“Modernization Theory” Revisited
Posted on 02 April 2008 by Gary Karbon
(Photo: Individual vs. The Tanks, Tianenmen Square, Beijing, 1989)
Nils Gilman writing in his blog “Small Precautions” has taken the time to provide a seminal response to my essay on the “Modernization Theory."
His erudition and Ph.D. background is evident in his every sentence. ( See “Death of Modernization Theory?”)
Gilman thinks my exposition is “well and good and true, but also probably beside the point.”
The following sentence probably sums up the main thrust of his response:
“Almost from its theoretical inception, the popularity of modernization theory has had less to do with its ability to provide an accurate empirical description of the developmental patterns of poor countries than it does with its ability to articulate in seemingly "objective" social scientific jargon a justification and explanation of American global dominance in a manner that resonates with liberal political and economic sensibilities.”
Long sentence. So let me try to break it down to its main points. Gilman is basically saying two things:
1) The modernization theory is something relatively new since its main function is to “justify and explain” the “American global dominance” from “its inception.”
2) It’s used only to justify the existence and dominance of liberal market economies and the democratic system of governance that comes with it.
I have issues with both points.
1) As I tried to make it clear in my original post, the roots of the modernization theory go all the way back to the 19th century.
Emile Durkheim lived between 1858-1917. Ferdinand Toennies lived 1855-1936. Marx likewise was alive 1818-1883.
By contrast, America’s “global dominance” is a relatively recent event, covering the post WW2 period.
So it is historically inaccurate to peg modernization theory solely to America’s rise as a global power.
2) I also tried to make it clear that the modernization theory was used to justify socialist and communist social orders as well.
Leftists have used different “stages” of “progress” towards “modernity.” That’s all.
The main paradigm of a linear progression from a worse social order to a “better” one was used to justify the rise of the Soviet Union and China as much as the United States.
And with the rise of China, not only the pro-American and pro-liberal variant of modernization theory has collapsed, but the pro-Left and pro-Marxist variants as well.
Until BOTH variants proved to be empirically untenable, one could perhaps still defend the modernization theory by resting on one of its sub-arguments. But China’s “repressive hyper-development” leaves no room to wiggle.
Thus what brought the end of the modernization theory is not ONLY “the collapse in the belief in the United States as the inevitable ideological and technological model which the rest of the world is destined to follow.” That’s true but tells only HALF of the story.
We are today also disillusioned and dismayed by the North Koreas and Cubas of this world; and by China and Putin’s Russia.
So-called socialist regimes did far worse that the liberal Western democracies in assuring “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” for their citizens.
That side of the equation probably hammered much larger nails into the “coffin of the modernization theory” than the “American global dominance” – which became an iffy postulate anyways after the invasion of Iraq while Russia and China are kicking stronger by the day.
I also think it is too early yet to dismiss Fukuyama’s central thesis (despite his own recanting) and praise the “alternate versions of modernization theory [that] have been taken up and developed in other countries.”
Five or ten years of economic fireworks does not “modernity” make.
Countries like China and Dubai may perhaps look like they have found an “alternative” path to rapid development. But they still have no idea what environmental pollution, women’s rights, or freedom of expression is all about, and the kind of explosive energy these components of “modernization” pack in when they are ignored, shoved aside and suppressed by the Central Party or the Royal Family.
Perhaps they are marching towards an implosion that is not readily visible over the horizon because we need to look at their progress over 50- or 100-year cycles?
Perhaps in the short run it looks like some “alternate versions of modernization theory” is at work here.
But I say the jury is still out until we see how countries like China, Russia, and Dubai survive over the “long run” (50 years?).
Soviet Union, after all, with all its nuclear weapons, alternative "5-year economic development plans" and all that institutionalized cradle-to-grave Leninist brain-washing that passed for a "national education system," could survive for only 72 years.
We have to observe such "alternative models" for a little while longer. That’s when we’ll understand if Fukuyama was really wrong or that he just yielded in to the political pressures of his day.
At this point I realize I am actually close to hypothesizing a “resurrection” of the modernization theory in the future, which is a corollary that I have not entertained previously. I'll continue to think about that one.
I’d like to thank Nils Gilman again for his thoughtful analysis and response and the way he encouraged me to think about this issue further.
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