Topic
Modernization theory
About: Modernization theory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 14641 publications have been published within this topic receiving 232469 citations.
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TL;DR: The Modern World-System as mentioned in this paper is a seminal work on the origins of the European World-Economy in the sixteenth century, focusing on the emergence and development of capitalism, industrialism and national states.
Abstract: The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. By Immanuel Wallerstein. New York and London: Academic Press, 1974. Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System aims to achieve a clean conceptual break with theories of “modernization” and thus provide a new theoretical paradigm to guide our investigations of the emergence and development of capitalism, industrialism, and national states. This splendid undertaking could hardly be more appropriately timed and aimed. For quite some time, modernization approaches have been subjected to telling critical attacks (e.g., Gusfield 1967; Frank 1966; Bendix 1967; Tipps 1973; Smith 1973; Tilly 1975, chap. 9). They have been called to task for reifying the nation-state as the sole unit of analysis, for assuming that all countries can potentially follow a single path (or parallel and converging paths) of evolutionary development from “tradition” to “modernity,” and, concomitantly, for disregarding the world-historical development of transnational structures that constrain and prompt national or local developments along diverse as well as parallel paths. Moreover, modernization theorists have been criticized for the method of explanation they frequently employ: a historical ideal types of “tradition” versus “modernity” are elaborated and then applied to national cases; if the evidence seems to fit, one assumes that a particular historical instance is adequately explained; if not, one looks for the “chance” factors that account for its deviation. In the opening pages of The Modern World-System , and in a related essay (also published in 1974) called “The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System,” Wallerstein unequivocally defines his approach in direct opposition to these features of modernization theory.
287 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the key role of ecological modernization in bringing about sustainable development is discussed, and two strategies of sustainable development have been discussed: sufficiency and effi ciency.
Abstract: This paper deals with the key role of ecological modernization in bringing about sustainable development. So far, two strategies of sustainable development have been discussed: sufficiency and effi...
284 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: Turner as mentioned in this paper examines the recent debate about orientalism in relation to postmodernism and the process of globalization and provides a profound critique of many of the leading fissures in classical orientalisms.
Abstract: It is often thought that the development of capitalism and the modernization of culture have brought about a profound decline of religious belief and commitment. The history of Christianity in the last two decades appears to be a good illustration of this general process of secularization with the undermining of belief and commitment as Western cultures became industrial and urban. However, in the twentieth century we have seen that Islam continues to be a dominant force in politics and culture not only in the Orient but in Western society. In this challenging study of contemporary social theory, Bryan Turner examines the recent debate about orientalism in relation to postmodernism and the process of globalization. He provides a profound critique of many of the leading fissures in classical orientalism. His book also considers the impact of the notion of the world in sociological theory. These cultural changes and social debates also reflect important change in the status and position of intellecuals in modern culture who are threatened, not only by the levelling of mass culture, but also by the new opportunities posed by postmodernism. He takes a critical view of the role of sociology in these developments and raises important questions about the global role of English intellectuals as a social stratum. Bryan Turner's ability to combine these discussions about religion, politics, culture and intellectuals represents a remarkable integration of cultural analysis in cultural studies.
284 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the momentous transformation of the hydraulic environment during the Franco period (1939-1975) and seek to reformulate Spain's socio-hydraulic reconstruction in the context of a double and partly contradictory "scalar" politics.
Abstract: In this paper, I seek to document and substantiate the notion of the production of socio-natures by elaborating how Spain's modernization process after the Civil War became a deeply and very specific scalar geographical project, articulated through the production of a specific technonatural hydraulic edifice. I shall focus on the momentous transformation of the hydraulic environment during the Franco period (1939–1975) and seek to reformulate Spain's socio-hydraulic reconstruction in the context of a double and partly contradictory ‘scalar’ politics. Two theoretically interrelated arguments guide this endeavour. On the one hand, Franco's ideological-political mission was predicated upon national territorial integration, the eradication of regionalist or autonomist aspirations, and a concerted discursive and physical process of cultural and material national(ist) homogenization and modernization. On the other, the production of the technonatural material infrastructures of this modernizing programme was predicated upon re-scaling the ‘networks of interest’ on which Franco's power rested from a national visionary to an internationalist geo-economic and geo-political imagination, articulated through Spain's integration in the US-led Western Alliance.
282 citations