To the problem of conceptual bases of the theory of modernization

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to summarise the di verse aspects of the scientifi c discussion revolving around the notion itself and complicated questions of the modern theory of modernisation. One of the main points of discussion is the new relationship between once such dissimilar conceptions as modernisation, democratisation and globalisation. These conceptions have been brought together at the end of the 20th century and since that time have usually been confl ated, often maintaining a heterogeneous sense. The terms “modernisation” and “globalisation” have come to be emotionally charged in public discourse. For some, they imply the promise of an international civil society, conducive to a new era of peace and democratisation. For others, they imply the threat of an American economic and political hegemony, with the cultural consequence being a homogenised world. Nevertheless, some distinct characteristics defining the general tendencies of the modernisation process really do exist. The main tendency is the changing meaning of modernity, or the emergence of “alternative modernities”. There is also the increasingly significant phenomenon of alternative globalisations that is, cultural movements with a global outreach originating outside the Western world and indeed impacting on the latter. The second trend is related to a crisis in the legitimacy of the nation-state tradition forcing a review of the problem of the role of democracy in the modern world. S. M. Lipset’s observation that democracy is related to economic development, first advanced in 1959, has generated the largest body of research on any topic in political science. Yet there are two distinct reasons this relation may hold: either democracies may be more likely to emerge as countries that develop economically (S. P. Huntington, R. Inglehart), or they may be established independently of economic development but may be more likely to survive in developed countries. The basic assumption of the theory of modernisation, in any of its versions, is that there is one general process of which democratisation is but the final stage. Modernisation consists of a gradual diff erentiation and specialisation of social structures that culminates in a separation of political structures from other structures and makes democracy possible. But there is now a prevailing view, according to which the emergence of democracy is not a by-product of economic development (G. O’Donnell). The protagonists of this approach do not believe that the fate of democratic rule would be determined exclusively by current levels of economic development. They maintain that, albeit within constraints, democratisation is an outcome of human actions, not just one of economic conditions or an historical past (A. Giddens, R. M. Unger). Refs 36.