According to this week's reading material, William Little defines the modernization theory, by stating the "Modernization theory proposes that there are natural stages of economic development that all societies go through from undeveloped to advanced. Implied in this theory is a normative model that takes the wealthy economies of the Northern and Western world as being "advanced" and then compares other economies to them" (Litte & McGivern, 2014).
The aims of the modernization theory were to explain why countries have been unsuccessful in developing; furthermore, it focuses on the cultural and economic circumstances that potentially act as an obstacle in the way of development. Modernization theory also aimed to supply "a non-communist resolution to poverty in the developing world by suggesting that economic change (in the form of Capitalism) and the introduction of western values and culture could play a key role in bringing about modernization" (Thompson, …show more content…
Particularly when taking into account that both theories entail more developed nations providing assistance to underdeveloped nations. However, a key difference between the modernization theory and the dependency theory is that the dependency theory doesn't have the five main categories that Walt Rostow points out in his book the Non-Communist Manifesto relating to the modernization theory, these points include the traditional society, the preconditions for takeoff, the takeoff, maturity, and the age of high mass consumption. The development theory focuses on the disproportionate allocation of power by means of colonialism. Essentially, "newly-industrialized colonial nations expanded into areas unclaimed by other colonial powers (Miles, n.d.)." Following World War II, colonialism collapsed and gradually changed into what is now referred to as neo-colonialism. Like the previous theory explored, this theory too has its own set of issues. Here are some of the criticisms of the dependency theory:
• Several countries seem to have benefited from Colonialism like in India where the benefits of good transport and communication networks are available due to colonization, however, when compared to countries like Ethiopia that was never colonized continues to remain