Showing papers on "Modernization theory published in 1973"

The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History

Abstract: A radically new interpretation, offering a unified explanation for the growth of Western Europe between 900 A. D. and 1700, provides a general theoretical framework for institutional change geared to the general reader. North and Thomas seek to explain the "rise of the Western world" by illuminating the causal importance of an efficient economic organization that guarantees a wide latitude of property rights and both incentives and protection for economic growth. Although they pay homage to both Marxian and neoliberal theory, they take a theoretical middle ground that privileges the sociopolitical backdrop of economic affairs (as opposed to solely private or class-based activity) and in doing so identifies the roots of modernization as far back as the 10th Century. To justify the novelty and originality of this approach, they write that most analysts have misidentified the symptoms of modern economic growth (technological change, human capital, economies of scale) as the causes. In doing so, previous scholars have failed to answer the question "if all that is required for economic growth is investment and innovation, why have some societies missed this desirable outcome?" (2). Their answer is that some societies (England and the Netherlands) were better than others (France and Spain) at providing an efficient economic organization that could guarantee conditions favorable to per capita economic growth among a rapidly growing population.

Modernization Theory and the Comparative Study of National Societies: A Critical Perspective

Abstract: Use of the term ‘modernization’ in its present connotations is of relatively recent origin, becoming an accepted part of the vocabulary of American, if not international, social science only in the decade of the 1960s. Despite its relatively rapid rise to currency, the popularity of the term does not appear to be matched by any widespread consensus concerning its precise meaning. The proliferation of alternative definitions has been such, in fact, that the ratio of those using the term to alternative definitions would appear to approach unity. The popularity of the notion of modernization must be sought not in its clarity and precision as a vehicle of scholarly communication, but rather in its ability to evoke vague and generalized images which serve to summarize all the various transformations of social life attendant upon the rise of industrialization and the nation-state in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These images have proven so powerful, indeed, that the existence of some phenomenon usefully termed ‘modernization’ has gone virtually unchallenged. While individuals may differ on how precisely this phenomenon should be conceptualized and a number of critics have addressed themselves to the relative merits of alternative conceptualizations, both critics and advocates alike tend to assume the basic utility of the idea of modernization itself, treating only the manner of its conceptualization as problematic.

Hegel's theory of the modern state

Abstract: Preface 1. Beginnings 2. Positivity and freedom 3. The modernisation of Germany 4. The new era 5. Modern life and social reality 6. The owl of Minerva and the critical mind 7. The political economy of modern society 8. Social classes, representation and pluralism 9. The state - the consciousness of freedom 10. War 11. The English reform bill - the social problem again 12. History - the progress towards the consciousness of freedom Epilogue Bibliography Index.

Language Modernization and Planning in Comparison with Other Types of National Modernization and Planning.

Abstract: The purpose of this review is two-fold. First of all, to move toward greater clarity with respect to a number of basic terms revealing less consensus in the language planning literature (e.g. planning, traditional, development, modernization, Westernization) than in the social sciences more generally. Secondly, but more importantly, to introduce into the language planning field a large number of concepts, questions and dimensions which have not yet found their way there from planning theory and planning research in other-than-language fields. In many (but not all) respects it would seem, on logical and impressionistic grounds, that language planning and other- than-language planning face similar burdens and benefit from related social and organizational circumstances.

Does Modernization Breed Revolution

Abstract: There are quite a few different senses in which one can imagine large-scale structural change as breeding, shaping, causing, sparking, or resulting from major political conflicts. One of the most sophisticated recent syntheses of the standard views concerning all these matters comes from Samuel Huntington. In his Political Order in Changing Societies, Huntington argues that the widespread domestic violence and instability of the 1950s and 1960s in many parts of the world "was in large part the product of rapid social change and the rapid mobilization of new groups into politics, coupled with the slow development of political institutions". Modernization and social mobilization tend to produce political decay unless steps are taken to moderate or to restrict its impact on political consciousness and political involvement. Most societies, even those with fairly complex and adaptable traditional political institutions, suffer a loss of political community and decay of political institutions during the most intense phases of modernization.

Formal Voluntary Organizations: Participation, Correlates, and Interrelationships

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the literature on formal voluntay organizations in the urban community. The theoretical approaches that guided much of the research in this area are identifid as social structural, social psychological, and organizational. Basic findings suggest that formal participation, including church membership, is a characteristic of urban life. Population characteristics, attitudes, informal interaction, and community involvement are all related to formal membership. Moreover, formal organizations attempt to integrate individuals with the larger community, and such groups, in urbanizing areas, facilitate modernization.

Bureaucracy and Modernization in China: The Maoist Critique

Abstract: The Chinese critique of bureaucratic forms of organization is delineated, and the alternative Maoist organizational ideal is sketched. The adequacy of this Maoist alternative as part of a modernizing strategy is considered, both on logical and on (limited) empirical grounds. The Maoist conception seems to be neither a general solution to the organizational problems of developing societies nor totally inappropriate or utopian.

Costs and Returns of Education in Five Agricultural Areas of Eastern Brazil

Abstract: This study tests the hypothesis that education has a major role in agricultural development by estimating costs and returns of schooling and extension in areas at various modernization levels. Public and private costs are estimated from secondary information and farm surveys. Value-added and auxiliary equations, estimated from farm-level data, are used to derive annual returns of education. Although based on weak statistical results, schooling returns are negative or low, but increase with modernization level. Extension returns are generally high for individuals, but cover social costs in only two geographic areas. This suggests education's role in development may be limited.

Tradition and Modernization in Japanese Culture

Abstract: Essays on the Iwakura Embassy, the realistic painter Takahashi Yuichi, the educational system, and music, show how the Japanese went about borrowing from the West in the first decades after the Restoration: the formulation of strategies for modernizing and the adaptation of Western models to Meiji culture. In the second half of the volume, the darker side, the pathology of modernization, is seen. The adjustment of the individual and the effects of progressive modernization on culture in an increasingly complex, twentieth-century society are recurring themes. They are illustrated with particular intensity in the experience of such writers as Natsume Soseki and Kobayashi Hideo, in the thought of Nishida Kitaro, and in the millenarian aspects of the new religions. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Israel: Social Structure and Change

Abstract: Israel: Social Structure and Change is the fullest and most up-to-date book on social and political change in this fascinating country. The book deals with urban and institutional development, the role and the place of the kibbutz today, economic development, income distribution, labor relations, ethnic relationships and problems, the role of women, changes in education, population problems and Arab-Jewish relationships in Israel. Prominent writers from the United States and Israel--sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and administrative leaders--have participated in this extensive treatment of Israel's development. Of interest to all those concerned with economic modernization and political and social development, these original essays are packed with incisive analysis in jargon-free language. CONTENTS: Introduction-M. Curtis and M.S. Chertoff / URBAN AND INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT / Israel's New Frontier: the Urban Periphery-J. Matras / Local Government as an Integrating Factor in Israeli Society-D.J. Elazar / Development Towns in Israel-M.J. Aronoff / Urban Community Development in Israel-R.M. Kramer / Absorption of Soviet Immigrants-Z. Gitelman / THE KIBBUTZ TODAY / Some Reflections on the Kibbutz-B. Bettelheim / Utopia and the Kibbutz-M. Curtis / The Family in the Kibbutz: What Lessons for Us?-S. Keller / Worker Participation in Decision-Making in Kibbutz Industry-M. Rosner / The Industrial Process in Israeli Kibbutzim: Problems and Their Solutions-U. Leviatan / ECONOMIC AND LABOR DEVELOPMENT / Income Distribution and Economic Development: the Case of Israel-H. Pack / Income Inequality in Israel: Ethnic Aspects-O. Remba / On East-West Differences in Occupational Structure in Israel-Y. Ben-Porath / On the Economic Development of the Arab Region in Israel-F.M. Gottheil / Histadrut and Industrial Democracy in Israel: An Interpretive Essay, from an American Perspective-M. Derber / Histadrut: Myth and Reality-J.J. Loewenberg / ETHNIC RELATIONS AND PROBLEMS / Israel: Two Nations?-S. Avineri / The Israeli Dilemma-S.M. Lipset / Western and Oriental Culture in Israel-R. Patai / The Emerging Consciousness of the Ethnic Problem among the Jews of Israel-C.S. Heller / Time to Stir the Melting Pot-H. Toledano / SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL CHANGE / Pluralism in Israel Society-M. Lissak / Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: Ancient and Contemporary Perspectives on the Women of Israel-N. Datan / Education: the Social Challenge-E. Felled / "Reforming" Israeli Education--W. Ackerman / The Arab Israelis-R. Bastuni

Evolution and communication: the domestication of the savage mind

Abstract: For some time now evolution has tended to be a dirty word in the social sciences.' The adjectival form, applied to a writer, tends to indicate old-fashioned, even 'biological' concerns. It is time to lay aside this negative attitude. Just as there is no sociology without comparison (implicit or explicit), so comparison almost inevitably raises the question of the change from one form to another. And the process of evolution, stripped of the implications of unilineality and irreversibility, is simply long-term change.2 Much of the best known sociology, that associated with the names of Comte, Marx, Spencer, Weber and Durkheim (not to mention the more obvious candidates, Maine, Morgan, Tylor, Robertson-Smith and Frazer) has displayed both comparative and evolutionary interests. The work of Spencer and Durkheim shows an extensive knowledge of the writings about non-European societies; that of Weber has a similar command of Asia. Much of this interest derived from a somewhat egocentric but none the less important concern having to do with the rise of modern industrial society; it centred upon a question which Parsons has recently reiterated. 'Why, then, did the breakthrough to modernization not occur in any of the "Oriental" advanced intermediate civilizations?' (1966: 4). This question immediately implies an opposition between 'our' type of society and 'theirs'; and its answer requires that we search the world for positive and negative cases to confirm our ideas about the relevant factors. There is nothing wrong with the search as such, but we need to recognize the ethnocentric nature of its starting point and the fact that the dichotomizing of 'we' and 'they' in this manner narrows the field of both the topic and of its explanation. If we are interested in even longer-term development (as certain of the hypotheses of Spencer, Durkheim, Marx and Weber force us to be), then a further set of considerations come into play. If I put these in an over-obvious way, it is because much contemporary social theory leads us to neglect certain obvious lines of enquiry. When we think of long-term evolutionary change, it is inevitable

Kasravi: the integrative nationalist of Iran

Abstract: 'Political Modernization' has become a sponge term. For some it has soaked up the process of building such centralized institutions as state bureaucracies, standing armies, and disciplined political parties. For others it is closely related to the breakdown of regionally independent agrarian economies into highly inter-dependent industrial economies. And yet for others, it is synonomous with the transformation of traditional cultures where subjects owe allegiance primarily to their parochial groups, and view themselves as distinctly detached from the central authorities, into modern cultures where citizens owe allegiance to the state, consider it their natural right and even civic duty to participate in public affairs, and feel that their political system whether democratic or totalitarian should have deep roots in the social system. But in whatever specific way 'political modernization' is used, it is invariably associated with the general process of national integration: the integration of traditional decentralized administrations into centralized modern state bureaucracies; the integration of agrarian economies where there are few direct links between the regional units into industrial economies where these units are fused into one unitary and directly linked social system; the integration of rulers and ruled through institutions that stretch from the centre to various areas and layers at the periphery; the integration of exclusive bonds such as to clans, tribes, religious sects, and regional groups into more inclusive ties to the nation; and the integration of multi-cultural, multi-tribal, multi-lingual empires into new nation-states often, if not always, with one political ideology, one culture, one language, and one national identity. 1 Although as early as the nineteenth century two such different minds as Marx and Durkheim both wrote on the transformation of independent agrarian units into inter-dependent industrial societies, it was not until quite recently that social scientists have focused their attention on the problem of political unification. This revival of interest is reflected in Clifford Geertz's much quoted article 'The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States' which first appeared nine years ago in a collection of essays entitled Old Societies and New Nations: The Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa. 2 In this work Geertz showed how newly independent countries were invariably confronted by the agonizing problem of reconciling traditional affiliations such as ties to tribes, regions, religions, languages, and ethnic groups into modern nation-states demanding the political allegiances of all their

Distance, information flows, and modernization: some observations from west malaysia∗

Abstract: (1973). DISTANCE, INFORMATION FLOWS, AND MODERNIZATION: SOME OBSERVATIONS FROM WEST MALAYSIA. The Professional Geographer: Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 7-11.

Modernization individual modernity and fertility.

Abstract: 3 sets of data pertaining to "modernization a societal-level process; individual modernity a person-level pattern of traits; and fertility" which may be measured as fertility rates or as number of children born to a woman are discussed. Findings and hypotheses from re search in fertility that are pertinent to social modernization are reviewed. Recent research on individual modernity is summarized with emphasis on the variables in the relationship of modernity to fertility. Cultural and religious values social structure effects perceptions of environment and resources and personal traits are discussed under the heading of modernization and fertility change. Under the measurement of individual modernity 2 studies of individual modernity some methodological and substantive issues and 3 themes relating individual modernity to fertility are explored.

The Anatomy of Political and Social Change: Turkish Parties, Parliaments, and Elections

Abstract: A crucial stage in the process of political modernization is the induction of the rural masses into the political system. Such an induction spells the end of traditional political systems and fundamentally alters the relationship between city and countryside. Samuel P. Huntington refers to this phenomenon as the "Green Uprising." While the Green Uprising may occur in a variety of political systems, the particular form in which it is manifested depends upon the system and the political groups or forces under whose auspices it occurs. When the Green Uprising takes place within a competitive political system, Huntington suggests that it "often takes the form of one segment of the urban elite developing an appeal to or making an alliance with the crucial rural voters and mobilizing them into politics so as to overwhelm at the polls the more narrowly urban-based parties." 1 Huntington cites Turkey as a classic example of this form of the Green Uprising. The "ruralizing election" in Turkey, which brought to power a new regime based on the electoral support of the peasant masses, occurred in 1950. The new "ruralized" regime coincided with a number of changes in Turkish politics. One of these was a shift in the composition of Parliament from persons with military and official backgrounds to persons with commercial and professional careers. Another was a rise in the representation of local or provincial elites as opposed

On the Modernity of the Dutch Republic

Abstract: The political and economic institutions of the Dutch Republic puzzle the historian. Closely juxtaposed are elements suggesting a tantalizing precociousness and elements which hearken to the medieval past. The Republic was the creation of a revolution; it can be identified as the first European state to throw off a monarchical regime and bring a bourgeois social class to full political power. On the other hand, the foremost motive behind this rebellion was the resistance of medieval, municipal particularism to governmental centralization—to modernization, if you will.