Reflections on Third World Development: Ground Level Reality, Exogenous Forces, and Conventional Paradigms

This paper argues that regional change in Third World settings is inadequately addressed by conventional development frameworks. Instead, research ought to focus on the local articulation of world economic and political conditions, donor nation actions, and policies of Third World governments. Emerging from the discussion is a research strategy that emphasizes the intersection of forces exogenous to locales and local characteristics, draws on detailed knowledge of both, and seeks to provide circumscribed generalizations. This tactic implements a fusion of approaches, blending the nomothetic perspective of development paradigms and the idiographic perspective identified with traditional regional geography.