Information Technologies and Late Development: Innovative Capacity or Hidden Reproduction of Core-Periphery Cleavages?

This paper will address the question as to whether successful economic development in newly industrialising countries (NICs) from East Asia leads to a relative narrowing of the gap between the independence from 'pace-setting countries' in new technologies, or whether the phenomenon of 'late development'should not really be considered effective in terms of self-sustaining development. With regard to the increasing importance of infor mation and communication technologies (ICT), this paper tries to give an assessment of the relative merit of both interpretations while concluding that a negative reading seems to be theoretically and empirically more appropriate.