Growth, But With Conditions: Revisiting Dependency Theory

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Academic Writing / Research

I've come to understand power in today's world in economic terms, especially when viewing the disparities between the Global North and Global South. An academic interest of mine is the creation of the debt regime, and consequently, the domination it has upheld. Moreover, I have an interest in how settler colonies propagate their powers in the economic dimension. Dependency theory is an interesting lens to utilize for such an analysis. Hence, that was the topic of my policy research paper.

In the fall of 2023, concurrent to my internship, I enrolled in a Global Economic Policy course at UBC's School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. A policy research paper was a gigantic (50%) portion of my overall grade for this course.

The goal of this paper was that it would serve as an opportunity for a deep dive into one of the many themes covered in the course. My interest lied in theories of development, namely the more critical ones. Critical theories of development attempt to explain why 'catching up with the west' is not as simple as following the prescriptions of modernization theory. While the overt colonial era is over, its political and economic legacies are very much alive. That is, global power dynamics seen today are a continuation of such an era. Dependency theory examines how relationships between the core (global North) and periphery (global south) today, from resource flows to labor flows, explain why even though many countries in the periphery are rich (resource-wise), their people are still poor.

But, more importantly, for the premise of my paper, dependency theory explains how it is of the interest of the powerful to keep the periphery in a state of dependency. That is,  the wobbly institutional, political, and economic foundations induced by colonialism serve the global North.

My paper aims to explore the contemporary relevance of dependency theory. I explore that through the design of the debt regime and settler colonies. It was quite unorthodox of me to argue my thesis through the Greek debt crisis and Israel/Palestine. Those two areas are not typically looked at through a dependency lens, but I showcased why it is important.

A lot of research went it to the paper. It was extremely time consuming yet fruitful. Moreover, the writing process was quite difficult. There was a lot of ground to cover under a word limit.

I'm very proud of the final product! I got great feedback on it. My professor thought it was intellectually creative. I'll take the compliment.....

If interested, check out the paper here. PPGA FINAL PAPER

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Learning Significance

  1. Given that this was a Master's course, I was quite nervous about the academic standard that my paper had to uphold! Yet, with adequate communication with my professor and a lot of effort, the results were great.

    I'm greatly considering pursuing a Masters in Public Policy sometime down the line. This paper, and by extension the entire course, opened my eyes to the many research trajectories I can take on in such a program. Moreover, it opened my eyes to the work ethic and determination needed to make the most of such a program.