At its simplest, dependency thinking points to how development — or lack thereof — in a territory is shaped by places elsewhere. Most famously, dependency theory attracted considerable attention from the 1950s to 1970s by presenting an explanation for underdevelopment in the ‘Global South’ as being due to the nature of unequal relations with the ‘Global North’ (see Box 1). But is it still relevant today?
Dependency theory was first popularised as an alternative understanding of development from modernisation. Dependency theorists like Hans Singer (1950) moved beyond the explanation that a lack of development was due to factors within a poor country, such as due to a relative absence of finance, technology or resources. Instead, they pointed to the influence of the uneven nature of integration into the world economy. For Andre Gunder Frank (1966), underdevelopment was an ongoing condition created, and maintained, by such exploitative relations. As a consequence, places in the ‘periphery’ would remain dependent on the ‘core’. The core would not relinquish too much of its economic power.
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