import substitution industrialization

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a development strategy pursued by many Latin American, South Asian, and African countries in the mid-twentieth century that sought to accelerate industrialisation by protecting domestic manufacturing industries from foreign competition through import tariffs, quotas, exchange rate management, and state subsidies, thereby substituting domestically produced goods for imports and building up national industrial capacity; ISI was associated with structuralist economic theories of Raúl Prebisch and ECLAC, which argued that developing countries faced a systematic disadvantage in international trade and needed to industrialise behind protective barriers before integrating into the global economy; ISI produced significant industrial growth in countries like Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and India but was criticised for creating inefficient, uncompetitive industries dependent on permanent protection, generating inflation, and contributing to the debt crises of the 1980s