned in favor of the dollar (Fig. 10.6). For the peo-
ple of El Salvador, dollarization made sense because the
Is the idea of economic development inherently Western? If
the West (North America and Europe) were not encouraging
the “developing world” to “develop,” how would people in
the regions of the “developing world” think about their own
economies?
HOW DOES GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION
AFFECT DEVELOPMENT?
Development happens in
context
: it refl ects what is
happening in a place as a result of forces operating con-
currently at multiple scales. To understand why some
countries are poor and others are wealthy, we need to con-
sider the context not only at the state scale, but also at the
local, regional, and global scales.
