Dependency Theory - Andre Gunder Frank (1967)

Dependency Theory - Andre Gunder Frank (1967)

1. Background

   • Marxist perspective
     • First emerged in South America
     • Looks at the poor periphery in development
   • Disagrees with the assumption that poverty is a natural and inevitable causless state.
   • Global poverty and affluence are imtimately linked and have both created explotiation.
   • Frank conducted an historical analysis and the phases of ecploitative relationships

2. MERCANTILE CAPITALISM

   • INFORMAL TRADE NETWORKS WERE ESTABLISHED AND EUROPEAN CAPITALISTS GENERATED HUGE PROFITS WHICH FUNDED INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONS.

3. COLONIALISM

   • The informal exploitative relationships became fomalised under colonialism since European powers took direct control over the regions of the majority world. This began around the 16th-20th Century and there was a scramble as major powers tried to acquire territory before their competitors.
     • This era wrought devastation for the majority world.
     • There was much exploitation for cheap labour, food and resources and competition from European manufacturers.
     • Cultures become more civilised.

4. Economies and colonialism:

   • Were reshaped with a shift from divverse agriculture to the production of raw materials and cash crops needed by the empires. At the same time, indigenous industries collapsed unable to compete with the empires industrial mass production.

5. Geopolitics and colonialism

   • distorted as colonial powers created nation states in the territories the had claimed. They often broke families apart and established corrupt government systems

6. Informal/Triangular Trade

   • Slaves taken from Africa to the Carribbean and were sold/replaced with sugar, cotton and tobacco.

7. NEOCOLONIALISM

   • 19th and 20th Centuries
   • Exploitation hasn't been removed but still exists today.

8. Evaluation

   • Crucial contribution in locating the barriers and development and avoids blaming the victims of poverty for their situation. The approach blames the rich world for the issues.
   • However there are a considerable amount of problems associated with the theory. Firstly, it implies that the third-world are unlikely to achieve any form of development, the theory is quite ambiguous as some poor countries e.g. Ethiopia have never been colonies and former colonies such as Canada have wealth. Dependency does NOT acknowledge this.
     • It is also guilty of ignoring that colonialism generated a degree of democracy.