ABSTRACT
Critical development studies largely emerged from Latin America in the late 1940s with the foundation of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) under the leadership of Raúl Prebisch and its ‘manifesto’, giving rise to the ‘structuralist’ theory of development. It exposed the failings of orthodox international trade theory and revealed the unequal relationship between the centre and periphery countries, emphasising their structural differences. These arguments were taken further by dependency theory, especially by its Marxist variant, dismissing modernisation theory and arguing that only a non-capitalist system can achieve an equitable and self-sustaining development process. With the rise and dominance of neoliberalism structuralism morphed into neostructuralism, which is discussed with some detail, and dependency theory tended to evolve into world system theory, but some renewal of dependency theory can also be observed. While these theories have their shortcomings, they led the shift away from Northern-centric development theories, opening to the way to a new and critical understanding of the South and its relationship to the North.
