Development Studies: Socio-economic Development from an Interdisciplinary Perspective

Saleha Erdmann

home

my major

basics of development

life experience

papers

annotated bibliography

development web

web links

senior project

helpful people

The Basics of Development...

What is development?--"Development" is a fuzzy term with no set definition. Different groups have different understandings of it, and then there are all the qualifiers (ie sustainable development, economic development, human development). In this section I try to explain what I consider the most important understandings and explanations of development.

Development Vocabulary--Third World, developed countries, developing countries, LCD's, underdevelopment, maldelvelopment...Ever wondered where these words come from? What they actually mean?

Modernization theory-- (My notes from Alvin So.) Modernization theory was the predominant theory that development scholars, economists and politicians worked under (they were usually male Europeans/Americans) when development became a big deal following World War II.

Dependency theory--(My notes from Alvin So.) Dependency theory was a response to modernization theory and came out of Latin America in the 1970's. It drew heavily from Marxism and was influential in the Third World, especially Latin America.

History of Post World War II Development-- This is a paper I wrote, a very angry paper I might add, on the historical roots of the field of development studies.

Some good sources (The annotated bibliography.)

Web links--Some websites for groups that deal with development, like the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank.