Modernisation and Radical Approach to Development

This essay is an attempt to compare the modernization and radical approaches to development and deciding which approach of the two offers a plausible explanation to what is prevailing in LDCs like Zambia. It will start by defining the major concepts which are development, modernization and radical approach, and then it shall proceed to make a full analysis of the two approaches respectively. The advantages and criticism will be given specifically for the two approaches, and it shall evaluate which one is better helping us in understanding the problems faced in less developed countries. Finally a conclusion will be drawn in summation of the topic. Development is perceived to be a multidimensional process involving major changes in social structures, popular attitudes and national institutions, as well as acceleration of economic growth, reduction in inequality and eradication of poverty, (Todaro 2008). Madden (1967:34) describes the term rural development as overall development of rural areas to improve the quality of life of rural people while Berry (1979) referred it to the establishment of appropriate decentralized structures for the effective participation of the masses of the rural population in initiating, implementing and sustaining developmental programmes. Agriculture is simply the occupation, business, or science of cultivating the land, producing crops, and raising livestock, (Ibid: 37). Modernization, according to De Beer, (2001:32) citing Eisenstaedt (1966:1), is the process of change towards those types of social, economical, and political systems that have developed in the western Europe and North America from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century and have then spread to other European countries and in the nineteenth and twentieth century’s to the south American, Asian, and African continents. Other scholars like Harrison (1988:155) defines modernization

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