Based on the premise that non-economic factors are greater barriers to African development advancement than previously acknowledged by classical and neoclassical development thinking, this study focused on the interrelationship between development indices and typological factors. It first explored the nature of the interrelationship between climate, cultural homogeneity, population concentration, and political disturbance on one hand, and the development levels and profiles of African nations on the other hand. Second, it classified African nations into groups with similar development and typological levels. / The analytical instruments used were simple descriptive analysis, correlation, factor and cluster analyses. With the aid of factor analysis and varimax rotation, five dimensions were derived from the data-one development and four typological dimensions; the interrelationship was established between typological factors and the development process. Factor scores were also obtained on each dimension for each country. Then the countries were classified on the basis of these scores, and their development and typological levels were compared. / The analysis revealed that climate, especially high temperature, has a deleterious impact on the general health and educational achievement of most African countries. Countries with lower mean temperatures were making better progress both in general level of development and individual development profiles. Also, internal information processes and communication networks of African countries tend to rise with high levels of political disturbance. / While cultural heterogeneity has weak negative association with the development process in the interrelationship study, later analysis showed countries with higher cultural integration generally enjoying higher levels of development than those with heterogeneous tribal units. Population concentration has no appreciable impact on overall development; however, it has strong positive association with agricultural production. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-06, Section: A, page: 1598. / Major Professor: Isaac F. Megbolugbe. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76308 |
| Contributors | Oranika, Emmanuel Chike., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 273 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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