Question

subject is social framework

Answer any Three (3) questions. Provide references for all materials and any other sources used in your work. Marks will be awarded for orderly presentation of material, application of concepts and theories discussed in class, clarity of expression and appropriate Bibliography following APA Reference Format. (Wikipedia must not be referenced) and the answers must be typed in Times New Roman 12 font with 1.5 spacing and one paragraph spacing.

Answers to each question must start on new page and should not exceed two pages. Students are admonished to do independent work.

Be reminded that submitted answers will be run through a plagiarism checker. Students must save in MS Word format and return the answers electronically via Sakai using the Assignments tool

Questions

1. If a country experiences a rapid increase in per-capita income due to discovery of new oil reserves, then, it is experiencing growth but not necessarily development. Discuss.

2. Either critically examine;

a) W.W. Rostow’s Five (5) Stages of Economic Growth.

Or

b) Arthur Lewis’ Expanding Capitalist Nucleus perspective.

3. Democracy is critical because it supports social development by listening to poor people and promoting their voices in the development process. Evaluate this claim.

4. Write brief notes on any three (3) of the following

(a). Modernization Theory

(b). Dependency Theory

(c). Basic Needs Approach

(d). Popular Participation

5. With specific examples from one African State, examine the relevance of Bates’ Three (3) Agriculture markets to the peasant farmers.

Answer 1

Answer 1:

All growth are not development, to analysis the statement let us proced as follows:

In a number of business cycle theories the skewness of GDP growth is hardwired in the business cycle due to learning asymmetries and so is orthogonal to the standard deviation of the distribution of real shocks (e.g., Van Nieuwerburgh and Veldkamp, 2006). Theories of early development and industrialization (e.g., Acemoglu and Zilibotti, 1997) do not fully explain the prevalence of low-volatility low-skewness countries in the sample, and financial accelerator-type have no mechanism for generating a high-volatility positive-skewness growth profile. We argue that there are two main forces at play in the cross-section. First, a number of developing countries experience abrupt economic expansions, which can be short-lived (growth spurts) or sustained (“growth miracles”). While some are related to industrialization, most are the outcome of the discovery and exploitation of natural resources, and others are due to macroeconomic stabilisation following political conflict. Second, a number of low-volatility countries experience systemic financial crises followed by large contractions, consistent with the mechanism in Minsky (1986) and Brunnermeier and Sannikov (2013)Most are the outcome of the discovery and exploitation of natural resources, and others are due to macroeconomic stabilisation following political conflict. Second, a number of low-volatility countries experience systemic financial crises followed by large contractions. While such countries experience the highest volatility during the contractions ,the relative magnitude of the contraction is inversely related to the preceding long-term volatility. These two phenomena jointly explain the co-existence of high-volatility positive-skewness and of low-volatility negative-skewness countries in the cross-section.

While we invoke two separate mechanisms to explain the positive correlation between volatility and skewness in the cross-section.Thus, Japan illustrates how a country can in a fairly short time period go from an emerging industrializing economy characterized by high, volatile, positively-skewed growth process to a low-growth low-volatility industrialized country with a highly developed financial sector that can accumulate excessive debt and cause a systemic crisis. Recent unified growth models provide an endogenous mechanism for the transition from pre- to post-industrialization based on the accumulation of knowledge (Galor and Weil, 2000; Hansen and Prescott, 2002). However, we are not aware of growth models that also capture the “late” stage of development characterized by low volatility and occasional severe recessions led by financial crises. Our evidence calls for theoretical endeavors in this direction.

Reference:

Acemoglu, D., and A. Scott, 1994. Asymmetries in the cyclical behavior of UK labor markets. Economic Journal 104, 1302-1323.

Acemoglu, D., and A. Scott, 1997. Asymmetric business cycles: Theory and time-series evidence. Journal of Monetary Economics 40, 501-533.

Acemoglu, D., and F. Zilibotti, 1997. Was Prometheus unbound by chance? Risk, diversification, and growth. Journal of Political Economy 105, 709-751.

Answer 2 a: W.W. Rostow’s Five (5) Stages of Economic Growth

Rostow penned his classic "Stages of Economic Growth" in 1960, which presented five steps through which all countries must pass to become developed: 1) traditional society, 2) preconditions to take-off, 3) take-off, 4) drive to maturity and 5) age of high mass consumption. The model asserted that all countries exist somewhere on this linear spectrum, and climb upward through each stage in the development process:

• Traditional Society: This stage is characterized by a subsistent, agricultural-based economy with intensive labor and low levels of trading, and a population that does not have a scientific perspective on the world and technology.
• Preconditions to Take-off: Here, a society begins to develop manufacturing and a more national/international—as opposed to regional—outlook.
• Take-off: Rostow describes this stage as a short period of intensive growth, in which industrialization begins to occur, and workers and institutions become concentrated around a new industry.
• Drive to Maturity: This stage takes place over a long period of time, as standards of living rise, the use of technology increases, and the national economy grows and diversifies.
• Age of High Mass Consumption: At the time of writing, Rostow believed that Western countries, most notably the United States, occupied this last "developed" stage. Here, a country's economy flourishes in a capitalist system, characterized by mass production and consumerism.

Later theorists have challenged this approach, emphasizing a "bottom-up" development paradigm, in which countries become self-sufficient through local efforts, and urban industry is not necessary. Rostow also assumes that all countries have a desire to develop in the same way, with the end goal of high mass consumption, disregarding the diversity of priorities that each society holds and different measures of development.

For example, while Singapore is one of the most economically prosperous countries, it also has one of the highest income disparities in the world. Finally, Rostow disregards one of the most fundamental geographical principals: site and situation. Rostow assumes that all countries have an equal chance to develop, without regard to population size, natural resources, or location. Singapore, for instance, has one of the world's busiest trading ports, but this would not be possible without its advantageous geography as an island nation between Indonesia and Malaysia.

In spite of the many critiques of Rostow's model, it is still one of the most widely cited development theories and is a primary example of the intersection of geography, economics, and politics.

References:

Binns, Tony, et al. Geographies of Development: An Introduction to Development Studies, 3rd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2008.

Answer 4 (b): Dependency Theory

Dependency theory, an approach to understanding economic underdevelopment that emphasizes the putative constraints imposed by the global political and economic order. First proposed in the late 1950s by the Argentine economist and statesmanRaul Prebisch, dependency theory gained prominence in the 1960s and ’70s.

According to dependency theory, underdevelopment is mainly caused by the peripheral position of affected countries in the world economy. Typically, underdeveloped countries offer cheap labour and raw materials on the world market. These resources are sold to advanced economies, which have the means to transform them into finished goods. Underdeveloped countries end up purchasing the finished products at high prices, depleting the capital they might otherwise devote to upgrading their own productive capacity. The result is a vicious cycle that perpetuates the division of the world economy between a rich core and a poor periphery. While moderate dependency theorists, such as the Brazilian sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso (who served as the president of Brazil in 1995–2003), considered some level of development to be possible within this system, more-radical scholars, such as the German American economic historian Andre Gunder Frank, argued that the only way out of dependency was the creation of a noncapitalist (socialist) national economy.

Answer(c). Basic Needs Approach

Basic needs approaches to well-being are concerned with outcomes. They arose out of recognition that economic approaches to development that focused on incomes and growth were problematic. A narrow economic understanding sees increasing incomes and faster growth as proxies for improved well-being. However, basic needs proponents argue that this depends, firstly, on whether income is spent on satisfying basic needs where there are shortfalls or on luxuries that may ultimately have a detrimental impact on well-being and, secondly, on how income and the positive welfare benefits of increased income are distributed between and within different social groups.

A focus on basic needs looks instead at well-being outcomes, such as whether people are healthy, well nourished, and well educated, and how shortfalls in these well-being outcomes are distributed within society. Basic needs approaches focus on key indicators that are seen as objective assessments of well-being such as longevity, infant survival, body mass index, educational attainment, and so on.

The idea of basic human needs that must be satisfied for development to occur has been enormously influential in development thinking. This approach to enhancing well-being is focused on 'ends' as opposed to 'means'. A concern with ends translates into a policy concern with making up the shortfalls that the poor experience with respect to their basic needs. It is compatible with a targeted approach aimed at establishing safety nets for those who are most vulnerable with the aim of realising a universal minimum standard of well-being outcomes.

Whilst there is some measure of agreement on what basic needs are essential for survival (such as food, water, shelter, health care, and education), there is much less agreement about what basic needs must be fulfilled for well-being to be said to exist.

Answer (d). Popular Participation

Public participation can be any process that directly engages the public in decision-making and gives full consideration to public input in making that decision.Public participation can be defined as a process, not a single event. It consists of a series of activities and actions by a sponsor agency over the full lifespan of a project to both inform the public and obtain input from them. Public participation affords stakeholders (those that have an interest or stake in an issue, such as individuals, interest groups, communities) the opportunity to influence decisions that affect their lives.

When conducting meaningful public participation, an agency will gather input from a wide spectrum of stakeholder interests, resulting in a wide range of views and concerns and providing fair treatment, meaningful involvement and social inclusion for all people regardless of race, color, national origin, sexual orientation or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and decisions made through the public participation process. The job of the sponsor agency then is to balance among these views and concerns, and reflect the decisions back so that the public understands how its diverse concerns were considered.

Not all public participation is the same. Conducting meaningful public participation involves seeking public input at the specific points in the decision process and on the specific issues where such input has a real potential to help shape the decision or action. It is rarely appropriate or useful to simply ask the public “what do you want.” Such broad questions will only raise expectations and likely direct input to areas where no influence is actually possible. Sometimes the opportunity for influence is quite small, while at other times the public can have a great deal of influence. The amount of this potential influence is the main consideration in designing a successful public participation program.