Contrasting Modernization and Dependency Theories - Essay Example

"Modernization theory became the foundation stone of this evolutionary prescription for development. The theory is not homogeneous-numerous proponents disagreed on several key features. But in broad outline, the theory focused on deficiencies in the poorer countries and speculated about ways to overcome these deficiencies. It viewed traditional society as a series of negatives: stagnant and unchanging, not innovative, not profit-making, not progressing, not growing.It argued that about 500 years ago, most people in the world were poor or living in traditional (often subsistence) social arrangements.

Scientific innovation existed in many parts of the world (China, India, the Middle East) but for a variety of reasons (not least of them the conquest of the New World and slavery, which modernization theory bypasses), science and entrepreneurship grew in Western Europe." (.Theories of Development: Modernization VS Dependency)Meanwhile, the above theory has emerged in three categories; "The first wave appeared in the 1950s and 1960s. One made the attempt to explain the diffusion of Western styles of living, technological innovations and individualist types of communication (highly selective, addressing only particular persons) as the superiority of secular, materialist, Western, individualist culture and of individual motivation and achievement.

" (Core Assumption and statements)However, what is the second and the third categories of this theory "The second wave of modernization theory is a part of the critical theory that was popular in the 1970s and 1980s? It does not support but criticizes the influence of Western modernization. This is held to be a case of Western cultural and economic imperialism or dominance (Schiller, 1976), the third wave of modernization theory rising in the 1990s is the theory of late-, high- or postmodernity.

It tries to be more neutral, being not in favor or against Western modernization". (Core Assumption and statements)Dependency TheoryThis theory was "developed in the late 1950s under the guidance of the Director of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, Raul Prebisch.