Developmentalism is an economic theory which states that the best way for less developed economies to develop is through fostering a strong and varied internal market and imposing high tariffs on imported goods.
Developmentalism is a cross-disciplinary school of thought that gave way to an ideology of development as the key strategy towards economic prosperity. The school of thought was, in part, a reaction to the United States’ efforts to oppose national independence movements throughout Asia and Africa, which it framed as communist. Developmentalism in the international economic context can be understood as consisting of a set of ideas which converge to place economic development at the center of political endeavors and institutions and also as a means through which to establish legitimacy in the political sphere. Adherents to the theory of developmentalism hold that the sustained economic progress grants legitimate leadership to political figures, especially in developing nations (in Latin America and East Asia) who would otherwise not have the benefit of a unanimous social consensus for their leadership or their international policy with regard to industrialized countries. Developmentalists believe that national autonomy for 'Third World' countries can be achieved and maintained through the utilization of external resources by those countries in a capitalist system. To those professed ends, developmentalism was the paradigm used in an attempt to reverse the negative impact that the international economy was having on developing countries in the 1950s–60s, at the time during which Latin American countries had begun to implement import substitution strategies. Using this theory, economic development was framed by modern-day Western criteria: economic success is gauged in terms of capitalistic notions of what it means for a country to become developed, autonomous, and legitimate.
