Theories Of Modernization

22 Pages 5458 Words

such as Great Britain, France, and Germany, were weakened by World War II, the United States emerged from the war strengthened, and became a world leader with the implementation of the Marshall Plan to reconstruct war-torn Western Europe.
Second, there was the spread of a united world communist movement. The Former Soviet Union extended its influence not only to Eastern Europe, but also to China and Korea. Third, there was the disintegration of European colonial empires in Asia, Africa and Latin America, giving birth to many new nation-states in the Third World. These nascent nation-states were in search of a model of development to promote their economy and to enhance their political independence.
According to the modernization theory, modern societies are more productive, children are better educated, and the needy receive more welfare. According to Smelser’s analysis, modern societies have the particular feature of social structural differentiation, that is to say a clear definition of functions and political roles from national institutions. Smelser argues that although structural differentiation has increased the functional capacity of modern organizations, it has also created the problem of integration, and of coordinating the activities of the various new institutions.
In a political sense, Coleman stresses three main features of modern societies: a) Differentiation of political structure; b) Secularization of political culture -with the ethos of equality-, which c) Enhances the capacity of a society’s political system.
The major assumptions of the modernization theory of development basically are: Modernization is a phased process; for example Rostow has 5 phases according to his theory of economic development for a particular society, and I will mention them later. Modernization is a homogenizing process, in this sense, we can say that modernization produces tendencies toward convergence among societies, for exa...