Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T18:24:30.466Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Natural History of Development Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Leonard Binder
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles

Extract

Modernization theory is essentially an academic, and pseudoscientific, transfer of the dominant, and ideologically significant, paradigm employed in research on the American political system. The still dominant paradigm, despite increasing criticism and revisionism is, of course, the pragmatic-pluralist conception of political process, associated with a form of liberalism which links democratic legitimacy with high levels of participation and with egalitarian distributive outcomes. While this paradigm has been criticized as either scientifically inadequate or normatively skewed (toward freedom, against order), its vigor as a legitimating explanation is largely undiminished. This pluralist legitimation of the American political system is based upon a relatively simple conception of political structure, which is understood as producing an appearance of a formal contradiction which is, in turn, resolved by means of the concept of time (or process). Just as Martin Heidegger used the idea of temporality to resolve the apparent contradiction between Being and existence, so the temporality of the pragmatic-pluralist political process resolves the apparent contradiction between the structured inequality of the American system at any given time and the legitimating ideal of equality. Temporality justifies inequality by subordinating it to the freedom to restructure the system through unfettered, self-motivated mobility. In other words, since freedom justifies order, according to this doctrine, an alternative scientific justification of either freedom or order has obvious political drawbacks.

Type
The Development of Development
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Southall, Aidan, “Stateless Society,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Sills, D., ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1968), XV,Google Scholar 157ff. See also African Political Systems, Evans-Pritchard, E. E. and Fortes, Meyer, eds. (London: Oxford University Press, 1940).Google Scholar

2 Easton, David, “Political Anthropology,”in Biennial Review of Anthropology 1959, Siegal, Bernard J., ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), 210–62.Google Scholar

3 Nettl, J. P., “The State as a Conceptual Variable,”World Politics, 20:4 (07 1968), 55992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Huntington, Samuel P., “Political Development and Political Decay,”World Politics, 17:3 (04 1965), 386430;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNettl, J. P., Political Mobilization (New York: Basic Books, 1967).Google Scholar

5 Friedrich, C. J., Constitutional Government and Democracy: Theory and Practice in Europe and America, rev. ed., (Boston: Ginn, 1950).Google Scholar

6 E.g., Mills, C. Wright, Sociology and Pragmatism (New York: Paine-Whitman Publishers, 1964), 173Google Scholar et passim; Habermas, Jürgen, Knowledge and Human Interests, Shapiro, Jeremy J., trans. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 91112.Google Scholar

7 Bentley, Arthur F., The Process of Government: A Study of Social Pressures (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1908).Google Scholar

8 Parsons, Talcott, The Structure of Social Action (New York: Free Press, 1949)Google Scholar. Lasswell, H. and Kaplan, A., Power and Society: A Framework for Political inquiry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950):Google Scholar “Part One: The subject matter of political science is constituted by the conduct of persons with various perspectives of action, and organized into groups of varying complexity”(facing p. xxiv). Easton, David, “An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems,”World Politics, 9:3 (04 1957), 383400;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDeutsch, Karl, The Nerves of Government Models of Political Communication and Control (London: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963);Google ScholarTruman, David B., The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion (New York: Knopf, 1971).Google Scholar

9 Greenstone, David, “Group Theories,”in Handbook of Political Science. Greenstein, Fred I. and Polsby, Nelson W., eds. (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1975). II, 243318;Google ScholarKress, Paul F., Social Science and the Idea of Process (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970).Google Scholar

10 Rothman, Stanley, “Systematic Political Theory: Observations on the Group Approach,”American Political Science Review, 54:1 (03 1960), 15–33, esp. 2325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Mills, , Sociology and Pragmatism, 426ff; John Dewey, Freedom and Culture (New York: Capricorn Books, 1963).Google Scholar See also Apter, David, Choice and the Politics of Allocation: A Developmental Theory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971). Much of the “feedback” literature (e.g., Easton, Deutsch) is based on this idea.Google Scholar

12 Greenstone, , “Group Theories,” 260–62.Google Scholar

13 Ben Page, Who Gets What from Government (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).Google Scholar

14 Olson, Mancur, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation and Social Rigidities (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982);Google ScholarHudson, Michael, Arab Politics: The Search for Legititnacv (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 280ff.Google Scholar

15 Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 121–25.Google Scholar

16 Social Science Research Council Annual Report, 1953–1954 (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1954), 40, 57.Google Scholar

17 Almond, Gabriel A. and Coleman, James C., The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), ch. 1.Google Scholar

18 Parsons, , Structure of Social Action, 751;Google ScholarParsons, T. and Shill, E., Toward a General Theory of Action (Glencoe: Free Press, 1950).Google Scholar

19 Habermas, Jürgen, Legitimation Crisis, McCarthy, Thomas, trans. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975), 7, 89, 117ff.Google Scholar

20 Kahin, G. McT., Pauker, G. J., Pye, L. W., “Comparative Politics of Non-Western Countries,” American Political Science Review, 49:4 (12 1955), 1022–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Lerner, Daniel, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (New York: Free Press, 1958).Google ScholarDeutsch, K., Nationalism and Social Communication (New York: Wiley & Technology Press, 1953).Google Scholar

22 Lerner, , Passing of Traditional Society, ch. 2, 4375.Google Scholar

23 Deutsch, Karl, “Toward an Inventory of Basic Trends and Patterns in Comparative and International Relations,” American Political Science Review, 54:1 (03 1960), 3457;CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem,Social Mobilization and Political Development,” American Political Science Review, 55:3 (09 1961), 493514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See Eisenstadt, S., “Modemization and Conditions of Sustained Growth,” World Politics, 16:4 (07 1964), 576–94,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Coleman, J. S., “The Development Syndrome,” in L. Binder et al., Crises and Sequences in Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 73.Google Scholar

24 Taylor, John, From Modernization to Modes of Production: A Critique of the Sociologies of Development and Underdevelopment (London: Macmillian, 1983).Google Scholar

25 Ibid., 36.

26 Ibid., 32.

27 Parsons, Structure of Social Action, 722–25, 764.Google ScholarFoucault, Michel, The Archaeology of Knowledge, Smith, A. M. Sheridan, trans. (New York: Harper Colophon. 1972).Google Scholar

28 Kuhn, T. S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).Google Scholar

29 Taylor, , From Modernization, 29.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., 36.

32 Huntington, Samuel P., Review Essay: Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 21, 25, 98, 341;Google ScholarHuntington, Samuel P. and Nelson, Joan M., No Easy Choice: Political Participation in Developing Countries (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Binder, L., “Review Essay: Political Participation and Political Development,” American Journal of Sociology, 83:3 (Autumn 1977), 751–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Shits, Edward, Political Development in the New States (London: Mouton, 1965);Google ScholarBendix, Reinhard, Nation Building and Citizenship (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1964);Google ScholarRudolph, Lloyd and Rudolph, Suzanne, The Modernitv of Tradition: Political Development in India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967);Google ScholarNisbet, Robert A., Social Change and History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

34 Nettl, , Political Mobilization: Aristide Zolberg, Creating Political Order (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966);Google Scholar'LaPalombara, Joseph G. and Weiner, Myron, Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966);CrossRefGoogle ScholarJanowitz, M., Military Institutions and Coercion in the Developing Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977);Google Scholar and LaPalombara, Joseph G., Bureaucracy and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Binder et al., Crises and Sequences; Kesselman, Mark, “Orderor Movement? The Literature of Political Development as Ideology,” World Politics, 26:1 (10 1973), 139–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Tilly, Charles, ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).Google Scholar

37 Almond, Gabriel A. and Powell, G. Bingham, Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1966);Google ScholarAlmond, G. A. and Flanagan, Scott C. et al, Crises, Choice, and Change: Historical Studies of Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1973);Google ScholarHuntington, and Nelson, , No Easy Choice.Google Scholar

38 Greenstone, , “Group Theories.”Google Scholar

39 Proposal to the SSRC for a Research Planning Committee on States and Social Structures, submitted by Evans, P., Hirschman, A., Katzenstein, P., Katznelson, I., Krasner, S., Rueschemeyer, D., Skocpol, T., and Tilly, C., dated 04 1983; covering letter reporting approval of proposal signed by M. Gephar, dated August 1983.Google Scholar

40 Skocpol, Theda, “Bringing the State Back In,” Items (SSRC), 36:1/2 (06 1982), 18.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., 4.

42 Ibid., 7.

43 The literature on these subjects is immense, but the following may provide a basis for further inquiry: Avineri, Shlomo, ed., Marx on Colonialism and Modernization (New York: Doubleday, 1969);Google ScholarWittfogel, Karl A., Oriental Despotism (New York: Vintage Books, 1981);Google ScholarBailey, Anne M. and Llobera, Joseph R., The Asiatic Mode of Production (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981);Google ScholarRodinson, Maxime, Islam and Capitalism (Paris: Edition du Seuil, 1966), 61.Google Scholar

44 Frank, Andre Gunder, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967).Google Scholar See also Amin, Samir, Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment, Pearce, Brian, trans. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974);Google ScholarPrebisch, Raul, “The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems,”(New York: United Nations, 1950).Google Scholar

45 Amin, , Accumulation; Arghiri Emmanuel, Unequal Exchange: A Stud of the Imperialism of Trade (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972).Google Scholar

46 Taylor, , From Modernization; Barry Hindess and Paul Hirst, Precapitalist Modes of Production (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975):Google Scholaridem,Mode of Production and Social Formation: An Auto-critique of Precapilalist Modes of Production (London: Macmillan, 1977).Google Scholar

47 Shamir, Shimon, “The Marxists in Egypt,” in The USSR and the Middle East, Confino, Michael and Shamir, Shimon, eds. (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1973), 293ff.Google Scholar

48 Husain, Mahmoud [pseud.], Class Conflict in Egypt: 1945–1970 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973).Google Scholar See also Amin, Samir, The Arab Nation, Pallis, Michael, trans. (London: Zed Press, 1978).Google Scholar

49 Miliband, Ralph, The State in Capitalist Society (New York: Basic Books, 1969);Google ScholarMandel, Ernst, Late Capitalism, Bres, Joris de, trans. (London: New Left Books, 1975);Google ScholarHabermas, , Legitimation Crisis.Google Scholar

50 Kay, Geoffrey, Development and Underdevelopment (London: Macmillan, 1975).Google Scholar

51 For example, Amin, , Arab Nation, 111ff.;Google ScholarHussein, Adel, Al-Igtisad al Misrivva, min alIstiglal ila al-Taba'iyya, 2 vols. (Cairo: Dar al-Mustagbal al-'Arabi, 1982);Google Scholar'Laroui, Abdullah, L'ideologie arabe contemporaine (Paris: F. Maspero, 1967), 139ff.Google Scholar

52 Warren, Bill, Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism (London: New Shelf Books, 1981).Google Scholar

53 Cardoso, F. H. and Faletto, Enzo, Dependency and Development in Latin America, Urquidi, Marjory Mattingly, trans. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979);Google ScholarO'Donnell, Guillermo, Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1973);Google ScholarSkocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979);CrossRefGoogle ScholarWallerstein, Immanuel, The Origins of the Modern World System (New York: Academic Press, 1974).Google Scholar

54 Packenham, Robert A., “Plus ça Change … The English Edition of Cardoso and Falletto's Dependencia r Desarollo en America Latina,” Latin American Research Review, 17:1 (1982), 131–51, esp. 143–45.Google Scholar

55 Taylor, , From Modernization, 164.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., 71ff.

57 Ibid., 266, 274, 275.

58 Ibid., 240.

59 Ibid., 276, n. 12, on the matter of forms of theoretical discourse.

60 Evans, Peter, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).Google Scholar

61 Packenham, , “Plus Ça Change,” 142–46.Google ScholarCardoso, and Faletto, , Dependency and Development, was originally published in 1973.Google Scholar

62 O'Donnell, , Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism; The New Authoritarianism in Latin America, Collier, David, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).Google Scholar

63 O'Donnell, Guillermo, “Tensions in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State and the Question of Democracy,” in New Authoritarianism, Collier, , ed., 285318; see 313ff.Google Scholar

64 Collier, David, “The Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Model: Synthesis and Priorities for Future Research,” in New Authoritarianism, Collier, , ed., 386–87.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., 395.,

66 Ibid., 369.,

67 Ibid., 387.

68 Review (a quarterly journal of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economics, Historical Systems, and Civilizations, published by Research Foundation of the State University of New York) publishes articles which conform to a perspective described by the editors as one which recognizes the primacy of analyses of economics over long historical time and large space, the holism of the social-historical process, and the transitory (heuristic) nature of theoriesReview, 3:2 (Fall 1979). The first issue was printed in the summer of 1977.Google Scholar

69 Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World System I (New York: Academic Press. 1974), 348.Google Scholar

70 Goldstone, J. A., “The Comparative and Historical Study of Revolutions,” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 8, Turner, Ralph H. and Short, James F., Jr., eds. (Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Review Press, 1982).Google Scholar

71 Ibid., 194; Moore, Barrington, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966).Google Scholar

72 Goldstone, , “Comparative and Historical Study,” 193–94.Google Scholar

73 Brinton, Crane, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1965);Google ScholarGoldstone, , “Comparative and Historical Study,” 189–92.Google Scholar

74 Moore, , Social Origins, 468ff.Google Scholar

75 Skocpol, Theda, “A Critical Review of Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy,” Politics and Society, 4:1 (Fall 1973), 134; see 28–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76 Skocpol, , States and Social Revolution, 116, 154.Google Scholar

77 Ibid., 285–86.

78 Rosenberg, Hans, Bureaucracy, , Aristocracy, and Autocracy: The Prussian Experience, 1660–1815 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958).Google Scholar

79 Abrahamian, Ervand, Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 441;Google ScholarSkocpol, Theda, “Rentier State and Shia Islam in the Iranian Revolution,” Theory and Society, 11 (1982), 265–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80 Binder et al., Crises and Sequences; Habermas, , Legitimation Crisis; O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism; Collier, New Authoritarianism.Google Scholar