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Abstract

It is argued that analyses undertaken from within the Sociology of Development are necessarily limited, due to the concepts operative in its discourse. Examining the theoretical foundations of the Sociology of Development in Parsonian structural-functionalism, it is concluded that the theory cannot explain why any aspect of the social structure exists as a result of that structure's reproduction, and that, consequently, conclusions derived from the analysis of one social structure are not theoretically generalisable to other structures. Similarly, the theory has no means of predicting the emergence of qualitatively new phenomena, or for explaining the origins and course of change that leads to this emergence. The initial causes of change also remain untheorised. Furthermore, the theory is founded on assumptions that deny the specificity of its object of study; the restricted and uneven economic development that characterises the social formations of the Third World, and which is produced by the effects of different stages of capitalist penetration of non-capitalist modes of production, is in no way analogous to nineteenth century capitalist industrialisation.

The Sociology of Underdevelopment, despite its critique of these assumptions, can ultimately do no more than indicate the major effects of capitalist penetration of non-capitalist social formations. It cannot adequately establish the causes of this penetration, nor analyse the structure and reproduction of the social formations that are subjected to it. These inadequacies result from the limitations of its central concept of "economic surplus and its utilisation."

Having criticised the discourses of development and underdevelopment, the analysis then proceeds with the argument that the social formations of the Third World can be more adequately theorised from within historical materialism as transitional formations, ultimately determined by an articulation of modes of production and/or divisions of labour which produce economic, political and ideological structures that are specific to these formations. This articulation is analysed as the result of transformations in non-capitalist modes of production produced by different stages of capitalist penetration. The main objective of the text is to outline the theoretical pre-requisites for analysing the determinants of the articulation and its effects within the social formation, posing such problems as how one analyses the non-capitalist modes that pre-existed capitalist penetration, the effects on them of the various stages of this penetration, how a capitalist mode of production emerged, and so on. In the course of this analysis, two non-capitalist modes of production are conceptualised as examples.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > Department of Sociology & Criminology School of Policy & Global Affairs > School of Policy & Global Affairs Doctoral Theses Doctoral Theses

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