ABSTRACT
The notion of development signifies a move from an unsatisfactory social, economic, and political condition to one that is more humane, relatively prosperous, environmentally safer, and politically more inclusive. The intellectual roots of the more modern theories of economic growth relevant to the developing nations can be found in Keynesian economics, which became influential in the postwar period, especially in the newly independent countries taking either the capitalist or the socialist path to development. The "modernization" paradigm saw development in evolutionary and functional terms, the state as a secular entity, and citizenship in broader all-inclusive sense. Modernization theory combines the economics of development with the sociological and the political. Dependency theory located the causes of development and underdevelopment. The rationale is that Eurocentric conventional development theories were by and large inappropriate in non-Western societies and needed to be redesigned or reconfigured to meet indigenous needs.
