Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Neocolonialism, Decolonization, World Bank
28 Apr 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
November 13th, 2017
Development or Dependency?
Introduction
- Post-WWII: late 1940s onwards, issues of poverty reduction have become increasingly
prominent global issues
o 50s-70s: increased importance, world failing to bring social and economic
progress
▪ global south being decolonized
▪ dichotomy with the west
- Colonialism to neocolonialism?
o Political domination (European states) given way to other forms of influential
domination (economic)
- Poverty and development deeply controversial issues?
o In terms of policies we pursue in order to reduce poverty or development
o Just economics? Or is it far more broad and influential
Intro to poverty
- Normal state of affairs for most of world history
o Only recent era have we managed to poverty
▪ Minimal part of the world
▪ Poverty is not the exception, it has been the rule
• The exception is the wealth that the west has enjoyed
• Only in the late 18thC., did western societies begin to increase
productivity (economic development) which produced wealth
- What is poverty?
- Standard: deprived of the necessities of life: lacking sufficient food, shelter and clothing
o Absolute poverty
▪ An absolute standard: if you cannot meet this standard, life would not be
able to be sustained
▪ Hardly exists in industrialized states (i.e. Canada, U.S., UK, Australia)
▪ Founded on the idea of basic needs (Maslow basic needs)
▪ Missing: a social dimension
▪ Easy to find objectively
o Relative poverty
▪ People may feel poor not because they are lacking material hardship
• Lack what others have in their society
▪ Poverty is social
• Based on people’s relative position in the social order/hierarchy
▪ Poor are less well off, not needy
▪ Ex. E.U. anyone who earns 50% or less of that then the median household
would be defined as being poor
▪ People are poor if their available income is substantially lower than the
average person
▪ Hard to get a sense in a comparative sense of who is poor
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Document Summary
Post-wwii: late 1940s onwards, issues of poverty reduction have become increasingly prominent global issues: 50s-70s: increased importance, world failing to bring social and economic progress, global south being decolonized, dichotomy with the west. Colonialism to neocolonialism: political domination (european states) given way to other forms of influential domination (economic) Or is it far more broad and influential. Relative poverty and the link to equality: in essence, every society will always have poverty, hard to determine how much they"re progressing. World bank poverty threshold line:
