The Dictionary of Human Geography

Comp. by: VPugazhenthi Stage : Revises1 ChapterID: 9781405132879_4_S Date:1/4/
09 Time:15:23:40 Filepath:H:/00_Blackwell/00_3B2/Gregory-9781405132879/appln/3B2/
revises/9781405132879_4_S.3d

the physical territory of their communities

has become tightly controlled by the drug

dealers, who. .. are known locally as ‘‘the

marginality’’ or ‘‘the movement’’’ (Gonzalez

de la Rocha, Perlman, Safa, Jelin, Roberts

and Ward, 2004, pp. 189–90). In other con-

texts, there is more optimism about the

potential for squatter mobilization

(Appadurai, 2001). gp

Suggested reading

Gonzalez de la Rocha, Perlman, Safa, Jelin,

Roberts and Ward (2004); Roy (2005).

stages of growth The notion thatsoci-

eties, polities or entirecivilizations pass

through stages or phases in their development,

growth or maturation has a long intellectual

lineage, and has been associated with very

different forms of theorizing. Within certain

forms ofmarxism, history as the succession

ofmodes of productionor the need to pass

through particular stages of economic organ-

ization has a long pedigree (Cohen, 1978).

From a very different vantage point, the the-

ories of Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975) and

Joseph Spengler (1912–91) also contained

strong senses of historical progression through

epochs or stages. Within twentieth-century

sociology it wasmodernization theorythat

exemplified the clearest instance of the sutur-

ing of evolution,teleologyand economic

history as a predetermined progression

through stages of social, economic and polit-

ical transformation along a path blazed by

capitalist powers in Western Europe. It was

from within this body of work that the notion

ofmodernizationas the culmination of a suc-

cession of stages out of backwardness received

its fullest elaboration, and will be forever asso-

ciated with the ideas of W.W. Rostow (1916–

2003) and his foundational textThe stages of

economic growth: a non-communist manifesto,

first published in 1960 (see Rostow, 1971).

Like other modernization theorists, Rostow

believed that the world was constituted by a

fundamental rift between‘traditional’ societies–

supposedly mired in anti- or non-market

mentalities, limited markets, pre-Newtonian

science and a belief structure antithetical to

self-sustaining growth – andmodern societies

that emerged in their modal form in seven-

teenth- and eighteenth-centuryeurope (see

modernity). Rostow drafted his book against

a backdrop of McCarthyism, a deep ideo-

logical and political cold war between

East andwest, and a massive effort by the

USA to export development through USAID

and other foreign aid channels to an increas-

ingly insurgentthird world, led by a raft

of African and Asian post-colonial (or about

to become post-colonial) states (see

decolonization).

In Rostow’s iteration – amodelexplicitly

presented, as Rostow’s subtitle indicates, as

an alternative to the idea of socialist modern-

ization and the account of development set out

by Marx and Engels inThe communist mani-

festo(seehistorical materialism) – modern

history was the transformation of tradition via

a five-stage programme, through which all

societies were to pass. The first of the five

stages -the traditional society- is characterized

by ‘primitive’ technology, hierarchical social

structures (the precise nature of which is not

specified) and behaviour conditioned more by

custom and ascription rather than by what

Rostow takes to be ‘rational’ criteria. These

characteristics combine to place a ceiling on

production possibilities. Outside stimuli to

change (including, for example,colonialism

and the expansion ofcapitalism) are admitted

in the transitional second stage –the precondi-

tions for take-off. Here, a rise in the rate of

productive investment, the provision of social

and economic infrastructure, the emer-

gence of a new, economically based elite and

an effective centralized national state are

indispensableto whatis to follow. In short,

the opportunities for profitable investment

presented by the preconditions for take-off

are unlikely to be ignored bycapitaland they

pave the way for the third stage:‘takeoff’ into

sustained growth. Rostow describes this stage as

‘the great watershed in the life of modern soci-

eties’. It is a period of around 10–30 years

during which growth dominates society, the

economy and the political agenda (although

the social relations which facilitate this dom-

inance are not described) and investment

rises, especially in the leading sectors of manu-

facturing industry. Self-sustaining growth

results in the fourth stage,‘drive to maturity’,

which is characterized by diversification as

most sectors grow, imports fall and productive

investment ranges between 10 and 20 per cent

of national income. The increasing import-

ance of consumer goods and servicesand

the rise of thewelfare stateindicate that

the final stage, the‘age of high mass consump-

tion’, has been reached (see alsopost-indus-

trial society).

In some respects, the determinism of

Rostow’s model was not too different from

some of the worst excesses of structural

Marxist political economy. Whether it

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_S Final Proof page 720 1.4.2009 3:23pm

STAGES OF GROWTH