Disarticulation and Human Welfare in Less Developed Countries

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on SunDisarticulation refers to the juxtaposition of economic sectors with different levels of development and productivity. Disarticulation is hypothesized to have a negative effect on social well-being, net of economic development, because it inhibits the spread effects generally thought to be associated with economic growth. Findings are in accord with this hypothesis, although the relationship is complex. The strongest effects of disarticulation are found among the poorest nations. The concept of disarticulation opens a new and promising avenue of research that may help to resolve contradictory findings of recent research on the political economy of growth. Economic growth in less developed nationsis a means to an end, the end being the improvement of mass welfare. There is a consistent and demonstrable link between economic growth and human welfare, but there is also considerable "slippage" between economic development level and even very basic measures of mass welfare such as infant mortality, longevity, literacy, educational levels, and nutrition. We argue that "disarticulation," a distorted form of economic growth typical of many less developed nations, can account for much of this slippage. BACKGROUNDThe relative lack of correspondence between development level and welfare, particularly among less developed nations, is quite striking. Shin (1975), for example, has shown that only about 20 percent of the variation in infant mortality, perhaps the most sensitive measure of general welfare, can be accounted for by development level. Burma, with a per capita gross national product of less than $200, and Sri Lanka, with less than $400 per capita gross national product, are among the poorest of the world's nations and yet have longevity and infant mortality measures comparable to those of Brazil and Mexico, with six to ten times the per capita gross national product (World Bank 1988). Such misfits between development level * We would like to express our appreciation to the Social and Demographic Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts, for resources and support provided during the course of this research.

Ecological Unequal Exchange: International Trade and Uneven Utilization of Environmental Space in the World System

“…The designation of non-high income countries as "less developed" is a practice common in the research literature (see Dixon 1984;Stokes and Anderson 1990). Further, the recognition that high income countries are characterized by greater levels of development and more diversified economies and, therefore, are likely excluded from the dependency effects postulated by dependency/world-systems analysis, in essence violating the theoretical scope conditions, has an established precedence in the research literature (see Dixon 1984).…”

“…There is a clear and consistent link between economic growth and social development (Stokes and Anderson 1990). Nonetheless, the correspondence between economic growth and genuine improvement in social wellbeing has been elusive for many LDCs (Huang 1995;London and Williams 1988;Stokes and Anderson 1990).…”

“…Nonetheless, the correspondence between economic growth and genuine improvement in social wellbeing has been elusive for many LDCs (Huang 1995;London and Williams 1988;Stokes and Anderson 1990). In the dependency/world-systems literature, the transition from an empirical focus upon economic growth to a focus upon social development directly was prompted by the increasing recognition of the slippage whereby the former does not necessarily lead to the latter (Ragin and Bradshaw 1992).…”

“…A number of studies show sectoral disarticulation directly impedes social development (Breedlove and Armer 1996;Gallagher et al 1996;Huang 1995;Stokes and Anderson 1990;Wickrama and Mulford 1996) and is negatively associated with economic growth (Delacroix and Ragin 1981). Further, disarticulation is theorized to mediate or intervene between dependency factors and social development such that dependency promotes disarticulation which then impedes social development (Breedlove and Armer 1996) or, alternatively, acts as a contextual or conditioning variable exacerbating the negative effects of dependency, rather than an intervening influence (Breedlove and Armer 1997).…”

Peripheral accumulation in the world economy: A cross-national analysis of the informal economy

“…The inflow of foreign capital into the periphery and semi-periphery creates a condition of sectoral disarticulation, where export-oriented sectors dominated by foreign capital experience rapid growth while becoming 'disarticulated' from the local economy (Amin, 1974;Beer and Boswell, 2002;Bornschier and Chase-Dunn, 1985;Dixon and Boswell, 1996;Stokes and Anderson, 1990). In peripheral and semi-peripheral countries, foreign capital has a tendency to concentrate into a few industrialized and export-oriented sectors, increasing the capital intensity of production in these sectors vis-a-vis local sectors (Amin, 1974;Evans and Timberlake, 1980;Mahutga and Bandelj, 2008).…”