Showing papers on "Modernization theory published in 2009"

The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly

Abstract: Part 1 The genesis of the state: the shadow theatre of ethnicity the unequal state - "little men" and "big men" the bourgeois illusion the opportunity state. Part 2 Scenarios in the pursuit of hegemony: conservative modernization or social revolution? - the extreme scenarios the reciprocal assimilation of elites - the hypothesis of an intermediate scenario the formation of an historic postcolonial bloc. Part 3 Political action: entrepreneurs, factions and political networks the politics of the belly.

1688: The First Modern Revolution

Abstract: For two hundred years historians have viewed England's Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 as an un-revolutionary revolution-bloodless, consensual, aristocratic, and above all, sensible. In this brilliant new interpretation Steve Pincus refutes this traditional view. By expanding the interpretive lens to include a broader geographical and chronological frame, Pincus demonstrates that England's revolution was a European event, that it took place over a number of years, not months, and that it had repercussions in India, North America, the West Indies, and throughout continental Europe. His rich historical narrative, based on masses of new archival research, traces the transformation of English foreign policy, religious culture, and political economy that, he argues, was the intended consequence of the revolutionaries of 1688-1689. James II developed a modernization program that emphasized centralized control, repression of dissidents, and territorial empire. The revolutionaries, by contrast, took advantage of the new economic possibilities to create a bureaucratic but participatory state. The postrevolutionary English state emphasized its ideological break with the past and envisioned itself as continuing to evolve. All of this, argues Pincus, makes the Glorious Revolution-not the French Revolution-the first truly modern revolution. This wide-ranging book reenvisions the nature of the Glorious Revolution and of revolutions in general, the causes and consequences of commercialization, the nature of liberalism, and ultimately the origins and contours of modernity itself.

Avoiding the Middle-Income Trap: Renovating Industrial Policy Formulation in Vietnam

Abstract: Vietnam's growth in the last one-and-half decades has been driven by the liberalization effect and large inflows of external purchasing power. Now that the processes of systemic transition and global integration have deepened, Vietnam needs to create internal value to continue to grow and avoid the "middle-income trap". The country has reached the point where growth towards higher income cannot be secured unless policy making is renovated significantly to activate the country's full potential. The vision of Industrialization and Modernization to be achieved by 2020 must be backed by realistic industrial strategies and concrete action plans, which are currently lacking. Stakeholder involvement in policy design, inter-ministerial coordination, clear directives from the top, and incentive structure for government officials must be improved. This in turn calls for radical changes in policy administration. A new style of leadership, a technocrat team directly serving the top leader, and strategic alliance with international partners are proposed as key entry points for the renovation of Vietnam's industrial policy formulation.

Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development

Abstract: In an exciting study of ideas accompanying the rise of the West, Thomas McCarthy analyzes the ideologies of race and empire that were integral to European-American expansion. He highlights the central role that conceptions of human development (civilization, progress, modernization, and the like) played in answering challenges to legitimacy through a hierarchical ordering of difference. Focusing on Kant and natural history in the eighteenth century, Mill and social Darwinism in the nineteenth, and theories of development and modernization in the twentieth, he proposes a critical theory of development which can counter contemporary neoracism and neoimperialism, and can accommodate the multiple modernities now taking shape. Offering an unusual perspective on the past and present of our globalizing world, this book will appeal to scholars and advanced students of philosophy, political theory, the history of ideas, racial and ethnic studies, social theory, and cultural studies.

The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order

Abstract: List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi List of Abbreviations xv INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: The Rise of an American Style of Development, 1914-1937 14 CHAPTER 2: The Only Road for Mankind: "Modernisation" to Meet the Challenge of Totalitarianism, 1933-1944 40 CHAPTER 3: A Gospel of Liberalism: Point Four and Modernization as National Policy, 1943-1952 77 CHAPTER 4: "The Proving Ground": Modernization and U.S. Policy in Northeast Asia, 1945-1960 114 CHAPTER 5: "The Great American Mission": Modernization and the United States in the World, 1952-1960 153 CHAPTER 6: A TVA on the Mekong: Modernization at War in Southeast Asia, 1960-1973 190 CHAPTER 7: "Everything Is Going Wrong": The Crisis of Development and the End of the Postwar Consensus 226 CHAPTER 8: New Developments: From the Cold War to the "War on Terror" 257 Notes 275 Bibliography 337 Index 373

Determinants of homonegativity in Europe.

Abstract: This paper analyzes macro-determinants of negative attitudes toward homosexuality in 31 European societies. Using the European Values Study (EVS) 1999/2000, carried out on national probability samples, we tested the effects of tradition, modernization, and postmodernization on homonegativity. According to the findings, social distance toward homosexual persons was predicted by Eastern Orthodox religion, a greater degree of urbanization, economic development, and immigration. Disapproval of homosexuality was found associated with economic development and urbanization, while immigration had borderline significance. Although the analyses pointed to the central role of the modernization processes in increasing social acceptance of homosexuality in European societies, persisting religious traditions and more recent immigration waves limit the effect of modernization.

How Development Leads to Democracy: What We Know About Modernization

Abstract: Democratic institutions cannot be set up easily, anywhere, at any time; they are likely to emerge only when certain social and cultural conditions exist. But economic development and modernization push those conditions in the right direction by creating a self-reinforcing process that brings mass participation to politics and thus makes democracy increasingly likely.

Re-engineering rural society: the visions and ambitions of the rwandan elite

Abstract: This article analyses the Rwandan elite's visions and ambitions for a wide-ranging re-engineering of rural society. The post-1994 political elite has few links to rural society and the peasant way of life, and sees little room for small-scale peasant agriculture in Rwanda's economic future. The article shows how current Rwandan policy makers aim to realize three social engineering ambitions: first, to transform the agricultural sector into a professionalized motor for economic growth, centred on competitive and commercial farm units; second, to artificially upgrade rural life by inserting 'modern' techniques and strategies into local realities, while hiding true poverty and inequality; and, finally, to transform Rwanda into a target-driven society from the highest to the lowest level. The article points to the (potential) dangers, flaws, and shortcomings of this rural re-engineering mission, and illustrates how the state as the engineer 'hovers' above the local without consulting those affected. It concludes that contemporary polices are unlikely to be conducive to poverty reduction.

Critical Theory of World Risk Society: A Cosmopolitan Vision

Abstract: A critical theory of world risk society must address at least three questions: (1) What is the basis of the critique? What is “critical” about this critical theory? (The question of the normative horizon of the world risk society) (2) What are the key theses and core arguments of this theory? Is it an empirical theory of society with critical intent? (3) To what extent does this theory break with the automatisms of modernization and globalization which have taken on a life of their own and rediscover the openness of human action to the future at the beginning of the 21st century political perspectives, cosmopolitan alternatives?

Migration of Chinese Consumption Values: Traditions, Modernization, and Cultural Renaissance

Abstract: Most observers of the Chinese consumer market have seen its linear evolution from a traditional culture toward a more Westernized consumer society during the country’s three-decade experimentation of the free market. Recent development, however, shows a cultural renaissance in China wherein Chinese people have increasingly demanded their traditional culture components to be part of their consumption experience, coinciding with China’s re-emergence as a country of economic and political power. We identify this shift, explore its causes, and discuss its managerial and theoretical implications.

Public Management Reform and Modernization

Abstract: Since the 1980s, a wave of reforms of public management has swept the world. The investigation into the effects of such major transformations has, however, been unbalanced: important countries have received only limited attention. This timely book fills the gap by investigating the dynamics of contemporary public management reform in five European countries that gave shape to the Napoleonic administrative tradition - France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain. Edoardo Ongaro presents an in-depth investigation of the reform of public management in these countries, revisiting major topics of theoretical interest in the study of public administration. He addresses key issues regarding the influence of the past on the transformation of the public sector, and the direction of reforms. The work looks both backward, to the legacy of the Napoleonic administrative tradition and the way it affected the paths of reform, and forward, exploring whether and to what extent the fascinating idea of the Neo-Weberian State is an alternative to global paradigms such as New Public Management and New Public Governance. This unique book will prove a fascinating read for scholars in the fields of public administration, public management, government and political science. Policy-makers - and their advisors - engaged in reform of the public sector will also find this book to be of great interest.

Modernization and sport: the reform of sport England and UK sport

Abstract: This article evaluates the impact of New Labour’s ‘modernization project’ on two key non-departmental public bodies for sport, Sport England and UK Sport. Our analysis concentrates on identifying the sources of the general momentum for modernization in the sport sector, how it has been interpreted by government in relation to the two organizations, the nature and consequences of modernization for both organizations, and the future of modernization. The analysis is informed by a range of public documents produced by government and by the two sports agencies, together with a series of seven interviews conducted with senior staff and members of Sport England and UK Sport and with senior civil servants in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Our conclusions suggest that modernization has resulted in a narrowing of the two organizations’ objectives, the adoption of business-like principles and a ‘command and control’ regime in relationships with key frontline delivery partners.

China's Neglected Informal Economy: Reality and Theory

Abstract: The informal economy—defined as workers who have no security of employment, receive few or no benefits, and are often unprotected by labor laws—in China today accounts for 168 million of the 283 million urban employed, but the official statistical apparatus in China still does not gather systematic data on the informal economy. Part of the reason for the neglect is the misleading influence of mainstream economic and sociological theories, which have come from the “economic dualism,” “three-sector hypothesis,” and “olive-shaped” social structure theories that held great influence in the United States in the 1960s. This article reviews the core elements of that modernization model, the “revolution” in development economics that followed in the 1970s and 1980s, and the “counterrevolution” from neoclassical economics that came with the rising ideological tide of neoconservatism. The article argues for a balanced theoretical perspective that can more appropriately capture the realities of the informal economy ...

The mobility transition revisited, 1500–1900: what the case of Europe can offer to global history.

Abstract: Historians of migration have increasingly criticized the idea of a ‘mobility transition’, which assumed that pre-modern societies in Europe were geographically fairly immobile, and that people only started to move in unprecedented ways with the onset of modernization in the nineteenth century. In line with this critique, this article attempts to apply thorough quantitative tests to the available data. The focus is on ‘cross-community migration’, following Patrick Manning’s argument that migrants moving over a cultural border are most likely to accelerate the rate of innovation. Six forms of migration are considered: emigration out of Europe, immigration from other continents, rural colonization of ‘empty spaces’, movements to large cities, seasonal migration, and the movement of sailors and soldiers. To illustrate regional variations, the examples of the Netherlands and Russia are contrasted. The reconstruction presented here is partial and preliminary, but it unequivocally shows that early modern Europe was much more mobile than modernization scholars allowed for. There was indeed a sharp increase in the level of migration after 1850, but it was due to improvements in transport rather than to modernization in a more general sense. This model has been elaborated for Europe but it can also be applied to other parts of the world and can hopefully contribute to the debate on the ‘Great Divergence’ between Europe and Asia.

Fuelling the Dragon: China's Rise and Its Energy and Resources Extraction in Africa

Abstract: China's rapidly expanding role in Africa as an energy and resource extractor reveals much of the dynamics and complexities of its growing ties with the continent. Rather than studying the subject in the framework of bilateral interactions, as most existing literature does, this article explores the impact of China's domestic development process on the behaviour of Chinese foreign policy and business operations in Africa. Based on the author's extensive field research in Africa and China, the article argues that much of what the Chinese government, Chinese companies and individual entrepreneurs are doing today in Africa is an externalization of China's own modernization experiences in the past three decades. China's interactions with African countries are reflective of its own development contradictions, and major patterns of Chinese behavour in Africa can be attributed to complex motivations and objectives of the actors involved.

Writing the world: disciplinary history and beyond

Abstract: In order to grasp some of the key intellectual developments and trends that shaped the global politics of twentieth century and continue to shape our own world—neo-classical economics, modernization theory, deterrence theory, the democratic peace, among others—it is necessary to explore the history of the human sciences. It is important, in other words, to examine the role of the modern research university in producing and diffusing ideas about the self, society, the economy and world order. International Relations (IR), and political science more generally, played a significant role in this story. In recent years we have seen a growth of interest in the history of IR, though it is still an underdeveloped area of research. Among other things, scholars have shown that many of the foundational myths of the discipline—the views that inform textbook understandings of the past and present—are deeply flawed. This article first surveys this recent work, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses, and then proceeds to offer some thoughts on future directions for research. It identifies a range of questions and topics that have yet to be adequately addressed, and draws on the latest methodological work in intellectual history, highlighting some new interpretative approaches that can enrich scholarship in this area.

Islam, the people and the state : political ideas and movements in the Middle East

Abstract: Book synopsis: The recent prominence of Islamic politics in the Middle East has raised important questions about society, politics and culture It has posed a challenge to the main theoretical approaches in the social sciences from Marxism to modernization theory and it has given some credence to the idea that the world of Islam is essentially distinct from Europe, and follows a course of development dictated by its own history and culture In this book, Sami Zubaida challenges these diverse opinions in favor of a general political sociology capable of dealing with the historical and cultural personalities of societies and situations in the region He argues that rather than being "revivals" of historical ideas and institutions, current political and social developments in the Islamic World are, in fact, uniquely modern phenomena

Tracing Gender Equality Cultures: Elite Perceptions of Gender Equality in Norway and Sweden

Abstract: Cultural explanations are frequent in social science research. In gender studies, they are especially common in cross-country comparative research that attempts to explain variations in everyday life situations for women and men. A noticeable example is found in the book Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World, by Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris (2003). Inglehart and Norris construct a gender-equality scale from measurements on attitudes among citizens regarding women as political leaders, women's professional and educational rights, and women's traditional role as mother. The results show that Finland, Sweden, West Germany, Canada, and Norway are the countries most influenced by egalitarian values. At the other end of the spectrum countries like Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Jordan are found (p. 33). The authors demonstrate that egalitarian values are systematically related to the actual conditions of women's and men's lives. They conclude that modernization underpins cultural change, that is, attitudinal change from traditional to gender-equal values, and that these cultural changes have major impact on gender-equality processes.

Modernization and Democracy: Theories and Evidence Revisited

Abstract: We review the literature on the relation between socio-economic development and political democracy, a field that is commonly known as modernization theory. Guided by the seminal contribution of Lipset (1959), we assess the evolution of this literature along two major dimensions: (1) robustness of the relationship between economic development and democracy and (2) substantiation of the causal mechanism. The evidence to date suggests that Lipset's original thesis does indeed find empirical support, and that certain structural conditions are conducive to stable democracy.

Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America

Abstract: Perhaps the most commonly held assumption in the field of development is that middle classes are the bounty of economic modernization and growth. As countries gradually transcend their agrarian past and become urbanized and industrialized, so the logic goes, middle classes emerge and gain in number, complexity, cultural influence, social prominence, and political authority. Yet this is only half the story. Middle classes shape industrial and economic development, they are not merely its product; the particular ways in which middle classes shape themselves - and the ways historical conditions shape them - influence development trajectories in multiple ways. This is the story of South Korea's and Taiwan's economic successes and Argentina's and Mexico's relative 'failures' through an examination of their rural middle classes and disciplinary capacities. Can disciplining continue in a context where globalization squeezes middle classes and frees capitalists from the state and social contracts in which they have been embedded?

The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China

Abstract: One of the most momentous stories of the last century is China's rise from a self-satisfied, anti-modern, decaying society into a global power that promises to one day rival the United States. Chiang Kai-shek, an autocratic, larger-than-life figure, dominates this story. A modernist as well as a neo-Confucianist, Chiang was a man of war who led the most ancient and populous country in the world through a quarter century of bloody revolutions, civil conflict, and wars of resistance against Japanese aggression. In 1949, when he was defeated by Mao Zedong - his archrival for leadership of China - he fled to Taiwan, where he ruled for another twenty-five years. Playing a key role in the cold war with China, Chiang suppressed opposition with his 'white terror', controlled inflation and corruption, carried out land reform, and raised personal income, health, and educational levels on the island. Consciously or not, he set the stage for Taiwan's evolution of a Chinese model of democratic modernization. Drawing heavily on Chinese sources including Chiang's diaries, "The Generalissimo" provides the most lively, sweeping, and objective biography yet of a man whose length of uninterrupted, active engagement at the highest levels in the march of history is unexcelled by few, if any, in modern history. Jay Taylor shows a man who was exceedingly ruthless and temperamental but who was also courageous and conscientious in matters of state. Revealing fascinating aspects of Chiang's life, Taylor provides penetrating insight into the dynamics of the past that lie behind the struggle for modernity of mainland China and its relationship with Taiwan.

Egypt's Political Economy: Power Relations in Development

Abstract: This is a new assessment of the impact of power relations on economic development.This new study deals with the unfolding of the great political and economic transformations of the modern Egyptian state from the appointment of Muhammad Ali as governor of Egypt in 1805 to the era of President Mubarak, with a special focus on the period 1990-2005, which witnessed a rigorous implementation of structural adjustment policies, the acceleration of economic privatization and liberalization, the emergence of a group of neo-conservatives within the ruling National Democratic Party, and the consolidation of business interests and representation in parliament and government. The author asserts that the modernization process in Egypt over the last two centuries has been determined by power relations and their articulation, and so she investigates in depth the impact of power relations on development strategies, on political liberalization, on politicized Islam as a hegemonic ideology adopted by the state since the beginning of the 1970s, and on gender relations in development.

Inventing the modern self and John Dewey : modernities and the traveling of pragmatism in education

Abstract: Introduction Modernity, Pragmatism and Dewey as Indigenous Foreigner T.Popkewitz THE EUROPEAN SPACE Dewey as an Indigenous Foreigner: The Progressive Concepts of 'Liberty', 'Interest' and 'Experience' in the Technologies of Subjectivation of the Secondary Pupil (1880-1950) J.Ramos do O 'Society as School' Constructivist Pedagogies and the Changing Fashion of Governing the Self K.Petersson & U.Olsson John Dewey and the Creation of the Modern Spain: Building the 'New' Spaniards in an Old Nation M.A.Pereyra Balkanizing John Dewey N.W.Sobe Language as Homeland: The European Reception of Dewey in the Challenge of Modernity D.Trohler Dewey in Belgium - A Libation for Modernity M.Depaepe , F.Simon , T.Decoster , & A.Van Gorp THE AMERICAS Discursive Inscriptions in the Fabrication of a Modern Self: Mexican Educational Appropriations of Dewey's Writings R.N. Buenfil Burgos The Foreign that did not become Indigenous: The History of the Reception of Dewey and the New School Movement in Argentina (1920-1940) I.Dussel & M.Caruso The Circulation of John Dewey's Writings in Brazil: A Study of Dissemination Strategies M.J.Warde The Appropriation of Dewey in Colombia: 1914-1946 J.Saenz Obregon Asia/Asia Minor Dewey and the Postwar Japan K.Ohkura A History of the Present on Chinese Intellectuals: Confucianism and Pragmatism J.Qi Dewey and the Modernization of Turkey S.Bilgi & S.Ozsoy

Holy alliances: public subsidies, Islamic high schools, and female schooling in Bangladesh

Abstract: This paper documents the experience of incentive‐based reforms in the secondary Islamic/madrasa education sector in Bangladesh within the context of the broader debate over modernization of religious school systems in South Asia. Key features of the reform are changes of the curriculum and policy regarding admission of female students. In return to formal registration and curriculum modernization, madrasas receive financial aid from the government towards teacher salary. Using a cross‐sectional census data‐set (containing current and retrospective information) on formal secondary schools and madrasas, we first point out that a significant fraction of the existing post‐primary registered madrasas today comprises of ‘converts’; that is, formerly all‐male, unregistered religious schools that previously offered traditional, religious education. Furthermore, these madrasas have embraced female students in recent years following the introduction of yet another incentive scheme, namely a conditional cash transfe...

Submitting to God: Women and Islam in Urban Malaysia

Abstract: In recent decades, Malaysia has been profoundly changed by forces of globalization, modernization and industrialization, as well as by a strong Islamization process. It has been argued, that the p ...

Family Systems, Political systems, and Asia’s ‘Missing Girls’ : The Construction of Son Preference and Its Unraveling

Abstract: Son preference is known to be found in certain types of cultures, that is patrilineal cultures. But what explains the fact that China, South Korea, and Northwest India manifest such extreme child sex ratios compared with other patrilineal societies? This paper argues that what makes these societies unique is that their pre-modern political and administrative systems used patrilineages to organize and administer their citizens. The interplay of culture, state, and political processes generated uniquely rigid patriliny and son preference. The paper also argues that the advent of the modern state in these settings has unraveled the underpinnings of the rigid patrilineal rules, and unleashed a variety of forces that reduce son preference. Firstly, the modern state has powerful tools for incorporating and managing its citizenry, rendering patrilineages a threat rather than an asset for the state. Secondly, the modern state has brought in political, social, and legal reforms aimed to challenge traditional social hierarchies, including the age and gender hierarchies of the kinship system. Thirdly, industrialization and urbanization have ushered in new modes of social organization, which reduce the hold of clans and lineages. Studies of the impact of the media suggest that states can accelerate the resultant decline in son preference, through media efforts to help parents perceive that daughters can now be as valuable as sons.

Modernizing a Slave Economy: The Economic Vision of the Confederate Nation

Abstract: A victorious Confederacy would have industrialized. What would separate Union and Confederate countries look like if the South had won the Civil War? In fact, this was something that southern secessionists actively debated. Imagining themselves as nation-builders, they understood the importance of a plan for the economic structure of the Confederacy.The traditional view assumes that Confederate slave-based agrarianism went hand in hand with a natural hostility toward industry and commerce. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, John Majewski's analysis finds that secessionists strongly believed in industrial development and state-led modernization. They blamed the South's lack of development on Union policies of discriminatory taxes on southern commerce and unfair subsidies for northern industry.Majewski argues that Confederates' opposition to a strong central government was politically tied to their struggle against northern legislative dominance. Once the Confederacy was formed, those who had advocated states' rights in the national legislature in order to defend against northern political dominance quickly came to support centralized power and a strong executive for war making and nation building.