The previous chapter described how modernization theory emerged as the dominant doctrine of development, with an attendant emphasis on management theories and civil society organizations as drivers of modernization. This was a conception of the world held widely, in US think tanks as well as Southern government ministries, by academics in different disciplines as well as by practicing managers, engineers, and military personnel. It was hegemonic, speaking to different groups of people who, in this sense, saw the world similarly.

This chapter treads some of the same ground, but describes a conception that did not become hegemonic. Dependency theory did not command the widespread agreement enjoyed by those advocating modernization. It espoused a different doctrine of development, to resist global trade, increase domestic industrial production, and create domestic markets. Though largely ignored today, its tenets seen as relics of another time, its critique of trade structures has seen an unlikely resurgence as global demand pivots resource trade towards countries in South America and Africa. It relied on elements of common sense shared with modernization theory, and also enlisted technical education, industrial production, and forms of civil society to support its initiatives. However, the conception common to dependency theory was in sharp contrast to that of modernization. Where the latter emphasized markets and foreign trade, the former advocated indigenous industry and autarchy. Where the latter pointed to the West as a referent of modernity, the former portrayed it as a referent of trade exploitation. Only by avoiding global trade, investing in national economies, and weaning consumption from imported to domestic products could genuine national development take place. This chapter offers a further contrast, in that it profiles two advocates of dependencia, who sought to put such ideas into vivid political practice, Che Guevara and Salvador Allende.

The chapter begins with Raúl Prebisch's founding of the Comisión Económica para América Latina (CEPAL) and closes with Mauro Marini's Dialéctica de la dependencia (Dialectics of dependency), from 1950 to 1973. After presenting key themes of dependency theories, we turn to analogues within management studies, and consider the managerial visions of dependency theorists.