The political economy of Appalachia: a critique and synthesis of radical approaches to underdevelopment

Appalachia has long been viewed as an underdeveloped region. Over the years a number of theoretical approaches, attempting to explain this underdevelopment, have emerged. These theoretical explanations can be divided into mainstream approaches, which include the culture of poverty and modernization approaches, and radical approaches, which include the colonial model, economic imperialism, dependency approaches, class analysis, and beginnings at world-systems analysis. The purpose here is to review, critique, and synthesize the radical approaches to Appalachian underdevelopment. The starting point of the radical approaches is the colonial model. The other radical approaches have taken the colonial model as their base, and have expanded the depth and unit of analysis. However, taken together, the radical approaches have some weaknesses: an inaccurate view of preindustrial Appalachia, and a limited unit of analysis. A synthesis of the radical approaches, within the framework of a more thorough world-systems perspective, addresses these weaknesses, and provides a reinterpretation of the region's political economic history. From a world-systems perspective the region was not isolated from the capitalist world-economy prior to the late 1800s, as stated in the other radical approaches, but has been capitalist from the beginning of white settlement. A world-systems perspective also provides a new way to approach underdevelopment in the region. Solutions to underdevelopment cannot be separated from a reexamination of the way development is conceptualized and studied. Solutions to Appalachian underdevelopment cannot be separated from solutions to underdevelopment in other regions of the world.