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Modernization Theory and The Sociological Study of Development
Modernization Theory and The Sociological Study of Development
Modernization Theory and The Sociological Study of Development
of Development*
By Henry Bernsteint
SUMMARY
142
capitalism and the effects of this process on the diverse indigenous societies
of what is now called the Third World. The relationships of dependence
and exploitation created by the process are exemplified in the colonial
situation as narrowly defined though this is by no means the only situation
characterized by such relationships. This perspective, developed in the
work of certain political economists, can serve as the basis of a sociological
approach which would prove more fruitful both in understanding the
nature of underdevelopment itself, and in assessing the range of possibilities of development in the Third World, than that generally employed in
the sociology of development at present.
ENTER SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT
143
This necessarily brief outline lists the principal elements of the sociology
of development and indicates in a broad way their application to analysis.
The headings (1) to (5) represent the salient uniformities of the approach
under review and are not to be understood as an attempt to summarize
the work of the whole field, the variety of which is acknowledged in the
additional comments following (5).
144
The characterization of a process of change in terms of these idealtypical end points-usually subsumed under a more general traditionalmodem dichotomy-and the differentiation model of social change both
involve an evolutionary rationale which is further emphasized by the
super-imposition of the former on the latter.6 It seems customary to
express various pro forma reservations concerning social evolution,
possibly because of what are felt to be the excesses of its nineteenth-century
protagonists, but despite such reservations an evolutionary rationale is
implicit in the conceptual procedure under review here.
(4) Achieving development
145
146
of the major forms this study has assumed which are divorced from
problems of economic development. Lionel Tiger has suggested that 'the
considerable scholarly attention . . . focused on problems of political
integration' has been prompted by 'reasons as much connected with
Cold War politics as anything else' (Tiger, 1967, p. 189). This point can
be expanded in that in the West the contlict with the socialist countries,
whether the U.S.S.R., China, Cuba or North Vietnam, is conventionally
expressed in political terms, i.e. democracy or freedom vs.totalitarianism,
even when this involves including the right kind of military dictatorship in
the 'free world'and sacrificing some of the spectfically parliamentary connotations of democracy.121 In addition, an alternative politically derived
definition of modern status was useful in a development decade characterized by a general failure to achieve economic targets.13 Finally, in a period
marked by the imagery of independence, decolonization and national
self-assertion, it may not have been discreet to preach the virtues of
capitalism as a way of life to the governments of former colonies, most of
which at least proclaimed some form of socialism.u
MODERNIZATION THEORY: SOME BASIC OBJECTIONS
147
148
149
individuals.11
150
core concept of 'social system'. Originating in organic analogies, the concept of system in sociology has become increasingly sophisticated through
the influence of cybernetics, communications theories, and so on. There
is not the space here to go into its intricacies, but the fundamental problem
it raises concerns the way in which the substantive referents of modernization theory, however arrived at, are tied in at the level of theoryformation with the 'pure' requirements of systemic interdependence or
complementarity, and functional reciprocity.The result is a theory both
highly abstract and deductive-features which present obvious difficulties
when it is applied to the analysis of what is, on any empirical criteria, the
extreme heterogeneity of a field of study called the'underdevelopedareas'.In
the face of this diversity the abstract and deductive nature of modernization
theory has been criticized by writers who have advocated alternative
strategies of theory-formation and research based on a conceptually more
flexible and empirically more sensitive comparative method.K
A related question concerns the conceptual status of the substantive
component of modernization theory, more precisely the ideal-typical
dichotomization of tradition and modernity. The notion of ideal-type
itself has caused a series of problems in sociological theory ever since its
formulation in the rather tortuous methodological writings of Max
Weber.16 Parsons has pointed out that Weber used ideal-types in two ways
according to level of generality, rather than according to their function,
which is that of concept formation and not description or explanation.26
The individualizing ideal-type ts synonymous with what Weber otherwise
termed 'historical individuals', for example, the capitalist ethos in the
modem history of north-west Europe and North America. On the other
hand, an example of the generalizing ideal-type is Weber's formulation
of bureaucracy. Now it is interesting that critics of Weber as different
in other ways as Carl Friedrich and Isaac Deutscher have seen the idealtype of bureaucracy as reflecting the values of the Prussian state to which
Weber subscribed (Friedrich, 1952; Deutscher, 1969). In other words, for
them it is culturally specific (not to say morally dubious), and the same
criticism has already been applied in this paper to the ideal-types of
modernity and modernization abstracted from the process of Western
capitalist development. It is sometimes argued that the Western experience
represents only the first historical example of modernization, and therefore
can provide a paradigm for the study of the process in non-Western
societies. This argument rests on what might be called an 'original state'
view of underdevelopment and development, which is discussed below.
The essential point is simply that what are in fact empirical generalizations
or concepts of limited applicability ('historical individuals') have assumed
the status of generalizing ideal-types, with certain consequences both for
the characterization of 'destination' and for the analysis of types of social
change, or lack of change, in the underdeveloped countries which fail to
conform to the model. The several points made here have been illustrated
by Bendix with reference to urbanization:
Recent observations in India suggest that the generalizations and
expectations we associate with the term 'urbanization'may be excessively
culture-bound ... what began as a definition has subtly turned into a
prediction based on generalization about 'urbanism' though this prediction is hazardous.
151
IS2
Even more serious, as a result of their hurried pace, they often disorder
the sequence of Western development (Lerner, 1967, p. 24).
153
to two arguments, neither of which is worth pursuing here-that underdeveloped countries today can modernize at much less social and human
cost than was exacted by the development process in the West by heeding
the excesses of the latter;30 and that the store of skills and technology
accumulated in the Western industrial countries is available ready-made
for the use of the underdeveloped countries. A potentially more useful
distinction is that between spontaneous and induced change, but in practice
too often this receives a facile expression in the notion of different 'models'
of the latter such as the Soviet Union, Kemalist Turkey and, most popular,
Japan.31 Stage theories should not be ruled out a priori, and various suggestions have been advanced for constructing them on a careful comparative basis which would avoid the customary stigma. However, once
again in practice the stage theories advanced prove to be little more than
exercises in 'comparative statics'.
If we refrain from discussing modernization as such and ask what we
mean by the 'modern world' and what the historical processes were which
formed the modern world, certain themes emerge which cut across the
distorted comparative perspective and atrophied dynamics offered by
modernization theory. First, the modern world as an inclusive international
structure of economic, political and cultural relationships represents a
novel situation in the history of human society; secondly, this situation
was created principally 'through the midwifery of European imperialism'
in Peter Worsley's phrase.33 An explicit recognition of these factors is
essential therefore to an understanding of the historical environment of
contemporary underdevelopment and development. Jamil Hilal has
expressed this succinctly:
... societies which previously existed only as-to use phenomenological
language-'contemporaries' (that is, living at the same period of history
and thus sharing a community of time but not of space) have becomeoften through the violence of a colonial situation and a process of
'compulsory familiarity'-'consociates'. That is, they have to encounter
one another in the course of 'daily life'-they share, however briefly
and superficially, a community of space and time and have become
involved in each other's biography (Hilal, 1970, p. 2).
Thus the nature of the relationships between the developed and underdeveloped countries becomes a primary consideration in any macro-level
discussion of development. These relationships are, however, ignored in
modernization theory-'social theory has utterly failed to grapple with the
outstanding feature of the last hundred years-the emergence of a world
system of social relations' (Worsley, 1965, p. 374). The alternative starting
point outlined here specifically confronts modernization theory with the
question of the historical context in which the impact of 'modernizing
forces' on indigenous 'traditional' societies is first located and this is 'in
large measure the context of colonialism' (Rhodes, 1968, p. 397 and
passim). Although important contributions to a political economy of
colonialism have been made by a number of writers, a systematic and
comprehensive sociological theory of colonialism has yet to be formulated.
It is suggested that such a theory is indispensable to a critical and more
fruitful sociology of development. Following Georges Balandier, one of
the basic elements in the theory would be the concept of the colonial
situation as a historical and 'total social phenomenon characterized by
154
oertain forms of exploitation-economic, political, cultural and racialwhich polarize the colonial and colonized societies. 33 This conceptualization, both substantively and as reflecting a different tradition of sociological
analysis, stands m direct contrast to that derived from modernization
theory which is precluded from identifying the dynamics and contradictions
of the colonial situation as sui generis by a commitment to analysis in
terms of 'traditional' and 'modem' elements which can only yield a
dynamic in the concept of 'transition', or movement along a traditionmodernity continuum." For this reason the notion of the 'dual society' is
convenient for modernization theory as it neatly divides underdeveloped
countries into backward (traditional) and advanced (modem) sectors
without considering the symbiotic relationship between the two which can
be analysed in terms of the creation of underdevelopment 85 However, it
is precisely the inaugural mechanisms of 'the modernization process',
namely the intrusion of a market economy and the imposition of a modem
administrative and tax structure (Kitson, 1963, p. 426 ff.), which are the
basis of the creation of underdevelopment within the framework of the
political economy of imperialism. The nature of the economic and cultural
impact of 'modernization' is tied in with the metropolitan imperatives of
imperialism and results in processes of change which defy the prescriptions
of modernization theory.88 Indigenous economic enterprise is destroyed,
denied outlets, or a large part of its surplus appropriated for metropolitan
purposes. The 'formation of a labour force'-a central theme in modernization literature-generally means cheap and expendable unskilled labour
compelled by various means to work in European-owned mines and on
European-owned plantations. Urbanization becomes the creation of racially segregated and essentially parasitic centres of administration and
expatriate dominated mercantile activities. A post in the colonial bureaucracy or in the office of an expatriate company becomes the occupational
ideal for those with a little education, and the 'middle class' which emerges
on this basis is itself underdeveloped 'not engaged in production, nor
invention, nor building, nor labour'.87
CONCLUSION
ISS
12. 'Modernity entails democracy, and democracy in the new states, even where it is
not representative, must above all be egalitarian' ShiJs. 1962, pp.9/10.
156
13.
Seers. 1970, makes some telling points about the nature of the conventional statistical
indlcators of economic growth.
14. Just how nominal this 'socialism' could be is indicated by the appreciation of tts
expression in the ideas of Senghor and K.enyatta by American ambassadors Mercer
Cook and William Attwood (Senghor, 1964; Attwood, 1967). The 'Colloquium on
Pohcies of Development and African Approaches to Sociahsm.' held m Dakar in December 1962, represented the early nadir of this 'Ideology'. Jean Lacouture observed that
'The distinction, always somewhat artificial between "revolutionary" and "reformist"
Africa now seems altogether obsolete.... What is even more striking is that nobody
challenged the necessity of calling upon foreign a1d and investment'. Quoted in Arrighi
and Saul, 1968, p. 158; see also Zolberg, 1964.
IS. For observations on the use of this and other Parsoman pattern variables. see
Frank, 1967, p. 24 ff.
16. See, inter alta, the monographs of Epstein, 1962; Hill, 1963; Belshaw, 1964.
Recent theoretiCal essays relating to modernization by anthropologists are Belshaw,
1965; Nash, 1966.
17. The notion of different 'routes' to moderruty is most clearly seen in the construction of typologies of modernizing ehtes-this is illustrated with reference to industrialization m Lamb, 1952;and, notably, Kerr et al, 1964. Typologies of regimes have constituted a major analytical tool m the pohtical modernization literatColeman,
1960; Shils, 1965; Apter, 1963b, 1967.
18. Differential economic and financial mechanisms related to 'degrees of backwardness' within the pre-1914 European economy are analysed by Gerschenkron, 1952,
1962. Barrington Moore, Jr., 1967, is an outstanding wide-ranging comparative study
which deserves to have a major mfluence m 'bnnging back history' into the sociology of
development.
19. Rostow, 1967, pp. 162/4; Andreski, 1968, although in this case the characterization of what is 'pathological' stems from the idiosycratic and highly ira.sable perspecbve
of the author rather than from the dictates of an explicit model of modernizatiOn.
20. Quoted in Worsley, 1964, p. 52; Kiernan, 1969, proVIdes a wealth of references
in a fascinating historical survey of ethnocentric attitudes, many of which remain
unnervtngly familiar.
21. Quoted by Gough, 1969, p.144.See also Africa Research Group, 1969; Chomsky,
1969.
22. See the excellent resume by Lukes, 1968. This type of reductionism, of course,
militates against the rationale of any social science.The 'SOCiologiSm'of Emile Durkheim,
for example,expressed a reaction against the analytical individualism of much nineteenthcentury thought.
23. For a theoretical discussion, see Gouldner, 1959.
24. Moore, 1963; Bendix, 1963, 1967b. Moore, the foremost American sociologist of
industnalizabon, ts really a cntic within modernization theory, as, say, Robert Merton,
1s Wlthm functionalism. Bendix Is a historical and comparative sociologist in the
Weber1an tradition.
25. See, inter alia, Shils and Fmch, 1949; and for interpretations of Weber's methodology, Aron, 1968; Freund, 1968; Parsons, 1968.
26. Parsons, 1968, pp. 601/10-'The Ideal Type and Generahzed Analytical Theory'.
Parsons' cnticlsm of Weber is that the latter was too hesitant to go beyond a certain
level of abstraction.
27. Industrialization, of course, may be the CfllCial mechantsm in many cases.
However, there has been a reaction against the tendency to overemphasize the role of
industrialization-see, for example, Nettl and Robertson, 1968, pp. 38/42.
28. Smelser, 1963; and the comments on the differentiation model by Nettl, 1967,
p.llOff.
29. This tendency m the work of Parsons has been cnticized by, among others,
Lockwood, 1956; Mills, 1959, Ch. 2; van den Berghe, 1967, Ch. 11.
30. Some 'modernizers' themselves have used this argument but looking to the
Soviet Union rather than to the West-for example, Nk:rumah, 1963, pp. 166/7.
31. For a cautionary statement on Japan, see Dore, 1964.
32. Worsley, 1964, p. 10 and Ch. 1 passim; see also the excellent historical survey by
Barraclough, 1967.
33. Balandier, 1963, Ch. 1-'La Notion de "Situation" Coloniale'; also Balandier,
1952.
34. It has been said that intellectually the distance across the Channel is sreater than
157
tbat across the Atlantic, and this is evident in the differential concern with the meaning
and methods of a bistoncal sociology. See Lefebvre, 1953; Goldmann, 1969; and the
comments on the former by Sartre, 1964, pp. 51/2. Lefebvre and Sartre are ated by
Balandier with reference to his formulation of the colorual s1tuat1on as a histoncal and
total social phenomenon. Among rare statements on behalf of a historical sociology
by those conventionally regarded as sociologists in the Anglo-American concept of the
discipline, are Mills, 1959, Ch. 8; Barrington Moore Jr., 1963.
35. See Rhodes, 1968; Frank,1969;Stavenhagen, 1967; also the interesting critique of
Malmowski's Tire DJ'II(mlics of Culture Clumge by Gluckman, 1947.
36. 'In a colonial state, the source of the SOCial position of its power holders is, of
course, the metropolitan socio-political system; and any comprehensive analysis would
have to take account of this system' Kilson, 1963, p. 428.
37. Fanon, 1967, p. 120 and passim. See, inter olio, for part of the wide range of
historu:al evidence Rhodes, 1968; Frank, 1969; Barratt Brown, 1970; Arrighi, 1970.
38. See the pertinent comments in a forthcoming piece by Hamza Alavi, 1970.
39. Barrington Moore Jr., 1967; and the reference to his work in Nettl, 1969, p. 28.
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