Peripheral integration and disintegration in Europe: the ‘European dependency school’ revisited

Abstract:

In this contribution to the history of theory, the author reconsiders the impact of the Latin American dependency paradigm on Europe. The analysis does not deal with the reception of the Latin American dependency school itself, the focus lies on elements of this school as they were used to explain the European situation in the 1970s and 1980s.

For that purpose, it delineates research networks and their analyses of core-periphery relations in Europe. All these networks had a critical attitude towards the old development paradigm. Some called it development ‘from above’ or ‘to the outside’. A new paradigm was to include strategic elements of a ‘selective spatial closure’ and ‘self-reliance’.

For many, the European integration process played an important role in their estimates of future developments. Much of this analysis still seems relevant and topical today. The author considers it fruitful to take up the research agenda of the ‘European dependency school’, to re-define it and adapt it to altered contemporary circumstances.