Sociological Theory
Semi-peripheral countries offer their citizens relatively diverse economic opportunities but also have extreme gaps between the rich and poor. World-system theorists originally used only two categories: periphery countries and core countries. A need for an in between category became quickly apparent, leading to the establishment of the semi-periphery category for societies that have moved away from the periphery but have not become core. In other words, the category describes societies that remain dependent, and to some extent underdeveloped, despite having achieved significant levels of industrialization. Semi-peripheral countries are tied into dynamic world systems that focus on the reliance of poor nations upon the wealthy, a concept known as the dependency theory. The term semi-periphery has been applied to countries that existed as early as in the thirteenth century.
Read more about this topic: Semi-periphery Countries
Famous quotes containing the words sociological and/or theory:
“The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)