What you'll learn

• How aid and trade can support development, but also create dependency and inequality.
• Why industrialisation and urbanisation are often seen as routes to development.
• How environmental damage and war/conflict can block or reshape development.
• How to evaluate these issues using modernisation, dependency, world-systems, neoliberal and people-centred perspectives.

The starting point: what counts as development?

In sociology, development means more than a country becoming richer. It includes improvements in people’s life chances: health, education, housing, political rights, gender equality, safety, environmental security and freedom from poverty.

You may see economic measures such as Gross National Income, but sociologists often prefer broader measures such as the Human Development Index, which combines income, life expectancy and education.

The factors in this topic interact. Aid can fund schools, but conflict may destroy them. Trade can create jobs, but industrialisation may increase pollution. Urbanisation can improve access to services, but it can also create slums and informal work.

The theory toolkit

Modernisation theory

Modernisation theory argues that poorer societies can develop by following the path already taken by richer Western societies: industrialisation, urbanisation, education, capitalism and democratic institutions.

Rostow (1960) described development as moving through stages, from “traditional society” to “take-off” and finally “high mass consumption”. From this view:

• Aid can provide capital, technology and expertise.
• Trade can connect countries to global markets.
• Industrialisation creates jobs and raises productivity.
• Urbanisation spreads education, secular values and achievement motivation.

AO3 evaluation: this can be criticised as ethnocentric, meaning it treats Western development as the normal or superior route. It also downplays colonialism, slavery and unequal global power.

Dependency and world-systems theory

Dependency theory argues that poorer countries are not simply “behind”; they have been actively underdeveloped through colonialism, unequal trade and exploitation. Frank (1967) argued that rich “metropole” countries extract wealth from poorer “satellite” countries.

World-systems theory, associated with Wallerstein (1974), divides the global economy into:

• Core countries: rich, powerful, high-profit economies.
• Semi-periphery countries: intermediate economies, such as some newly industrialising countries.
• Periphery countries: poorer economies often dependent on exporting raw materials or cheap labour.

From this perspective, aid and trade may look helpful, but can reproduce dependency if profits, decision-making and technology remain controlled by the core.

Neoliberal and people-centred views

Neoliberalism is the belief that development is best achieved through free markets, privatisation, deregulation and open trade. Organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have historically promoted these policies through loan conditions.

A people-centred approach focuses on human needs, rights and local participation. Sen (1999) argued that development should be understood as expanding people’s freedoms, not just increasing national income.

Aid: help, power and dependency

Aid means resources transferred from one country or organisation to another, usually to support development or respond to crisis. Bilateral aid is given from one government to another. Multilateral aid is given through international organisations such as the United Nations or World Bank. Non-governmental organisations are charities or civil society organisations, such as Oxfam or Save the Children.

Aid can promote development by funding healthcare, education, clean water, vaccination programmes and infrastructure. Sachs (2005) argues that aid can help countries escape a poverty trap, where poverty itself prevents investment in development.

However, critics argue that aid can also increase dependency. Moyo (2009), in Dead Aid, argues that long-term aid may weaken accountability, encourage corruption and discourage local enterprise. Aid may also be tied aid, meaning the recipient must spend the money on goods or services from the donor country. This can benefit the donor more than the recipient.

AO2 UK application: the UK has a long-running political debate over overseas aid. The UK previously had a legal commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on official development assistance, but this was reduced to 0.5% from 2021. The merger of the Department for International Development into the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office also raised questions about whether aid is guided by poverty reduction or UK foreign-policy interests.

Trade: growth or unequal exchange?

Trade means buying and selling goods and services between countries. Free trade means trade with few tariffs, quotas or restrictions. Fair trade aims to give producers better prices and working conditions.

Trade can promote development by bringing export income, foreign investment, technology and jobs. The “Asian Tigers” — South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong — are often used as examples of export-led development.

But dependency theorists argue that trade is often unequal. Many poorer countries export primary commodities, such as coffee, copper or cotton, while importing expensive manufactured goods. This can create poor terms of trade, where a country must export more and more raw materials to afford manufactured imports.

AO2 UK application: UK consumers are connected to global trade through supermarkets, electronics and fast fashion. Cheap clothing in UK shops may rely on low-paid labour in countries such as Bangladesh. The Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013 exposed unsafe working conditions in global garment supply chains.

Industrialisation and urbanisation

Industrialisation is the shift from agriculture-based production to manufacturing and large-scale industry. Urbanisation is the growth of towns and cities, often as people migrate from rural areas to find work.

Modernisation theorists see industrialisation as central to development because it creates jobs, tax revenue, infrastructure and technological change. Urbanisation can concentrate schools, hospitals, transport, media and political organisation.

However, rapid industrialisation can also produce exploitation, pollution and insecure work. Rapid urbanisation can create informal settlements, overcrowding and poor sanitation. Davis (2006), in Planet of Slums, argues that many cities in the Global South have grown without enough formal jobs or infrastructure.

These processes affect the core themes of sociology. For socialisation, culture and identity, moving to cities can change family life, gender roles, religion and consumer identities. For social differentiation, power and stratification, the key question is who gains from industrial growth: workers, women, migrants and ethnic minorities, or national elites and transnational corporations?

The environment: sustainable development and climate inequality

The environment matters because development depends on land, water, energy, climate stability and biodiversity. Industrialisation can raise living standards, but it can also create pollution, deforestation and high carbon emissions.

Environmental problems are also issues of power. Richer countries in the Global North have historically produced more emissions, while many poorer countries face stronger effects of climate change, such as flooding, drought and food insecurity.

A modernisation or ecological modernisation view suggests that technology, renewable energy and green growth can solve environmental problems. A dependency or climate justice view argues that this ignores the unequal responsibility of rich countries and the way pollution is often exported to poorer regions.

AO2 UK application: the UK hosted COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 and has a legal target to reach net zero emissions by 2050. However, UK consumption still relies heavily on imported goods, meaning some environmental damage occurs overseas but is linked to British lifestyles and companies.

War and conflict

War and conflict include organised violence between states, civil war within states, terrorism, armed repression and long-term insecurity. Conflict is both a cause and consequence of underdevelopment.

War can block development by destroying schools, hospitals, roads and housing. It displaces people, disrupts food supplies, reduces trade, increases trauma and diverts state spending towards the military. Children may miss education, and women and girls often face increased risks of sexual violence and unpaid care burdens.

Conflict can also be linked to global inequality. Collier (2007) argues that civil wars are more likely where states are poor and dependent on valuable resources. Dependency theorists would add that colonial borders, arms sales and competition for oil, minerals or land can intensify conflict.

AO2 UK application: conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Sudan and Yemen have affected UK debates about refugees, asylum, aid, arms exports and foreign policy. For example, war in Ukraine influenced global food and energy prices, showing how conflict in one region can affect households far away.

Pulling the factors together