Explain how theories, such as Dependency Theory and World Systems Theory can contribute to an understanding of changing patterns of global power.

To understand changing patterns of global power is no easy feat, but several theories may give us an insight to the shift of power in our modern world, I wish to talk about these theories and how we can use them to better understand our past and present global power situations.

The first of these theories is Andre Gunder Frank’s Dependency Theory, which revolves around the idea of resources from poor, underdeveloped states (the periphery) going to the wealthy states (core), giving the wealthy states most of the benefits.
The second theory, Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory, divides the world into core, periphery, and semi-periphery countries. Periphery countries are poor countries, such as most of Africa, they provide raw materials and cheap labour, mostly to the semi-periphery. The semi-periphery have more wealth than the periphery but some countries are still in poverty, they usually mass-produce ordinary goods, and are often contracted by those from the core. The Core exploits the rest of the world, they own Trans-National Corporations, and they produce the highest quality goods as well as leading technologies.
Another possible theory is Rostow’s model, in which all countries go through the same steps to get to a state of high mass consumption – traditional society, preconditions for take-off, take-off, drive to maturity, and finally high mass consumption.

Next, what changes in global power have we gone through to get to the world’s present multipolar state, and how can these changes be explained?
Before World War 2, the world was in a unipolar state. The British Empire was undoubtedly the most powerful empire at the time, if not the most powerful in history. At its peak in 1922, the empire covered almost a