WHAT IS DEPENDENT DEVELOPMENT? WHAT ARE SOME OF THE LIMITATIONS OF THE DEPENDENCY APPROACH? DISCUSS WITH REFERENCE TO ONE OR MORE COUNTRIES

Introduction

The theory of dependency was initially developed in late 1950s under the guidance of Raul Prebisch - the Director of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America - in order to explain serious economic problems, such as poverty, economic exploitation and influence in policy actions, which happened in the poor countries in Latin America because of the development of the neighborhood developed countries (Ahiakpor 1985; Ferraro 2008). Since being formulated, dependency theory has become the central of a wide range analysis and debate from both scholars and development practitioners. Although dependency theory had important contribution in explaining poverty and underdevelopment situation of the poor countries (Ferraro 2008), on the contrary, scholars also question about limitation its approach.

This essay aims to two targets. First, it will unpack the meaning of “dependent development”, which is considered as one of mainstreams in dependency approach. However, in order to support for this purpose, the paper will also provide brief definition of dependency at its beginning. Second, it will discuss further into details two limitations (which consist in the conclusions of two major extension of dependency approach). Those are: the overemphasis on negative impacts (Frank’s conclusion) and the oversimplification of internal factors (Cardoso’s conclusion). Then, it will take Taiwan, one of the dependent countries has gained success in economic development, as a case study.

Definition of Dependency

There is no unique concept of dependency because it is on-going process (Ferraro 2008) and dependency theory is a set of ideas formed by many scholars, not a single one (Ahiakpor 1985). For instance, Sunkel (1969) defi...

... middle of paper ...

...ntradict with Cardoso’s argument about external factors that may help development, but maintain the relationship of the periphery with its core countries.

Conclusion

Dependency approach has important contribution in explaining the poverty and inequality that associated in the poor countries during the development and influence of capitalism and imperialism. The limitation of dependency approach come from its oversimplified approach, overemphasize the negative impacts and external factors while it neglects the internal factors, including social, politic and agencies of the dependent countries that would help them having potential development opportunity. By these limitation, dependency approach seem not keep pace with the development of political and economic under globalization era and that is the reason for the decline of dependency approach during the mid-1980s.