The New Modernization Perspective

The New Modernization studies
- focus: Third World countries
- analyses: conducted at national level
- aim: to explain that development
occurs mainly through internal factors,
such as cultural values and social
institutions.

How is the new modernization studies different
from the classical modernization studies?
1. Avoidance of treating tradition and modernity
as a set of mutually exclusive concepts
2. Change in methodology
3. Do not assume a unidirectional path of
development toward the Western model
4. Lay more emphasis on external (international)
factors than before

SIU-LUN WONG
Entrepreneurial Familism

Wong started with a critique of the classical
modernization theorist’s interpretation of the
traditional Chinese family.
Classical modernization researchers advocated
discarding traditional Chinese family values in
order to promote economic growth in China.
However, Wong demonstrates that the family
does have a positive impact on economic
development.

1. Practice of paternalistic management
The metaphor of the family provides ready-
made cultural rhetoric to legitimate a patron-
client relationship between employer and
employee.
Political consequence: it retards the growth of
class consciousness among workers
When paternalism is working, labor discontent is
expressed more in the form of individual acts,
e.g. absenteeism, resignations, than in
collective acts of bargaining and strikes.

2. Nepotism
Most Chinese will ask relatives for jobs only as a
last resort.
Kin are expected to work harder for less pay
which helps to enhance the competitiveness
of the firm during recession.
Chinese entrepreneurs are generally careful to
equip family members with formal education
and on-the-job training.

3. Family mode of ownership
1978: nearly 60% of small factories in Hong Kong
were owned by individual proprietors and their
families.
Even if family division were to take place, it
would take the form of dividing profits rather
than physical fragmentation of the family
estate.

Wong argues for an economically dynamic
ethos of “entrepreneurial familism”, which
involves the family as the basic unit of
economic competition, providing the impetus
toward innovation and risk taking.

Three distinguishing characteristics
• High degree of centralization in decision
making, low degree of formalization of
organizational structure
• Autonomy is highly valued, self-employment is
preferred
• Family firms seldom endure, and are
constantly in flux.

WINSTON DAVIS
Japanese religion revisited

A Theory of Hurdles
Weber offered a theory of hurdles – treating
development as though it were an extended
obstacle course stretching between the
starting line (traditional societies) and the
finishing line (modern societies).
The runners (developing nations) who succeed
in surmounting all the hurdles are rewarded
with the trophies of “rationality” and modern
civilization.

What are these hurdles of development?
• Economic hurdles – must overcome to attain
the basic characteristics of the capitalist
system
• Social-political hurdles
• Psychological hurdles

Weber and his followers errors in explaining the
relationship between religion and development:
• They assume a priori that religion is the source of
some “spiritual ethos” or “central value system”.
• They take secularization or disenchantment for
granted as part of the inevitable fate of modern
civilization.
• They fail to deal with other social relations, e.g.
role of individual self-interest, competition,
disloyalty, and conflict.

A Theory of Barricades

A – Society
A
B – the barricades: religion,
magic, morality, folk
B traditions
C – economy (embedded)
C

Davis’s Model of Traditional
Society

Davis portrays traditional society as consisting of
three concentric rings:
• Inner ring – the economy and its values
• Middle ring – “immunological barricade” that
traditional societies erect against the
economy
• Outer ring – the society and its values, status,
and power relations

This model offers a new approach to the
examination of the relationship between
religion and development.
Instead of focusing on the ways that modernizers
leap over hurdles, Davis’s new approach calls
for an analysis of the activities of the defenders
of traditional religion.

Rewriting the Religious History of Japan
Davis attempts to reinterpret the relationship
between Japanese religion and development.
He focuses on two aspects:
1. The negative enablements of religion (Why did
Japanese religion fail to obstruct change?)
2. The positive enablements of religion (How did
Japanese religion promote change?)

The negative enablements
Davis argues that Japanese religions have
posed no obstruction to change for the ff.
reasons:
1. With respect to Buddhism, it had done nothing
to prevent the rapid development of the
Japanese countryside.
2. Since Shinto had no universal prelates to
enforce its claims, it gave in even more easily
to the modernizing factors.

3. Because of the coexistence of Confucianism,
Buddhism, and Shinto, there is a high degree
of religious tolerance in Japan.
4. Japanese urbanization has promoted a
secularization of religion, leading to a this-
worldly spirit among urban merchants and
Confucian scholars.
5. Davis observes the postwar boom in new
religions, with huge high mass movements
founded by charismatic leaders.

6. Observing the revival of folk religion, Davis
asserts that magic and miracles are perfectly
compatible with the “rationality” of industrial
society.

The positive enablements
Religion is often used to enhance economic
production.
The folk religion had developed a set of work
ethics for the common people.
Japanese industry takes pain to transmit this
religious work ethic to workers through various
initiation rites, training sessions, and “spiritual
education”.

Work is made part of the values of harmony,
unity, consensus, loyalty, sincerity, and altruistic
service to the individual’s family, company,
and nation.
As there is a mixture of civil religion and work
ethic, there is also a mixture of civil religion and
business ideology.
However, Davis argues that the mixing of civil
religion and business ideology was
unsuccessful.

Japan as a Post-Confucian Industrial Society
By the 1980s, little remained of the barricades
that defended traditionalism.
Today, it is industry that asks to be made safe
from society, and new barricades rise up to
protect the economy from the intrusion of
society.

C Davis’ Model of Post-Confucian
Industrial Society
B2
Davis three figures merely
highlighted the way in
A which religion sanctifies
society, and the way the
economy has become
“secularized”.
C – economy
B2 – the new barricades: Japan theory,
religious, and moral rationales,
Reaganomics
A – society (embedded)

ALI BANUAZIZI
Islamic Revolution in Iran

Banuazizi argues for a greater appreciation of
tradition in its own right.
He advocates bringing tradition back, as
tradition can be as reflective, creative, and
responsive to individual and collective needs
as its modern counterpart can, and tradition
has immense potential for social mobilization
and change.

He criticizes the classical modernization theorists
for:
1. Evoking an ideal image of contemporary
Western society
2. Defining tradition in residual and negative
terms
3. Arguing that the Third World has to get rid of its
traditional obstacles before modernization
can occur

Banuazizi observes the revival of a traditionalist
movement in the form of the “Islamic
resurgence”.
He examines one of the most dynamic outbursts
of the Islamic revival – the Iranian Revolution of
1977-1979. It is the only revivalist movement
that has actually brought a fundamentalist
Islamic regime to power.

In the Western media, Islamic resurgence
movements have been portrayed as extremist,
anachronistic, and retrogressive.
Banuazizi argues that these interpretations are
one-sided because they fail to examine
factors such as the structural bases, the
cultural division, etc. that explained the origins
of the Iranian Revolution.

1. Banuazizi points to the structural roots of the
Iranian Revolution.
2. The forces of modernization had produced a
profound cultural division between a small
modern segment of Western-educated elite
and a large traditional segment of peasants.
3. The unique nature of the Shi’ite religion acted
to propel the revolution.
4. The Iranian Revolution was a mass-based
social revolution, involving a coalition of social
forces and political ideologies.

On the Islamic side alone, there were four
variants:
• Radical Islam – the ideology of the young
intellectuals
• Militant Islam – the ideology of the ulama, the
petty bourgeoisie, and the dispossessed
• Liberal Islam – the ideology of the bourgeoisie,
and the middle class
• Traditional Islam – the ideology of the old
middle strata

Banuazizi also argues that the ideals and values
of Islam could be made so elastic that they
would fit the interests and proclivities of any
particular group.

• Banuazizi points out that modernization does
not necessarily bring about secularization.
• He remarks that traditional actors do not seem
to be hampered by their “traditionalist” traits.

• Traditionalist religious movements can also
appeal to those who have extensive exposure
to modernizing institutions as well as to the
marginal social elements.
• He has observed the triumph of a traditionalist
element and the elimination of virtually all
other groups that had participated in the
revolutionary coalition in Iran.

HUNTINGTON
Will more countries become more democratic?

Huntington presents a comprehensive review of
the crucial factors relating to the development
of democracy in Third World countries.
He raises the question: Will more countries
become democratic? In researching this
question, he distinguishes two factors: (1) the
preconditions that favor democratic
development, and (2) the political processes
by which democratic development has
occurred.

Preconditions of Development
Factor of economic wealth.
• A wealthy economy moderates political
tensions.
• An advanced, complex, industrialized
economy cannot be governed efficiently by
authoritarian means.
• A country with a wealthy economy tends to
have more equally distributed income.

• A new concept of the zone of transition: as
countries develop economically, they move
into a zone of transition in which traditional
political institutions become increasingly
difficult to maintain.

Factor of social structure.
• Huntington stresses the existence of an
autonomous bourgeoisie as the most
significant intermediate group.
• Another key element that promotes
democracy is the existence of market-oriented
economies. A market economy requires a
dispersion of economic power, thereby
creating a check to state power.

Factor of external environment.
• Democratization is the result of diffusion rather
than of development.
• The rise and fall of democracy on a global
state is a function of the rise and decline of the
most powerful democratic states.
• A regional trend may exist.

Factor of cultural context.
• Huntington finds that Protestantism has a high
correlation with democracy, that Catholicism
has a moderate and delayed impact on the
growth of democracy, and that Buddhism
have been conducive to authoritarian rule.
• Two types of religious culture: consummatory,
and instrumental.

• Consummatory religious culture: where
intermediate and ultimate ends are closely
related, less favorable to democracy
• Instrumental religious culture: characterized by
the separation of intermediate ends from
ultimate ends

Process of Democratization
Huntington examines the political processes
through which democratic development has
occurred.
He discusses three models of democratization:
linear, cyclical, and dialectical.

• Linear: draws from both British and Swedish
experience
• Cyclical: alternating despotism and
democracy, most common in Latin American
nations
• Dialectical: the development of an urban
middle class leads to growing pressures on the
authoritarian regime for political participation
and contestation

Huntington addresses the issue of the best
sequence for democratic development. His
preferred overall process is as follows:
1. Define national identity.
2. Develop effective political institutions.
3. Expand political participation.

He stresses that political participation must occur
late in the sequence of change otherwise it
will lead to political instability and violence.
Huntington also emphasizes that democracy
tends to be the result of gradual evolutionary
process with minimum violence, rather than
the result of revolutionary outflow of existing
hegemonies.

Lastly, Huntington suggests that the United States
can contribute to the democratic
development of Third World nations in the ff.
ways:
• By assisting their economic development
• By fostering their market economies and the
growth of a vigorous bourgeoisie
• By exercising greater influence than it has in
world affairs
• By helping the elites in these countries enter
the transition zone to democratization

Powers of the New
Modernization Theories

The new modernization studies open up new
research agendas and provide a more
sophisticated analysis than the old
modernization studies.
Bringing tradition back in. The new
modernization studies have taken a much
closer look at what tradition is, how it interacts
with Western forces, and what role it has
played in the process of modernization. They
reveal the intricate relationship between
tradition and modernity.

Bringing history back in. The new modernization
studies have adopted a different
methodology.
They have brought history back into the picture,
focusing on the unique development of each
case study, and used theory to explain
individual case studies.

Toward a more sophisticated analysis. The new
modernization studies have avoided making
simplistic statements or presenting single-
variable analyses.
They pay attention to multi-institutional analysis,
to multilineal paths of development, and to
the interaction between external and internal
factors.

The New Modernization Perspective

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