'Development is the process in which someone or something grows or changes and becomes more advanced.'.
In the case of a country, it means to have a highly developed economy and be technologically advanced. The criteria to assess a country's development is by looking at its gross domestic product, , gross national product, the per capita income, level of industrialization, amount of widespread infrastructure and general standard of living. For example, countries having a high GDP, per capita income, level of industrialization, life expectancy, education system are considered to be developed. These include Norway, United Kingdom, Australia, United States of America, France, Germany etc.
Although, in contrast to the above mentioned, the number of developing and underdeveloped countries is high in the world. According to surveys carried out there are 46 developed countries, 42 least developed countries and the rest of which are progressing towards development. The least developed countries (LDC) suffer from harsh problems such as extreme poverty and hunger. Then comes the lack of infrastructure, widespread conflicts and social and political instability. Such issues hinder the development of the country and it goes spiraling down into debt cycles, negative balance of payments, corruption, unrest and total chaos. Many factors count when the way of development is paved such as political, social, economic etc. All these are discussed collectively below in the theory explained below with several case studies listed as examples.
World System Theory.
This theory was put forward by Immanual Wallerstein in his book The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century. He develops a theoretical framework to show that while some countries benefit from the world economic system, the others are taken advantage of. As a basis for comparison, Wallerstein proposes three different categories core, periphery and semi-periphery.