Modernization Theory

September 14, 2007

Readings for Today
 Rostow
 Deutsch
 Huntington
Historical Context
 1950s (Post World War II)
 U.S. becoming a Superpower
 Success of the Marshall Plan
 New attention to unequal development in
the world
“Traditional Society”
 Reliance on kinship structures
 Little social or spatial mobility
 Only basic economic activity
 A traditional elite and hierarchical
organization
“Modern Society”
 Nuclear family serves only limited
functions
 Complex and differentiated occupations
and economy
 Highly differentiated political structures
 Rational legal sources of authority
What is Progress?
 Progress as a natural process
 Progress as a political process
 Consolidation of the nation state
 Progress as economic growth
 Progress as personal
 “a shift in values, attitudes and expectations”
Tradition vs. Progress
 Is there a trade-off?

 Progress as a cultural process (values,

etc.)
Cultural arguments
 Protestant ethic vs. Catholicism
“We are not poor, there are no beggars here;
for people from outside, yes there is poverty
because they see us unwashed or they see our
houses in poor shape, for them this is poverty,
but for us this is not poverty. When we want to
fish in the river, if we want to talk or think, we
have space. In the end, where there is land,
there is no poverty.”
 (Venancio Mborobainchi, President of the Urubicha
Communal Center, cited on the CIPCA website 2007).
Rostow’s Five Stages
 (1956)
Rostow’s Five Stages

1. The Traditional Society

2. Preconditions for Take-Off
3. Take-Off
4. Drive to Maturity
5. High Mass-Consumption

(6. Beyond Consumption)

Mechanisms for Modernizing
 Media
 Cultural Diffusion
 Foreign Aid
 “Social Evolution”
Social Mobilization and Political
Development
 Deutsch (1961)
 Social Mobilization: “the process in which major
clusters of old social, economic, and
psychological commitments are eroded or
broken and people become available for new
patters of socialization and behavior”
 Two-Stages:
 Breaking from the old
 Forming stable new patterns
Measures of Mobilization

1. Exposure to modernity
2. Mass media
3. Voting participation
4. Urbanization
5. Change to non-agricultural employment
6. Literacy
7. Per capita income
Policy Implications
 “active intervention” (p. 505)
A downside?
 Huntington
Political Instability
 All good things go together?
 Economic and Political Development
 Institutionalization
Discussion
 Any objections to modernization theory?

 How well does the world today fit with the

expectations of D and R?

 Is there a trade-off between modernity and

tradition?

 Are there universal goals for development?

What would Sen think?
Discussion
 What does Huntington have in common
with Deutsch and Rostow?

 How is his argument different?

Critiques of Modernization
 Modernization can break down traditional
authority without necessarily replacing it
with modern structures

 Modernization can cause problems:

 Psychological stress/ issues of identity
 Violence and political disorder
Huntington
 Argues with the idea that modernization
means political and economic
development going hand in hand
 Worries that efforts to promotes
modernization can produce political
disorder
 Modernization not the same as Modernity
 Instability
might be related to the rate of change
 Economic growth can lead to social tensions
Huntington
 Key variables

 Degree of institutionalization

 Degree of participation
 Next time…
 Dependency Theory