Showing papers on "Modernization theory published in 1978"

Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914

Abstract: France achieved national unity much later than is commonly supposed. For a hundred years and more after the Revolution, millions of peasants lived on as if in a timeless world, their existence little different from that of the generations before them. The author of this lively, often witty, and always provocative work traces how France underwent a veritable crisis of civilization in the early years of the French Republic as traditional attitudes and practices crumbled under the forces of modernization. Local roads and railways were the decisive factors, bringing hitherto remote and inaccessible regions into easy contact with markets and major centers of the modern world. The products of industry rendered many peasant skills useless, and the expanding school system taught not only the language of the dominant culture but its values as well, among them patriotism. By 1914, France had finally become La Patrie in fact as it had so long been in name.

Modernization and Dependency Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Latin American Underdevelopment

Abstract: The end of World War II marked the beginning of fundamental transformations in world affairs. The defeat of the Axis powers and the devastating toll which the war had exacted on Britain and the European allies propelled the United States into a position of economic and military preeminence. However, the United States' power did not go unchallenged. The Soviet Union was able to influence the accession of power of socialist regimes throughout Eastern Europe and Chinese Communists defeated their Western-backed adversaries to gain control of the most populous nation on earth. These events called for an urgent strategy to revitalize the economies of the Western nations. With massive U.S. public and private economic investment, Western Europe and Japan soon recovered from the ravages of war. But World War II ushered in another important change whose global implications would not be felt for some years to come. The weakening of the European powers and the logic of a war effort aimed at preserving self-determination, marked the final collapse of the vast colonial empires of the nineteenth century and the establishment of a multiplicity of states each claiming sovereign and independent status. The "new nations" soon drew the attention of U.S. policymakers concerned with the claim that Marxism presented the best and most logical road to full incorporation into the modem world. They also captured the attention and imagination of U.S. scholars who in the pursuit of knowledge, as well as the desire to influence government policy, began to produce a vast literature on the "developing" nations. For many economists the solution was another Marshall plan designed for the Third World. But other social scientists argued that fundamental differences between the devel

China's Economic Revolution.

Abstract: Professor Eckstein's book is a study of China's efforts to achieve rapid modernization of its economy within a socialist framework. Eckstein begins with an examination of economic development in pre-Communist China, specifically focusing on the resources and liabilities inherited by the new regime in 1949 and their effects on development policies. He then analyses the economic objectives of the Communist leadership - narrowing income disparities, maintaining full employment without inflation, and achieving rapid industrialization - and argues that the implementation of these goals required a potent ideology capable of providing a strong faith and motivational force for the mass mobilization of resources. In discussing the methods used by the government to achieve its aims, Eckstein makes a thorough evaluation of China's general framework for economic planning, particularly in regard to the distribution and pricing of farm products and the allocation of resources in the industrial sector. The author also evaluates the radical institutional changes in property relations and in economic organization in the People's Republic of China.

The People in History: Recent Trends in Japanese Historiography

Abstract: In the 1960s a group of Japanese historians responded to the contemporary bureaucratic superstate by embarking on a search for a popular past. They began to reexamine Japan's modern experience from the point of view of the people, not the elite, and with special emphasis not on political events but on social forces and attitudes. They rejected Marxism and modernization theory as alien and limiting and sought instead an indigenous methodology that might better fit the Japanese case because it was derived from it. By choosing topics that suggested the importance of popular energies in the development of modern Japan, they endeavored to enlarge the canvas of social history by bringing the people into it as significant subjects of historical change. Their scholarly efforts have drawn the attention of Japanese within and without academic circles and, as this introductory critical essay suggests, may usefully draw that of Western readers as well.

Modernizing Institutions, Mobilization, and Third World Development: A Cross-National Study

Abstract: Following the implications of modernization theory, we test via panel regression analysis several hypotheses relating modernizing institutions to the economic development of poor countries. Controlling for the economic constraints imposed by initial poverty and world-system position, we find that the school furthers economic development while exposure to the cinema hinders it. Further analysis shows that these effects vary by political context: in countries with mobilizing regimes, the positive contributions of the school are strong, while in countries with nonmobilizing regimes the adverse effects of the cinemaare strong. Following Portes, we argue that the cinema impedes economic growth by transmitting and promoting Western values incompatible with the social ethos that must accompany programs of national economic development. We discuss the relevance of our findings to the problem of social mobilization in poor countries.

Toward a Class Analysis of the Indonesian Military Bureaucratic State

Abstract: Contrary to the expectations of modernization and developmentalist theorists, the historical experiences of Europe and North America have not been reproduced in the postcolonial societies of the Third World., The spread of capitalism has not been accompanied by the emergence of liberal democratic bourgeois states. Instead, the development of capitalism has resulted in the growth of military bureaucratic states.

Mexico's International Migration as a Manifestation of its Development Pattern.

Abstract: This paper summarizes the view on the broader structural determi? nants of the illegal flow held by Mexican scholars concerned with the problem. In the first section, some of the aspects of the country's economic and technological structures are examined; in the second, certain features of the modernization process are dealt with; in the third, an analysis is made of one component of the Mexican migratory flow into the United States; in the last, the migratory flow, seen in the context of the system of 'peripheral' and 'central' economies, is discussed.

South African Development and the Paradox of Racial Particularism: Toward a Theory of Modernization from the Center

Abstract: There are two main issues taken up in this essay. The first is a critical examination of the prevailing thesis that universalism progressively increases with industrialization. A critique is offered both on theoretical grounds and on the basis of case materials drawn from the Republic of South Africa.1 This analysis provides the background for the second and major task-the presentation of an outline of an emerging pattern of change within societies which began industrialization after the industrialization of the West. This pattern, here called "modernization from the center," represents a sharp break with the developmental patterns of the West and provides a way of understanding why South Africa and other "later" developing states have diverged from the Western route toward modernization. It is argued that South Africa's racialism is a retention and amplification of traditional patterns which, in turn, are direct consequences of the modernization of Afrikaner society from its center. It is further suggested that South Africa's experience is and will be shared by other developing states.

Social Change in Communist Romania

Abstract: It has been claimed by scholars, both within Romania and elsewhere, that Communist rule "saved" Romania from the economic crisis that existed in the 1930s. A close analysis reveals, however, that the economic achievements of the regime are comparable to those which have occurred elsewhere in Europe under different political systems. It is argued that Romania's relative position among the industrial nations has remained about the same as it was in the pre-socialist period. Moreover, there is much evidence that the socialist period represents less of a break with the ancien regime than the Romanian leaders claim. It is suggested in this article that Romania is closer to the structure of the "corporatist" society outlined by social theorists in the 1930s than is generally recognized. The Communist government of Romania lays its main claim to legitimacy on the rapid economic growth and social modernization which have occurred in the last 30 years, and also on the supposed fact that before 1944 Romania was imprisoned in a set of hopeless problems from which there seemed to be no escape. Many distinguished foreign observers, both before and since the advent of Communism, agree. Many Romanian intellectuals, particularly social scientists in the 1930s, also felt that there existed a major crisis which could only be resolved with difficulty, if at all. Among those intellectuals who have survived the war, the purges and jailings of the first decade of Communist rule, and simple old age, many agree today that the government's claim to have saved Romania has considerable merit, even if the rescue operation might have been carried out more rationally and humanely. In retrospect, and when it is compared to the situation in a number of Third World countries in the 1970s, Romania's situation in the 1930s was not, however, all that catastrophic. When Romania in the 1930s was compared to Western Europe, of course, and even to substantial portions of Eastern Europe, its situation was, indeed, poor. This remains as true today as it was in the 1930s, except that all of Europe has experienced rapid economic growth. Within any one country, Romania included, comparisons with the levels of the 1930s show impressive progress. Not only has this progress transformed Western Europe, but all of the poor semicircle of

Political Participation and Political Elites in Early Republican China: The Parliament of 1913–1914

Abstract: The expansion of political participation is generally recognized as an essential aspect of modernization. China's twentieth-century experience certainly fits this model. Yet we are far from understanding the processes by which participation expanded in China—especially in the early twentieth century, when complex patterns of social change and institutional reform brought new groups to political awareness. Who comprised the newly participant strata in the first decades of this century? How large and powerful were they? How did their members participate? Who were their leaders?

Modernization Theory and the Formation of Modern Social Theories in England and America

Abstract: ‘Modernization theory’, Alexander Gerschenkron remarked recently, ‘obstructs rather than promotes the understanding of processes of econo- mic change’. Far from being a startling judgement, Gerschenkron's comment only signals that another distinguished scholar has joined the theory's detractors. The marked failure of modernization theory to predict how less developed countries would react to incentives for material advance explains the growing chorus of criticism. This indeterminate response from third world peoples has quite properly raised doubts about how well we understand what is involved in the reorientation of a society's habitual practices. The blight of disconfirming evidence, according to E. I. Eisenstadt, has now led to the abandonment of hope that breakdowns in modernization would be followed by resurgences towards modernity.

Village Modernization and Changing Nicknaming Practices in Northern Spain

Abstract: Previous studies of Spanish nicknaming have dealt with the practice as an essentially static system. This paper concentrates on the changes that have occurred in nickname usage as a direct consequence of rural modernization. The evolution of nicknaming in the village of Benabarre is analyzed to demonstrate how a general transformation in village society is reflected in a change in nicknaming patterns. The social relations that gave rise to nicknames in the traditional village have been so transformed by the forces of modernization that personal nicknames can no longer be disseminated or established as was customary in the past.

Paine, America, and the “Modernization” of Political Consciousness

Abstract: The full significance of the achievement of Thomas Paine has perhaps never been thoroughly explained. His public career falls into two neatly divisible phases: the American, lasting from 1774 to 1787, and the European, stretching from 1787 to 1802. Few scholars concerned with his American career have been much interested in his European, while those studying his European activities have rarely demonstrated much sensitivity to the bearing of his American experiences upon them.1 Numerous biographies have traced his life with varying degrees of detachment.2 But biography, focusing as it does upon the discrete details of an individual's life, has rarely been a satisfactory vehicle for exploring the wider impact of that life. Paine's larger significance can perhaps be understood only in terms of his relationship to one of the most important transformations in modern history, a transformation that, to borrow a set of conceptions from the social sciences, may most accurately be referred to as the "modernization" of political consciousness. This transformation was characterized by basic changes "in ways of perceiv-

Industrial Modernization and Political Change: A Latin American Perspective

Abstract: The rise of a new wave of authoritarian regimes in the economically more advanced countries of Latin America has stimulated new debate on the relationship between socioeconomic development and political change. This article builds on the perspective gained since the publication of Guillermo O'Donnell's Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism on Latin America, calling for the specification of a more general model of national political change. This model should incorporate a reclassification of political systems by disaggregating and differentiating regimes, coalitions, and policy. As a first approximation, a unified argument should focus on the availability of diversified or special economic resources, the political strength of the popular sector, and perceptions of threat as key independent variables.

Japanese Modernization and the Imperial Universities, 1876–1920

Abstract: I N the entire body of scholarly writing-Japanese and foreign-on modern Japanese history, perhaps no subject has been treated with less care or greater indifference than the imperial universities. Western scholars, when commenting on the subject, are usually content to note their supposed indebtedness to the universities of nineteenth-century Germany and to emphasize their role in training government officials. Thus Robert Scalapino wrote in i962:1 "The government ... accepted a far-reaching system of education patterned essentially after German concepts... he was seconded in this opinion by Ronald P. Dore in i965.2 And of the universities' social functions, Herbert Passin wrote in i 96 53 that Tokyo University had been conceived as a "training school for officials"; this was echoed by Chitoshi Yanaga in I968.4

Industrial Modernization and Political Change: A Latin American Perspective

Abstract: The recent emergence of harshly repressive military governments in several of the industrially most advanced nations of Latin America has called into question earlier hypotheses of modernization theory regarding the links between socioeconomic modernization and democracy. Guillermo O'Donnell has made an important contribution to explaining this new authoritarianism and to using the recent Latin American experience as a basis for proposing a major reformulation of the earlier hypotheses. Yet O'Donnell's analysis requires significant modification if its potential contribution is to be realized. Highly aggregated conceptual categories such as “bureaucratic-authoritarianism” should be abandoned, and his explanatory framework should be broadened to explicity incorporate the crucial political differences among Latin American countries, as well as the impact of the international economic and political system. A revised explanation for the rise of authoritarianism is presented to illustrate how some of these modifications could be applied in future research on political change in Latin America.

Culture and Imperialism

Abstract: This issue of Latin American Perspectives focuses on culture in the age of the mass media. It is directly concerned with both mass culture as propagated by the "consciousness industry" in the current stage of capitalism and with the possibilities of resistance to such ideological manipulation in Latin American countries, be it on the level of a redirection of mass communications or on that of popular or elite cultural production. In this introduction we propose to provide some historical and theoretical background and to offer a brief summary of the relevant issues dealt with in this special issue. The time-frame of the research and analysis contained in the volume at hand is generally the past two decades. This is a period in which economic change has resulted in the integration of large sectors of the population into the world capitalist system. Older nationalist and populist ideologies have given way to newer ideologies of "modernization" and "development." The crucial problem addressed is the relation of culture to ideology and the manner in which cultural activity reproduces a dominant ideology or, at the other extreme, contests and counters it. Culture in the era of advanced capitalism has often been divided into a series of discriminatory categories such as highbrow and lowbrow, midcult and masscult, elite and popular, high culture and folklore, avant-garde and kitsch, which obviously cannot be taken for granted by critics on the left. Furthermore the introduction of new media, especially television and radio, has brought yet another term mass culture into use, a term which marks a distinction between authentic art and mass-produced commodity culture such as pulp fiction, soap opera, fotonovelas, etc. Obviously the use of terms such as mass and popular culture is not simply a matter of personal preference but involves a number of ideological assumptions which are not easy to recognize since they are frequently embedded in the very structures of university disciplines. Thus, traditionally, literature departments concern themselves with the study of masterpieces divorced from any social and historical context and from the modes of production while, on the other hand, so-called folk and popular culture become incorporated into anthropological and sociological or

Persistent Praetorianism: Pakistan's Third Military Regime

Abstract: Events in Pakistan have come full circle. In March i969, as in October I958, the military declared Martial Law. Once again a general has taken up the reins of government. Now, as then, a prevailing constitution has been abrogated. Now, as then, there are intentions to write a new constitution, reconstitute the political system, purge the corrupt bureaucrats and resolve socioeconomic inequities. Now, as then, there is the ubiquitous promotion of modernization schemes.2

Dependence in a Micronesian economy

Abstract: The inadequacy of the assumptions and implied policies of the modernization paradigm has led to a reaction against it by dependency theorists. Two major weaknesses of dependency theory are that it assumes a single kind of exploitative relation between rich and poor nations and that it fails to analyze the economic strategies of village people in dependent areas. Micronesia represents a form of dependency in which exploitation by capitalist powers is insignificant, but the population is dependent upon wages earned by employees of the United States government. Through an examination of Kosrae Island, the processes through which stagnation is exacerbated by the influence of these wages on economic choices are identified.

Cambodia 1977: gone to pot

Abstract: Cambodian. The adequate harvest of 1976 was succeeded by the drought of 1977. Although Prime Minister Pol Pot's visit to Peking and Pyongyang raised Cambodia's international profile, the armed conflict with Vietnam and Thailand became increasingly severe. The mysterious Revolutionary Organization (Angkar) gave way to a more familiar type of organization, the Cambodian Communist Party; however, as of late 1977 this institutionalization of power had not brought an end to the killings that have characterized Cambodian internal politics since April 1975. Finally, economic conditions combined with internal political machinations to produce a whole new wave of refugees fleeing from Democratic Cambodia. Political Developments In 1977 the fundamental goals and values of the new Cambodia became increasingly apparent from the public statements of its leaders.' The regime's ideology emphasizes: national defense and self reliance; radical egalitarian collectivism; puritanical morality; agricultural and industrial modernization; and the dictatorship of the proletariat. According to Pol Pot, Cambodia until April 1975 was not independent but only a "half slave" "satellite of U.S. imperialism." The 1954 Geneva agreement sold out the revolution, Sihanouk's diplomacy compromised national integrity, and urban areas suffered from the "deca