Showing papers on "Modernization theory published in 1974"

"From the Native's Point of View": On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding

Abstract: At the Annual Meeting in May 1974, the American Academy awarded its first Social Science Prize to Clifford Geertz for his significant contributions to social anthropology. Mr. Geertz has taught at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Chicago; in 1970 he became the first Professor of the Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Mr. Geertz' research has centered on the changing religious attitudes and habits of life of the Islamic peoples of Morocco and Indonesia; he is the author of Peddlers and Princes: Social Changes and Economic Modernization in Two Indonesian Towns (1963), The Social History of an Indonesian Town (1965), Islam Observed: Religious Developments in Morocco and Indonesia (1968), and a recent collection of essays, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973). In nominating Mr. Geertz for the award, the Academy's Social Science Prize Committee observed, "each of these volumes is an important contribution in its own right; together they form an unrivaled corpus in modern social anthropology and social sciences."

Ethnic Competition and Modernization in Contemporary Africa

Abstract: It has been argued that modernization promotes potentially disintegrative forces in developing areas, and in particular, often gives rise to powerful ethnic groupings (for example, see Geertz, 1963; Melson and Wolpe, 1970; Huntington, 1968). In this article, we elaborate this hypothesis in the context of the developing nations of black Africa. We note that important competition can and do covary in contemporary Africa (Morrison and Stevenson, 1972). And we attempt to explain why this should be so.

Comparing Household Structure Over Time and Between Cultures

Abstract: Because of the importance of the family and household in all societies and at all historical periods, it is essential to be able to make comparisons between varieties of domestic groups. If we wish to comment on the extent to which the household is affected by social change and especially by the process of modernization, industrialization, social mobilization, or whatever that vague but ubiquitous phenomenon is called, it must be clear what would consitute such change. This means knowing how domestic group structure differs from country to country as well as from period to period.

For harmony and strength: Japanese white-collar organization in anthropological perspective

Abstract: "Rohten has demonstrated that traditional anthropological method and theory can be adjusted to the analysis of complex organizations. The book provides a holistic perspective of a Japanese bank and its more than 3,000 employees. Methodologically, Rohlen analyzed this bank in much the same fashion as he would have carried out the study of a small community. Eleven months of participant observation within the bank and among its employees after work provided the major source of data...Possibly the most important finding of the study is that despite surface similarities with banks throughout the world, the Japanese have evolved an institution which is radically different. This bank, like many modern Japanese businesses, is organized to secure a common livelihood and way of life for its employees ...more than the best cultural analysis of a Japanese business, for the book also contributes to the fields of Japanese cultural change and modernization process essential reading." (American Anthropologist). "The account is adorned with an unusually rich selection of illustration from the speeches of firm officers, company records and documents, and of course extensive observations from employees ...As a case study of a single Japanese organization, For Harmony and Strength is a superb effort that penetrates deeper than any other book in the English language." (Contemporary Sociology). "A first-rate contribution to the literature in applied anthropology and comparative and cross-cultural management for the insights it provides on management of white-collar employees in Japan." (Industrial and Labor Relations Review). "A well-written, thoroughly researched study of the internal life of a single Japanese organization. Unlike most previous writers, Aohlen deals with the separate recruitment, work, and leisure patterns of the bank's women employees. As an anthropologist he has particular sensitivity to the ritual meanings of bank songs, ceremonies, and extensive training activities ...one of the best analyses to date of how Japanese organization works." (Library Journal). "What emerges from Rohlen's convincing and penetrating analysis is a picture of a thoroughly 'Japanese' business organization deeply imbued with Japanese cultural values ...in its sensitivity to cultural meanings and in its analytical coherence in the presentation of data, this book is a model of scholarship matched by few ethnographies. It will be consulted by those specializing in Japan, those interested in organizational behavior, and those interested in seeing 'the meanings of fundamental matters, ' for a long time to come." (Journal of Asian Studies).

The State in Post-Colonial Societies: Tanzania

Abstract: With the recent work of Samir Amin and others, Marxist understanding of African economies has begun to progress; political analysis has lagged far behind however. For too long the ground has been ceded, by default, to the ideologues of establishment political science and to their various permutations on the themes of "political modernization" and "one-party states". This comment applies not merely to "radical Africana" of course. A similar short-fall in radicalism's scientific understanding of the political can be noted with reference to Asia and Latin America as well. The problem of "the state" as it presents itself in the context of "underdevelopment" has been undertheorized and little researched. The present essay seeks to contribute to a further discussion of this issue.

The Aging of Populations and Societies

Abstract: Modernization of societies is accompanied by a demographic transition which results in the aging of popula tions. Yet, modernization also results in a lowered status for older people. The salient aspects of modernization which pro duce this effect are held to be: (1) the application of modern technology in the fields of health and economics, (2) urbaniza tion and (3) education. Each of these factors sets in motion a chain reaction which tends to undermine the status of the aged. However, there are some signs that this trend is being reversed in the most modernized societies.

The Social Origins of Liberal Democracy: The Swedish Case*

Abstract: Implicit in Dahrendorf's Society and Democracy in Germany and explicit in Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy are respectively a liberal and a radical model of democratic development. Neither of these models adequately accounts for the experience of Sweden, a remarkably successful “late developer.” Although Swedish industrialization proceeded with little public ownership of the means of production, with limited welfare programs until the 1930s, and above all with restricted military expenditure—all factors Dahrendorf implies are crucial for democratic development—it did not produce the traditional liberal infrastructure of bourgeois entrepreneurs nor a vigorous open market society. Similarly only three of Moore's five preconditions for democracy obtained in Sweden: a balance between monarchy and aristocracy, the weakening of the landed aristocracy, and the prevention of an aristocratic-bourgeois coalition against the workers and peasants. There was no thorough shift toward commercial agriculture and, most important, there was no revolutionary break with the past. Consequently, one has to evolve a radical liberal model of development which states the conditions for the emergence of democracy in Sweden without revolution. This model contains implications for the further modernization of American politics.

Studies of Modernization and Sociological Theory

Abstract: Studies of "modernization" and "development" have been in the forefront of the social sciences for at least the last three decades, and many of their assumptions have guided much of the research in economics, sociology, political science, and social anthropology. Lately many of these assumptions and approaches have undergone rather severe reappraisals, criticisms, and rejections. These reappraisals are, however, of interest not only to the specific although certainly not narrow fields of modernization and development; they have touched on some of the basic and central problems of sociological theory and thinking. This is not surprising. It is true that the concern with modernization and development, in the narrow sense of the words, is relatively recent, having emerged mainly after World War II as part of the interest in problems of development in new nations or "the Third World." But the concern with the nature of modern society and of social change and development lies at the very roots of modern social science; in fact, many of the specific problems preoccupying students of modernization and development during the last three decades are very closely related to some of the initial basic Probleinstellungen of modern sociology and their subsequent theoretical development. Thus, many of the criticisms voiced against these studies touch on some of the central problems of sociological theory.

Modernization and Political Instability: A Theoretical Exploration

Abstract: What is the effect of the process of modernization on political stability? That is the question I want to explore theoretically. I will suggest that there are no plausible reasons for the expectation that the process of modernization is destabilizing, and also that there is no problem of political instability in transitional societies or anywhere else. Let us begin by examining some of the arguments used to support the thesis that modernization causes political instability.

Authoritarian Politics in Unincorporated Society : The Case of Nasser's Egypt

Abstract: Contemporary Egypt provides evidence against, and induces modifications of, a widely accepted proposition concerning modernization. This proposition suggests that modernization, in the sense of social mobilization, tends to undermine authoritarian government by engendering powerful groups that the system cannot absorb without changing to a pluralist or totalitarian form of rule. Before turning to the case of Egypt, let us discuss the proposition.

Aborted Modernization in West Africa? the Case of Abeokuta.

Abstract: Brunschwig and Crowder have argued that many West African states on the eve of European annexation were on their way towards independent modernization and westernization, and that modernization was frustrated rather than accelerated by European rule. The paper examines the applicability of this argument to the particular case of the Egba state of Abeokuta in Western Nigeria.In Abeokuta, European religious and political ideas had gained an early foothold through the return of liberated Egba slaves from Sierra Leone and the arrival of Christian missionaries. The new, westernized elite of converts and repatriates developed ambitions for the transformation of Abeokuta into a ‘Christian, civilized’ state. Scope for the realization of these ambitions was found through co-operation with the traditional elite, particularly in the Egba United Board of Management of 1865–74 and the Egba United Government of 1898–1914. Both these organizations suffered from the incompatibility between the essentially conservative aims of the traditional elite and the modernizing ambitions of the new elite. The Egba United Board of Management was dependent for its success solely upon the support of the traditional elite, and therefore ceased to function when the chiefs lost interest in its cause. The Egba United Government succeeded in laying lasting foundations for a modern administration in Abeokuta, but in order to achieve this had to rely on British military support against internal opposition and on British financial backing for their more ambitious projects. Through its military and financial dependence on the British, Abeokuta gradually became politically dependent, so that its formal political independence was largely illusory for at least five or six years before the final British annexation in 1914.

Financing small‐farm development in india*

Abstract: Small farm credit is important in public programs of developing countries. It is supported to finance increased productivity through modernization and to replace the exploitive moneylender. However, expectations often exceed performance. Indian research suggests the discrepancy may be traced to failure to account for the needs of liquidity management. It suggests, too, that programs that are designed to account for liquidity management can lead to modernization and to improved viability of small farms as well.

Rural development and social communication : relationships and strategies

Abstract: Meeting: Cornell - CIAT International Symposium on Communication Strategies for Rural Development, 17-22 Mar. 1974, Cali, CO

Japan in Crisis: Essays on Taisho Democracy

Abstract: The transition between the reign of the powerful emperor Meiji and that of his weak successor Taish? was marked by the emergence of a new individualism in Japanese society, a separation of culture and politics that led to the demise of the traditional Japanese self-dedication to the interests of the state and to a corresponding dedication to modernization in all spheres of existence. The widespread social, political, economic, and cultural changes that occurred during the years of Japan's modernization movement in the early twentieth century are discussed in thirteen essays by Japanese and American scholars concerned with the Taish? period. The contributors employ a diversity of disciplinary and historical approaches: the volume contains essays on intellectual, literary, economic, diplomatic, political, and social history covering the period from 1900 to 1945. The essays relate the new individualism of the Taish? years to such phenomena as literary naturalism, political socialism, the failure of economic expansion, and industrial and agricultural unrest.

Authoritarianism, Corporatism and Mobilization in Peru

Abstract: In recent years there has been a renewed interest among social scientists in authoritarianism, both as a type of regime and as a specific political approach to the problems of economic development and modernization. This revival of interest has been spurred in part by the proliferation of authoritarian regimes in the less developed countries and by the fact that many of these regimes are doing a more than creditable job in stimulating and managing the process of development and modernization.

Educational Reform: China in the 1970s and Russia in the 1920s

Abstract: to challenge the existing institutional order. "Revisionism" throughout society came under attack, and a major focus of student criticism was the educational system itself. Scholars are still debating whether the Cultural Revolution achieved the goals that Mao Tse-tung, the Red Guards, and others had in mind for it, but it is clear that since the fall of 1968 there has ensued a very broad range of educational reforms. These reforms in turn have given rise to a debate among those Westerners who make their living studying China. One view is that the "Maoist line" in education (i.e., the reforms currently being introduced) is romantic and unrealistic, and the resulting effort will inevitably harm China's effort to develop trained manpower for modernization.' The other view is that the Maoist educational line is not utopian, and is in fact more suitable to China's needs and problems than conceptions of education drawn from Western or Soviet experience. By pursuing the current reforms China may be able to develop skilled manpower without sacrificing revolutionary social goals.2 It is difficult to resolve this debate as long as one assumes, as many do, that these Chinese educational reforms are unprecedented and that past historical experience can tell little about their chances for success. In fact there are very clear precedents and attempts at similar reforms, not only in China itself (during the Yenan period-1936-453and during the Great Leap Forward-1958-60) but in the Soviet Union during the 1920s. In this article we will consider the relevance of the Soviet experience to the current reforms.

Ganda Receptivity to Change

Abstract: THE Ganda have enjoyed a reputation abroad as a modernizing people for a remarkably long time. To start with they were 'the Chinese of Africa', an epithet that quickly gave way to 'the Japanese of Africa' once Japan overtook China as the pacemaker of modernization in the non-western world. In the first years of this century Winston Churchill called their kingdom 'a fairy-tale' because 'the people are different from anything elsewhere to be seen in the whole of Africa'.' Charles Eliot, the early colonial commissioner of the nearby East Africa Protectorate notorious for his assertion that 'white mates black in a very few moves', agreed that the Ganda were an exception to this generalization.2 So too, later on and for very different reasons, the Ganda were considered a highly distinctive people by Margery Perham,3 D. A. Low,4 and C. C. Wrigley,5 along with the veritable tribe of social anthropologists associated with the East African Institute of Social Research during the i960s.6 Quite why the Ganda differed so markedly from their immediate East African neighbours evoked markedly differing answers. Churchill put it down to a providential mixture of 'Imperial authority, secular, scientific, disinterested, irresistible; secondly, a native Government and feudal aristocracy corrected of their abuses, yet preserving their vitality; and thirdly, missionary enterprise on an almost unequalled scale'.7 Eliot thought it mainly a matter of possessing the right blood, Perham at least partly the product of having a sympathetic protectorate power. Later scholars gave other answers. Some saw crucial structural changes taking place in Buganda immediately before the imposition of British control in a 'Christian revolution' whereby chiefly converts managed to transform the Ganda political system from a pagan monarchy into a Christian oligarchy and then successfully badgered their compatriots into cotton-planting as well as tea-drinking. Others stressed rather the continuities between a precolonial kingdom already far ahead of its immediate neighbours in political sophistication and a colonial situation where sophisticated Ganda took unusual advantage of new opportunities in schooling, cash-cropping and administrative service.

The Modernization of the Japanese System of Communication.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is twofold. First, the author wishes to suggest an evolutionary typology of languages (early modern, modern, contemporary, etc.) and to specify the position of present day Japanese on this evolutionary scale. Secondly, it suggests a way to integrate the concept of linguistic modernization with a theory of language problems, and shows that for modernization at least two types of processes, macro-modernization and micro-modernization, must be distinguished. The former concerns such tasks as the establishment of a modern national language and as far as Japan is concerned this process has been completed. The latter process concerns problems such as the individual's use of language. It still awaits its completion. (Sociolinguistic typology, language evolution, linguistic modernization, Japan.)

Administrative Modernization and the Bhats of British Gujarat, 1800-1820

Abstract: British rule marked the advent of a fundamental change in the nature of government in South Asia-the gradual shift from a traditional to a modern political system.’ In the nineteenth century certain Indian elite groups who had emerged in the period following the decline of the Mughal empire took advantage of the new opportunities presented by this shift to reinforce their influence in Indian society. By virtue of their experience and their facility with the English language, these regional elites came to monopolize the new positions of political and social influence within Indian society

Why Change?: Toward a New Theory of Change Among Individuals in the Process of Modernization

Abstract: When and why people abandon their old institutions, patterns of behavior, and even places of residence in favor of new ones that are associated with sustained economic growth and development is a question of central importance to social science. Increasingly, political scientists have associated these processes of change with the occurrence of disintegration of particular political units, groups, and systems, and with the integration of others. The changing nature of social and cultural ties signals concomitant modifications in what people define as their community, where they place demands, and where they look for authoritative decisions to be made.