type of change in one component of a political system (culture, structures,
groups, leadership, policies and so on) can be related to change or its
absence in other components (1971, p. 316).
Functionalism does not provide explanations of causes of change so much
as definitions of key concepts: political function, structure, system and cul-
ture. The difficulty which some of the contributors to The Politics of the
Developing Areashad in fitting the categories and concepts to ‘traditional’
society in the regions that they analysed from a functionalist perspective sup-
ports the critical opinion that political development theory was only able to
describe the current situation, not explain how it had come about.
Biological analogies
What undermined functionalism was the analogy with biological organ-
isms. This is insufficiently close to provide valid explanations of social and
political phenomena. It is very difficult to talk about the normal or patho-
logical functioning of society in the way that we can about organisms, with-
out making massive value judgements. Societies can change their
structures. Organisms do not. It is not possible to examine the numerous
instances of the same social function as it is with biological organisms. The
analogy thus leads social explanation up a cul-de-sac. It does not provide
the opportunity for theoretical explanation that the assumed parallel
between natural and social science appears to offer.
Definitions
Modernization theory is over-ambitious in its attempt to incorporate all social
change since the seventeenth century. Consequently the key concepts are too
vague and open-ended, often reducing theoretical propositions to ‘meaning-
less tautologies’. Modernization theory proceeds by way of assumptions
about change based on the prior definition of concepts. Concepts take the
place of facts (Tipps, 1973, pp. 218–22; Varma, 1980, p. 49).
The definitions of functionalism are flawed. ‘System’ is defined in terms
of what a system does. So a political system which does not perform the
functions which such systems are defined as performing ceases by defini-
tion to be a political system. Again the explanatory power is reduced to
a tautology. Any statement about the political system is either true by defi-
nition because that particular system is doing what all political systems do,
or is not about political systems at all. The same is true of ‘structure’.
Modernization and Political Development 71