Coleman’s view that modernization ‘is an open ended process consisting of
trends towards increasing structural differentiation leading to increased
governmental capacity and trends towards equality in the legal, participa-
tory and distributive senses’ (Almond, 1987, p. 449).
Almond does not attempt to answer the criticism that developmentalists
ignored the implications of colonialism and continuing economic depend-
ency for the current autonomy of Third World countries. His lively critique
of dependency theory does not dispel doubts that developmentalist political
science could provide a framework for understanding the unique relation-
ships between rich and poor countries, or if it did it was only after the
impact of dependency theory had been felt. He reminds us that in 1970 he
himself argued explicitly ‘against the simple diffusionist notion of unilin-
earity in the early 1960s’. However, the interaction of economics and poli-
tics which Almond insists was always a feature of comparative studies of
political development, such as the political consequences of industrializa-
tion or the distributional effects of economic growth, does not encompass
the factors which critics regarded as significant and distinctive of Third
World status (Almond, 1987, p. 449).
The teleological quality of unilinear models of change has also been ques-
tioned. There can be no preordained path to development for all societies.
Cultures and traditions vary too much from one society to another, and the
process of modernization varies from one time period to another (Kothari,
1968, p. 279). Ultimately a functionalist perspective requires the reification of
society. Whole societies are seen as having needs and goals which they satisfy
or achieve through functional structures. But only individuals have wills,
power and purposes. Societies cannot be endowed with the characteristics of
the members who make them up. Functionalism is teleological in explaining
causes by their effects. Functions which meet the needs of a system for stabil-
ity and continuity imply that societies have goals, needs and purposes. They
cannot be empirically assessed as antecedent causes. Furthermore, defining
‘development’ in terms of direction rather than content means that anything
that happens in developing countries must be seen as part of the process of
development. The concept loses its utility as it loses precision and specific
content (Huntington, 1965, p. 390; see also Huntington, 1971, p. 303).
Ethnocentricity
Modernization theory may thus be criticized for its ethnocentricity, judging
progress by reference to Western, and largely Anglo-American, values and
68 Understanding Third World Politics