A Theory for Developing Countries

This chapter begins with a brief summary of Kingsley Davis’ theory, and then proceeds to show that research in developing countries must go far beyond the narrow limits of demographic dynamics and should embrace the social, cultural and economic dimensions of both changes and responses. Further, it is argued that to solely focus on changes as he did is highly disputable, precisely because fieldwork as well as theory have long shown that structural inertia are at the heart of underdevelopment, and that changes understood as progress are very slow to occur. We also emphasise Davis’s superficial treatment of the individual’s behaviour in his seminal paper. Little is said about culture and the rationality of individual actors. Last, we now know that focusing on individuals (micro level), and neglecting the meso (families and communities) and macro (the State as actor) levels does not allow a proper understanding of everyday reality. We thus designed and concretely implemented in several field research a methodology to investigate inertias, changes and responses on these three sociological levels.