Underdevelopment

Photo of a slum in Kibera, Kenya (2010)

Underdevelopment, as it pertains to nations, is used to categorize countries that have lagged behind what is known as the developed or first world in some way, on the road to modernization. Not to be confused with “undeveloped”, which is used to describe regions or resources that aren’t being used at all, “underdevelopment” is a relational term. So the countries that are widely accepted as underdeveloped are not necessarily "un-modernized", but have less stable economies and political regimes coupled with a greater prevalence of poverty, malnutrition, child and maternal mortality, and infectious diseases.

The concept of development itself, which emerged during the colonial era, came to be seen as a universal necessity, natural, and inevitable. Countries who progressed slowly or, in many cases even regressed from not being to smoothly transition to the new system, were seen as less than or inadequate. Mexican activist, Gustavo Esteva, asserted that underdevelopment began when American president Harry Truman delivered his inaugural address in 1949 since, after the second world war, poverty on a mass scale was suddenly “discovered” in these underdeveloped regions of the world. Esteva stated that, “On that day two billion people became underdeveloped.” More than half of the world’s nations were categorized by what they lacked.[1] The other variables that could have been used in categorizing their dynamic and varying cultures faded while their impoverishment and “underdeveloped” state moved to the forefront of the characterization of these countries (most of which were newly independent). The aura of inevitability that was associated with development devalued non-European cultures and discredited the skills and values that the global north learned from them. When the world began to categorize nations based on their economic status, it the narrowed the issue of underdevelopment to an economics problem. As a result, the solutions brought forth by the experts of the discourse would also lie in economics and economic growth.[2]

In economics, underdevelopment is when resources are not used to their full socio-economic potential, with the result that local or regional development is slower in most cases than it should be, specially compare with the investment and innovation in countries that surround it. Furthermore, it results from the complex interplay of internal and external factors that allow less developed countries only a lop-sided development progression. Underdeveloped nations are characterized by a wide disparity between their rich and poor populations, and an unhealthy balance of trade.[3] In underdeveloped countries the masses are generally marginalized and exploited. Their livelihoods are threatened by new modes of industrialization. The result is a lack of access to job opportunities, health care, drinkable water, food, education and housing by the populations that provide the base for the global supply chain.[4]

Most former colonies remain largely underdeveloped - street in Dakar, Senegal.

History (What contributed to present underdevelopment)

Colonial Legacies

Colonialism, which dates back to the 15th century, involved the subjugation of numerous countries and cultures by physical and psychological force through military conquest. Colonialism, the manifestation of the White Man’s Burden, was founded on racism and inequality and it altered non-European cultures irreversibly. The European concept of “private property” led to the undermining of local crafts and farming systems. The colonizers introduced and imposed new forms of inequalities and systems of oppression to facilitate the process of exploitation in their colonies. During this era the African people were divided around new tensions which still disrupt their societies today. In addition to the internal divisions, there were also Diasporas of the African, Indian, and Chinese peoples.[2] These legacies have impacted modern expressions of race, ethnicity, and nationality.

Industrial Green Revolution

During the Green Revolution, which began in the 1950s, developed countries such as the U.S, in an attempt to modernize the global agricultural sector, sought to export the industrial agricultural model of production. At the start of the Green Revolution wealthy countries such as the U.S., Canada, and other advanced European countries were giving their surplus crops to poorer countries in the form of food aid in order to mitigate the widespread hunger the world was now witnessing in the newly independent countries that to figure how to move forward with development while coping with their divided societies. Crops that weren’t previously prevalent across the globe, such as wheat, were being transferred and from the global north to south in massive quantities. This occurred until developing countries, such as India, became heavily dependant on the food aid- much of which were crops that could not be grown locally. In order to now help dependent countries to develop a self-sufficient food sector, instead of just relying on the food aid, the U.S. made it conditional for recipients of food-aid to adopt the whole industrial model of agriculture.[5]

The revolution was titled “Green” not just because of its connections to agriculture but also was used as a tool to fight the “Red”, or communist revolution. The West believed that hunger had the power to drive people to communism, so food aid was used explicitly to fight the spread communism.[5] It was meant to increase food security in poor nations by helping them move to being self-sufficient, but the complete industrial model of agriculture had a complex system of inputs that wasn’t explicitly advertised. It wasn’t the quick miracle that many farmers in the global south hoped it would be . In order for yields to actually increase farmers needed fertilizers, pesticides, and a new irrigation system. A costly process that cut profits for the farmers even though their yields rose .The countries that were dependent on food aid just changed to being dependent on the transnational corporations that provided these agricultural inputs that the system required. Conversely, new transnational corporations rose during the revolution and profited off of the same farmers that were struggling to maintain their yields in this new system that resembled a never ending treadmill. The Green Revolution was able to increase crop yields, at least in the short term before land was degraded by the newly introduced toxic agricultural tools, but in the process it disturbed the social, economic, and cultural systems of many of the countries that are now considered underdeveloped.

Theories Relevant to Underdevelopment

Modernization theory

One of the first major theories to surface as a solution to this new issue of “underdevelopment” was the Modernization Theory. Modernization theory is a sociology-economic theory, also known as the Development theory. This highlights the positive role played by the developed world in modernizing and facilitating sustainable development in underdeveloped nations. It is often contrasted with Dependency theory.[6]

The theory of modernization consists of three parts:

Post World War Two, and with the “discovery” of mass poverty and hunger, the world leaders that had emerged from the war saw the former colonies as areas that needed increasing amounts of intervention because their populations were the subjects of much suffering. It became a moral imperative for developed nations, primarily the U.S., to offer assistance so that these countries could industrialized the way the countries of the first world had. In alignment with this furthering of the White Man’s Burden, out of the United States, emerged the Modernization theory which equated modernization with industrialization, development and progress.

One of the most notable contributors to the theory was Walt Whitman Rostow who developed an economic model which outlined five stages of growth for nations in his work titled, “The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto”.

Rostow’s Five Stages are as follows:

  1. The Traditional Society
  2. The Preconditions for take-off
  3. The Take-off
  4. The Drive to Maturity
  5. The Age of High Mass Consumption

These stages present a linear trajectory of development in a which the traditional society, exhibiting feudal and “backward” characteristics, can transform into a modern society with advanced industries and urban societies.[8] By placing national growth on a linear path to modernization and hails industrialization as the key to development, Rostow's model explains the gap between wealthy and impoverished nations by claiming that, since various nations began the process of development at different time periods, they’re simply at different stages of growth. Rostow’s model makes the assumption that the inequality between states will eventually disappear once each reaches the final stage of growth. This in turn justifies the present inequality as a natural progression of development.[9]

The theory of modernization was most influential in the 1950s and 60s, but began to decline as scholars from various backgrounds such as Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein with their Dependency and World System theories, came forth with critiques that made it too controversial to remain the leading thought within the discourse.

Dependency theory

Dependency theory is the body of theories by various intellectuals, both from the Third World and the First World, that suggest that the wealthy nations of the world need a peripheral group of poorer states in order to remain wealthy. Dependency theory states that the poverty of the countries in the periphery is not because they are not integrated into the world system, but because of how they are integrated into the system.

These poor nations provide natural resources, cheap labor, a destination for obsolete technology, and markets to the wealthy nations, without which they could not have the standard of living they enjoy. First world nations actively, but not necessarily consciously, perpetuate a state of dependency through various policies and initiatives. This state of dependency is multifaceted, involving economics, media control, politics, banking and finance, education, sport and all aspects of human resource development. Any attempt by the dependent nations to resist the influences of dependency could result in economic sanctions and/or military invasion and control. This is rare, however, and dependency is enforced far more by the wealthy nations setting the rules of international trade and commerce.

Dependency theory first emerged in the 1950s, advocated by Raul Prebisch whose research found that the wealth of poor nations tended to decrease when the wealth of rich nations increased. The theory quickly divided into diverse schools. Some, most notably Andre Gunder Frank and Walter Rodney adapted it to Marxism. "Standard" dependency theory differs sharply from Marxism, however, arguing against internationalism and any hope of progress in less developed nations towards industrialization and a liberating revolution. Former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso wrote extensively on dependency theory while in political exile. The American sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein refined the Marxist aspect of the theory, and called it the "world system." [10] World system theory adds another layer to what dependency theorists describe as the structure of the world: the semi-periphery. The semi-periphery is composed of countries such as ( Brazil and South Africa ) that can’t simply be categorized as part of the core or the periphery (i.e. they have developed urban areas but also large areas of rural poverty). World systems theory also states that the dynamic of surplus extraction that occurs between nations also occurs within them, between their elite and poor classes. According to this structure, which includes a core, a periphery, and a semi-periphery, not every nation can develop simultaneously (which directly challenges the linear model of modernization which suggests that all countries are on the trajectory of development). WST instead argues that development and underdevelopment are created simultaneously.

According to Brazilian social scientist, Theotonio Dos Santos, dependence means a situation in which certain countries economies’ are conditioned by the development & expansion of another to which the former is subject. He goes on to further clarify that the interdependence of two or more economies, and consequently world trade, assumes the form of dependence when dominant countries can create dependency only as a reflection of that expansion, which can have a negative effect on the subordinate’s immediate economy.

Guyanese Marxist historian and political activist, Walter Rodney, contends in reference to Africa`s underdevelopment, "The decisiveness of the short period of colonialism and its negative consequences for Africa spring mainly from the fact that Africa lost power. Power is the ultimate determinant in human society, being basic to the relations within any group and between groups. It implies the ability to defend one's interests and if necessary to impose one's will by any means available. In relations between peoples, the question of power determines maneuverability in bargaining, the extent to which a people survive as a physical and cultural entity. When one society finds itself forced to relinquish power entirely to another society, that in itself is a form of underdevelopment".[11]

Examples of underdeveloped countries and regions

A political map of the Human Development Index.

Africa

Although over ten percent of the world’s population (and increasing rapidly) is located in Sub-Saharan Africa, the region is only responsible for about three percent of global GDP (Gross Domestic Product).[12] Africa is a continent that is considered severely and nearly consistently underdeveloped. The problems that plague the region range from corrupt governments, resource exploitation, and widespread malnourishment. One of things that has been used to explain Africa’s depravement and economic regression, as it is the only region that has a seen poverty growth in the last quarter of a century, is the fact that the continent in rich in natural resources. The paradoxical resource course has led the continent to be divided and exploited for its oil, diamonds, and other valuable minerals and metals that fall into the hands of an unaccountable few while millions of its own people live far below the poverty line. In fact, thirty-two of the world’s thirty-eight highly indebted and impoverished countries can be found in Africa.[12] Many of the problems can be found in multiple countries, but as each country had a unique colonial experience, the problems they face today are also unique from each other and the rest of the world. For example, the indirect rule set up in Britain’s African colonies, such as Uganda and Nigeria, used elevation of local chiefs to create new tensions between groups as well as to effectively disrupt cohesive governance from the state.[13]

Walter Rodney's book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa explains how capitalist economies of developed countries have invested in African countries in a way that benefits themselves and deters the socio-economic development of the African countries. Rodney also blames colonialism for the current state of Africa.[14]

South Africa

It is argued that South Africa’s ... dualist qualities of a 1st & 2nd economy. The 1st (wealth producing sector) being one that is integrated in the global economy through modern industrialization, mining, agricultural & financial services, and the 2nd a structural manifestation of poverty, underdevelopment & marginalization. With indicators such as GDP/capita at PPP of $11 240 in 2001, placing it as one the 50th wealthiest countries in the world, and on the other hand social indicators that rank it 111th in terms of HDI for the same year.[15]

Some of the causality of the underdevelopment is attributed to the institutionalized apartheid practices in South African politics, society and economics. The reforms that were introduced in 1994, have furthered the increase of inequality and uneven wealth distribution in the nation. As “Hoogeveen andO¨ zler (2005: 15) conclude that ‘Growth has not been pro-poor in South Africa as a whole, and in the instances when poverty declined for certain subgroups, the distributional shifts were still not pro-poor’.” Through the notion of adverse inclusion versus social exclusion du Toit draws attention to the fact that the present dynamics of the nation are not simply a result of being left out of mainstream economy, rather from the terms under which individuals are incorporated, . The individuals who find themselves incorporated are often not those that make up the majority of the population that lives in considerably unfavorable conditions.[16]

South and Central Asia

Afghanistan

Afghanistan is bordered on the north by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, on the extreme northeast by China, on the east and south by Pakistan, and by Iran on the west. The country is split east to west by the Hindu Kush mountain range, rising in the east to heights of 24,000 ft (7,315 m). Afghanistan's GDP for 2009 was $23.3 billion and annual per capita $800. In 2008 Unemployment was at 35% having a labor force of 15 million split between agriculture 80%, industry 10% and services 10%.[17]

Afghanistan's underdevelopment has been fuelled by an ineffective trade policy meaning products are inefficiently traded and little economic growth is gained. This lack of trade agreements has been created due to pervasive political and military corruption and cultural and religious unrest leaving the country broken and the economy shattered.[18] Gross domestic product had fallen significantly because of loss of labor and capital and disruption of trade and transport. Continuing internal conflict disadvantaged both domestic efforts at reconstruction as well as international aid efforts. The country today however is beginning to make some progress.[19]

Latin America

Latin America, as it is most commonly thought as, is made up of the majority of American nations between Mexico in North America and Argentina in South America where the language is derived from Latin, including Spanish, Portuguese and French languages. Latin America is one of the most underdeveloped regions in the world due to their annual per capita income being less than 1,000 USD. Their life expectancies are twenty years less than the developed world as well as infant mortality rates being very high. Malnourishment, homelessness and unemployment are very common in this region as the countries are poor and backward having many communities filled with poverty.[20] Latin America has suffered due to overpopulation, having no capacity to manage the people their situation has only become worse, with increased poverty and homelessness.[21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Escobar, Arturo (1995). Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 21–46.
  2. 1 2 McMichael, Philip (2012). Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective. Thousand Oaks: Sage. pp. 26–54.
  3. ↑ A. G. Frank, “The Development of Underdevelopment,” Development: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences (2005).
  4. ↑ Report of the Conference of FAO. 4th Session. Washington, D.C., November 1948.
  5. 1 2 Clapp, Jennifer (2012). Food. Cambridge: Polity Press. pp. 24–56 – via PDF.
  6. ↑ Modernization theory - Economics Dictionary and Research Guide
  7. ↑ Modernization Theory - Defining Modernization Theory
  8. ↑ W. Rostow, Walt (1960). The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto.
  9. ↑ Seligson, Mitchell (1990). "The Five Stages of Growth" In Development and Underdevelopment: The Political Economy of Global Inequality. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. pp. 9–16 – via PDF.
  10. ↑ Dependency theory Archived April 8, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.
  11. ↑ Irogbe, Kema (Spring 2005). "Globalization and the Development of Underdevelopment of the Third World". Journal of Third World Studies. EBSCO Information Services. 22 (1): 41–68. Retrieved June 2014. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)(subscription required)
  12. 1 2 M. McFerson, Hazel (2010). "Extractive Industries and African Democracy: Can the "Resource Curse" be Exorcised.". International Studies Perspectives. 11: 335–353 – via Oxford Journals.
  13. ↑ K. Lange, Matthew (2003). "British Colonial Legacies and Political Development". World Development. 32: 905–922 – via Science Direct.
  14. ↑ Rodney, Walter (1973). How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. London and Tanzanian Publishing House, Dar-Es-Salaam.: Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications.
  15. ↑ May, Julian, and Charles Meth "Dualism or underdevelopment in South Africa: what does a quantitative assessment of poverty, inequality and employment reveal?." Development Southern Africa 24.2 (2007): 271-287. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 20 Oct. 2009.
  16. ↑ May, Julian, and Charles Meth "Dualism or underdevelopment in South Africa: what does a quantitative assessment of poverty, inequality and employment reveal?." Development Southern Africa 24.2 (2007): 271-287. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 20 Oct. 2009.
  17. ↑ Pearson Education 2000–2012, Afghanistan, http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107264.html?pageno=1
  18. ↑ Mohammad Najeeb Azizi and Shoji Haruna, 2007,What, how and why it happened to Afghanistan: a study of political economic history of the early 20th Century, http://faculty.hope.edu/toppen/pol242/pages/theory/topic1.htm
  19. ↑ Afghanistan (12/07)
  20. ↑ Topik S, 1987, Historical Perspectives on Latin American Underdevelopment, society for history education,http://www.jstor.org/stable/493756
  21. ↑ de Janvry A, 1980, The Political Economy of Rural Development in Latin America: An Interpretation, Oxford University Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1238412
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