Roberts, T.J. and A. Hite (eds) From Modernisation to Globalisation: Perspectives
on Development and Social Change. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) [ISBN 0631210970] pp.81–156. Evolutionary • We also look at the resurgence of modernisation theory in light of the success of the East Asian newly industrialising countries. Neo-evolutionist and Modernisation theories in general refer to a variety of perspectives applied by non-Marxists to the Third World in the 1950s and 1960s. The roots of many of these theories were in classical sociological theories of social change, such as the ideas of Emile Durkheim, which had been greatly influenced by nineteenth century evolutionary thought, for example, the work of Charles Darwin. • Evolutionary theories were seen as being able to explain how the First World (North America and Europe) progressed over time into modern industrial societies. The important part of the link with nineteenth century theories of evolution was the view that societies ‘evolved’. Furthermore, this process was a ‘good thing’: it was natural and it was inevitable. ‘Blockages’ in evolution, why some societies developed, and others did not, therefore needed more explanation than the process of evolution itself. Modernisation theories tried to explain and predict how Third World countries might become ‘modern’. It is worth making the distinction between modernisation theories in general and neo-evolutionist theories, which can be seen as closely related to, but not identical to, modernisation theories. Neo-evolutionism was developed by the US sociologist, Talcott Parsons, and by others associated with the school of thought that he created, specifically Smelser and Eisenstadt. Neo-evolutionism • The basic argument of neo-evolutionists was that social change, that is, the Third World becoming more like the First World, can best be understood and explained as a quasi-biological process. They saw certain components of developing countries, such as parts of economic, political and other social structures, evolving from having simple, multifunctional characteristics to having complex, specialised functions, like the organisations and social structures of First World countries. The way in which this evolutionary process occurred was called differentiation. • If Third World countries modelled themselves on First World countries, then they would ‘progress’ economically, politically, and socially and eventually achieve First World status. Since the neo-evolutionist writers in the 1950s and 1960s modified nineteenth century classical evolutionism in fundamental ways in order to apply it to poorer countries, they were called neo-evolutionist rather than just evolutionist. • In the work of many modernisation theorists, evolutionism was usually more implicit than explicit. This shifted in 1964 with the publication of an edition of the American Sociological Review, which was devoted to a review of evolutionary theory. Generally, the contributors to the volume agreed on the following: 1. Societies are systems that adapt in order to survive. 2. They are primarily systems based upon social norms. 3. Innovation and diffusion are critical in modernisation. 4. Modern societies are unique, especially in the extent to which internal differentiation occurs. • One contributor, Moore, characterised evolution as unpredictable and inconsistent, using terms like ‘cycles and swings’ and ‘fluctuation’. Parsons went further. Drawing parallels from organic evolution and the work of Charles Darwin, he suggested that in order for societies to move from the primitive to the modern, several ‘evolutionary universals’ have to be present. By this he means any organisational development which is so important to any further evolution that it is likely to be hit upon by various systems operating under different conditions. • Elsewhere, he defines an evolutionary universal as ‘any complex of structures and processes which so increases the capacity of living systems to adapt’. What this means in ‘plain English’ is that in order to survive and develop, societies need the ability to develop the sorts of cultural attributes and structures of modern western societies including: a wide outlook on the world, rewards based on achievement, cities, a class system, bureaucracy and eventually democracy. Similarly to the way humans ‘evolved’ from apes, developing societies ‘evolve’ into developed ones, if they have the right qualities that allow them to adapt and change into more advanced societies. Modernisation • Modernisation theories were less holistic, and tended to emphasise the importance of the transmission of modern attitudes and values for the success of development. Daniel Lerner was one example of a modernisation theorist who argued that it was modern techniques of communicating ideas, which made the difference in making the transition from a traditional to a modern society, in key institutions such as education and the mass media. Tradition and modernity were seen as completely different and even antagonistic forms of social organisation. In crude terms then tradition was ‘bad’ and modernity was ‘good’. Inkeles and Smith • Modernisation theorists, Inkeles and Smith, expressed the goal of development as ‘making men modern’ (sic). This male-oriented idea will be important to remember when we consider the criticism that women have been left out of the development process. ‘Making men modern’ is, in many ways, the essence of modernisation theory. ‘Modern Man’ has become modern when ‘he’ has changed as an individual. Modernity is indicated in the presence of a distinct set of attitudes, which include: • a readiness for new experience and an openness to innovation • an interest in things other and those of immediate relevance • a more ‘democratic’ attitude towards the opinions of others • an orientation to the future rather than the past • a readiness to plan one’s own life • a belief that we can dominate our environment and achieve our goals • an acceptance that the world is ‘calculable’ and therefore controllable • an awareness of the dignity of others, for example, women and children • a faith in the achievement of science and technology, albeit a somewhat simple faith • a belief in ‘distributive’ justice. • While most modernisation theorists tended to underestimate the disruption caused by processes of development, one writer, Eisenstadt, who edited a book called Readings in Social Evolution and Development (1966), drew attention to these conflicts from within the general modernisation paradigm. Rostow’s stages of economic growth • An American economist, Walt Rostow, wrote a well- known book that combined a variety of strands within modernisation and neo-evolutionary theory called the Stages of Economic Growth with the sub-title a Non Communist Manifesto. He argued that economic development takes place in well-defined stages, and mapped the process out more clearly than the earlier work of Talcott Parsons. Rostow argued that development is only possible where the socio-economic conditions that promote money saving among the population exist. • This is based on his study of Western economic development. In Rostow’s first stage, traditional society, economic output is limited because of a lack of scientific and technological expertise. People’s values are fatalistic, that is, they believe that the future is predetermined and they cannot control it. Political power has not been centralised, as in a modern state. A new outlook and institutions mark the second stage, what Rostow called ‘the preconditions for take off’. People begin to support economic advancement. Connected to this, education, free enterprise and economic institutions are developed further. The society invests in transportation, communication and raw materials and this stimulates business. • At the same time as modern institutions and production techniques begin to emerge, aspects of traditional society remain. Rostow classified this as a ‘dual society’, the example of this situation is a colonial state. The third stage of economic growth is labelled take off. This stage is manifested in the defeat of traditional barriers to growth. This could occur through the appearance of new politically active groups, that prioritise economic growth and expansion, or through the development of new technologies such as new ways to produce goods that represented the beginning of the industrial revolution in Britain. • There is rapid economic expansion at this point and the middle class begins to emerge. Agriculture is commercialised, and output that meets the needs of growing cities increases swiftly. Stage four is referred to as the ‘drive to maturity’ when 10 to 20 per cent of national income is invested and the economy is nearly ‘developed’. The economy begins to advance beyond heavy industry, and technology gets more sophisticated. National production and consumption moves from meeting basic needs, to the ability to choose goods and services. The last stage is called ‘high consumption’ and is based on increasing ability to produce high value consumer items like cars, refrigerators, televisions and computers, the economy also becomes more service oriented. At this point, people’s basic needs are satisfied, and the state focuses on social welfare and security. For Rostow, reaching this stage in the USA coincided with the mass production of automobiles. Responses to neo-evolutionary and modernisation theories • From the late 1960s to the late 1980s, neo-evolutionary and modernisation theories were intensely criticised from various perspectives within sociology, such as Marxist sociology. At the same time, if you were to look at the activities and programmes of major development organisations such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and United States Agency for International Development, you would find that their policies have always been based on the principles of modernisation and neo-evolutionary theories. Criticisms of neo-evolutionary and modernisation theories have come from within academic sociology and activist groups rather than from mainstream development organisations. Gusfield’s critique • The clearest and most persuasive conceptual critique of neo-evolutionary and modernisation theories of the 1950s and 1960s, though some of its substantive examples are dated, is the article by Gusfield. His analysis focuses on the ways in which the concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, which are central to many of the theories, misrepresent the sociological realities that exist in First and Third World countries. He points out that ‘tradition’ and ‘innovation’ are not necessarily in conflict or opposed. Furthermore, neo-evolutionary and modernisation theories make Western political forms either inevitable or superior outcomes of political processes in developing countries, as seen in Parsons’ evolutionary universals. In this, he is questioning the linearity of many of these arguments, as in the Darwinian argument that a society ‘evolves’ in a straight line from a pre-modern or ‘traditional’ society to a ‘modern’ or essentially (North American or European) society. In particular, he focuses on a number of assumptions that these theories make, which he labels false. • First, he contends that it is wrong to suggest that traditional society is untouched by modernity. Neo-evolutionary and modernisation theories tended to ignore the fact that developing societies had been strongly influenced by their histories of foreign domination and colonialism. In the case of India, these influenced and changed important parts of society, including family life, religious belief and practice, and social structure. The concept of India as a non- industrialised and agricultural society only ready for modernisation in the mid-twentieth century is problematic. The decline of industries in India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Gusfield argues, was a result of the British protection of their own textile manufacturers that were important in the Industrial Revolution happening there at that time. • Second, he argues that traditional culture is not homogeneous. Hindu philosophical and religious teaching, for example, is consistent with a number of diverse orientations to life. The importance of this is that so called ‘traditional culture’ is not resistant to change; it can actually allow for a wide variety of behaviours. In addition, in contrast to modernisation and neo- evolutionary theorists, Hinduism is compatible with capitalism and economic development, for example, there is labour mobility within the caste system. He suggests that many neo- evolutionary and modernisation theorists were overly influenced by Weber’s thesis in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. • Third, he suggests that modern ideas or practices do not always replace traditional ones. They may increase the range of options people have in developing countries. Tradition and modernity are not always in conflict. For example, in Japan ‘feudalism’ and industrial growth have ‘fused’ to promote economic development. Tradition and modernity are not mutually exclusive systems. Instead, Gusfield argues, they are often mutually reinforcing. Some theorists argued that development of industrialisation was only compatible with the reduction over time, from large extended families to small nuclear families based only on two parents and their children. Industrial growth was also compatible with large family size among certain groups in India. • The last criticism is that modernising processes do not weaken traditions. He suggests that increased transportation, technologies, and the spread of ideas benefits tradition as well as modernity. For example, the traditional Muslim pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca in Saudi Arabia is greatly facilitated by the access that many people now have to aeroplane travel. As a result, there are far more pilgrimages to Mecca than there ever were before the aeroplane. Thus, Gusfield concludes that the common practice of neo- evolutionary and modernisation theorists to pit tradition and modernity against each other as paired opposites tends to overlook the real world’s complexities. Some, but not all, of the points raised by Gusfield remain valid about modernisation theory today. An example of this follows. Crenshaw • The analysis proposed by Crenshaw et al. (2000) attempts to surpass criticisms regarding the problematic ways in which tradition and modernity are used or reified18 in modernisation and neo-evolutionary theories of the 1950s and 1960s. Crenshaw et al., similar to Parsons, define social change in any society as adaptation that follows conflict. However, unlike Parsons, they do not refer to value-laden terms such as ‘evolution’, ‘stages of growth’, ‘progress’, ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’. They emphasise ‘transitions’ that occur resulting from changes in social and organisational circumstances when looking at issues such as human reproduction and its link to modernisation. Their model therefore focuses on mechanisms that produce social change, such as instituting family planning programmes, rather than prescribing solutions that treat the social and economic values and structures of Western countries as the evolutionary ideal for which Third World countries must strive. Neo-modernisation theory • The revival of neo-evolutionist and modernisation theories in the late 1980s had to do with the changes in Eastern Europe and the demise of the Soviet Union as well as the apparent end of socialism and the introduction of the market into many parts of the new Second World, the former socialist countries. Some of the neo- evolutionist and modernisation theorists have argued that changes in these countries support their general theory. This has led to renewed interest in the area of modernisation in particular, and a new approach to development called ‘neo-modernisation’. The theorists have also tried to transform the ideas to explain the substantial increase in industrialisation seen in some Third World countries, particularly in East Asia,19 since the 1960s. • Two schools of neo-modernisation theory have emerged in recent years. One emphasises the convergence of values resulting from ‘modernisation’. Similar to the idea of ‘making men modern’ (sic) above, it emphasises the decline of traditional values and the replacement of ‘modern’ values. The other school emphasises the persistence of traditional values despite economic and political change. This school assumes that values are independent of economic conditions. It therefore argues that convergence around a set of ‘modern’ values is unlikely, and traditional values will continue to exert an independent influence on the cultural change that results from economic development. Ingelhart and Baker • In contrast to theorists of the 1950s and 1960s, most contemporary modernisation theorists support the view that traditional values persist despite economic and political change. Ingelhart and Baker suggest, as does Gusfield, that modernisation does not follow a linear path, in contrast to, for example, Walt Rostow. Economic collapse can also reverse the effects of modernisation as in the case of the return to traditional values in the former Soviet Union. Furthermore, although economic development transforms people’s attitudes in societies in predictable ways, such as secularisation in the early stages of capitalist industrialisation for example, the process and path of change varies. Therefore, predictions about changes in societies need to be based on the historical and cultural context of the country in question. Samuel Huntington, likewise moved from a model that emphasised the linear and universal expansion of Western values through convergence, later stressed the fragmentation which occurs in an era of globalisation where there is conflict between different civilisations and cultures. Kim • Kim tries to bring together the ideas of conflict and convergence in order to understand the ways developing societies deal with modernisation. For him, the economic, technological and military power of more developed societies forced less developed societies to ‘receive’ their values, institutions, and other cultural attributes. The response from the ‘receiving’ societies that encountered the ‘intruding’ societies has been varied. The extent to which the receiving society is familiar with the values of the ‘intruding’ societies is what can be called ‘cultural preparedness’. The level of cultural preparedness determines how people in the receiving societies will react to values of the intruders. • Usually, traditional societies have been resistant to foreign invaders or their ideas. This could have been due to inadequate understanding of them, because of differing cultural outlooks or internal struggles within the traditional society. Therefore, the nature of the response is connected with the cultural flexibility of the ‘receiving’ society. If the receiving culture and institutions are flexible, then it is more likely that adaptive change will take place with a small degree of social conflict. Once contact between the two societies is made, and the initial response from the receiving society is made, the relative strengths of both societies in terms of economic resources, technology, and military ability determines the relationship between the two cultures. • This can decide whether the outcome of the encounter results in complete control, colonisation, brief occupation, creation of diplomatic relations, or whether other types of relationship are established. There is an element of choice, or ‘cultural selectivity’ in the process of taking on cultural aspects of the intruding society. If the receiving society is especially flexible, it may be able to absorb new elements easily, but with selectivity, may adopt some aspects rather than others. Selection also occurs in the political arena since there must be a decision about what type of adaptation will take place and how it will occur; this is called political selectivity. Therefore, the interaction of political and cultural selectivity leads to an understanding of the process of how developing societies adapt to modern values.