Academic Dependency and the Global Division of Labour in the Social Sciences

Abstract

This article attempts a political economy of the social sciences in order to assess the state of the social sciences at the global level. The focus is on the relations between the social sciences in the First and Third Worlds. The political economy approach that is utilized for this purpose is academic dependency theory. The condition of academic dependency is related to the global division of labour in the social sciences, which, I argue, plays a significant role in maintaining the structures of academic dependency.