Topic II: Theoretical and conceptual

basis of comparative political systems

in Non-Industrial Countries
Industrial/non-industrial
Developing/developed
North/south
Third world/first world (B.C. Smith, Chaptert 1)
Traditional/modern
 Readings:

1. Peter Calvert, Susan Calvert: Politics and Society in

the Developing World
2. B.C. Smith: Understanding Third World Politics
3. John Hoffman: A Glossary of Political Theory
4. Ellen Grisby: Analyzing Politics: An Introduction to
Political Science
 Developing Countries
• Developing - Countries categorized by WB and IMF as low
income or middle income
• But not all “developing” are developing so the following category
• The very poorest: mostly in Africa but not all – mostly depend on
export of of single crop
• The large majority of lower and upper middle-income countries
which despite their efforts remain relatively poor by world
standards.
• Oil (petroleum) producing countries: high income but no
sustained economic gro wth
• NIEs
 First and Third Word

First and Third World North-South (hemisphere )

• Gained acceptance during • Northern hemisphere: rich,
the CW to mean those democratic, industrilized,
which were neither in market economies etc
Western (free market • Southern hemisphere: poor,
economies) nor Soviet bloc non-democratic (?), export-
(command economies) oriented economies etc
• NAM
 B.C Smith: The Status of the Third World

• Political independence: most were colonized so gained indendence

• National incomes: GDP, Per Capita Income (Norway GDP per capita
$77,975, Tanzania - $1,105)
• Industrialization: incomes tend to rise with industrialization
(manufacturing sector)
• Integration into the world economy: Third World countries problem
is they depend on prices of primary goods – which are always
fluctuating.
• Human development - life expectancy (Japan 84, Malawi 63, Brazil
75: Tanzania MMR 30 per 1,000, Sweden 2 per 1,000 ), educational
attainment, the purchasing power of incomes, gender parity etc
 Modernization
• Readings
• B.C. Smith
• Giovanni Reyes: four main theories of
development: modernization, dependency,
word-system, and globalization
 Assumptions
• Moderinization is a phased process
• Homogenizing process (linear): tends to converge
societies (highly modernized socities resemble one
another)
• Is a Europeanization or Americanization process
• Is a progressive process: inevitable but also desired
• Is a lengthy process: evolutionary, not revolutionary
• Systemic process
• Transformative process: replaces traditional values with
new ones
 Features
• Differentiation: Specialization – specialized
institutions for education, economy, health etc
• Secularization: society becomes rationalized,
reason over beliefs, See Max Weber’s burecuracy
• Cultural modernization: secularization and
rationalization requires change in cultural norms;
particularism (traditional society), universalism
(modernity)
• Process tfom tradition to modernity
 Postmodernism
Readings:
• John Hoffman: A Glossary of Political Theory
• Ellen Grisby: Analyzing Politics: An
Introduction to Political Science
 Postmodernism
• Any ideology putting forward absolute statements as timeless
truths should be viewed with profound skepticism
• For instance: liberalism and conservatism are build on human
nature: what if there isn’t such a as human nature?
• Often associated with relativism: In denying any ideology’s
claim to absolute truth, postmodernism suggests that what
we consider true is inevitably a product of our own individual
frame of reference.
• Some postmodernists take the view that general theories
should be avoided and that one should concentrate only upon
the local and the particular.
 Postmodernism
• Postmodernists take the view that modernist and
premodernist thought is characterised by what are called
binary opsets of opposites in which one half is privileged
and other downgraded positions –– so that one has to
make a choice between, for example, spirit and matter,
men and women, truth and falsehood, and so on.
• Socialist frames of reference produce truths distinct from
the truths of religious fundamentalists, for example. To
postmodernism’s supporters, this relativism is seen as a
liberating alternative to the rigidity of metanarratives
• Embraces diversity, plurality and difference: so they do not
belong to any school