Essay - explain the concept of development

Development can be described as something that involves the change from small-scale, pre-industrial societies to large-scale industrial societies; but when we must define it in a theoretical way it results us more difficult. This is because there are 2 key areas of disagreement. The first thing is how the concept can be operationalised and explained. The second thing is the meaning of 'development' itself. Leinbach describes it as a process and a condition.

To understand it we must think about 2 things. First about the different characteristic of each developmental stage and secondly about the various processes involved in the change from one condition to the next.

Thomas suggests that development can be defined by scale, evolution and direction.

There are 2 main problems with defining development in terms of social changes linked with social improvements. 'Improvement' and 'development' are subjective concepts. Even when there is a broad argument about what 'development' means, there are still questions about how it should be measured.

Barbanti notes that the conventional way to understand development since 1950s is in terms of economic growth. There are two types of indicators: the GPD and the GNI. It provides a way of classifying different societies in terms of their general income/living standards. It uses objective quantifiable data and different societies can be ranked in terms of their different levels of development.

There are four types of systems. These are the three-world system, the two-world system (North-South divide), the many-world system and the hamburguer standard.

The three-world system is basically dividing the globe into three distinct words, based on levels of economic wealth and political ideology. It is split into three types of 'worlds'. The first world, with wealthy, industrialised, technologically, developed, capitalist…