THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

ON DEVELOPMENT
Week Three: Modernization and Development
THIS WEEK:
MODERNIZATION &
DEVELOPMENT
 What is modernization?
 What is theory? (And why do we need it?)
 Modernization theory
 Sociological perspectives
 Understanding and explaining the “passing of traditional society”
 Political science perspectives
 Managing and maintaining social order
 Economic and political economy perspectives
 Rostow’s “stages of growth”
 “Ending poverty” with Jeffrey Sachs

 Your critical reflection papers

 WHAT IS
MODERNIZ
ATION?
DEVELOPMENT
AS PROGRESS
(MODERNIZATION
)
 Scientific reason

 Innovation

 Agrarian transition

 Industrialization

 Specialization (of labour and

trade)
 Capital accumulation
(economic growth)
 Civilization

 Emancipation through national

liberation (GDP/GNP)
DEVELOPMEN
T AS
CAPITALISM
 Agrarian transition

 Industrialization

 Separation of labour from

capital
 Surplus extraction
(exploitation)
 Capital accumulation

 Class differentiation

 Contradiction

 Emancipation through
capitalist revolution
WHAT IS THEORY (AND
WHY DO WE NEED IT?)
 A means of classifying (or
conceptualizing) the world
around us (“ontology”)
 A means of explaining why
things happen
 A set of assumptions
about what is important –
both in terms of what needs
to be explained and how we
should go about explaining
it (methodology)
 A guide for future action –
“what is to be done?”
MODERNIZATION &
DEVELOPMENT THEORY:
SOME IMPORTANT THEMES
 Sociological perspectives
 The loss of family, community, traditional social ties in the context of
industrialization, capitalist development, and the modernization of
social life
 The rise of bureaucracy, citizenship, and the welfare state
 The rejection of tradition & superstition in favour of science, reason,
and progress
 Political science perspectives
 Emphasis on “modern” institutions, “guided democracy,” and
political order
 Efforts to control the modernization process

 Economic or political economy perspectives

 Modernization as an alternative to communist revolution
 “Stages of growth” based on the experience of European (mainly
English) capitalism
THINKING CRITICALLY
ABOUT MODERNIZATION:
EXAMPLES FROM THE
BRITISH RAJ
 Education
 English medium schools (1835)

 Social reform
 Abolition of the sati (1829)

 Revolution and resistance

 The Age of Consent Bill (1891)
 Bal Gangadhar Tilak

 Canada’s residential schools

MODERNIZATION OR
ASSIMILATION?

The great aim of our

legislation has been to do
away with the tribal system
and assimilate the Indian
people in all respects with
the other inhabitants of the
Dominion as speedily as they
are fit to change.

John A. MacDonald
1887
OR CULTURAL
GENOCIDE?

“The TRC's final report in 2015

recorded 3,201 deaths, though at
the time (former senator and chair of
the TRC, Murray) Sinclair estimated
that at least 6,000 children, if not
more, died as a result of their school
experience, based on his work with
the Commission …
… Speaking to The Current, Sinclair
said the true figure "could be in the
15-25,000 range, and maybe even
more."
NATURALISM, RATIONALISM
& STRUCTURAL
FUNCTIONALISM
 Naturalism
 Drew upon (19th century) biology to understand and explain the evolution of
social norms and practices
 Natural environments influence societies, creating different potentials for
development (aka “environmental determinism”)
 Rationalism
 Influenced by the “positive philosophy” of Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and
comparative sociology of Max Weber (1864-1920)
 Explains variations in social systems and outcomes by focusing on culture and
culturally-specific forms of human reasoning and social organization
 Structural functionalism
 Highly influential in sociology and political science after the end of WW2
 Combines naturalism and rationalism by theorizing that societies are
evolutionary and have systemic needs but are also affected by the rationalist
construction of social institutions
 Social norms and practices are explained in terms of the function they provide
in serving the needs of the system
Structur
e Agency
A “RATIONALIST
ACCOUNT”: MAX
WEBER
 Max Weber (1864-1920)
 Trained as a jurist, taught as a professor at
Munich, Heidelberg and Freiberg, attended
the negotiations that led to the Treaty of
Versailles in 1919
 Considered one of the leading figures in
modern sociology
 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism
 First published in German in 1904-5,
translated into English (by Talcott Parsons) in
1930
 Capitalism was an extension of Calvinist
spirituality (transcendence and
predestination)
 “Labour is not merely an economic means; it
is a spiritual end,” (Tawney, p. 3)
AND WHAT SPIRIT IS THIS?

“Unlimited greed for gain is not in the least identical with

capitalism, and is still less its spirit…But capitalism is
identical with the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed
profit, by means of continuous, rational capitalistic
enterprise,” (Max Weber, p. 17)
DURKHEIM AND
TÖNNIES
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
 French sociologist interested in the effects of modernization
on social organization
 The Division of Labour in Society (1893) distinguished
between the mechanical social ties that connect families
and communities in pre-modern societies and the organic
ties that create solidarity in modern capitalism
 Particularly important was the specialization of labour that
created new interdependencies and new social ties
 At the same time, the breakdown of traditional social norms
produced alienation (anomie) and what he classified as
“deviant” behaviours, such as suicide
Ferdinand Tönnies (1855-1936)
 Distinguished between gemeinschaft (community) and
gesellschaft (society), highlighting the distinction between
family/community bonds and instrumental ones based on rules
“BECOMING MODERN:” A
CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
Daniel Lerner (1917-1980)
 Published The Passing of
Traditional Society: Modernizing
the Middle East (1958), arguing
that modernization entailed a
process of cultural and moral
transformation rooted in
processes of education, literacy
and exposure to new forms of
information and mass
communication
MODERNIZATION
ACCORDING TO INKELES
AND SMITH (1974)
 “Traditional man”  “Modern man”

 Not receptive to new ideas  Open to new experiences

 Rooted in tradition  Changes orientation
 Interested in immediate  Interested in the outside world
gratification  Acknowledges different opinions
 Denial of different opinions  Seeks out new information
 Uninterested in new information  Punctual
 Oriented toward the past  Values planning
 Short-termist  Calculability (or “accountability”?);
 Distrustful of people outside of the  Trusts people to meet obligations
family  Values technical skills
 Suspicious of technology  Values education and science
 Values religion and the sacred  Respects the dignity of others
 Clientelistic  Universalistic
 Particularlistic  Optimistic
 Fatalistic
POLITICAL SCIENCE
PERSPECTIVES: MANAGING &
MAINTAINING SOCIAL ORDER
 Underlying structural functionalism was an
assumption that society consists of social institutions
whose principal function it is to maintain social
order
 E.g., private property rights and the rule of law

 Modernization entails the erosion and disappearance

of “mechanical” social ties that underlie traditional
societies in favour of modern “Weberian” institutions
(e.g., a meritocratic bureaucracy)
 Modern institutions are necessary for socializing and
creating new forms of solidarity and order in a context
of socio-political change
 E.g., Political Order in Changing Societies (1968) by
Samuel Huntington (1927-2008)
 BUT WHOSE SYSTEM
ARE WE MAINTAINING?
KEY POINTS
 Modernization theory provided a vision of development (what it
means to be modern) and a theory of social change
 From family to society
 From village to city
 From tradition to modern
 From personalistic (or clientelist) to state-bureaucratic

 Structural functionalism theorized that modernization entails the

erosion or passing of traditional norms and practices that create
new challenges, ruptures and pathologies, requiring new forms of
organization and social control
 E.g., Huntington’s Political Order in Changing Societies (1968)

 Many of these perspectives are now widely dismissed for being

ahistorical, ethnocentric, and reductionist
 But their legacy lives on … highlighting the importance of modernization
narratives to economic and political elites
ECONOMIC AND
POLITICAL ECONOMY
PERSPECTIVES:
MODERNIZATION &
STAGES OF GROWTH
Walt Whitman Rostow (1916-2003)

 Earned a PhD (at age 24) from Yale, went

on to serve in the Office of Strategic
Services (organizing allied bombing raids)
during WW2
 Taught at MIT, Cambridge, Oxford

 Later served in the Kennedy and Johnson

administrations, serving as a speech writer
and policy adviser
 The Stages of Economic Growth: A
Non-Communist Manifesto (1960)
 Traditional society
 Pre-conditions for take-off
 Take-off
 Drive to maturity
 The age of mass consumption
CONTEXT MATTERS
 On the popularity of his 1960 book, Rostow was appointed
adviser to the Kennedy Administration (1960-63)
 Helped to shape the anti-communist containment strategy,
including the Alliance for Progress, a $20bn aid program
aimed at supporting capitalism and democracy in Latin
America
 After the assassination of Kennedy in 1963, Lyndon Johnson
promoted him to national security assistant
 Rostow advocated in favour of escalating the bombing
campaign in Southeast Asia to suppress the communist
insurgency in Vietnam
 At the same time (starting in the 1950s), the US State
Department and the Social Science Research Council funded
extensive social science research that helped to solidify the
idea that development is a form of modernization that that
requires new forms of social order and control (eg counter-
insurgency)
 Peet and Hartwick, pp. 139-40; Embree (1950); Popkin
(1979); Hanks (1975; 1979)
ECONOMIC
MODERNIZATION
REDUX?
 Jeffrey Sachs (1954-Present)
 American economist at Columbia University (formerly Harvard) whose
early work focused on currency crises and macro-economic stability
 Helped design the IMF stabilization packages for the Poland and
Russia in 1998
 Later served as senior advisor to the UN Secretary General on the
MDGs

 The End of Poverty (2005)

 Argues that chronic poverty is the result of poor geography, bad
governance, and insufficient capital formation
 The solution is rooted in an external investment or a “big push” of
foreign aid, emphasizing:
 Higher savings
 New technology
 Specialization and trade
 Sustainable use of natural resources
 Commitment to invest in poverty reduction
SUMMING UP
 Modernization perspectives have been widely dismissed for being
ahistorical, ethnocentric, and reductionist
 But their legacy lives on … highlighting the importance of modernization
narratives to economic and political elites
 Among their most vocal critics were those of the “dependency
school” (Peet & Hartwick, pp. 148-51; and Week 5)
 Rostow described all “backward” societies in relation to universal tradition
 How could non-European societies emulate Rostow’s stages of growth when
European capitalism had “already altered the context in which historical events
occurred?”
 Modernization defined development primarily in terms of mass consumption,
ignoring competing visions of sustainability and development
 Critique of Jeffrey Sachs (Peet & Hartwick, pp. 155-59)
 Environmentally deterministic understanding of economic geography
 Naïve understanding of poverty and its causes – “Sachs’s Fifth Avenue Approach”
 Questionable ethics – helping poor countries to prevent failed states from
destabilizing western interests and world order
MODERNIZATION &
DEVELOPMENT THEORY:
SOME IMPORTANT THEMES
 Sociological perspectives
 The loss of family, community, traditional social ties in the context of
industrialization, capitalist development, and the modernization of
social life
 The rise of bureaucracy, citizenship, and the welfare state
 The rejection of tradition & superstition in favour of science, reason,
and progress
 Political science perspectives
 Emphasis on “modern” institutions, “guided democracy,” and
political order
 Efforts to control the modernization process

 Economic or political economy perspectives

 Modernization as an alternative to communist revolution
 “Stages of growth” based on the experience of European (mainly
English) capitalism