The Dependency Theory Essay Example

The Dependency theory was coined by Andre Gunder Frank during the mid-1960’s and he argued that the dependency theory was created by capitalism and colonialism, as this historical background left many countries with little to no power, but with a very small amount of countries holding global dominance and wealth. He argued that this lead to the dependency theory, as peripheral countries offer a range of services, such as raw materials and ‘brain drain’, to the core countries. Later on in history, the dependency theory was evaluated and argued that it was static, and due to a rising amount of NIC’s (newly industrialised countries) this suggested the world was more complex than just a core nations, and the peripheral countries. This theory outlined the idea of three divisions of labour, as the core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral countries.

Understanding these theories can help us outline potentially patterns in global power shifts as in the Dependency theory we understand that the core, more developed countries are exploiting the less developed countries in order to maintain power, and a global dominance, this is seen as the peripheral countries are losing their skilled workers to the core countries ‘the brain drain’ and this further keeps the peripheral countries under-developed as they have no skilled workers therefore cannot obtain higher job sectors such as quaternary and  tertiary jobs. This whole theory also links with neo-colonialism as one country is dependent on another for manufactured goods and aid, China who is a major global power, has control due to neo-colonialism in large areas of Africa, this is due to Chinas heavy reliant on Africa’s oil, and Africa imports a vast amount of Chinese manufactured goods, so there is a trade relationship. However, this relationship is more advantageous for China as it is reducing the development in African nations and lessening the threat of emerging global superpowers. This helps us understand patterns of global power as the core countries (superpowers) have a structured relationship with peripheral countries (under-developed) in which the core country receives goods, such as raw material, brain drain and political support, and those with the most trade links, such as USA and China, are going to maintain power and global dominance with little threat of emerging powers. 

An evaluation of the dependency theory is that NIC’s such as Japan and Nigeria have broken out of this dependency and become semi-peripheral, this is important as now the core countries uses these semi-peripheral countries as cheap locations to manufacture goods, and cheap locations for services. This is now known as the world system theory, this theory is praised more than the dependency theory, as the dependency theory is rigid and simple, whereas the world system theory outlines there are more than the owner (core countries) and the exploited (less developed countries). This idea has a link to globalisation, as the semi-peripheral countries are importing goods, services (such as TNC’s) and this is seen as the core countries exploiting the semi-peripheral countries as a ‘workshop’ to produce high tech goods. This theory is also a more modernised version of the dependency theory, as now we have the BRIC’s and NIC’s, who also use the peripheral countries to benefit themselves. This theory helps us understand patterns and shift of global power as if has a clear three division of labour, in which a country can move up or down a tier, as seen by the BRIC’s and NIC’s such as Japan and Nigeria. 

Overall we see that these theories don’t consider the Mackinder heartland theory, which argues whoever holds control over the eastern area of Europe including Russia hold the global power, and these theories are mainly based on economic and political influence and ignore military, and geographical location of an area.