AQA A-Level Sociology: Global Development

Read Item A below and answer the question that follows.

Item A — written for this exercise

Sociologists disagree sharply about why some countries remain poor while others grow rich. One view stresses factors found within less developed countries themselves. Writing for this exercise, one researcher reports that, across a sample of low-income states, those with the weakest road and electricity networks, the lowest rates of investment and the most traditional attitudes towards work and risk recorded average annual growth of just 1 per cent, compared with 5 per cent in otherwise similar states that had built up infrastructure and savings. The same researcher concludes that "the brake on development is applied largely from inside: where capital, schooling and modern values are missing, growth stalls regardless of conditions in the wider world."

Other sociologists reject this emphasis. They argue that the poverty of less developed countries cannot be understood without looking outward, to a history of colonial extraction, to the terms on which poor countries trade, and to the debts and corporate interests that tie them to richer nations.

Question: Applying material from Item A and your knowledge, evaluate the view that the main obstacles to development are internal to less developed countries. [20 marks]

Read Item B below and answer the question that follows.

Item B — written for this exercise

Transnational corporations (TNCs) are companies that operate across national borders, and their presence in less developed countries divides opinion. Writing for this exercise, one commentator notes that a large electronics firm recently opened factories in a low-income country, creating thousands of jobs and bringing in production technology the country had not possessed before. The same commentator adds, however, that "the wages paid were a fraction of those at the firm's home plants, much of the profit was sent back to shareholders abroad, and a nearby river was polluted by factory waste, so it is far from clear that the host country gained as much as it lost."

Question: Applying material from Item B, analyse two ways in which transnational corporations may affect the development of less developed countries. [10 marks]

Outline and explain two ways in which improving the position of women may contribute to development. [10 marks]

Outline three problems that rapid population growth may create for development. [6 marks]

Outline two criticisms of modernisation theory. [4 marks]

Outline two ways in which aid may assist the development of less developed countries. [4 marks]