3 Modernization and Political Development
Social evolution
Modernization theory has its origins in classical evolutionary explanations
of social change (Tipps, 1973, pp. 200–1). Its intellectual roots are in the
European evolutionists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the
French philosophers and founders of modern sociology Auguste Compte
and Emile Durkheim; the British philosopher Herbert Spencer; and of
course Marx (Bock, 1978; Varma, 1980, p. 34). All were in their different
ways trying to explain the transformation from pre-industrial to industrial
society. Two elements in particular from that early theorizing were carried
over into debates about modernization in the Third World. One is the belief
that social change involves continuity and the other is the belief in progress
(So, 1990, pp. 18–20).
Continuity is not seen as neutral but as progressive. The early theorists of
social evolution assumed that change implied advancement and improve-
ment, a highly qualitative aspect of the transition from pre-industrial to
industrial society. It was also common for such social theorists in the nine-
teenth century to think in terms of stages of development, and at the very
least to distinguish between the traditional stage and the modern stage of
social evolution. This is an idea that was incorporated into more recent
thinking about the process of becoming a modern society (Hoogvelt, 1978,
pp. 11–12).
Progressive continuity involves two sets of transformations: increased
complexity, and greater specialization in human organization and activity in
the social, economic and political spheres. Twentieth century concepts of
modernization inherited all of these assumptions about continuity and
progress. The conclusions about specialization and complexity were also
44