National Industrial Structure and the Global System

Various forms of participation in the global system have been hypothesized to distort the structure of industrialization in developing countries, influencing the relations between industrial capital, labor, and output. We operationalize Kuznets's (1965) theoretical definition of industrialization utilizing energy consumption per capita, percent of the labor force employed in industry, and percent of GDP accountedfor by industry, to test several predictions about the effects of a country's involvement in the global system on the structure of its industrialization. We first estimate a measurement model for 1970 that includes these three basic indicators as influenced by the latent variable of industrialization. Elaborations of the basic model allow us to measure the influence of the world system on the structure of industrialization. Types of goods imported and exported affect the structure of industrialization; position in the world system and direct foreign investment have no net direct effects. A Marxist-Leninist regime has an independent influence on the structure of industrialization in some years. We replicate the model using data from 196S, 1980, and 1986.