Modernization theory

About: Modernization theory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 14641 publications have been published within this topic receiving 232469 citations.

Social and Economic Forces Affecting Intergenerational Relations in Extended Families in a Third World Country: a Cautionary Tale From South Asia

Abstract: Data from elderly Hindus living in Kathmandu Nepal are presented and demostrate that although these elderly people do continue to live in extended families social and economic changes have transformed the nature of intergenerational social relation within these families to the detriment of elderly family members The main source of the problem facing the elderly in Kathmandu is not change or modernization per se but rather the increasing poverty of Nepal Noting modernizations shift away from land ownership and rural residence to urban employment current generations in their elder years will be increasingly dependent on pensions and savings that in turn are directly dependent on stable employment decent wages and low inflation or cost-of-living increases Given poor Third World governments frustrated attempts at economic growth and the inability to mount substantial social service programs it is unlikely that more elderly will be able to live their latter years in a secure and dignified setting It is suggested that this phenomenon is not limited to Nepal but is found in other non-Western developing countries (authors modified)

Urbanization: Processes and driving forces

Abstract: Urbanization is becoming the most important human social change in the world, especially in developing countries. However, what is the process of urbanization? What forces are driving the urbanization process? This paper summarizes five main processes of urbanization through various aspects of urbanization in different countries, including economic growth and development, demographic change, social transformation, reshaped and stretched urban spaces, and shrinking cities. Based on the comprehensive method of analyzing urbanization, this paper sorts out five driving forces of urbanization, which are industrialization, modernization, globalization, marketization and administrative/institutional power. The author tries to contribute to the healthy development of urbanization in developing countries through the analysis of process and driving force in urbanization.

The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: Transport Costs and Long-Range Trade, 1300–1800: Was There a European “Transport Revolution” in the Early Modern Era?

Abstract: INTRODUCTION I t is now a commonplace among economic historians to argue that long-distance trade has been overemphasized by students of the early modern period. The international economy was poorly integrated before 1800, and trade between the numerous units (however defined) participating in long-range commerce was rarely a central dynamic in any of them. Some scholars even deny the utility of the concept of a world economy until more recent times, insisting that we have been misled by the relatively ample documentation generated by international, transoceanic, cross-cultural exchange to exaggerate its importance. We would be better advised, the argument runs, to focus on the internal organization of smaller-scale regional economic units, for it is in the everyday lives of ordinary people far removed from the glamor of the high seas and the counting houses of the great merchants that the roots of modern economic growth must be sought. That message has much to recommend it, but it too can be exaggerated. It is a mistake to argue that long-range trade and long-range trade alone drove the process of economic modernization, provided the capital and the markets necessary to industrialization. But it is also an error to dismiss long-distance trade altogether and to claim that a purely “internal” view is adequate to economic history. It is a mistake to argue for a perfectly integrated world market by 1800, but no one can deny that the enormous increase in long-range trade during the past four centuries had produced a good deal more integration than had been the case in 1400. Long-distance trade must have its due.

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...

Local government modernisation: UK and comparative analysis from an organizational perspective

Abstract: This article analyses three strands of local government modernization. The first takes an overview of the development of 'modernization' and 'improvement' of local government in the UK under the Labour government since 1997 and the overall programme of reform. We discuss both the shifts and the continuities with the previous decade and a half of the 'new public management' of Conservative administrations. We examine the implicit assumptions about how to achieve organizational and cultural change, arguing that much modernization is premised on a mechanistic metaphor of organizational change. The second section of the article examines other metaphors and theories of organizational change, arguing for the need to consider institutional and organizational perspectives in analysing local government modernization. The third section of the article then applies some organizational concepts to the comparative analysis of local government modernization.