The study of global stratification that focuses on inequality between nations compares the overall wealth, status, power, and economic stability between countries in the world. That study also focuses on change across time.

For example, a classical sociological view observes that in the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution created unprecedented wealth in Western Europe and North America. Due to mechanical inventions and new means of production, people began working in factories. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, industrial technology had gradually raised the economic standard of living for many people in the United States and Europe.

The Industrial Revolution also saw the rise of vast inequalities between countries that were industrialized and those that were not. As some nations embraced technology and saw increased goods and wealth, the non-industrialized nations fell behind economically, and the gap widened.

3.4.1 Modernization and Dependency

These Industrial Revolution observations are linked to the modernization theory of German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) and later ideas developed by sociologist Talcott Parsons (1902–1979). According to modernization theory, low-income countries are affected by their lack of industrialization and can improve their global economic standing through:

1. an adjustment of cultural values and attitudes around work
2. industrialization and other forms of economic growth (Armer and Katsillis 2010)

The perspective follows that with assistance, “traditional” countries can be brought to development in the same manner more developed countries have been.

Proponents of modernization theory claim that as countries modernize, they become wealthier and more powerful, and that their citizens enjoy a higher standard of living. For example, mobile broadband access can improve rates of education; improved roads can accelerate the speed to which companies can deliver their products.

Proponents point to data showing that modernized nations tend to have lower maternal and child mortality rates, longer life spans, and less absolute poverty. While they point to the fact that in the poorest countries, millions of people die from the lack of clean drinking water and sanitation facilities.

Critics point out that modernization theory has an ethnocentric bias. That is, its followers view their own society and culture as superior, then determine standards based on that judgment. It supposes all countries have the same resources and are capable of following the same path. In addition, it assumes that the goal of all countries is to be as “developed” as possible. There is no room within this theory for the possibility that industrialization and technology are not the best goals. At the same time, the issue is more complex than the data on higher standards of living might suggest. Cultural equality, community, and local traditions are all at risk as modernization encroaches.

Dependency theory developed as a response to modernization theory as social change theorists began to investigate problems arising from development practices. Dependency theory views global inequality as primarily caused by high-income nations exploiting middle-income and low-income nations, which creates a cycle of dependence (Hendricks 2010). They point out that as long as low-income nations are dependent on high-income nations for economic stimulus and access to a larger piece of the global economy, they will never achieve stable and consistent economic growth.

3.4.2 Land Grabs

Dependency theory argues that the concentration of resources held by certain nations significantly affects the opportunities of individuals in poorer and less powerful countries (Little et al. 2014). One direct example can be seen in how members of richer countries, through government or corporations, will acquire land in poor countries. Often corporations from rich countries purchase land for production, or governments of rich countries purchase land to meet their food and energy requirements at home (Rulli et al. 2013:1). This primarily occurs in Africa and Asia and Latin America. Some of these deals are considered land grabs. According to the International Land Coalition, land grabs are “land acquisitions that are in violation of human rights, without prior consent of the preexisting land users, and with no consideration of the social and environmental impacts” (International Land Coalition 2011).

Often land is taken away from local small holders, especially in areas of the world where people have lived on the land for generations maintaining community agreements about how they will use and share it. Property from land grabs tend to be used for large endeavors such as monocropping, or generating hydropower. Land grabbers will gain control of areas in several ways. They might lease the land from governments, arranging for the farmers who reside on the land to sharecrop. Or they might actually purchase the land, forcing people into contracts that require them to use the land in a way that benefits the land grabber. Figure 3.9 shows a global land grabbing system documented in 2012.

Figure 3.9: A global map of the land grabbing network, created by Maria Cristina Rulli, Antonio Saviori, and Paolo D’Odorico in their 2013 article, “Global Land and Water Grabbing

Image description

Because as a global society we have not yet determined a common definition, nor a good way of monitoring the practice of land grabbing, and because many transactions are conducted in secrecy, it is difficult to track how extensive the issue is. However, Pearce estimates that land exceeding the size of Western Europe had been grabbed from developing countries by rich-country corporations between 2000 and 2011 alone. In 2010 the World Bank estimated 150 million acres, and the humanitarian aid agency Oxfam estimated 560 million (Pearce 2021).

Figure 3.10 introduces a  2:20-minute video, “Land grabbing in Mali.” As you watch, pay attention to how land grabbing impacts Malian farmers, ranchers, and their families.

Figure 3.10. Land grabbing in Mali [YouTube Video]

3.4.3 World Systems Analysis

Scholars have criticized modernization theory since the 1970s. As a result, political theorists and sociologists have begun to explain global inequality in terms of power imbalances between nations related to patterns in global division of labor. Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein (1930-2019) developed what became the best-known version of a perspective that focused on these power imbalances. His framework, World Systems Analysis, describes the global economy as a complex system that supports an economic hierarchy. In other words, some nations are in positions of power with numerous resources and others exist in a state of economic subordination. Those nations with less power face significant obstacles to competing in the economic hierarchy. Word Systems Theory places the world’s nations into three categories: core nations, peripheral nations, and semi-peripheral nations.

Core nations are dominant capitalist countries. They are highly industrialized, technological, and urbanized. For example, the United States is a core nation, an economic powerhouse that can support or deny support to economic legislation with far-reaching implications. As a result, the United States can exert control over every aspect of the global economy and exploit less powerful nations. Free trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which in 1994 enacted a free trade zone for Mexico, Canada, and the United States, show how core nations leverage power to gain the most advantageous position in the matter of global trade.

Peripheral nations such as Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, and Nepal have very little industrialization. What peripheral nations do have often represents the outdated castoffs of core nations or the factories and means of production owned by core nations. They are economically dependent on core nations for jobs and aid.

Semi-peripheral nations are in-between nations, not powerful enough to dictate policy but nevertheless acting as a major source for raw material and an expanding middle-class marketplace for core nations, while also exploiting peripheral nations. Mexico is an example. Mexico provides abundant cheap agricultural labor to the United States, and supplies goods to the U.S.  market at a rate dictated by the United States without the constitutional protections offered to U.S. workers.

3.4.4 Making Connections: Globalization, Dependency Theory and Modernization Analysis

For a summary of the connections between globalization, dependency, and modernization analysis, watch 4:00-minute Khan academy video on globalization theories (Figure 3.11). The video also introduces three globalization perspectives: Hyperglobalist, Skeptical, and Transformationalist. Which perspective makes the most sense to you?

Figure 3.11. Globalization theories [clipped at 4:05] | Society and Culture | MCAT | Khan Academy [YouTube Video].