Modernization Theory PDF

Modernization Theory and the Sociological Study of Development* By Henry Bernstein† SUMMARY The focus of this article is methodological and macro-sociological. Its purpose is to disentangle some of the issues which arise in the sociology of development,...

Modernization Theory and the Sociological Study of Development* By Henry Bernstein† SUMMARY The focus of this article is methodological and macro-sociological. Its purpose is to disentangle some of the issues which arise in the sociology of development, and to question the assumptions and implications of a particular mode of conceptualization based on the notions of modernity and modernization which has provided the characteristic theoretical frame- work of the sociology of development. The principal assumptions of modernization theory as understood here—often enough made explicit by those who use this approach—are (1) that modernization is a total social process associated with (or subsuming) economic development in terms of the preconditions, concomitants, and consequences of the latter; (2) that this process constitutes a 'universal pattern'. Obviously among various writers there are differences of emphasis with respect to the meaning of modernization, partly due to its relationship with—or deriva- tion from—that most contentious concept 'development'. For Lerner modernization is 'the social process of which development is the economic component' (Lerner, 1967, p. 21); while Apter sees development, modern- ization and industrialization as terms of decreasing conceptual generality (Apter, 1967, pp. 67-9). Some writers stress structural aspects while for others 'the concept of modernization has to do with a transformation of culture and of personality in so far as it is influenced by culture, rather than of some aspect of social organization or of human ecology' (Stephen- son, 1968, p. 265). It is hoped that the following discussion is both specific enough to convey the essential aspects of the type of theory under review, and flexible enough to allow for some of the variants on the basic theme in what is a highly condensed survey of a substantial body of literature.1 The critical approach adopted reflects certain ideas about societies and hence the questions social scientists should ask; these preoccupations cannot be discussed fully within present limits but are indicated in the suggestions contained in the concluding section. The first section serves to outline the context in which the concept of development studies arose. This is followed by a schematic outline of the central concepts and conceptual procedures of the sociology of development, and more specifi- cally of modernization theory, which are then criticized on a number of counts. These criticisms lead on to an argument for the use of a historical perspective—moreover, one which results in a re-examination of the concept of underdevelopment, relating it to the expansion of Western * The author would like to thank Rita Cruise O'Brien and Leslie Sklair for encourag- ing him to commit to paper his views on this subject, and Ronald Dore and Donal Cruise O'Brien for their extensive comments on an earlier draft. † Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury. This article was written while the author was a Research Assistant, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. 142 JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES 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 possibili- ties of development in the Third World, than that generally employed in the sociology of development at present. ENTER SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT Development—as aspiration, ideology, and field of study—became an issue of urgent priority following the end of the Second World War in the context of internal events in the colonial countries and the economic and political realities of a changing international situation. This is not to deny both the antiquity and continuity of the notion of development in Western thought, as pointed out by Professor Nisbet (Nisbet, 1969), nor a tradition of concern with 'growth' and 'improvement' on the part of many social observers and participants including colonial administrators. In some respects, the aspirations and goals of the 'modernizing élites' of today's underdeveloped countries appear to have a compelling precedent in the case of post-Mejii Japan. The' advice and information' offered by a group of'prominent Americans' on the effects of education on a backward country, requested by Japan's first diplomatic representative to the United States in 1872, remains strikingly familiar to contemporary audiences. Education they reported,... would awake isolated peasant minds to new possibilities, tie Japan into a world exchange economy, stimulate new appetites requiring new industries and expanded trade to satisfy, improve the quality of peasant as well as technician, instil loyalty so that government can rule benignly rather than harshly; in short, it would lay the basis for prosperity and prestige among the nations of the world (Passin, 1965, p. 7). However, the post-1945 preoccupation with development expressed in the vocabulary of decolonization and government planning, institutionalized in a proliferation of international agencies, and studied by Western, and notably American, social scientists, takes on a character and an intensity derived from a specific historical and global context, as clearly indicated by Robert S. MacNamara in presenting the case for the American foreign aid programme: Roughly 100 countries today are caught up in the difficult transition to modern societies. There is no uniform rate of progress among them, and they range from primitive mosaic societies—fractured by tribalism and held feebly together by the slenderest of political sinews—to relatively sophisticated countries, well on the road to agricultural sufficiency and industrial competence. This sweeping surge of develop- ment, particularly across the whole southern half of the globe, has no parallel in history. MODERNIZATION THEORY AND STUDY OF DEVELOPMENT 143 It has turned traditionally listless areas of the world into seething cauldrons of change. On the whole it has not been a very peaceful process. Given the certain connection between economic stagnation and the incidence of violence, the years that lie ahead for the nations in the southern half of the globe are pregnant with violence. This would be true even if no threat of Communist subversion existed—as it clearly d o e s.... Whether Communists are involved or not, violence anywhere in a taut world transmits sharp signals through the complex ganglia of inter- national relations; and the security of the United States is related to the security and stability of nations half a globe away.* When it became clear, in the early 1950s, that the development of poor countries demanded a special attention from social science, the inability of economic theory to meet this demand by itself was soon appreciated: îts neglect of culture, of disciplines such as history, sociology and anthropology, meant that it never produced a theory of economic development and of industrialization. Naturally the theories set forth tended to have some explanatory power for Western development, because it was the historical and sociological factors in that process which were the premises for model building. It was only when these theories were applied outside of the Western nationals that their premises became painfully obvious (Weinberg, 1969, p. 3). The participation of other social science disciplines in the discussion of development was recognized as necessary, often being expressed in the 'social conditions of economic growth' or 'non-economic barriers to economic growth' types of formula. The extent of fruitful interdisciplinary activity in the resulting field of development studies is doubtful, but the contributions of social psychologists, historians, anthropologists and political scientists, as well as economists and sociologists, did ensure an occasionally useful eclecticism.3 A decisive landmark in terms of a more systematic theoretical approach within sociology proper was Daniel Lemer's The Passing of Traditional Society, published in 1958, of which Bendix has observed: 'The great merit of Lemer's study consists in its candid use of Western modernization as a model of global applicability' (Bendix, 1967a, p. 309). It will be argued that this aspect of modernization theories is inextricably involved in practice with the other features indicated above. Within the conventional area of discourse of sociology certain criticisms of the 'grand theory* approach to development have been advanced, some of which are referred to in the framework of the broader critique attempted here.4 SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT: A SCHEMATIC OUTLINE , 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 öf which is acknowledged in the additional comments following (5). 144 JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES (1) Theory of social change The recognition that development represents a particular kind of social change stimulated an interest in social change which had been generally neglected as a macro-sociological preoccupation, certainly in American sociology. The treatment of social change was accommodated in varying degrees with the prevailing mode of structural-functional analysis, although involving some modification of the latter with the introduction of concepts of strain and tension into its basically static perspective. The classic sources of functionalism, Spencer and Durkheim, were drawn on to provide the dynamic of the differentiation-integration model of social change (Smelser, 1968). (2) Conceptualizing the modern Given that development or modernization denotes a particular kind of social change in the contemporary context, it was necessary to find a heuristic designation of the beginning and end points of the process. Nineteenth-century sociology, which was primarily concerned with the disruptions and new social forms resulting from industrialization, again provided a number of concepts in a range of dichotomous ideal-types such as status-contract, sacred-secular, mechanical-organic, and com- munity-association, to which were added later formulations such as Redfield's folk-urban concepts and the pattern variables of Talcott Parsons.5 (3) Evolutionary schema The characterization of a process of change in terms of these ideal- typical end points—usually subsumed under a more general traditional- modern 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.* 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 Within the framework established by the polar ideal-types and the differentiation-integration model outlined above, the sociology of develop- ment becomes a question of identifying and analysing the social, cultural and psychological conditions, concomitants, and consequences of economic development. The transition from the traditional (economically backward) to the modem (economically advanced) society can be treated with a primarily negative emphasis in terms of removing institutional obstacles to development, or with a positive emphasis in terms of creating the cultural environment necessary for development. These approaches are analytic- ally complementary, but the former tends to rest on an 'economic man' postulate, assuming that development will occur once effective incentives are perceived;7 the latter tends to assume that the necessary motivation has to be instilled, as, say, a sufficient level of need for achievement or a suitably progressive (e.g. future-oriented and rational) world-view, as a precondition of development.8 MODERNIZATION THEORY AND STUDY OF DEVELOPMENT 145 (5) Modernizing élites Whether the 'will to be modern', in Edward Shils' phrase, is held to be ubiquitous or not, it is generally regarded as finding its most strategic expression in the role of the modernizing élites. It is these groups— political, bureaucratic, intellectual (and often military)—which are charged with the articulation of development goals and supervision of development strategies for their countries, and with the task of 'nation-building', i.e. of creating viable national societies from their socially and culturally diverse populations. Several additional points can be made to supplement this very brief outline. Within the basic assumptions and methodological procedure of modernization theory, there is a considerable variety of emphasis on different levels—according to whether conceptual priority is assigned to personality factors, institutions, cultural orientations, or social processes: according to the substantive designation of what is ideal-typically modern (e.g. 'empathy* or 'need for achievement' at the personality level), or what are regarded as the crucial mechanisms of modernization (e.g. urbanization, mass communications or political mobilization at the level of social processes); according to the concrete areas of social action focused on—the family, religion, education, demographic trends, the role of intellectuals, and so on. The total social transformation and 'universal pattern' assumptions of modernization theory encourage the attempt to relate to each other the different types of changes, within and between levels, through organizing principles derived from the core definition of the modern that is adopted, and certain a priori theoretical assumptions. One significant trend in particular is worth noting, namely the school of political modernization or development which became so prominent in the 1960s, the central preoccupation of which has been with modern- ization as the progress towards a functionally integrated national political system.' Several salient features of the political development approach can be indicated briefly in anticipation of what follows, to show that it rests on similar assumptions, and is subject to similar criticisms, as other modernization theories. In the first place there is the designation of the 'destination' of the process of modernization which is based on a model of the American political system. In relation to this end point, the starting point is defined negatively—'the non-Western political process'. Conceptu- ally structured in this way the modernization process is analysed in terms of the 'problems', 'conditions', 'determinants' and so on, of progress towards its ideal-typical destination.10 This procedure raises the kind of questions which inform the following discussion, such as—are these models abstracted from Western (or Soviet, or Japanese) experience conceptually accurate or exclusive? Are they relevant as the basis of comparison? Even if accurate, is it desirable that they be emulated?11 While there are political questions of obvious intrinsic interest as well as of great relevance to economic development, this does not explain the enormous resources devoted to the study of Third World politics nor some B  146 JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES 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 conflict 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 specifically parliamentary conno- tations of democracy." In addition, an alternative politically derived definition of modern status was useful in a development decade character- ized by a general failure to achieve economic targets." 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.14 MODERNIZATION THEORY: SOME BASIC OBJECTIONS (1) The traditional-modem dichotomy The first objection to be noted concerns the methodological procedure by which the traditional is simply defined negatively in relation to the modern, so that, even omitting the contentious question of what is modern, differences between empirical societies allocated to the residual category of the traditional are ignored. For example, Raymond Aron writes that Rostow's concept of the traditional society is of little use because it is supposed to be applicable to all underdeveloped communities. All past societies are put into this single category, whether they be the archaic communities of New Guinea, the Negro tribes of Africa, or the old civilizations of India and China. But the only feature they have in common is that they are neither modern nor industrialized (Aron, 1964, p. 30). A further objection concerns the cluster of traits making up the ideal-type of the traditional which often simply reflect the ethnocentrism underlying the formulation of modernity. Thus Lerner characterizes modern society as 'the Participant Society' (Lerner, 1964, ch. 2 and passim). As some 'traditional' societies were participant in a meaningful sense this leaves two alternatives—either such a traditional society is an exception (and exceptions accumulate), or it may be participant but not in the same way that modern societies are, a tautology rendered inevitable by the dichoto- mous procedure of definition. In any case, the nature and extent of 'partici- pation' in modern societies is by no means clear. A further illustration of this kind concerns the ascription-achievement dimension of the traditional- modern dichotomy. Empirical investigation shows that there are traditional societies which have an achievement orientation in important areas of social life, just as ascription plays a major role in the organization of modern societies.15 It is significant that often a first step in the operation- alization of concepts in anthropological fieldwork is the clearing away of stereotypes of traditional society imposed by abstract deductive categories compounded with ethnocentric bias. While tending to be more reticent MODERNIZATION THEORY AND STUDY OF DEVELOPMENT 147 in macro-level theorizing about modernization (or perhaps because of this), anthropologists have produced some of the most interesting work in the field of contemporary social change.18 Finally, it should be empha- sized that the traditional-modern dichotomy in itself has only a heuristic function, designating an ideal-typical destination. In so far as it can serve as the basis of a dynamic approach, this is only by the banal means of depicting modernization as a process in which modern elements accumulate and traditional elements are displaced. (2) Ethnocentrism The question of ethnocentrism becomes central when it is asked from which historical source the paradigm of modernization is abstracted and universalized. Eisenstadt, a leading modernization theorist, is quite explicit: Historically, modernization is the process of change towards those types of social, economic, and political systems that have developed in Western Europe and North America from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth and have then spread to other European countries and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the South American, Asian and African continents (Eisenstadt, 1966, p. 1). Leaving aside the question of 'spread', which is presumably to be inter- preted as programmatic rather than actual, it appears that Eisenstadt regards the Western experience (culminating in the nineteenth century) as producing the model of modern society. Even admitting the possibility of different 'routes* there is but one 'destination'.17 The general pattern of 'modernization' is derived from what can be characterized alternatively as a particular type of development which was industrial-capitalist, and which in itself encompassed a range of important differences—economic as well as social and political.18 There is an obvious implication of this mode of conceptualizing modernization for empirical analysis; as Nettl has pointed out—*... the methodological approaches of Western social and political scientists... often assume that developing countries are infant or deviant examples of the Western experience and can be studied in terms of a shortfall from a norm. (Nettl, 1967, p. 193 and ch 7 passim). When (in what may be called the Weberian syndrome) the type becomes ideal in an evaluative as well as a conceptual sense we are liable to encounter those medical metaphors still beloved by some social scientists. Thus for W. W. Rostow communism is a 'disease of the transition'.1* Ethnocentrism is most overt when modernization is rendered synony- mous with Westernization, a typically nineteenth-century equation exempli- fied in Macaulay's proposal to staff the new Indian Civil Service by creating a 'class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.'20 Ali Mazrui, in tracing the connections between political modernization theories and Social Darwin- ism, remarks that *... in the modern theories of modernization Darwin- ism has been "debiologized"... What is now involved is at the most ethnocentric cultural pride.'(Mazrui, 1968, p. 75). To identify ethnocen- trism solely with cultural pride (with the additional disclaimer 'at the most') is disingenuous. It is clear that ethnocentric notions of moderniza- tion have a valuable ideological, i.e. legitimating, function in relation to the activities of certain economic, political and cultural interests. Although 148 JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES the extent to which social scientists actually influence policy is difficult to ascertain, the least that can be said is that a conceptual framework articulated by modernization theorists has its uses for government, military and intelligence agencies, as well as for the corporations and finally for export to underdeveloped countries. Since 'Project Camelot' days an increasing amount of evidence has been unearthed of services performed directly for such agencies by social scientists, of which 'counterinsurgency' work has gained the most notoriety. In the words of a specialist engaged on 'Project Agile' at the Thai-American Military Research and Develop- ment Centre in Bangkok : 'The old formula for successful counterinsurgency used to be ten troops for every guerrilla.... Now the formula is ten anthropologists for each guerrilla.'21 With the independence fervour of the late 1950s and early 1960s many social scientists waxed lyrical on the 'revolution of rising expectations' in'the new states', this phenomenon being central both to the conceptual framework of the sociology of development, and to the potential role of an enlightened U.S. policy in helping to establish effective economic growth and viable democracies. However, in the light of subsequent events, another kind of priority is gaining emphasis —or at least is being made more public: In the Congo, in Vietnam, in the Dominican Republic, it is clear that order depends on somehow compelling newly mobilized strata to return to a measure of passivity and defeatism from which they have been aroused by the process of modernization. At least temporarily, the maintenance of order requires a lowering of newly acquired aspira- tions and levels of political activity. (Quoted by Chomsky, 1969, p. 33). This prescription by Ithiel da Sola Pool, a political scientist and prominent 'new mandarin', while replacing liberal sentiment with a Realpolitik interest in suppressing popular aspirations, is expressed in the same ethnocentric vocabulary which refers to the 'passivity and defeatism* of traditional society. (3) Reductionism One apparent means of avoiding the ethnocentrism of historically specific models of modernization is to universalize certain traits at the level of personality mechanisms. In this way the type of innovative and dynamic personality designated is not necessarily tied to any particular set of economic, social and political institutions, such as those of Western capitalist development, but can be identified in a number of different contexts. This approach is found in an extreme form in McClelland's concept of 'the need for Achievement' or n. ach, which denotes 'a desire to do well, not so much for the sake of social recognition or prestige, but to attain an inner feeling of personal accomplishment' (McClelland, 1963, p. 76 and passim). McClelland's formulation produces what may be called a moral (as opposed to a hedonistic) theory of entrepreneurship which still embraces the market-oriented acquisitive activity of capitalist society, but also claims to be able to explain the advances made by the Soviet Union and China in terms of rising levels of n. ach. Depsite the sophisti- cated techniques used to analyse a wide range of data, at a more fund- amental level McClelland's theory is riddled with contradictions. In the first place it is subject to the logical criticism of reductionism which is that the attributes of social structures and processes cannot be derived MODERNIZATION THEORY AND STUDY OF DEVELOPMENT 149 21 from statements about individuals. Furthermore, McClelland makes an unwarranted leap from correlation to a causal explanation of economic development, this being facilitated by his lack of any social or historical perspective (Rhodes, 1968, p. 393 and passim). Despite the obligatory nod in the direction of Weber's thesis the latter's basis in a sociological and historical method is ignored (Weber, 1930). As need for achievement is the motivation to comply with internalized standards of excellence, these are derived necessarily from a given social and cultural context in the first place. In the final analysis, McClelland cannot avoid relating changes in the level of n. ach. to the operation of concrete social forces, including revolutions, even if mediated for him through ideologies—for which read communism. So, although 'China was politically free under Chiang Kai-Chek,... it lacked the dynamic of a really self-sacrificing achievement effort until it was taken over by the Communists'. The rest of the passage is worth quoting as it was directed to a particular audience— the readers of the Harvard Business Review—and illustrates an alarming ideological crudity concerning development: Unless we learn our lesson and find ways of stimulating that drive for achievement under freedom in poor countries, the Communists will go on providing it all around the world. We can go on building dikes to maintain freedom and impoverishing ourselves to feed and arm the people behind those dikes, but only if we develop the entrepreneurial spirit in those countries will we have a sound foreign policy. Only then can they look after their own dikes and become economically self-sufficient (McClelland, 1964, p. 176). SOCIOLOGIES AND HISTORY: THE BASIS OF AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH The purpose of this section is to relate some of the issues previously discussed to questions of different sociological perspectives and the use of a historical method, together with some of the elements of an alternative interpretation of the historical context of modernization and development. Social scientists persist in using the term (modernization) not only because it is a part of popular speech, but also because they recognize that these many changes (in individual attitudes, in social behaviour, in economics, and in politics) are related to one another—that many countries in the developing world are today experiencing a comprehensive process of change which Europe and America once experienced and which is more than the sum of many small changes. (Preface to Weiner, 1966). This statement by Myron Weiner usefully recapitulates the basic assump- tions of modernization theory first referred to, as a departure point for the following discussion. One basis of an explanatory theory of modernization as a 'comprehen- sive process' rests on the specification of necessary relationships, or at least relationships of an order of probabliity, between changes in different parts of a social structure and/or changes at different levels of social structure. This requirement is formally met, for example, in a crude way by the avowed psychological1 determinism of McClelland, or by a hierar- chical conceptualization of social structure such as values/goals/norms/ collectivities/roles in the worlcof Talcott Parsons. In functionalist theory, these relationships are formalized horizontally as well as vertically in the 150 JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES core concept of 'social system'. Originating in organic analogies, the con- cept 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 modern- ization theory, however arrived at, are tied in at the level of theory- formation with the 'pure' requirements of systemic interdependence or complementarity, and functional reciprocity.*3 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 heterogeneityof a fieldof study called the'underdeveloped areas'. 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.** 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.25 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.2* The individualizing ideal-type is synonymous with what Weber otherwise termed 'historical individuals', for example, the capitalist ethos in the modern 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 ideal- type 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 pre- diction is hazardous. MODERNIZATION THEORY AND STUDY OF DEVELOPMENT 151 Citing some of the evidence relating to urbanization in India, he continues: To dismiss all this as a transitory phenomenon that will give way to more familiar features to city life presupposes what we need examine, namely that the cluster of attributes constituting 'urbanism' represents a valid generalization of a pattern of interrelated social changes (Bendix 1963, pp. 534-5). [Emphasis added]. The dynamics of modernization theory consist of mechanisms such as the introduction of a market economy, monetization, urbanization, industrialization, the spread of mass communications and of literacy, and so on, which are subsumed and related at the theoretical level in the differentiation-integration model of social change.*7 It is instructive at this point to note an example of an explanation offered for evidence which contradicts the expectations of a theory in which definition fuses with prediction. This is also of interest in relation to the piety habitual among sociologists concerning the 'ongoing process' of reformulating theory in the light of research findings. Two facile ways of interpreting contradictory evidence have been mentioned briefly—one is to characterize it simply as 'pathological' in terms of the model, à la Rostow; the second is to view it as transitory, as pointed out in the above quotation from Bendix. Another possibility is to explain 'disturbances' in terms of 'lags' in the operation of integrative mechanisms relative to those of differentiation.*8 It is hardly surprising that modernization theorists have had to try to accommodate 'disturbances' and 'breakdowns of modernization' in the light of what is actually happening in the underdeveloped countries, but whether this evidence has resulted in any serious reconsideration of the assumptions of the theory is another question. Daniel Lerner writes: The most conspicuous symptom of the contemporary disorder is what has happened to urbanization in the developing areas. Every student of development is aware of the global spread of urban slums— from the ranchos of Caracas and favellas of Rio, to the gecekondu of Ankara, to bidonvilles and 'tin can cities' that infest the metropolitan centres of every developing country from Cairo to Manila. The point that must be stressed, in referring to this suffering mass of humanity displaced from the rural areas to the filthy peripheries of the great cities, is that few of them experience the 'transition' from agricul- tural to urban-industrial labour called for by the mechanism of develop- ment and the model of modernization. They are neither housed, nor trained, nor employed, nor serviced. They languish on the urban periphery without entering into any productive relationship with its industrial operations. These are the 'displaced persons', the D.P.s, of the developmental process as it now typically occurs in most of the world, a human flotsam and jetsam that has been displaced from traditional agricultural life without being incorporated into modern industrial life [emphasis added]. How does Lerner explain this phenomenon?... the modernizing lands are societies-in-a-hurry. Emulating what the advanced Western societies'have become today, they want to get there faster. Accordingly, they force the tempo of Western development. 152 JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES Even more serious, as a result of their hurried pace, they often disorder the sequence of Western development (Lerner, 1967, p. 24). In this last statement Lerner is referring to the disassociation of what he has designated as the two 'basic' variables in the development process, urbanization and industrialization. Two features of his explanation can be discerned. The first is that it is predicated on a statement about the underdeveloped countries as 'societies-in-a-hurry' which is symptomatic of a sociology that (like the speeches of politicians) assumes that societies have interests and goals, as opposed to investigating the crucial question of the interests and aspirations of different groups within societies, and the latent or manifest conflicts which exist.29 Apart from population increases, a primary factor in the displacement of people from the rural areas and their consequent migration to the urban shanty towns is the widespread encroachment of rationalized capitalist production and/or marketing systems into peasant agriculture within the framework of laissez-faire agricultural policies. In this situation, who is 'in-a-hurry' with regard to what? That the 'flooding of great urban centres by people who have no work there' constitutes a problem of the greatest urgency is not disputed. What is questionable is the second feature of Lerner's explanation, namely the assumption that the Western process of develop- ment can (and must) be imitated in the underdeveloped countries, which leads on to an examination of the 'original state' view of underdevelopment and development. What is termed here the 'original state' view has been concisely and explicitly expressed by Hoselitz—'If there are "developed" and "advanced" countries in the present they must have at some time been "under- developed" ' (Preface to Hoselitz, 1952). Two related historical arguments can be opposed to this view: (1) that it is distorting to classify today's underdeveloped countries with the pre-industrial societies of the West— 'The now developed countries were never underdeveloped, though they may have been ««developed' (Frank, 1966, p. 18); (2) that underdevelop- ment was created as an intrinsic part of the process of Western capitalist expansion—'underdevelopment is... a discrete historical process' 'due to the penetration of modern capitalistic enterprises into archaic structures' (Furtado, 1964, pp. 129, 138 and passim). These two statements indicate basic elements in a historical perspective within which certain points of contrast can be made between modernization theory as criticized here, and an alternative approach that addresses a different set of questions to problems of development. First, several ways in which modernization theorists have dealt with historical dimensions can be mentioned briefly. One kind of problem concerns the origin of modernization in the West. Although a serious historical debate has been conducted over the nature and origins of European capitalism qua 'historical individual', and the names of Pirenne, Sombart, Weber, Tawney and Dobb spring to mind, the treatment of origins by those general modernization theorists who care to tackle it degenerates into a game of pick-and-choose with the centuries according to the particular aspect of modernity emphasized. In so far as the different historical situations of contemporary underdevelopment and the develop- ment of the West are explicitly acknowledged, this tends to be expressed in the notion of the 'advantages of backwardness' which usually refers MODERNIZATION THEORY AND STUDY OF DEVELOPMENT 153 to two arguments, neither of which is worth pursuing here—that under- developed 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 sug- gestions have been advanced for constructing them on a careful com- parative 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 fornted 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.3* 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 become— often 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 under- developed 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 woufd "be the concept of the colonial situation as a historical and 'total social phenomenon' characterized by 154 JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES certain forms of exploitation—economic, political, cultural and racial— which polarize the colonial and colonized societies.3* This conceptualiza- tion, both substantively and as reflecting a different tradition of sociological analysis, stands in 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 'modern* elements which can only yield a dynamic in the concept of 'transition', or movement along a tradition- modernity continuum.34 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 (modern) sectors without considering the symbiotic relationship between the two which can be analysed in terms of the creation of underdevelopment.35 However, it is precisely the inaugural mechanisms of 'the modernization process', namely the intrusion of a market economy and the imposition of a modern administrative and tax structure (Kilson, 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.36 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 modern- ization 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 raci- ally segregated and essentially parasitic centres of administration and expatriate dominated mercantile activities. A post in the colonial bureau- cracy 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*.37 CONCLUSION In criticizing modernization theory the intention is not to replace one abstract and rigid schema with another, and the broad generalizations advanced are not to be understood as the necessary and universally applicable elements of an ideal type of the colonial situation. Rather the example of the colonial situation is suggested only to illustrate in a summary way the differences between two sociological approaches and to show how modernization theory can be stood on its head by a mode of analysis which (1) approaches the study of development with a historical method; and (2) is informed by questions more relevant to the pressing needs of the present situation than those on which modernization theory is predi- cated, which is to say questions that do not disassociate the common concern with poverty, illiteracy and unemployment from the structural analysis of power and exploitation in their various forms. If this approach can be termed Marxist, all it means is that on the above criteria Marxism as a perspective in the social sciences displays a potential for the analysis of the underdeveloped world that is lacking in conventionally more acceptable procedures. This by no means implies that all analysis termed MODERNIZATION THEORY AND STUDY OF DEVELOPMENT 155 Marxist or neo-Marxist is either correct or critical. Indeed, the crude application of Marxism to problems of development often replicates some of the features of modernization theory which have been criticized here.*8 However, the proper use of a Marxist method, which is to say, one that is intrinsically critical, enables the ideological smokescreen of political 'independence* and 'decolonization' to be penetrated; and the kinds of questions addressed to the colonial situation are seen to be just as relevant and necessary for the analysis of underdevelopment and development in the post-independence setting, such as—who really rules? Who gets what benefit from ruling? Who will benefit from the overthrow of the existing system?** NOTES 1. The following criticisms do not apply to (1) a 'revisionist' formulation such as that of Nettl and Robertson, 1968, which eschews any reliance on a tradition-modernity dichotomy; (2) the use of 'traditional' and 'modern' as analytical shorthand for empiri- cally specified traits in a particular study, as in Vidich and Bensman, 1968; and Stephenson, 1968, who bases the definition of modernization in any given context on the perceptions of the subjects under study, arguing that this procedure yields an empirically meaningful scale of traditionalism and modernism at the expense of a basis for comparison and any assumption of sets of universal traits. It is perhaps significant that these two studies were concerned with aspects of American society. 2. Quoted in Magdoff, 1969, pp. 116/17. MacNamara was speaking on this occasion in his role as U.S. Secretary of Defense and not as President of the World Bank. 3. See the pioneering volume edited by Hoselitz, 1952; and the more recent sym- posium edited by Weiner, 1966, based on a series of talks in the Voice of America 'Forum' series. 4. For a frankly empiricist comment on modernization theory, see Dore, 1969. 5. Hoselitz, 1963; Riggs' 'theory of prismatic society' is an attempt to counter this 'propensity for dichotomous categories without imaginative intermediate concepts'— Riggs, 1964, p. 69 and passim. 6. Parsons 1964, 1966; it has pointed out that 'when Professor Parsons turns to what he calls "total society", he too gives us as unilinear a panorama of evolutionary change as did any of those evolutionists of the nineteenth century whom Parsons has often criticized for their monistic, necessary, and universal schemes' (Nisbet, 1969, p. 227). The question of the 'convergence' of industrial societies is also relevant here—see Feldman and Moore, 1962; Weinberg, 1969. 7. Scepticism concerning 'cultural inhibitions' and a call to 'put economic man back on the stage' are expressed by Anderson, 1963. 8. E.g. 'In the economically more developed nations, economic growth is a self- sustaining process of continuous innovation, change, and development. It is predicated on a particular view regarding the significance of life on this earth, on the acceptance of the idea of progress, that is, of a present better than the past and a future potentially better than the present. It assumes the perfectibility of man and society as a continuous possibility; it assumes man's ability to control and improve his natural environment, as well as the legitimacy of man's desire to do so.' Soedjatmoko, 1965, p. xii. 9. See the series Studies in Political Development sponsored by the Committee on Comparative Politics of the U.S. Social Science Research Council (Princeton, N.J. 1965-); and the preceding volume—Almond and Coleman, 1960. 10. Almond, 1960; Apter 1963a; Pye, 1963; Shils, 1965. It is hardly surprising that 'the Anglo-American polities most closely approximate the model of a modern political system' described by Almond and Shils (Coleman, 1960, p. 533), as this model is derived from them! 11. With reference to political 'modernization', see Bay, 1969. It is significant that the branch of political science deVoted to the study of political development is often termed 'comparative politics'—the premises of the evolutionary conception of 'Com- parative Method' are examined by Nisbet, 1969, Ch. 6. 12. 'Modernity entails democracy, and democracy in the new states, even where it is not representative, must above all be egalitarian' Shils, 1962, pp. 9/10.