The lecture examines the contemporary relevance of the intellectual legacy of the world-renowned Egyptian scholar Samir Amin by exploring a central question: to what extent does dependency theory and the notion of economic delinking still offer relevant tools for understanding the relationship between the Global South and the capitalist triad: the United States, European Union, and Japan — in the 21st century? The lecture thus questions whether dependency theory remains a viable framework for analyzing the economic and social dynamics of the Global South. Drawing on examples from Arab economies, it explores the industrial dependency of non-oil-producing Arab states, including a comparison between Morocco and the Chinese model, where forms of delinking were used to build a strong and integrated national economy. The lecture also examines the implications of oil dependency and the effects of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the Gulf states, and the Arab region at large. It ends with an emphasis on the need for new research agendas.
The lecture is organized around three main themes:
Theme 1: Dependency Theory
One of Professor Samir Amin’s defining characteristics was his commitment as an engaged intellectual who viewed research and writing not as purely academic pursuits, but as forms of activism. He devoted his work to exposing the contradictions of global capitalism, particularly their inherently polarizing nature. Amin also played a leading role in supporting social science research across Africa and the Global South, and remained deeply involved in activism at both the African and global levels.
Samir Amin is widely regarded as one of the pioneering figures of Marxist dependency theory, which argues that the relationship between the “center” and the “periphery” is structured in a way that allows the development of the former to sustain the underdevelopment of the latter. The theory highlights how the integration of peripheral countries into the global capitalist system reinforces wealth polarization and exploitation in favor of the center. Mechanisms such as unequal exchange, dependence on foreign capital in the form of profit transfers and patent royalties, as well as subordination to global capital markets and multilateral institutions all contribute to the persistence of underdevelopment.
To break free from the underdevelopment trap, Amin emphasized the significance of “delinking” — not in the sense of autarky, i.e., total self-reliance or economic isolation, defined as the deliberate subordination of external relations to the requirements of domestic development, but rather as the prioritization of domestic development needs over the demands of the global capitalist system. In this view, socialist delinking seeks to reshape the terms of integration into the global economy, end class exploitation, and lay the foundations for a democratic society.
Theme 2: Critiques of Dependency Theory
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the expansion of neoliberalism throughout the 1980s, dependency theory came under significant criticism. Critics argued that it placed excessive emphasis on external constraints to development while overlooking internal dynamics such as class conflict, political struggles, and relations of production. Others pointed to the experience of East Asian countries, which managed to industrialize successfully and escape underdevelopment despite operating within the globalized capitalist system. Politically, the rise of authoritarian and populist regimes in Latin America also weakened the “Third Worldist” political project, contributing to the decline of dependency theory.
Theme 3: The Relevance of Dependency Theory in the 21st Century
The global systemic crisis associated with capitalism — particularly the 2008 financial crisis and the failure of the neoliberal economic model — have contributed to renewed interest in dependency theory. Moreover, the crisis of neoliberal ideology —which has held sway since the 1980s— paved ground for exploring alternative approaches to development, thereby giving rise to regained attention to dependency theory. This renewed relevance is further reinforced by widening global inequalities, the polarization of wealth in the center at the expense of the periphery, and the global oligarchy’s monopolization of multidimensional tools of influence.
At the same time, new forms of subjugation have emerged, targeting peripheral countries and their fragile production systems through debt dependency, overreliance on commodity exports — as seen in several Latin American countries — and the intervention of multilateral institutions. These pressures operate through political, military and economic mechanisms involving actors such as the G7, NATO, the European Union, and the International Monetary Fund.
Revisiting dependency theory today requires expanding its conceptual framework to address issues such as gender, feminism, ethnicity, and forms of technological and digital domination (Dependency 4.0). It also calls for a renewed research agenda attentive to the historical and structural dimensions of socioeconomic phenomena, one that critically challenges the polarizing tendencies that shape the capitalist development model and confronts the obstacles arising from the marginal position occupied by peripheral states within the global economic order.
