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Reconstructing Modernisation Inclusive and Sustainable

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The Political Economy of Neo-modernisation

Abstract

The central aim of this chapter is to explore the three most recent influential development paradigm shifts to reconstruct a country’s modernisation process, shifts that are aggressive globalisation forces, normative sustainable development ideas, and radical technological changes. The reconstruction effort is made with a particular focus on the Technology-Development-Inequality nexus. A critical review of various modernisation theories is therefore conducted with particular regard to the context of developing economies. Through theoretical integration, the chapter concludes that the developmental path would largely be underpinned by a society’s own distinctive endogenous process that is grounded in the complexities of the concept of sustainability and technological innovation, especially new inequality dynamics in which economic, social, and environmental dimensions are all interacting with one another.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Stolper-Samuelson theorem is a basic economic explanation for the relationship between trade liberalisation and income inequality. According to this, the expansion of trade opening in developing countries with an abundance of low-skilled labour leads to an increase in the wages of low-skilled workers, while lowering the wages of skilled labour in developing countries, which is likely to lead to a reduction in income inequality.

  2. 2.

    According to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (2017), Western-Advanced Nations (about 40 per cent of the global GDP): the US with 24.3 per cent; Germany with 4.5 per cent; the UK with 3.9 per cent; France with 3.2 per cent, Italy with 2.4 per cent; Spain with 1.6 per cent; the Netherlands with 1.0 per cent; and others with less than 1.0 per cent; and Non-Western-Advanced Nations (about 60 per cent of the global GDP): China with 14.8 per cent; India with 2.8 per cent; Brazil with 2.4 per cent; South Korea with 1.9 per cent; Mexico with 1.5 per cent; and others.

  3. 3.

    The Club of Rome is an organisation of individuals who share a common concern for the future of humanity and strive to make a difference.

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  1. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Beirut, Lebanon

    Seung Jin Baek

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Baek, S.J. (2018). Reconstructing Modernisation Inclusive and Sustainable. In: The Political Economy of Neo-modernisation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91394-0_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91394-0_2

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