Economic Development in the East Asian (Semi)Periphery: Reintroducing Dependency as a Conceptual Tool of Analysis

Abstract

The neo-Marxist analysis that gave rise to World Systems theory also provided the ideological and philosophical foundation for Dependency theory. Indeed many prominent Dependency theorists themselves would become leading advocates and proponents of World Systems analyses during the 1970s and 1980s (e.g. Frank, Amin, etc.). Like World System theory, Dependency theories would also come under the same barrage of critique both from traditional Marxists as well as from ideological opponents on the opposite side of the political and philosophical spectrum. Furthermore, the economic dynamism of a whole host of East Asian ‘semi-periphery’ economies from Taiwan and South Korea to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and China would lead many to conclude that the structural constraints on growth identified by Dependency theorists had been transitory. Their dynamism did not conform to the pessimistic scenarios projected in the Dependency and World System literature and the inexorable shift from raw material production to manufactured goods ran contrary to the assumptions of much of the literature.