Critical Review of Modernization Theory 2
Critical Review of Modernization Theory 2
Critical Review of Modernization Theory 2
A CRiTiCAL REviEw OF
MOdERnizATiOn THEORy
Joel r. Campbell
troy University
needed a vision of the future, by which America could identify with the aspira-
tions of developing nations, as well as a blueprint for economic and political
development to blunt the appeal of Marxism.
Modernization theory posited that poor countries are undeveloped or un-
derdeveloped because of their archaic traditional social, political and economic
structures. In order to develop, these countries have to industrialize, and so must
also urbanize. Before they can industrialize, though, they must overcome their
traditional structures by shifting from traditional values to ones more congenial
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tries (AICs) serve as the essential models of development. The notion of a dual
society is one of the most powerful concepts. It suggests that there are two sec-
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ern values (islands of development), and a backward traditional agricultural
sector that takes time to catch up. Third, the condition of un-development is the
product of forces within the country and has little to do with the international
120 Yonsei Journal of international studies
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 1) They begin with a traditional so-
ciety, which is primarily agricultural and static. 2) A critical phase follows, the
1 See: David E. Apter, The Politics of Modernization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1965;
Journal of Politics 20 (August, 1958): 468-486;
Comparative Political Studies 1 (July,
1968): 197-226.
The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1960).
A criticAl review of modernizAtion theory 121
get going, developing countries need outside help in the form of investment
and political support for regimes oriented toward capitalist modernizationkey
to his subsequent policy prescriptions. But, once they enter the take-off stage,
they are on their own. The process becomes self-generating through the idea of
compound interest: advancing economies fuel their own growth. Rostows
have arrived and, aside from minor adjustments, nothing more needs to be done.
Instead, they should concentrate on helping nations currently in stage two.
Numerous criticisms have been leveled at Rostows scheme. First, it is de-
terministic; Rostow believes that every society must pass through these stages
case of economic development during the nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
have been various departures from this scheme in the postwar era, such as the
from agricultural to takeoff stages. Even the early developers (Britain, France
and the US) developed at different rates.
Also, the process of development in postwar Asia, Africa and Latin America
has proven to be anything but simple. Many nations that seemed to be doing
fairly well in the 1950s-1960s slid backward during the 1970s-1990s due to
falling commodity prices, increasing external debt and macroeconomic mis-
management. Conditions became so bad for many countries that such interde-
pendence theorists as Stephen Krasner spoke of a permanent gap between
rich and poor nations.
Second, the book is a victim of its own ambitions. Hoping to present an
ideological alternative to Communism, it pursues a non-empirical dogma. As-
piring to provide a theoretical explanation of the developmental process, it is
more like a blend of nineteenth century materialistic history and Ricardian eco-
nomics. Despite its pretensions to grand new theory, Rostows work is a rather
122 Yonsei Journal of international studies
pale conventional tract. The real problem is that rummaging through history for
evidence to support an ideological position is a game that anyone can play. For
-
ture of the world economy, dominated as it is by the early developers of Europe
and North America, precludes current developers from going through the same
stages experienced by the core capitalist countries.3
Stage theory might make sense if the terminology employed were not so
imprecise. The notion of a traditional society is not easy to pin down. The
term takeoff may have different connotations for economists, sociologists and
-
eral way.
Third, there was an easy and not always fortuitous spillover from Rostows
theory to policymaking.4 One could easily conclude that government should
do little beyond encouraging investment and research, since investment is the
key to economic development-cum-growth. This sounds very much like the
case of translation of theory to policy came during the Kennedy and Johnson
administrations in the heyday of diffusionism. Rostow and others suggested
that the South Vietnam was a test case of modernization. Rostow argued at one
point that South Vietnam was entering the takeoff phase, even though Saigons
economy was increasingly being propped up by massive US aid and was able to
-
ing to perceive that North and South Vietnam were not two separate nations, but
two sides in a civil war emanating from the anti-French colonial war, American
policymakers persisted well into the Nixon administration with the hope that
something could grow out of the shambles of the southern economy.
To his credit, Rostow appends enough caveats that he can possibly wiggle
out of the charge of determinism. He may also be seen as visionary in suggest-
ing that the US and Soviet Union could work toward common ends in the devel-
oping world. Rostow is brave in conceptualization and broad in scope, and the
work is a useful heuristic guide to the historical process of development, though
perhaps not to postwar development.
Organski, in The Stages of Political Development, posits a similar concep-
tualization of development stages, though he concentrates more on political
The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the Euro-
pean World Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974).
The United States in the World Arena: An Essay in Recent History (New York:
Harper and Row, 1960).
A criticAl review of modernizAtion theory 123
factors:5
over a territory, such as through monarchy, military government or bureaucratic
government; 2) industrialization, brought about by bourgeois, Stalinist or fas-
cist means; 3) national welfare, wherein the government responds to demands
for protection against the conditions created in the second stage and 4) national
abundance, when large economic organizations tend to organize the economy,
and unemployment becomes a problem. He sees a kind of convergence between
-
tion by boosting living standards for the working class, while the communists
made things generally better for workers as a group. In the future, managers,
planners and skilled workers would control both kinds of states.
communist world. He misses many of the economic trends of the last forty
years, e.g., economic stagnation, the decline of various mature industries and
deindustrialization of large areas of America and the purchase of American
more correct. Moreover, Organskis work has even less relevance to the de-
veloping world than it does to the developed world, unless one expects newly
developed countries to resemble the AICs of the mid-1960s. More likely, they
will move to industrial and social patterns closer to those current in the AICs.
Thus, Organskis book is not as useful as Rostows as a guide to development.
A key failure of the stage approach is its focus on economic factors to the
exclusion of politics. Modernizationists who stress the importance of political
-
ization: 1) structural differentiation within the society; 2) subsystem autonomy
and; 3) secularization of the culture. This suggests an Apterian change of values
must precede development. Samuel Huntingtons Political Order in Changing
Societies (1968) is one of the clearest statements of the political vein of the
modernizationist thought.6
For Huntington, the key goal of any government is political stability. Deter-
mining a nations stability is the relationship between the rate of institutionali-
zation and organization in the political system and the rate of social mobiliza-
tion. Development with political stability is possible only when institutional
5 A.F.K. Organski, The Stages of Political Development (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Publishers, 1966).
6 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1968).
124 Yonsei Journal of international studies
and organizational growth are compatible with social mobilization, and with the
newer social forces and higher levels of political participation unleashed by the
development process. On the one hand, if social mobilization greatly exceeds
institutionalization, political decay occurs, i.e., socio-political demands such
-
ceeds too fast, nations can either tip over into revolution or end up with politics
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tions. Political parties are the most important institutions for both mobilization
and organization of the society, thereby institutionalizing politics.
On the other hand, should social mobilization fall far behind institution-
alization, the process of modernization will be slow. Huntington also notes the
trap into which traditional power structures often fall: lack of modernization
not get many votes, unless the country was in turmoil. For a developing country,
surely economic development and growth are the top goals. To be sure, stabil-
ity is a basic condition for any society, yet, while undergoing development,
nations are usually willing to trade a bit of instability for a lot of development.
That has been Chinas case over the past three decades: how much liberaliza-
tion does one allow before cracking down on political dissent? Chinese leader
A criticAl review of modernizAtion theory 125
yet he agreed to the bloody crackdown in Beijing, because he felt the protests
threatened the political stability of the nation.
Second, Huntingtons explication of key concepts, such as mobilization and
decay, is unconvincing. Mobilization is something that may be easy to measure
where it is massive and where there is strong participation. Major twentieth
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nam. It is less easy to observe in calmer waters. In the US, for example, survey
research has been struggling with measurement of participation for decades.
Political decay may not be a problem outside of failing states. If a political
system is being overwhelmed by popular political demands, and it is unable
to address them, this indicates a need for reform. The nation may need better
institutions and parties that can more effectively deal with such demands. To
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action or postpone the ultimate explosion. Perhaps one persons political decay
is anothers dawn of a new political era. Huntington is probably thinking of po-
litically troubled cases in the developing world, such as Argentina, which have
been overwhelmed by populist demands. Other developing countries, such as
Taiwan, South Korea and India, have managed popular pressures much better.
Later, Huntington and Nelson expand his thesis in No Easy Choice (1976).8
The book suggests that a key to development is the behavior of elites. Mobili-
zation is not a response to socioeconomic change, but the group context that
motivates people to follow elites. They reduce the process of development to
two essential stages; in each stage, elites face critical choices about develop-
7 Samuel P. Huntington, The Change to Change: Modernization, Development, and Politics, Compara-
tive Politics 3 (April, 1971).
8 Samuel P. Huntington and Joan M. Nelson, No Easy Choice: Political Participation in Developing
Countries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976).
126 Yonsei Journal of international studies