Contributions of Andre Gunder Frank to the Theory of Development and Underdevelopment: Implications on Nigeria’s Development Situation.

Abstract

This paper is a discourse on Andre Gunder Frank’s contribution to the theory and study of development and underdevelopment with emphasis on its implication on Nigeria’s development. The study exposes the inequality in the pace of socio-economic wellbeing of the people of various societies of the world which led social scientists to call those societies whose socio-economic development is considerably low “backward nations”. They later abandoned this expression as it was considered derogatory, and adopted instead, the expressions “underdeveloped societies,” “less-developed societies” or “developing nations”. To explain the reason for the underdevelopment of these nations W.W. Rostow in 1960 developed his Modernization Theory. This theory conceived underdevelopment as an “original state”, as something characteristic of a “traditional society”, as something that has internal origin. In response to this theory, Andre Gunder Frank in 1966 propounded his “dependency theory which saw the world’s nations as divided into a core of wealthy nations which dominate the poor nations whose main function in the system is to provide cheap labour and raw materials to the core. It held also that the benefits of this system of relationship accrue almost entirely to the rich nations, which become progressively richer and more developed, while the poor nations, which continually have their surpluses drained away to the core, do not advance, rather, they are impoverished; he also asserted that for the underdeveloped nations to develop, they must break (radically) their ties with the developed nations and pursue internal growth. In addressing this thesis, the puzzle is can Nigeria break her ties with the core wealthy nations of the West which have advanced their economies at the detriment of Nigeria and pursue meticulously, internally generated growth? Even though A.G. Frank’s argument that the cause of Africa’s underdevelopment in general and Nigeria in particular is her dependency on the wealthy Western Countries, has been accepted, it should also be noted that these Western Countries are operating in connivance with some unscrupulous elements in the country and that if they are not found and flushed out of the system, the internal growth policy will not survive. These are the issues this paper has addressed and concludes by positing that the Andre Gunder Frank’s Dependency is not the ultimate cause of underdevelopment in Nigeria but leadership problem. Therefore, breaking the ties without a radical change in political leadership style will not salvage Nigeria’s underdevelopment situation.

Keywords: Development, Underdevelopment, Dependency Theory, Modernization Theory, Leadership Problems