Theories of Modernisation and

Globalisation

Introduction
Modernisation and Globalisation are two interlinked processes and one cannot be understood
without the other. It is difficult to separate their origins as they move together; modernisation
expanding with globalisation.

Modernisation refers to process of progressive transition from traditional to modern society.

The meaning of modernity is associated with the sweeping changes that took place in the
society and particularly in the fields of art and literature, between the late 1950s and the
beginning of Second World War. There is, however, no clear demarcation by date, and
although the term ‘postmodern’ is increasingly used to describe changes since the Second
World War, there are some who argue that modernity persists, and others who see its demise
as having occurred much earlier.

When modernity is explained in terms of history, it is said that the world first experienced
renaissance, and then, enlightenment and thereafter modernity and postmodernity. As a
matter of fact, there is much disagreement on the precise dates of the beginning and end of
modernity. There appears to be general consensus on its meaning and social formations.

Characteristics of Modernity
1. Political - marginalization of religious influence from State/Political matters, and rise of
secular democratic polity, universal adult suffrage, democratic values.

2. Religious - secularized society free from religious orthodoxy and decline of religiosity

3. Social – individualism, decline of a traditional social order, decline of Joint family system,
alienated kinship ties

4. Intellectual - emphasis on science and technology, reason and rationality, belief in

progress and human development, control over environment and avoidance of superstition
and orthodoxy.
5. Economic - hanging over to commercial agriculture, use of machines and advanced
technology in agriculture, growing industrialisation and urbanisation, improvement in
commerce, industry and growth of Market.

Modernity implies changes in socio-economic, political, intellectual, cultural structures of the

society. It is associated with industrialisation and urbanisation, capitalism, development,
democracy, individualism, liberalism and rationality.

Classical Thinker and Modernity

The four classical sociologists were engaged in the critique of modernity. They were witness to its
evolution and the social changes that it ushered. Although, they were aware of the advantages, their
work focused on the problems it posed.

1.Karl Marx – Capitalist Economy – commodification

Marx’s concern with modernity was in terms of production relations. It was the objective of the
capitalist class to increase its production. More production means more profit. Capitalism, for him,
was ultimately profiteering. Marx, therefore, argued that for capitalism everything is a commodity.
Dance, drama, literature, religion, in fact, everything in society is a commodity. It is manufactured
and sold in the market.

Even, religion and rituals are also items of commodity. Alienation, exploitation and oppression are all
due to commodification. Quite like the economic items, the non-economic items are also things of
commodification. Modernization, therefore, according to Marx, is nothing but a commodity, a thing to
be bought and sold, and an item for trade and commerce. In a word, modernity is commercialization.

2. Max Weber - Rationality

Weber is credited to have developed the thesis of Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He
argues that Calvinism – a sect of Protestant religion – has certain ethics, which develop the spirit of
capitalism. Religion, though a spiritual order, is run on the norms of rationality. Weber scans a huge
literature on domination, religion and other wider areas of life and comes to the conclusion that
rationality is the pervading theme, which characterizes human actions. He has, therefore, defined
modernity as rationality. For him, in one word, modernity is synonymous with rationality.

3. Emile Durkheim - Differentiation

Durkheim had a very intimate encounter with industrialization and urbanization. He was scared of the
impact of modernization. His studies of modern society brought out very interesting and exciting data.
He was a functionalist. He very strongly believed in the cohesion of society. For him, society is above
everything else. It is par excellence. It is God. Despite all this, society is never static.
It is evolutionary. Durkheim was a product of 19th century. Like any other sociologist, he was also an
evolutionist of his times. He traced the origin of society. In its evolutionary stage, the society had
mechanical solidarity. Conscience collective, collective representations and repressive laws held the
mechanical society together.

In course of evolution, the mechanical society attains the stage of organic solidarity. In this society,
there is differentiation – multiple of occupations, plural ethnicities and varying people. This
functional- organic structure of society is held together by social density and contractual relations.

Durkheim defines modernity in the context of social solidarity. His thesis is: more there is
differentiation, more there is modernity”. Modernity creates functional dependence. In a modern
society, the people depend on one another and this keeps the society in a state of solidarity.
Differentiation does not create disorganization; it creates dependence. And, therefore, for Durkheim,
modernity is differentiation, it is stratification. More is a society stratified; greater is the level of
modernity.

4. Georg Simmel - City and Money economy

Simmel is seen as investigating modernity primarily in two major interrelated sites: the city and the
money economy. The city is where modernity is concentrated or intensified, whereas the money
economy involves the diffusion of modernity, its extension. Thus, for Simmel, modernity consists of
city life and the diffusion of money. Simmel has put his ideas about modernity in his book Philosophy
of Money

The first is that modernization brings with it a series of advantages to human beings, especially the
fact that they are able to express various potentialities that are unexpressed, concealed and represented
in pre-modern society…. Second, Simmel deals with the powerful effect of money on modern society.
Finally, there is Simmel’s concentration on the adverse consequences of money for modernity,
especially alienation.

1. Modernity is the process through which the hidden potentialities of men are ventilated. In other
words, it gives opportunities to men to realize their power.

2. Money is substantial in human life. It gets manifestation through modernity.

3. Modernity is not without its bad effects. It alienates men from the vital processes of human life.

For classical theorists, the term ‘modernity’ largely meant industrialization. But, in contemporary
world, it has gone beyond that. There are a good number of sociologists who are working on this
theme to develop a viable theory, which could lead us to the road to progress.

The term ‘modernization’ came into widespread use in the early 1960s, as a consequence of the
efforts by a group of development specialists in the United States of America to develop an alternative
to the Marxist account of social development in its most sophisticated variants. The modernization
theory explains modernization by reference to the onset of the process that Talcott Parsons refers to as
structural differentiation.

This is a process which may be triggered in many different ways, but which is most likely to be
initiated by changes in either technology or values. As a result of this process, institutions multiply the
simple structures of traditional societies into the complex ones of modern societies, and values come
to bear a striking resemblance to those current in the U.S. of the 1960s

There is little agreement on the definition of modernity given by contemporary theorists. In fact, there
is more disagreement than agreement in defining modernity. For instance, Anthony Giddens considers
modernity as an inexorable force – a juggernaut which offers a number of advantages but also poses a
series of dangers. The dangers are so powerful that they can crush the society and tear it asunder.
Ulrich Beck follows the track of Giddens. He rather looks at the dark side of modernity only saying
that the modern society is a risk society. It, therefore, makes it obligatory for the people to prevent
risk and to protect themselves from it. George Ritzer, on the other side, looks at the brighter side of
modernity. He is optimistic. For him, rationality is the key characteristic of a modern society. He
stresses the importance of hyper-rationality. And it is exemplified through McDonaldization, credit
card and fast food.

Anthony Giddens – Runaway Society

Giddens marks 1600s as the beginning of modernity in Europe. The European society during this
period was different from that m the earlier periods. Modernity has developed as a result of the
interplay of a number of institutional dimensions, namely, capitalism, industrialism, surveillance and
information control of the nation-state, and development of military power. According to Giddens,
grasping the complexity of this interplay is essential for a new sociological theory that wants to
comprehend our society.

The modern society can be distinguished from the pre-modern society on several counts. Modern
society is much more dynamic compared to the pre-modern society. In the modern society, pace,
intensity and scope of change are greater. Another important feature is the type and nature of modern
institutions.

The major characteristics of our civilization are the nation-state, the modern political system, hyper-
mechanized and hyper-technological production methods, wage labour, commodification of all
relations, including the workforce, and urbanization.
The most dynamic aspects of modernity can be boiled down to three aspects that run through
Giddens’ entire analysis of modernity:

(1) Time-space separation,

(2) Dis-embedding mechanisms, and

(3) The reflexive character of modernity.

Time-space separation:

Giddens says that in the modern society, there has been standardization and globalization of time.
This enables people to interact with each other and the surrounding world without problems. Not only
the concept of time but also the concept of space is changing. Each new technological development
expands our space significantly. The fact that we can be in the same space but not the same locale is
one of the driving forces behind the modern rational organization.

Disembedding of social system:

Social institutions such as family, kin, education and politics were earlier integral parts of the local
society. The local society thus survived through ages with these institutions. But, with the coming of
modernization, these institutions got disembedded from the local society or community.

Giddens distinguished between two types of disembedding mechanisms. These are: (1) symbolic
tokens, and (2) expert system. Symbolic tokens are media of exchange that can be passed around
among individuals and institutions. Money is the best example of symbolic exchange. Such exchanges
disturb the perception of space.

The space agents, for instance, American dollar and Indian money, never meet each other but can
carry out transactions with each other. In other words, symbolic tokens lift transactions out of the
local community and produce new patterns of transactions across time and space.

The second disembedding mechanism is that of expert system. Earlier, before the launching of
modernity, the social systems were embedded by the traditions and rule of the thumb. Now, there is
an expert system consisting of engineers, doctors, architects, who run the community. Giddens argues
that time-space separation and disembedding mechanisms are mutually dependent.

Abstract systems increase the time-space distanciation. By distanciation, Giddens refers to the fact
that relationships are no longer tied to specific locales. While this has been true since the invention of
Morse code and the airplane, it is infinitely more so at the turn of the 21st century than ever before,
thanks to the computer. In the age of e-mail it takes only a few seconds to touch someone in any part
of the globe.
The reflexivity of modern society:

Reflexivity helps us to explain all human action. With reference to modernity there has emerged a
modern self, which characterizes the contemporary period. The modern society is undergoing a
reflexivity process that exists at an institutional as well as personal level and which is crucial in
creating and changing modern systems and forms of social organization.

Giddens has defined reflexivity as below:

It is the regular use of knowledge which institutions and individuals continuously collect and apply to
organize and change society. Corporations perform market surveys to help them devise sales
strategies. This increased reflexivity is facilitated by the development of mass communication.

In modernity our actions are only rarely guided by tradition, and we act according to tradition only if
it seems justified and rational. Compare the modern reflexivity with the feudal and colonial
reflexivity, which even today characterizes some of the ‘pockets’ of our country such as Rajasthan
where modernity is a latecomer.

The mindset or reflexivity of these pockets is embedded in sycophancy. Giddens warns further and
says that increased reflexivity emerging from modernity should not be mistaken for increased and
better knowledge, which has enabled us to control life.

These changes in the nature of reflexivity and the role of tradition have moved society towards what
Giddens calls a post-traditional order or ‘late modernity’. It must be mentioned here that Giddens pays
much attention to reflexivity in his structuration theory and theory of late modernity.

Actually, Giddens has devoted considerable attention to Mead’s theory of the self. His interpretation
of Mead is that when the latter talks about T and ‘me’, he is actually putting forward the theory of
reflexivity. What Giddens does is to borrow from the micro-theories of Cooley, Mead and Freud and
develops his theory of reflexivity.

And, in doing that, he discusses the connections between modern life and the individual. “The
individual exists within a structure but is also an agent, meaning that the self must be created.” In
Giddens’ view, “the late modern world gives rise to new mechanisms for forging self-identities with
the self being both object and agent in the process.”

Characteristics of modernity:

Giddens has defined modernity in his own characteristic way. He is among those who distinguish
between capitalism and industrialism. For him, capitalism is competitive system of production with
global markets operating on a global scale. Industrialism is a different and distinct phenomenon.
It refers to the use of machine technology to control and transform nature. Actually, modernity has
been defined in different ways. For instance, in the views of Fukuyama, modernity reconstructs world
on liberal principles. It is the victory of liberalism and humanism. Callinicos defines modernity from
the perspective of capitalism.

Giddens is among those who have resisted the equations of modernity with liberalism, or modernity
with capitalism. Giddens draws heavily from Marx and takes his own position in defining modernity.
Modernity, according to him, is multi-dimensional. It is his emphasis, which distinguishes him from
other sociologists.

Giddens, therefore, makes an attempt to analyse different dimensions of modernity:

(1) Capitalism,

(2) Industrialism,

(3) Coordinated administrative power focused trough surveillance, and

(4) Military power.

These dimensions serve as the characteristics of modernity.

Capitalism:

Capitalism is a system of production. For a longer period of his life Giddens followed Marxism and
therefore, he defines capitalism from Marxian point of view. Production relations are central to any
understanding of capitalism. Giddens holds that Marx’s analysis of the mechanism of capitalist
production and exchange and his analysis of class domination and exploitation retain their relevance
today. However, Giddens finds some lacunae in Marx’s thought. Marx does not pay any attention to
power.

Industrialism:

It is the application of inanimate sources of power for productive techniques. The increase in
production makes modernity quite substantial in its consequences. There is rise in urbanization,
increase in slums and infiltration of markets. Industrialism takes the form of Fordism and at a later
stage post-Fordism.

Coordinated administrative power:

It involves the control of information and monitoring of the activities of subject by states. It must be
mentioned here that besides industry, the most recognizable feature of Giddens’ late modem world is
the nation-state. Giddens also notes the importance of communication in tying the modern world
together.
The nation-state provides the opportunity for democracy, for individual agency within a complex
world. In his books, Beyond Left and Right (1994) and The Third Way (1998), Giddens asserts that
old left ideas are out of date, while those of the ‘right’ are contradictory and even dangerous.

His social democratic (liberal) ‘third way’ is not just a theory but an action programme, aimed at
rekindling political activism and idealism. “The retreat of the gods and of tradition,” he argues, “has
freed organizations and movements in the modern world for ‘reflexive self-regulation’, meaning that
we can contemplate and make our own history.”

Military power:

In the modern world, military power rests with the nation-state. The development and dynamics of
military power and warfare affects the shape and structure of capitalist development as well as
particular pattern of class and class conflict.

Giddens considers modernity as multi-dimensional. The four dimensions which have been discussed
above are actually four institutional dimensions which consist of a distinctive set of causal processes
and structures. Taken together, however, they provide a framework for understanding some of the
central features, developments and tensions in modern societies

The broader framework of modernity consists of the four institutions. The late modernity has a few
more characteristics, namely, distanciation, power, trust and risk, which also need to be explained as
sub-parts of Giddens’ theory.

By its nature modernity is dynamic and the dynamism is maintained by these sub-parts:

(1) Distanciation:

Giddens argues that in the present age of fast communication “relationships are no longer tied to
specific locale”. It is distanciation – shortening of distance. In fact, distanciation is not new. Since the
invention of morse code and airplane, the remote places were brought closer. But things are still faster
in the late modem world. Computer has the wonder. Now, for the communicative world, the slogan is:
reach out and touch someone. And in the age of e-mail it takes only a few seconds to touch someone
in any part of the globe.

(2) Power:

In his theory of structuration Giddens has used the term ‘agency’. Agency in this context means
actors. Giddens argues that the actors in their practices produce and reproduce the structure. He
employs his theory of structuration in the analysis of modernity. The actor or the agency has power.
And, this power gives the actor the capacity to make decisions and do things. Power, therefore, also
has an important part in modernity.
While explaining the concept of power, Giddens writes:

Power is not a resource; the media are resources, and so are social connections. Power both constrains
and enables. Power as constraint is not force, it is restriction of choice. In other words, even without
the power that goes with domination, individuals in the modern world still have a certain amount of
power (or control) over the choices they make. Power, thus, is not only domination, but also
informative capacity.

(3) Trust:

Another sub-part of modernity is trust. In the modern world we have a variety of institutions. A few of
them are new to us. We cannot work in this new world without these institutions and therefore the
only alternative left with us is to have trust in them. Giddens defines trust as “the vesting of
confidence in persons or in abstract systems, made on the basis of a ‘leaf of faith’ which brackets
ignorance or lack of information”.

(4) Risk:

Living in a society is never without risk. Even in the past there were always some risks in the society.
But these risks are manifold today. There are, Giddens says, risks involved in politics, economics,
technology and other aspects of life in a highly complex and differentiated society.

He emphasizes that the individual power to make choice also lands him to risk. It is in this society that
an individual takes several precautions to meet the risk in a successful way. People attempt to lessen
risk through planning. A good example is health or life insurance. Giddens calls this as the
colonization of the future.

Giddens lists four risks that are specific to the late modern world. These are:

(1) State surveillance,

(2) Escalation of military power,

(3) Collapse of economic growth, and

(4) The ecological and environmental limits that constrain capitalism.

Ulrich Beck – The Risk Society

It was in 1992 that Ulrich Beck came with his book. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Beck,
the German sociologist, has written extensively about risk and globalization. He says that modern
society has created a large number of risks for the people.

He argues that the risk which is inherent in modern society would contribute towards the formation of
a global risk society. In a modern society, there is technological change.

And technology produces new forms of risks and we are constantly required to respond and adjust to
these changes. The risk society, he argues, is not limited to environmental and health risks alone, it
includes a whole series of interrelated changes within contemporary social life such as shifting
employment patterns, heightened job insecurity, declining influence of tradition and custom, erosion
of traditional family patterns and democratization of personal relation

What is particular about the modern risk society is that the hazards of risk do not remain restricted to
one country only. In the age of globalization, these risks affect all countries and all social classes.
They have global, not merely personal consequences.

Similarly, many forms of manufactured risk, such as those concerning human health and the
environment, cross-national boundaries. Beck’s theory of modernity is presented in his book, Risk
Society: Towards a New Modernity (1992).

The western modern world is now faced with fast food, global warming and several other risks,
including the degradation of environment. There is no ‘road map’ to these dangers. Because there are
no definitive answers about the causes and outcomes of such risks, the people are obliged to face
these and suffer the consequences.

Beck argues that the modernity of the consequence of enlightenment – social justice, reasoning and
mass production – has become a thing of the past. The world is fast changing and we are now living in
a world, which is beyond the modern. Now we have second modernity.

The second modernity refers to the fact that modern institutions are becoming global, while everyday
life is breaking free from the hold of tradition and customs. He argues for the emergence of second
modernity, which is to him a risk society as under:

The old industrial society is disappearing and is being replaced by a ‘risk society’ . The management
of risk is the prime feature of the global order. The earlier modernity largely consisted of
industrialization. It was good for the society. It was advantageous for the people but the new avatar of
modernity has created risks. With the advances in science and technology, new risk situations are
created that are different from those of previous ages.

Science and technology obviously provide many benefits for us. Yet, they create risks that are hard to
measure. Thus, no one quite knows, for example, what the risks involved in the production of
genetically modified foods might be.

A generation ago, in the developed societies, marriage was a fairly straightforward process of life
transition – one moved from being unmarried to the status of marriage, and this was assumed to be a
fairly permanent situation.

Today, many people live together without getting married and divorce rates are high. In developing
countries, such as India, the sacramental character of marriage is steadily diluted and among the
middle class families there is a drive towards divorce. There are a large number of TV serials which
profusely deal with the problem of the breaking of marriage.

Beck seems to be talking about the ground realities of the contemporary modern world. It is certain
that the world of 1920 when the founding theorists died has changed radically. The earlier modernity
had several advantages; the second modernity or the contemporary modernity has several risks.

It must be admitted that Beck is not arguing that the contemporary world is more risky than that of
earlier ages. What he argued is that the risks, which we encounter today, derive less from mutual
dangers or hazards than from uncertainties created by our own social development and by the
development of science and technology. Beck has made comparison between the earlier modernity or
the modernity of classical theorists and the second or revised modernity of contemporary theorists.

Defining risk, he says:

Industrial society has created many new dangers of risks unknown in previous ages. The risks
associated with global warming are one example. In the present era of industrialization, the nature of
risk has undergone tremendous change. Earlier, there was no absence of risk. But these risks were
natural dangers or hazards. There was earthquake, there was epidemic, there was famine and there
were floods.

But, the risks in the modern society are created by our own social development and by the
development of science and technology. Sometimes, we fail to ascertain the risk involved in a
particular aspect of technology. For instance, no one quite knows what risks are involved in the
production of genetically modified foods.

What is modernity?
The modernity, which is found in the present world, is called ‘new modernity’ by Beck. It essentially
gives birth to a risk society. Explaining the meaning of new modernity as given by Beck, Ritzer
comments: Beck labels the new, or better at newly emerging, form of reflexive modernity.

A process of individualization has taken place in the west. That is, agents (individuals) are becoming
increasingly free of structural constraints and are as a result, better able to reflexively create not only
themselves, but also the societies in which they live. For example, instead of being determined by
their class situations, people operate more or less on their own. Left to their own devices, people have
been forced to be more reflexive.

Beck has made his perspective on modernity very clear when he says that the new modernity has
abandoned the old modernity and enables the individual to take his own decisions without any
reference to his class or caste consideration. If his self-evaluation of society is faulty, he is likely to
succumb to risk. Now, most of the risks emerge from the modernity in which he lives. The new
modernity is different from the industrial modernity. In his own words:

Just as modernization dissolved the structure of feudal society in the nineteenth century and produced
the industrial society, modernization today is dissolving industrial society and another modernity is
coming into being…. The thesis of this book is: we are witnessing not the end but the beginning of
modernity – that is, of modernity beyond its industrial design.

Beck’s new modernity has emerged out of the industrial modernity. In this new modernity, the social
relations and institutions have to be individually chosen. In fact, in this new modem society, social
ties and connection have to be established, maintained and renewed by individuals themselves. The
shift from industrial society to the risk society is a major break in the process of transformation.

Speciality of risk society:

In classical or industrial society the ideal was equality. And, the notions of welfare, humanism,
freedom and equality were inspired by enlightenment. This ideal is abandoned in the new modernity.
In classical modernity people achieved solidarity to attain equality. But, in contemporary advanced
modernity, the attempt to achieve solidarity is found in the search for the largely negative and
defensive goal of being spared from danger and risk.

The risk in the new society is produced by the sources of wealth. Specifically, industry and its side-
effects are producing a wide range of hazardous, even deadly, consequences for society and as a result
of globalization, the world as a whole.

Using the concepts of time and space, Beck makes the point that these modem risks are not restricted
to place (a nuclear accident in one geographic locale could affect many other nations) or time (a
nuclear accident could have genetic effects that might affect future generations). While social class is
central in industrial society and risk is fundamental to it. These are not unrelated, says Beck:

The history of risk distribution shows that, like wealth, risks adhere to the class pattern, only
inversely; wealth accumulates at the top, risk at the bottom. To that extent, risks seem to strengthen,
not to abolish, class society. Poverty attracts an unfortunate abundance of risks. By contrast, the
wealthy (in income, power, or education) can purchase safety and freedom from risk.

Beck has applied his argument of risk distribution from class to nations also. He says that compared to
rich nations, the poor ones are more vulnerable to risks. Thus, poor nations suffer all the time from
risk while the rich nations are able to push many risks as far away as possible.

Further, the rich nations profit from the risks as far away as possible. Further, the rich nations profit
from the risks they produce for example, by producing and selling technologies that help prevent risks
from occurring or deal with their adverse effects once they do occur.

One more important difference between the earlier or classical modernity and new modernity is
brought out by Beck. In industrial modernity nature and society were deeply intervened. It means,
changes brought in society also affected the natural environment, and those in turn affected society.

The central issue in the classical modernity was wealth and how it could be distributed more evenly.
In advanced modernity, the central issue is risk and how it can be prevented, minimized, or channeled.
In classical modernity the ideal was equality, while in advanced modernity it is safety.

In classical modernity people achieved solidarity in the research for the positive goal of equality, but
in advanced modernity the attempt to achieve that solidarity is found in the search for the largely
negative and defensive goal of being spared from dangers.

But, after all, how does Beck define his second modernity which is sometimes also called late
modernity. The fundamental specificity of the contemporary modernity is that it is reflexive in its
character. It is the people who should question the risks involved in modernity.

A valid explanation of the risks can be sought in the sub-politics of the state. According to Beck, the
sub-politics consist of large companies, scientific laboratories, and the like. It is in the sub-political
system that the “structures of a new society are being implemented with regard to the ultimate goals
of progress in knowledge, outside the parliamentary system, not in opposition to it, but simply
ignoring it”.
Take the case of India. The Supreme Court ordered the closure of hundreds of factories in and around
New Delhi because of the environmental hazards created by them for the community. This is the apt
example of the role of sub-politics.

To summarize, it can be said that the old definition of modernity is no longer relevant today. The old
modernity has witnessed dramatic changes. The new modernity, which Beck calls the ‘second
modernity’, is actually the late modernity. This avatar of modernity creates risks for the society.

But, the present generation cannot survive without the advantages of this form of modernity. In fact,
there is no going back. Beck agrees with Habermas that the new society does not spell the end of
attempts at social and political reform. The sub-politics and the civil society have much to do in this
field.

Thus according to Beck:

Nature is society and society is also nature; nature has been politicized, with the result that natural
scientists, like social scientists, have had their work politicized. Before closing Beck’s theory of
modern risk society, we would only comment that if to-day’s modernity is so much characterized by
risk, what would happen to the postmodern society? What the postmodernists see as chaos or lack of
pattern, Beck sees as risk or uncertainty. The management of risk is the prime feature of the global
order.

Castells – Network Society

The concept of the network society is closely associated with interpretation of the social implications
of globalisation and the role of electronic communications technologies in society. The definition of a
network society given by the foremost theorist of the concept, Manuel Castells (2004 p. 3) is that it is
'a society whose social structure is made up of networks powered by micro-electronics-based
information and communications technologies.' As Castells shows in his book, historically, there
have always been social networks: the key factor that distinguishes the network society is that the use
of ICTs helps to create and sustain far-flung networks in which new kinds of social relationships are
created.

According to Castells, three processes led to the emergence of this new social structure in the late
20th century:

 the restructuring of industrial economies to accommodate an open market approach

 the freedom-oriented cultural movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the
civil rights movement, the feminist movement and the environmental movement

 the revolution in information and communication technologies.

The significance of economic restructuring is that it created the conditions for the emergence of the
open market development paradigm, weakening the nation state and deepening processes of social
inclusion and exclusion between and within countries.

The cultural movements were significant because they created the conditions for emergence of an
opposing 'human-capabilities centred' development paradigm that focuses on human rights.

The values of individual autonomy and freedom espoused by this cultural change shaped the open
network structure for communication.

Inclusion and exclusion in the network society

A key aspect of the network society concept is that specific societies (whether nation states or local
communities) are deeply affected by inclusion in and exclusion from the global networks that
structure production, consumption, communication and power. Castells' hypothesis is that exclusion is
not just a phenomenon that will be gradually wiped out as technological change embraces everyone
on the planet, as in the case that everyone has a mobile phone, for example. He argues that exclusion
is a built-in, structural feature of the network society.

In part this is because networks are based on inclusion and exclusion. Networks function on the basis
of incorporating people and resources that are valuable to their task and excluding other people,
territories and activities that have little or no value for the performance of those tasks (Castells 2004
p. 23). Different networks have different rationales and geographies of exclusion and exclusion - for
example, Silicon Valley engineers occupy very different social and territorial spaces from criminal
networks.

The most fundamental divides in the network society according to Castells (2004 p. 29) are the
division of labour and the poverty trap that we discussed earlier in the context of globalisation. He
characterises these as the divide between 'those who are the source of innovation and value to the
network society, those who merely carry out instructions, and those who are irrelevant whether as
workers (not enough education, living in marginal areas with inadequate infrastructure for
participation in global production) or as consumers (too poor to be part of the global market).'

Power and empowerment in the network society

In a social structure characterised by exclusion from and inclusion in different kinds of social and
communication networks, power is a crucial determinant of social change. Power can be defined as
the capacity to impose one's will over another's will. In the concept of the network society, the chief
form of power is control or influence over communication.

This is because connectivity and access to networks are essential to the power of some social groups
to impose their values and goals on society-at-large and of others to resist their domination.

In the network society, one of the most important impacts of globalisation is the way it enables us to
create economic, social and political relationships that are less and less bounded by where we are
located at any given time - or in other words, by our spatial location. In traditional societies, different
social relations, customs, and culture exist in separate spaces and individuals have to conform to most
powerful expectations and rules - for example, in families, villages, towns, cities, and nation states. In
the globalising society, these spaces lose their power to constrain individuals: people can
communicate without personal contact via the global net of mass media, phone, fax and computers
and are less and less linked by a common history and shared face-to-face relationships. At the same
time, pre-existing traditions cannot avoid contact with, or being influenced by, distant values and
forms of knowledge.

How we interpret this change in the social significance of location depends on how we interpret
'communication'.

 If communication is seen as a 'one-way' street, rather like a vaccination of new information

into passive recipients who absorb novel information and ideas uncritically, then individuals
and local communities can be disempowered by the communication of external knowledge
and culture.
  If communication is seen as a process in which new information is actively interpreted and
used selectively by the recipients who take an active role in shaping the meaning of the
information, then individuals and local communities can be empowered by the inflow of new
ideas. The possibility of developing innovative forms of communication and knowledge
sharing is empowering.

This distinction between passive versus empowering communication is a central one for
understanding how ICTs are used for development. Many critics of globalisation view it as an
invasive force for cultural homogenisation promoting an inflow of information and knowledge that is
becoming more uniform and standardised, due to powerful technological, commercial and cultural
influences originating from centres of power and influence defining what constitutes information and
knowledge and how it is shared.

A contrary view of the effects of globalising electronic communication is that although information
and knowledge from major centres of power have an extraordinary level of predominance,
communication is a two-way process: inflowing information is not just taken in uncritically; it is
subject to local interpretation and innovative applications.

These two ideas are not mutually exclusive: it is not a question of one or the other. One of the most
important forces for change and development in the network society is the tension between the
efforts of some networks to impose their values and goals and the efforts of others to resist their
domination.

Empowerment, according to Castells, is strengthened by social media including networking (such as

Facebook) and social movements connected via the internet. He sees social media as evidence of
trends within globalisation that promote cultural diversity, innovativeness and certain kinds of
freedoms.

Zygmunt Bauman – Modernity as Holocaust and Liquid Society

Zygmunt was a Polish-born sociologist (1925-2017) and one of the world’s eminent social theorists.
Born in Poland, he escaped to the Soviet Union when the Nazis invaded, then returned to Poland after
WWII as a committed Communist and lecturer at the University of Warsaw. In 1968, he was kicked
out of Poland for being too critical of the country’s Communist regime and moved to the UK. He
spent the rest of his career—and life—in Leeds. He died just a year ago. (If he were still living, I’d be
knocking on his door right now.) His big ideas—which focus on questions of
modernity, consumerism and globalization—reflect decades lived on both sides of the 20th century’s
ideological divide.

Bauman has come out with a title, Intimations of Postmodernity (1992). He is a theorist who
establishes that modernity and postmodernity have cast a gloom on world society. These processes
have rendered holocaust. As the Jews were destructed by the Nazis, so is the process of modernization
which has meant loss of life to the contemporary world.

Bauman puts it, “considered as a complex purposeful operation, the holocaust may serve as a
paradigm of modern bureaucratic rationality”. To many it will seem obscure to discuss fast food
restaurants and the holocaust in the same context. Yet, there is a clear line in sociological thinking
about modem rationality from the bureaucracy to the holocaust and then to the fast food restaurant.

The perpetrators of the holocaust employed bureaucracy as one of their major tools. The conditions
that made the holocaust possible, especially the formal rational system, continue to exist today.

Indeed, what the process of McDonaldization indicates is not only that formally rational systems
persist, but they are expanding dramatically. Thus, in Bauman’s view, under the right set of
circumstances the modern world would be ripe for an event of greater abomination than the holocaust.

Generally, the situation of holocaust or destruction is considered by people as abnormal, but Bauman
thinks otherwise. In course of time, the condemned holocaust would be seen as a normal event. In
other words, holocaust would be taken as the handwork of rationality. In Bauman’s words:

The truth is that every ‘ingredient’ of the holocaust – all of those many things that rendered it possible
– was normal; ‘normal’ not in the sense of familiar … but in the sense of being fully in keeping with
everything we know about our civilization, its guiding spirit, its priorities, its immanent vision of the
world.

Ritzer, while successfully bringing to home the meaning of modernity as given by Bauman,
observes:

Thus, the holocaust, to Bauman, was a product of modernity and not as most people view it, a result
of the breakdown of modernity. In Weberian terms, there was an “elective affinity” between the
holocaust and modernity.

Modernity has been explained in a very strange way. On one hand, Ritzer argues that the introduction
of fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s have employed rationality and have caused efficiency to
the system, and on the other hand by employing the same rationality, holocaust has also been cast on
the society. Rationality, therefore, is common to both for fast food and holocaust.

Bauman writes quite pointedly:

Modernity as embodied in these rational systems was not a sufficient condition for the holocaust, but
it was clearly a necessary condition. Without modernity and rationality, the holocaust would be
unthinkable. How does holocaust work with rationality? See the holocaust of Germany.

Defining the Jew problem Hitler said:

“Get rid of the Jews and every problem is solved.” The German bureaucrats picked up the solution
given by Hitler and meticulously applied bureaucratic rationality to resolve a series of day-to-day
problems, extermination emerged as the best means to the end.

Thus, Bauman argues that the holocaust was not the result of irrationality or pre-modern barbarity, but
rather it was the product of the modern, rational bureaucracy. It was not a crazed lunatic who created
and managed the holocaust, but highly rational and otherwise quite normal bureaucrat.

Liquid Society
As a sociologist, Zygmunt passionately believed that by asking questions about our own society,
we become freer. ‘An autonomous society, a truly democratic society, is a society which questions
everything that is pre-given and by the same token liberates the creation of new meanings. In such a
society, all individuals are free to create for their lives the meanings they will (and can).’

On the flipside: ‘Society is ill if it stops questioning itself.’ We become enslaved to the narratives
being manufactured all around us, and we lose touch with our own subjective experiences.

Self-questioning our own society is hard work: ‘We need to pierce the walls of the obvious and self-
evident, of the prevailing ideas of the day whose commonality is mistaken for proof that they make
sense.’

And yet, we must try, because: ‘Whatever safety democracy and individuality may muster depends
not on fighting the uncertainty of the human condition, but on recognizing it and facing its
consequences point-blank.’

The prevailing ideas of our day box us in. Zygmunt labels the box we’re now trapped inside ‘liquid
modernity’. He contrasts it with the very different box of ideas we used to be trapped in, which all had
to do with ’solidity’.

What’s happening to us today—why everything feels so strange—is that we are struggling to shift our
thinking, values and identity, from a solid to a liquid state.

Liquid individuals

In our personal lives, we now live this shift from solid to liquid daily. In solid modernity, the world of
Henry Ford factories and automotive unions, ‘the task confronting free individuals was to use their
freedom to find the appropriate niche and to settle there through conformity.’ (If you think about it,
our systems of compulsory education were designed to help us achieve that goal, that life.)

But today, ‘such patterns, codes and rules to which one could conform…are in increasingly short
supply.’ Where once workers unionized and rallied together to humanize labour against dehumanizing
conformity, now we struggle with the absence of stable employment structures. These days, ‘patterns
to which we could conform are no longer “given”, let alone “self-evident”; there are just too many of
them, clashing with one another and contradicting one another.’

Today, the burden of pattern-weaving (and the responsibility for getting the pattern wrong) falls
primarily on each individual’s shoulders. ‘Under the new circumstances, the odds are that most of
human life—and most of human lives—will be spent agonizing about the choice of goals, rather than
finding the means to the ends which do not call for reflection.’

‘What should I do?’ has come to dominate our actions. There are painfully more possibilities than any
individual life, however long, adventurous or industrious, can attempt to explore. The most
haunting, insomnia-causing question has become, ‘Have I used my means to the best advantage?’

One of the consequences of this haunting uncertainty is that ‘shopping’ has extended beyond buying
stuff to become the very activity of life itself. ‘Shopping is no longer just about food, shoes, cars or
furniture. The avid, never-ending search for new and improved examples and recipes for life is also a
variety of shopping. We shop for the skills needed to earn our living, and for the ways to learn them
best; for ways of making the new friends we want; for ways of drawing attention and ways to hide
from scrutiny; for the means to squeeze the most satisfaction out of love and for the best ways to
make money…The competence most needed in a world of infinite ends is that of the skilful and
indefatigable shopper.’

Liquid capitalism

’In the fluid stage of modernity,’ Zygmunt wrote, ‘the settled majority is ruled by the nomadic and
extraterritorial elite.’

His reasoning is this: In a solid world, the power of capital over labour was demonstrated by the
ability to fix in place, to control. In the solid factories of Henry Ford, power was wielded by bolting
human labour to machines on an assembly line.

But that power came with some responsibility, too. In the world of factories, human labour came with
a human body. ‘One could employ human labour only together with the rest of the laborers’
bodies…That requirement brought capital and labour face-to-face in the factory and kept them, for
better or worse, in each other’s company.’ Factory owners had to supply some light, some food, some
safety at least.
That’s no longer the case. In our liquid, digital economy, labour no longer ties down capital. While
labour still depends on capital to supply the tools to be productive, capital itself is now weightless,
free of spatial confinement. Now, the power of capital is to escape, to avoid and evade, to reject
territorial confinement, to reject the inconvenience and responsibility of building and maintaining a
labour force. ‘Brief contracts replace lasting engagements. One does not plant a citrus-tree grove to
squeeze a lemon.’

In liquid modernity, capital travels hopefully (with carry-on luggage only), counting on brief
profitable adventures and confident that there will be no shortage of them. Labor itself is now dividing
into those who can do the same, and those who cannot:

'This has become the principal factor of present-day inequality…The game of domination in the era of
liquid modernity is not played between the bigger and the smaller, but between the quicker and the
slower…People who move and act faster are now the people who rule…It is the people who cannot
move as quickly, and especially, those who cannot leave their place at all, who are ruled…Some of
the world’s residents are on the move; for the rest it is the world itself that refuses to stand still.'

Where once we valued durability, now we value flexibility. Transience. Because that which cannot
easily bend will instead snap.

Liquid society

Remember George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four? In solid modernity, we feared the monolithic Big
Brother. We feared the totalitarian state that would lock all of our private freedoms into the iron grip
of public routines. The private sphere would be devoured by the public. Now, we fear the reverse: that
the unfettered freedom of our private action is eroding, devouring, the once solid-seeming institutions
of the public sphere.

The task now is to defend the vanishing public realm.

In the era of ‘solid modernity’, the metaphor for society was that of ‘citizens in a shared household’.
The household had norms, habits and rules. And politics was about building awareness of, and
tweaking, those features of household life.

But now, it’s like we’re all ‘individuals in a caravan park’. We come and go, according to our own
itinerary and time schedule. We all bring to the park our own homes, equipped with all the stuff we
need for our stay—which we intend to be short. There’s a site manager, from whom what we want
most is to be left alone and not interfered with. We all pay our rental fee, and since we pay, we also
demand. We want our promised services—electric sockets and water taps, and not to be disturbed by
the other campers—and otherwise want to be free to do our own thing. On occasion, we clamor for
better service from the manager. Sometimes we get it. But it doesn’t occur to us to challenge the
managerial philosophy of the site, much less to take over the responsibility for running the place. We
may, at the utmost, make a mental note never to use the site again and not to recommend it to our
friends. But when we leave, the site remains much the same as it was before our arrival.

This shift, from ‘shared household’ to ‘caravan park’, makes for a profoundly different public
discourse. Rather than a space to debate our collective problem—how to build the good or just
society—the public sphere has become dominated by the private problems of public figures. To fear
Big Brother was to fear the few watching the many. ‘But now the tables have been reversed. It is now
the many who watch the few.

As the public realm dwindles down to public commentary on private virtues and vices, the collective
questions fade from public discourse, until we reach the point we are at today, where ‘politicians offer
us their sentiments, rather than their acts, for our consumption’ and we, as spectators, do not expect
much more from our politicians than a good spectacle.

Liquid identity

Immigration is a good thing. ‘A mixing of cultural inspirations is a source of enrichment and an

engine of creativity.’ At the same time, ‘only a thin line separates enrichment from a loss of cultural
identity.’

Faced with the fluidity of this modern moment, it’s not surprising that we respond to the ‘other’, the
strange, the foreign by pushing it away. Separation and escape from difference is so much easier, so
much more natural, for us now than engagement and mutual commitment.

‘Don’t talk to strangers’, parents used to tell their children. Today that advice is redundant. Who does
that anymore? ‘Civil spaces’—spaces where we met strangers and did some mutual thing
together—are shrinking.

Public spaces—movie theatres, shopping streets, restaurants, airports—are proliferating. But such
spaces ‘encourage action, not interaction.’ In public spaces, genuine encounters with strangers are
an annoyance; they keep us away from the actions in which we are individually engaged. However,
crowded these spaces may be, there is nothing ‘collective’ going on among the crowd. These crowds
are accurately called gatherings, but not congregations; clusters, not squads; aggregates, not wholes.

Because civil spaces are shrinking, ‘the occasions to learn the art of civility are ever fewer and further
between.’ And civility—the ability to live with differences, let alone to enjoy such living and to
benefit from it—is an art. ‘It does not come easily. Like all arts, it requires study and exercise.’

If we lack the art of civility, ‘seeking security in a common identity rather than in an agreement on
shared interests emerges as the most sensible way to proceed, because no one knows how to talk to
anyone else.’
Patriotism and nationalism are the easiest ways to construct a shared sense of safety. But given the
messy, tangled reality of humanity today, they’re also the least stable. ‘In a stark opposition to either
the patriotic or the nationalistic faith, the most promising kind of unity is one which is achieved, and
achieved daily anew, by confrontation, debate, negotiation and compromise between values,
preferences and chosen ways of life and self-identifications of many and different people. This is a
unity that is an outcome of, not a prior condition to, shared life.

‘This, I wish to propose, is the only formula of togetherness which our liquid modernity renders
plausible…And so the choice stares us in the face: to learn the difficult art of living with difference.’

This line of thinking led Zygmunt to conclude (in 2012, four years before Brexit and Trump): ‘The
big question, likely to determine the future of civilization, is which of these two contending “facts of
the matter” will come out on top: the life-saving role played by immigrants in slow-growing, fast-
ageing countries, or the rise in xenophobic sentiments, which populists will eagerly recycle into
electoral power?’

Connecting the dots

All of the above is just one person’s way of making sense of the changes we’re all going through.
Zygmunt writes: ‘Living under liquid modern conditions can be compared to walking in a minefield:
everyone knows an explosion might happen at any moment and in any place, but no one knows when
the moment will come and where the place will be.’

Under conditions of ‘liquidity’, everything can happen—yet nothing can be done with confidence and
certainty. That’s because ‘we presently find ourselves in a time of “interregnum”—when the old ways
of doing things no longer work, the old learned or inherited modes of life are no longer suitable for
the current human condition, but when the new ways of tackling the challenges and new modes of life
better suited to the new conditions have not as yet been invented.’

Jurgen Habermas – Unfinished Project of Modernity

The German sociologist and philosopher, Jurgen Habermas is linked to the Frankfurt School of social
thought. The Frankfurt School was a group of authors inspired by Karl Marx who nevertheless
believed that Marx’s views needed radical revision to bring them up-to-date. Habermas belonged to
the tradition of Marx but analysed Marx in a different way.

Habermas revisited enlightenment. Enlightenment was revolutionary and it combined science,

morality and art together. These three forms of human thinking made the whole worldview. The forms
were such in which religion exercised hegemony over science and art. Habermas stresses the
importance of rationality over other three forms of human thinking. Modernity, according to him, is
the core of rationality.

He is said to be the leading defender of modernity and rationality. His views on modernity are
elaborated in his work, Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1987). Though postmodernists have
made all possible assaults on Habermas, he has very strongly defended his position.

This has been stated by Seidman as under:

In contrast to many contemporary intellectuals who have for an anti-or postmodernist position,
Habermas sees in the institutional orders of modernity structure of rationality. Whereas many
intellectuals have become cynical about the emancipatory potential of modernity…. Habermas
continues to insist on the Utopian potential of modernity. In a social context in which faith in the
Enlightenment project of a good society promoted by reason sees a fading hope and spurned idol,
Habermas remains one of its strongest defenders.

Habermas has come to the conclusion that rationality has hegemony on the total way of life by
analysis the social world of the men. He finds that the present society has become increasingly
complex, differentiated, integrated and characterized by rationality. The life world has also witnessed
increasing differentiation, secularization and institutionalization of norms of reflexivity and criticism.

Habermas has taken up some of these themes, and developed two basic theoretical frameworks:

(1) Theory of Communication, and

(2) Theory of Rationalization of System and Life-world.

(1). Theory of community:

In his book, The Theory of Communicative Action (2 Vols., 1984,1987) Habermas has taken up the
task of reformulating Marxian thoughts in the light of 20th century social world. He discusses the
expansion of state power into all spheres of social life. He expands Marx’s conception of humanity by
adding language, i.e., communication to work (labour).

For Habermas, language is a significant part of human development. An undistorted communication

could lay the foundation of emancipatory practice and distorted communication could result in false
consciousness. It is the undistorted communication that rationality has a prime role. The theory of
communication is Habermas’ important contribution to sociological theorizing.

(2). Theory of rationalization of system and life-world:

Habermas’ theory of rationalization of system and life-world rests on his framework of democracy
and the public sphere. He says that many of the ideas of Marx have become obsolete. He, therefore,
looks to Weber as a source of alternative ideas. He also suggests that some of the basic principles
which inspired Marx’s writing need to be sustained.

For instance, there is no alternative to capitalism, nor should there be; capitalism has proved capable
of generating enormous wealth. Nonetheless, some of the fundamental problems identified in the
capitalistic economy are still there – such as the tendency to produce economic depressions or crisis.

We need to re-establish our control over economic processes which have come to control us more
than we control them. One of the main ways of achieving such control, Habermas proposes, is by a
revival of what he calls the ‘public sphere’. The public sphere is essentially the framework of
democracy.

His democracy is not the present democracy of parliament and procedures of representation. He talks
about the rationalization of system and life-world. There is rationality in the system – parliament,
executive, judiciary and other institutions of public sphere.

Thus, there is also rationality in our day-to-day working. The rationality – both in the system and life-
world – is different. In the system there is domination of formal rationality, whereas in the life-world,
there is practical rationality.

In such a situation, Habermas argued:

A rational society would be one in which both system and life-world are permitted to rationalize in
their own way, following their own logics. The rationalization of system and life-world would lead to
a society with material abundance and control over its environments as a result of rational systems
and truth, goodness, and beauty stemming from a rational-like world. But what has happened today is
that the system rationality has colonized or subordinated the life-world rationality. State, that is,
system rationality has gained hegemony over our day-to-day life. In practice, life-world has become
subordinate to state or system rationality. This is not modernity.

For modernity, the final product would be as Habermas observes:

A fully rational society is that in which both system and life-world rationality were allowed to express
themselves fully without one destroying the other. We currently suffer from an impoverished life-
world, and that problem must be overcome. However, the answer does not lie in the destruction of
systems (especially the economic and administrative systems) since it is they, that provide the
material pre-requisites needed to allow life-world rationalize.

Habermas has dealt with the problems created by system rationality. State is the biggest creator of
problems. It is bureaucratic, legal and rational. It interferes in the life-world in such a big way that the
individual remains a fractured entity. Habermas does not think the problem can be solved in this way.
Rather, effort should be made to solve the relationship between system and the life-world.

In his conclusion, he writes:

Contemporary problems cannot be solved by system learning to function better. Rather, impulses
from the life-world must be able to enter into the self-steering of functional systems. This would
constitute important steps towards the creation of mutually enriching life-world and system. It is here
that social movements enter the picture, because they represent the hope of a recouping of system and
life-world so that the two can rationalize to the highest possible degree.

Habermas says:

A rational society would be one in which both system and life-world were permitted to rationalize in
their own way, following their own logics. The rationalization of system and life-world would lead to
a society with material abundance and control over its environment as a result of rational systems and
one of truth, goodness, and stemming from a rational world.

Habermas has put his thesis in plain and certain words: Modernity is guided by rationality. There is a
life-world, which we all live, witness and experience. This life-world has its social system. The social
system is rational; the life-world so is rational. Thus, there is rationalization of social system and life-
world. The end is the society.

However, Habermas is not closed in his thinking. He says that the hegemony of system is so strong
that sometimes life-world is deprived of some of the freedom which it wants to enjoy. And, as a result
of this, there is colonialization of the life-world by the rational system.

In other words, the “hallmark of modernity” to Habermas, as well as most of the classical theory, has
been, in Habermas’ terms, “the colonization of the life-world by the system”.

Habermas is convinced of the benefits of modernity. There are a few more things that modernity has
to do. A large number of people in any society and particularly in South Africa and Asia are
marginalized, and live below the poverty line. They have yet to get the benefits of modernity.

And, it is in this context that Habermas sees modernity as an unfinished project implying that there is
far more to be done in the modern world before we can begin thinking about the possibility of
postmodern world. He hopes that the final product of the modern society would be a fully rational
society in which both system and life-world were allowed to express themselves fully without one
destroying the other.