Dependency Theory and Uneven Development with Ingrid Kvangraven

Crash Course Economics

In this episode of Crash Course Sara Murawski en Rodrigo Fernandez discuss Dependency Theory with Ingrid Kvangraven. How does dependency theory help us to formulate different answers to the problems developing countries face today. We try to understand what it is and why it has been lost in debates on the global south, after being dominant in the 70s and 80s.

Since the IMF and the world bank imposed their neo-liberal adjustment programs, development has become synonymous with attracting foreign direct investments (FDI) from multinational corporations. In this dominant worldview, developing countries need to focus on implementing policies (‘reforms’) that attract FDI at all cost. Success can be achieved by following the prescribed market-oriented changes that convert economic assets and activities in a potential tradable financial asset.

Dependency theory on the other hand departs from the opposite perspective. In this approach ‘underdevelopment’ is the result of a specific type of integration in a capitalist global economy that is uneven.

“Core countries benefit from the global system at the expense of periphery countries, which face structural barriers that make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to develop in the same way that the core countries did.”

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