Matunhu (2011) - Criticising Modernisation and Dependency Theory in Africa Flashcards
The Modernization Theory of Development
-Developed in the 1950s-60s as an economic theory rooted in capitalism
- Encompasses the drastic transformation a traditional society undergoes to become modern (Africa to Europe iow)
-Through teaching efficient techniques of production
Some technological backsides to modernization theory
1) Introduction of hybrids
2) Green house technology (climate change)
3) GMO food
4) Use of artificial fertiliser/insecticides to replace traditional agricultural practices
Overview: Characteristics of “modern” agricultural societies
1) Readiness for transformation
2) Receptiveness to new knowledge
3) Continuous planning
4) Predictability of action
5) High premium on technical skills and understanding of the principles of production
6) Changing attitudes to kin relations and religion
7) Change consumer behaviour and accept social stratification
The idea of “Enlightenment”
- Colonizers tasked themselves to modernize the “dark continent” (Africa)
- Through bringing missionaries, engineers, farmers etc (1400s)
- Disregards how there were existing empires on the continent (from “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”), which were powerful both in wealth and territorial expansion using advanced African technology and techniques - there was an already established path to development
- The Portuguese arrival in 1444 led to a paradigm shift in how Africa ought to develop - changed the African path to favour themselves through a set distinct stages (the Rostowian theory)
Rostow’s Five Stages of Growth
- Primitive society
- Preparation for take-off
- Take off
- Drive to maturity
- Period of mass consumption
Primitive/traditional society (Rostow)
Subsistence farming and barter trade
Preparation for take-off (Rostow)
Specialisation, production of surplus goods and trade.
Transport infrastructure is built.
Savings and investment is encouraged.
Take-off (Rostow)
Industrialization increases
Economy goes from agriculture to manufacturing
Drive to maturity (Rostow)
Economy diversifies further.
Less reliance on imports
Period of mass consumption (Rostow)
Economy gears on mass production
Service sector becomes increasingly dominating
Critique of Rostow’s model
- Theoretical and linear
- Most African countries combine agriculture, manufacturing and tourism
- Wars, natural disasters, pandemics move countries back and forth in development
Cultural consequences of European modernization
“The abandoment of an individual’s cultural values in favour of that of the former coloniser’s values” that some deeep shit
Development = dependent on the deculturisation. Modernization requires a change of values, norms etc.
Weaknesses of Modernization theory
1) By ignoring the involvement of target community it becomes an imposition
2) Oversimplified view of social change. Change is often resisted due to uncertainty.
3) Deterministic reason coming from outside does not give room fro reciprocal relationship from the inside to outside.
4) Most outside-in approaches fail due to ignorance of cultural, social, political and traditional factors (eurocentrism)
Modernization and aid
-Marshall’s plan’s success in Europe post WW2 influenced to believe external aid = positive development
- All aid except humanitarian aid has strings attached
- These strings always favor metropolitan states over recipient African countries.
- China: Large trade partner as they arrange aid at conditions more favourable to Africa than to those of the West - yet China is still interested in exploiting Africa’s resources just like Euro and America
Dependency theory - critique of modernization
- Fails to articulate relationship between the developed world and the poor regions of the world
- Modernization distorts the truth about developed countries’ motives in former colonial
Dependency theory
Main premise: It is impossible to understand the processes and problems of Africa without considering the wider socio-historical context of Western European expansion and the concurrent colonisation
-Development of Europe = Dialectical underdevelopment of Africa. (Immanuel Wallerstein and Andre Gunder Frank - world system’s theory and metropole/satelite very similar)
- Europe and America exploit Africa and urban areas exploit rural areas
- Africa specialises in marketing raw material, Europe in developing the finished products
- African leaders have allowed this to happen, eg through signing WTOagreements (1995)
“The extraction of human resources out of Africa did not end with the end of slavery”
- 25% of South African graduate students go to US-strains devt in own country.
Internal colonialism
Rich urban areas exploit poor rural areas within a nation-state.
Operation impoverishment of Africa (!!!)
1)Metropolois destroyed pre-capitalist structures of Africa to exploit them
2) Missionary education system: Mental impoverishment of Africans by de-emphasising importance of African cultural values…
3) … whilst glorifying the colonizier’s values
4) Metropolis must find the optimum rate of development for satelites to gain surplus, hence determines level and pace of Africa through inefficient development policies. Too little devt = less surplus, yet too much devt = threaten metropolis.
5) Efforts by Africa to resist interference of the North often triggers economic sanctions (eg Zimbabwe)
6) Elimination of nationalist leaders like
a. Patrice Lumumba (Congo,
killed by Belgian officers)
b. Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana,
military coup facilitated by
many Western powers)
Disclaimer
!Matunhu writes about dependecy theoru as a framework of colonial exploitation, not as a critique made to oppose modernization theory!
The use of African states to destabilize other African states
1) Metropolis action. Eg South Africa tasked to foster regime change in Zimbabwe
2) Apartheid regime in SA used to destabilize Angola, Moz, Zim, Tanzania and Zambia through military aggression - this led to forced neo-colonial agreements of support from other countries!
3) SADCC - South African Development Coordination Conference - program of reconstruction similar to Marshall Plan, yet had imperial intentions, an external inducement (not stated by whom)
The African Renaissance Theory
- Anti-thesis to both of modernization and dependency theory
- Founded on African values and norms
- Adaptable to change if they align with value system of the average African (hard to determinate?)
- Embroiled in African values like Ubuntu, Humwe, Harambee, Ujamahaa, standing for unity, communalism, shared purpose.
- Rejects grand theories claiming that they exacerbate poverty instead of solving it
- Micro-level devt
- Bring back indigenous knowledge
- Social movements
- Local, community based solutions
TRANSFORMATION consistent with realities in Africa
Conclusion
1.Poverty reduction policies have been influenced by theories of development
2. Modernistic policies have a top-down approach, seeing development of Africa as the responsibility of the metropolis
3. Human and non-human resources go from satellite to metropole both between countries and rural/urban communities (dependency theory)
4. Disengagement with North = African renaissance, another approach to poverty reduction. (interesting also in relation to USAID happening)
