Development

1. Session 9: Development
1) Participant observation presentations
2) Chapter 11: 11.1: How is development measured
(continued)
3) Chapter 11: 11.2: How does geographical situation
affect development?
4) Chapter 11:11.3: What are the barriers to, and the
costs of, development?
5) Chapter 11: 11.4: How do political and economic
institutions influence uneven development within
states?
Fouberg, E. H., Murphy, A. B., De Blij, H. J. and C. J. Nash (2012). Human Geography: People,
Place, and Culture. John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., Mississauga.
March 20/27,
2015

2. Questions for reflection:
1. What are the pros and cons of the “sharing economy”?
2. Do you think the “sharing economy” will slow down / can slow
down? Why or why not?

3. Development Models
Many theories of development grew out of the major development
colonization movements of the 1960s…”development” very focused
on Western ideals of economy
Modernization model: A model of economic development most
closely associated with the work of economist Walter Rostow. The
modernization model (sometimes referred to as modernization
theory) maintains that all countries go through five interrelated
stages of development, which culminate in an economic state of
self-sustained economic growth and high levels of mass
consumption.

4. 5 interrelated stages of development of the modernization model:
1. “Traditional”: subsistence farming; rigid social structure;
slow changing technology
2. “Preconditions for takeoff”: active leadership pushes country
towards flexibility and diversification
3. “Takeoff”: like industrial revolution
4. “Drive to maturity”: technology diffuses; specialization
occurs; international trade expands
5. “High mass consumption”: high incomes; high domestic
production of goods and services

6. Section 11.2 – How does geographical situation affect development?
Criticism of Rostow’s model: lack of consideration for how
development happens in context.
Context: The geographical situation in which something occurs; the
combination of what is happening at a variety of scales concurrently.
To understand why some countries are rich and some are poor we
need to understand the context at various scales.

7. Colonialism made colonies dependent on colonizers
Following the end of colonization, the social economic and political
structures of colonialism persisted
Poor countries remain in a position of dependency
Some scholars call this:
Neo-colonialism: The entrenchment of the colonial order, such as
trade and investment, under a new guise.
When political independence occurs it does not always translate
into economic independence

8. Theory taking into account neo-colonialism
Structuralist theory: A model of economic development that treats
economic disparities among countries or regions as the result of
historically derived power relations within the global economic
system
Dependency theory: A structuralist theory that offers a critique of
the modernization model of development. Based on the idea that
certain types of political and economic relations (especially
colonialism) between countries and regions of the world have
created arrangements that both control and limit the extent to
which regions can develop.

9. Dependency theorists would typically see little hope for economic
prosperity for nations that have been dominated by external
powers.
This however is a generalization, and there are nations and regions
of the world that have been “dependent” who have made
considerable economic gains.
e.g., India is considered to be an emerging market (was at one
time a British colony)

10. Geography and Context
World-systems theory: Theory originated by Immanuel Wallerstein
and illuminated by his three-tier structure, proposing that social
change in the developing world is inextricably linked to the
economic activities of the developed world.
3 basis tenets:
1) The world economy has one market and a global division of labour
2) Although the world has multiple states, almost everything takes
place within the context of the world economy
3) The world economy has a three-tiered structure

11. Three-tier structure: With reference to Immanual Wallerstein’s
world-systems theory, the division of the world into the core, the
periphery, and the semi-periphery as a means to help explain the
interconnections between places in the global economy.
source: wahyusetyaningrum.wordpress.com

12. Looking at processes in terms of core, periphery, and semi-
periphery
Core (processes): incorporate higher levels of education, higher
salaries, and more technology; generate more wealth
Periphery (processes): incorporate lower levels of education, lower
salaries, and less tech; generate less wealth
Semi-periphery (processes): places where core and periphery
processes are both occurring; places exploited by the core, which in
turn exploit the periphery

13. Section 11.3 – What are the barriers to, and the costs of
development?
International organizations and governments work towards breaking
down barriers to development – aiming to improve conditions for
people around the world
Millennium Development Goals: A set of eight human
development-related goals for the world’s most impoverished
countries, which were adopted at the United Nations Millennium
Summit in 2000 with the intention of achieving all of these goals by
the year 2015.
*See Table 11.3 in your text

15. Example of MDG Advocacy Group’s work
MDG#1: Poverty (2014)
India Fisheries
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjIdutXVdBw&list=PLwoDFQJ
Eq_0Y57bsPH-5zcRnDlXJRz87x&t=132

16. Recent campaign:
"I am moved by the fact that a child dies every 2 and a half minutes
from diseases linked to open defecation. Those are silent deaths –
not reported on in the media, not the subject of public debate. Let's
not remain silent any longer"
UN Deputy Secretary-General, Jan Eliasson (May 2014)

17. Barriers to Economic Development - Social Conditions
Trafficking: When a family sends a child or an adult to a labour
recruiter in hopes that the labour recruiter will send money, and the
family member will earn money to send home.
Definition can be extended. Not all trafficking is done at the hands
of a person’s family.

18. Maiti Nepal – Organization geared towards stopping human
trafficking (sex trafficking in India and Nepal)
Founder: Anurandha Koirala

19. 2.5 million people were in forced labour at any given time in 2007
90% of these people were from peripheral countries
Majority of people were between the ages of 18 and 24
43% of victims were forced into sexual exploitation
*Access to primary education is important for counteracting human
trafficking in the periphery

21. Barriers to Economic Development – Foreign Debt
1960s: decolonization wave – banks began loaning money to newly
independent states
World Bank and IMP loans with “strings attached”:
Structural adjustment loans: Loans granted by international
financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF to
countries in the periphery and semi-periphery in exchange for
certain economic and governmental reforms in that country (e.g.,
privatization of certain government entities and opening the country
to foreign trade and investment).
Repaying of debt made it hard to invest in more long-term
development goals

22. Barriers to Economic Development – Disease
Vectored disease
Malaria – kills approx. 150,000 children in the global periphery each
month
Ways of preventing malaria:
• Mosquito nets
• Pesticides
• Anti-malarial drugs

23. Political Instability
Can greatly impede economic development
• disparity between rich and poor
• corruption
• civil unrest

24. Costs of Economic Development
Development is change – some of it is not always beneficial
Industrialization
Export processing zones (EPZs): Zones established by many
countries in the periphery and semi-periphery where they offer
favourable tax, regulatory, and trade arrangements to attract foreign
trade and investment.

25. In 2007 – estimated that the world had 2,700 Export Processing
Zones (EPZs)
Estimated 63 million people employed in these zones, which are
mostly in peripheral regions
40 million of them in China
2 of these zones in Canada:
1) Gander Foreign Trade zone, Newfoundland
2) CentrePort Canada, Winnipeg
http://www.centreportcanada.ca/

26. Video
What is CentrePort Canada?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEH4Ewlp_-o
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): Agreement
entered into by Canada, Mexico, and the United States in
December 1992 that took effect on January 1, 1994, to eliminate
the barriers to trade in, and facilitate the cross-border
movement of goods and services between countries.

27. Special economic zone: Specific area within a country in which tax
incentives and less stringent environmental regulations are
implemented to attract foreign business and investment.
Maquiladora: Zones in northern Mexico with factories supplying
manufactured goods to the U.S. market. The low-wage workers in
the primarily foreign-owned factories assemble imported
components and/or raw materials and the export finished goods.

28. Costs of Economic Development
Agriculture
Large-scale production in the peripheral often does little for local
poverty; food is mostly exported
Desertification: The encroachment of desert conditions on moister
zones along the desert margins, where plant cover and soils are
threatened by desiccation-through overuse, in part by humans and
their domestic animals, and possibly, in part because of inexorable
shifts in Earth’s environmental zones.
Tourism

29. Costs of Economic Development
Tourism
Host countries must make substantial investments to support
tourism
Tourism companies may not be local and profits may be earned
away from the host country – may cause exploitation of the nation
and its people
Can cause erosion of local culture through commodification

30. Section 11.4 – How do political and economic institutions influence
uneven development within states?
The Role of Governments
Poverty is not confined to the periphery - Shapes patterns of
development within and outside of states
Governments play a role in determining whether, how, and where
wealth is produced. It does this through:
• tariffs
• trade agreements
• taxation structures
• land ownership rules
• environmental regulations
• etc.

31. These factors all influence the commodity chain
Governments will prioritize certain regions based on development
and economic growth
These are islands of development

32. Creating Growth in the Periphery of the Periphery
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs): International
organizations that operate outside of the formal political arena but
that are nevertheless influential in spearheading international
initiatives on social, economic and environmental issues.
“a parallel state, financed by foreigners and accountable to nobody”
– the Economist
e.g., World Vision, Aga Khan Foundation, …many more, some local,
some regional, some global

33. Microcredit program: Program that provides small loans to poor
people, especially women, to encourage development of small
business.
World Bank Video: Mauritania: Women Microfinance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffDu_EWLWc