ADVERTISEMENTS:
This article provides information about the various perspectives on modernisation:
Modernisation is a conceptual framework that articulated a common set of assumptions about the nature of developed societies and their ability to transform a world perceived as both materially and culturally deficient. Specifically, Modernisation theorists posited a sharp distinction between traditional (read poor) and modern societies.
Image Courtesy : theporttechnology.com/image-keyvisual/ModernizationLow.jpg
ADVERTISEMENTS:
They took for granted that economic development, from traditional to modern proceeded along a single, straight, unambiguous line. Modernisation advocates expected that contact with vital modern societies would accelerate progress in stagnant traditional societies.
According to scholars, the process of modernisation sums up the changes that combine to convert an agricultural or underdeveloped society with a weak state into an industrialised society with a relatively efficient, active government. The modernisation process embraces changes that leads up to this industrialisation and urbanisation.
According to Wilbert Moore, “modernisation is a ‘total’ transformation of a traditional or pre-modern society into the types of technology and associated social organisation that characterises the advanced, economically prosperous and relatively stable nations of the Western World”. Similarly, Daniel Lerner defined modernisation as “the process of social change in which development is the economic component”. In his major work The Passing of Traditional Society, Daniel Lerner examined the process of modernisation in several Middle East Countries, carried out a sample survey in other underdeveloped societies and supplemented all this with his observations of village society.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Lerner’s premise is that Modernisation is a global process occurring in a similar manner the world over, and the role of indices of development like mass media, urbanisation, increase in literacy, etc. are responsible for the emergence of a new economic order. According to Lerner, modernity is result of not merely institutional changes in society but also due to changes in the personality of people. He had illustrated this with his account of the grocer and the chef in the village of Balgat situated in Turkey. For Lerner one of the crucial aspects of modernisation is the development of a “mobile personality” which is characterised by rationality and empathy.
Empathy is the capacity to see oneself in the other person’s situation, and this enables people to operate efficiently in a changing world. Modernisation, then, is characterised by a high degree of literacy, urbanism, media participation and empathy. To him, compared to the “traditional” individuals, the “modern individual” is happier, better informed and relatively young, and the people placed in the “transitional” category are inclined to be discontented and liable to extremism, especially their progress is blocked by a lack of suitable political institutions.
But Lerner was aware of the fact that although the people placed in the “modern” category seemed happier, there were difficulties in development, for example, strains may be put on the government, there are problems of social control, etc. Similarly, there are personal problems at an individual level, for example, individuals placed in the “transitional” category may have to adjust traditional Arab and Muslim beliefs to a “modern” setting.
The main features of modernisation may be summed up as follows:
i. It emphasises a high degree of structural differentiation and specialisation.
ii. It is based on a mode of production that has come to be known as the capitalist mode of production. It is implied from this that social order is constituted around two important classes — Capitalist, which owns the means of production, and the Working Class, which sells its labour in this process.
iii. It is essentially a wage labour economy. It highlights the growth of a market economy in which both buyers and sellers are seen as individuals capable of engaging in a rational choice and operating within a framework of voluntarism.
iv. It highlights the growth of bureaucratic institutions, which themselves are constructed on principles of rationality and role differentiation. It is these bureaucratic organisations that are seen as being the foundations of this theory. The entire gamuts of an institution that maintains and regulates social order are seen as bureaucratic.
v. It emphasises the growth of a political system based on the principle of right as crystallised within the notion of state and mediated through a set of constitutional principles.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
vi. The powers of the state are absolute and there is a democratic process based on the principle of political representation and adult franchise.
vii. This process of democratisation of society has led to the existence of various interest groups within the political process who represent various competing ideologies that highlight the different ways in which the affairs of the state are to be managed.
viii. Modernisation process also emphasises the growth of individualism, wherein the individual and individual rights are seen as being at the center of all social, economic and political development.
ix. Finally, the modernisation processes also emphasise the idea of social progress and through the process of democratisation it is possible for societies to achieve higher levels of individual and social emancipation.