THE DEPENDENCY PARADIGM APPLIED TO THE FIJIAN PERIPHERY

The dependency paradigm, employed as an explanatory model for the lack of development in less developed areas, was conceived and applied largely at the international level (Frank, 1969; Galtung, 1971; Amin, 1974; Wallerstein, 1974). Its central idea is of a global system of development and underdevelopment creating polarization both between and within countries. At the global level the paradigm is concerned with two main interlinked concepts: that of national subordination and that of structural dependency. Thus firstly, dependency can be generally defined as ‘a situation in which the economy of certain countries (or parts thereof) is conditioned by the development and expansion of another economy to which the former is subjected’ (Santos, 1970:231). Secondly, dependency is regarded as a form of structural articulation of socio-economic formations of developed and less-developed countries. The subordination is not only to external influences, but also a mode of internal domination exercised between socio-economic structures at a different level of economic development.