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SupplementaryOpinion On The Theories of Development --bookreview of World Politics In a New Era The book was written by Dr. Fred L.Wehling and Steven L. Spiegel in 2003. Dr. Fred L. "Wehling is SeniorResearch Associate and Education Coordinator for the Center forNonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the Monetary Institute of InternationalStudies, Monetary, California. Before coming to CNS in 1998, Wehling was aconsultant at RAND, Coordinator of Policy Research for the University ofCalifornia's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), and aresearcher at the Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC) at Sandia NationalLaboratories. He is also the author of various articles and reports for TheNonproliferation Review and other publications."[1] "StevenL. Spiegel, Professor of Political Science at UCLA, studies American foreignpolicy in the Middle East. He serves as Director of the Center for Middle EastDevelopment at UCLA, and also provides assistance to Middle East programs atthe statewide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation of the University ofCalifornia, San Diego. Through the innovative and informal negotiationtechniques he has developed in these capacities, Dr. Spiegel helps producecutting edge ideas for promoting Middle East regional security and cooperation.For this work, he received the Karpf Peace Prize in 1995, awarded to the UCLAprofessor considered to have done the most of any faculty member for the causeof world peace in the previous two years."[2] World Politics in a New Era, provides thebasic knowledge and skills needed to appreciate the full range of internationalpolitics in contemporary affairs. Integrating a theme of Globalization andFragmentation throughout, the book enables us to see beyond the notion of"globalization" as a buzzword and to become aware of the trade-offsand tensions that result from a "global community." Furthering thistheme, the authors introduce the concept of Conflict and Cooperation so that wecan see how world leaders balance their relationships with other countries. WorldPolitics in a New Era introduces various theories, which appear throughout thenarrative. In addition, "At a Glance" features are integratedthroughout the text; these summaries help us to see how the theories work andalso how they intersect with individual, domestic, and systemic levels ofanalysis. After reading this, I am thinking about the actions we have taken andsuffered beyond the theories. For example, the neo-interventionism under thepretest of development, the love and hatred of less developed countries towardinternational trade and MNCs, the new developmental model, namely the Chinesemodel which is to combine the two in a delicate way, undergoing the socialchanges that described by the modernization theory while keeping its own stepof political changes. Modernization theorists contend that lessdeveloped countries will develop only by shedding their traditional,social,political, and economic institutions. "Socially, this require the abilityto achieve status through merits and success and tolerance of social andintellectual diversity. Politically, this translates into the immergence ofdemocracy, the rule of law, political opposition, human rights and basicfreedoms. Economically, development means the creation of a free market-basedeconomy, though some level of state intervention for social reasons is possibleand desirable."[3]Modernization theory as it requires has brought great changes to thetraditional society, coming up with industrialization and urbanization. Howeverthe theory has been criticized on a number of fronts. Firstly, due to differentnational conditions, those less developed countries can not just duplicate theNorth's part of development. Secondly, the traditional social and politicalinstitutions can not be changed synchronously or it will cause great chaos andput the country in a more miserable situation. Thirdly, this theory is a newexcuse for the west to colonize the newly independent countries in the form ofpolitical change, democracy and human rights. Finally, many less developedcountries feel that the existed international economic order is favorable tothe west who have already dominated the market. When we seeing this, we clearly wouldremind of the first advocator of the theory, the Unite States. Whilepropagandizing the idea of American core value, America determines to save theworld from poverty and chaos though the theory of modernization. There has beena great deal of assumptions over the intervention of the U.S. in terms ofbringing about changes to the economics and political situations of otherstates, particularly the developing and underdeveloped nations. Thoseassumptions are that, the political models or frameworks of the U.S. will workelse where; "what is good for the U.S is good for the rest; theegocentric, individualism of western ideas were thought by many to bring aboutgood changes, wealth accumulation and happiness. The natural resources are seenas unlimited and this is what lead to the perception and drive for too muchgrowth and resource exploitation."[4] So, thiseconomic growth is seen as the link to democratization, freedom, peace,stability and harmony. The international order, the system of production,science and technologies, and the ideas of capitalism were thought to be betterand that the democratic systems are virtuous, non-democratic systems arerepressive. This is maybe why, the whole modernizationtheory is seen by America as something good that can bring about new changes tothe rest of the world, particularly the hot issues of Afghanistan and Iraq andthe fight against terrorism. The question that many modern theorists often posewould be, if the modernization theory is persistent and flawless, would it workin all cases, why does such theory keep reappearing if it does not work? Dependency theory rejects themodernization theory premise that the western way of development is perfect tothe less developed countries. Instead, the theory believe that it is thewestern idea of development and democracy that caused the social troubles inthe less developed countries, keeping them in a dependent condition. As foreconomy, "the roots of this unequal relationship between the periphery(the third world) and the core (the first world) can be traced to thecolonization period. This kind of structure fuels the development in the Northand stiffs it in the South."[5] Forexample, the unfavored position of the South stems from the fact that the mostSouthern states' economies depend heavily on the export of the primaryproducts. To be worse, most countries' exports are dominated by a singlecommodity. Besides, the international division of labour --primary products inthe South and manufactured products in the North --perpetuates the ThirdWorld's backward position. In terms of MNCs, the modernization theoristscontend that the MNCs promote development in the South, providing capital, technology,training and managerial know-how to Southern states. However, dependencytheorists believe that the MNCs exploit the South, hinder its development andcontribute to the widening gap between rich and poor. This theory has always been used by Chinato expose the evil of capitalism and the exploitation that the newlyindependent countries suffer. Like Marxism, Dependency Theory was an activistproject that didn't just analyze. But in becoming political actors andadvisors, there was an irony, that the best way for a country to be more likethe metropolis was to actually join the ranks of exploiting countries, at leaston a regional level. During the 60's and 70's we pointed to the systemicinequities in the so-called north-south trade, to the continuing of thebloodsucking economic relations of colonialism in the newly independentcountries, and to the role of the comprador class in economics and politics.This was a large part of the content of our anti-imperialist work, that the U.S. wasn't aiding countries to develop, but deforming their economies to suitthe imperialist dominated world market and assigning them to a persistentlydisadvantaged position. On dependency theory, I think the crucial issue is thatit gives a wrong picture of imperialism in what is to a large extent apost-colonial world. They overlooked the economic changes that occur undercolonialism and held instead that colonialism was simply ripping off a countryby political means and that independence means the sole sway of the free-market. There are some important new developmentsin the world contributing to the new shape of third world development. First,there is a huge glut of capital seeking investment opportunities that hasfocused in overseas markets increasingly since the 70's. There has been anexplosion in the technology of investing, new instruments offering vastlyreduced barriers for investors. Together they have facilitated the rapidmovement of huge amounts of capital and changed the principal form of capitaltransfer from north to south. This switch from governmental to privateinvesting has helped to increase the wealth and power of the local bourgeoisiein a group of newly-developing countries, creating more billionaires andmillionaires. "Even the least developed countries are asking differentquestions as they negotiate with many regional and international players for apiece of the capital flow."[6] Thedoesn't mean that the masses of these countries became prosperous. The splitbetween rich and poor has grown deeper, both between rich and poor countriesand among the classes inside Third World countries. The third model of development, China'sway of development, is not something quite innovative. But it arises people'sinterest and causes alertness of the western countries due to its perfectcombination of the two theories and attractiveness to the less developmentcountries. "U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote an article onthe U.S. national interest in the latest issue of "Foreign Affairs"magazine , which relates to China's development model."[7] Sheborrowed the concept of "the authority of capitalism" (authoritariancapitalism) from Western academic circles, summing up the concept of China'sdevelopment model. She said that countries like China uses the capitalist wayof promoting economic development in the absence of democratization which shebelieves will have a negative impact on existing international order. Becausethis model has the same democratic values of western countries. As a result,the United States and other holders of common values of democracy (Europe,Japan and Australia, etc.) share a common responsibility in a global scale andpromote the implementation of the occurrence and development of democraticpolitics. This point of view of politicians in the West are not uncommon. Itconcerns whether Western countries intentional or not impose a common politicalpressure on China. China has implemented the policy of reformand opening-up over 30 years, not only creating national sustained economic andsocial development, but also integrating into the world system and playing anincreasingly important role. In short, China's development model is gradual andin order. To achieve social and economic development, we must first have astable order without which there will be no room for economic development. Inaddition, the economic and social development will inevitably put pressure onthe existing order, which in turn lead to further reform of the existing order,protecting the fruits of the earlier development, and further promotingeconomic and social development. There is no doubt that in China political andsocio-economic order enjoy a benign interaction during in development. On the diplomatic front, China'sexperience is also in the favor of the vast number of developing countries. BeforeChina, developing countries either highly depend on the West or isolate fromthe them. But China enters into the world system and keeps independence fromthe west. It is also observed that China not only participates in internationalmultilateral organizations, but also becomes an international or regionalmultilateral organizations initiator. For example, the "ShanghaiCooperation Organization" and "(the North Korean nuclear issue) thesix-party talks". It is in this sense, Western politicians feel that theChinese model poses threat to the Western model of development. China stressessocio-economic development without denial of political democratization, seekinga suitable path of democratization of China. Many developing countries are alsoaware of that the Chinese-style will not hinder the development of democracy,but foster the democracy a strong socio-economic support. From history and with the observation ofthe current social, economic and political dilemmas, it seems that the theoriesof development of the West are not applicable to the East and vice versa. Theproblem of the world cannot be resolved by any one particular person or acollective group of powerful people, or a theory. The way people currently viewthe world must be changed. Yet it's a real challenge for any country or nationstate to try to change that perception and mentality about how people perceivethe world. So, the whole idea of this development theory can only do so much tominimize the impact of the wrong views we hold and how we act. But it cannotcompletely eradicate and eliminate the problems. References: 1) Dr. Fred L. Wehling, Steven L.Spiegel, World Politics in a New Era,(Orlando: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 2003) 2) Pan Weijie, Zhang Chengbin,"the Refelction of Modernization Theory", the Study of Europe, 1998/06 3) Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural,Economic, and Political Changes in 43 Societies", (Princeton, NewJersey: Princeton University Press, 1997) 4) Sun Yujian, Rao Guobin,"neoimperialism and modern international relations", Nan Jing College of Politics LearnedJournal, 2007/06 5) Tao Haiyang, "theDevelopment and Main Points of Dependency Theory", the Study of Socialism, 2007/05 6) Teng Haijian, "the BriefIntroduction of Dependency Theory", ChiFeng College Journal, 2005/01
[3] Dr. Fred L. Wehling, Steven L. Spiegel, World Politics in a New Era, (Orlando: Harcourt Brace CollegePubilishers, 2003), pp 334-335
[4] Pan Weijie, ZhangChengbin, "the Refelction of Modernization Theory", the Study of Europe, 1998/06, page 67
[5] Dr. Fred L. Wehling, Steven L. Spiegel, World Politics in a New Era, (Orlando: Harcourt Brace CollegePubilishers, 2003), p341
[6] Ronald Inglehart,Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural,Economic, and Political Changes in 43 Societies", (Princeton, NewJersey: Princeton University Press, 1997), page 111
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