How Modernization Plays A Part In Development

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

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Development Support Communication

Mid Term

Name: Anum khan

Submitted to: Ma’am Fatima Jahanzeb

MA 4 (SMC)

Explain dominant paradigm and how does modernization plays an integral part in development?

Dominant Paradigm

Paradigm is a set of theories while dominant is something which is rigid.Through the late 1960s, a dominant paradigm ruledintellectual definitions and discussions of development andguided national development programs. This concept of development grew out of certain historical events, such as theIndustrial Revolution in Europe and the United States, theColonial experience in Latin America3 Africa, and Asia, theQuantitative empiricism of North American social science,And capitalistic economic/political philosophy. Implicit. In the ruling paradigm were numerous assumptions which weregenerally thought to be valid, or at least were not widelyquestioned, until about the 1970s.Definitions of development centered on the criterionof the rate of economic growth. The level of national development at any given point in time was the gross nationalproduct (GMP) or, when divided by the total population ina nation, per capita income. Although there was a certainamount of intellectual discomfort with per capita income asthe main index of development, especially among no economists,alternative measures and definitions of development hadrelatively few proponents. Whatwere the major academic and historical influenceson the old conception of development?

1. The Industrial Revolution, usually accompanied by foreign

Colonization and domestic urbanization, during the latter 1800s.The rapid economic growth of this period in Europe and theUnited States (and again in post-World War II Europe) impliedthat such growth was development, or at least was the drivingengine of development. Industrialization was seen as the mainroute to development. And so less developed countries (theywere often called "underdeveloped" in the 19 50s and 1960s)were advised by development planners to industrialize. Steelmills.Hydroelectric dams.Manufacturing industries.And alow priority for agricultural development. The old paradigm stressed economic growth through industrialization as the key to development. At the heart ofindustrialization were technology and capital, which substitutedfor labor. This simple synthesis of development may have beena fairly correct lesson from the experience of the IndustrialRevolution in Western Europe and North America. Whether it could be applied adequately and successfully to very differentsociocultural settings, such as the developing nations wherelabor was generally not in short supply, seemed a likelyhypothesis in the 1950s, and it was certainly tested on amammoth scale. "Democracy, training, modern factories, moremoney-these words sum up the major development policies ofthe Western democracies' (Owens and Shaw, 1974: 153).What has happened in Western nations regarding theirpathways to development is not necessarily an accurate predictor of the process in non-western states. For instance,European nations were often greatly aided in their socioeconomic transformation by their exploitation of colonies.Obviously, the contemporary states of Latin America, Africa,and Asia do not have colonies (although they may have aninterior region or regions that act as economic coloniesfor another part of their nation).

2. Capital-intensive technology. More developed nations possessed such technology. Less developed nations had lessof it. So the implication seemed plain: Introduce the technology to the less developed countries and they wouldbecome relatively more developed too. It was assumed thatappropriate social technology would appear to accompany theexternally introduced material technology. When the neededsocial structures did not always materialize in less developedcountries, the fault was accorded to "traditional1' ways ofthinking, beliefs, and social values. Social science researchwas aimed at identifying the individual variables onwhichrapid change was needed, and the modernization of traditionalindividuals became a priority task of various governmentagencies, an activity in which the mass media were widelyutilized.Capital was required, of course, for the high-capitaltechnology, to be provided by national governments, by localentrepreneurs by international loans, and through the activities of multinational firms (usually owned and controlled bythe industrially advanced nations). Gradually the newlyindependent nations began to realize that political freedomwas a different matter than economic independence. The endof colonialism did not necessarily mark the end of financialdependence on the industrially advanced countries. Often itincreased such dependency. And capital-intensive technology,including military armaments, was one reason.

3. Economic growth. It was assumed that "man" (all men,actually) was economic, that he would respond rationally toeconomic incentives, that the profit motive would be sufficientto motivate the widespread and large-scale behavior changesrequired for development to occur. Economists were firmlyin the driver's seat of development programs. They definedthe problem of underdevelopment largely in economic terms, and in turn this perception of the problem as predominantlyeconomic in nature helped to put and to keep economists incharge.Central economic planning of development was widelyaccepted as a legitimate and reasonable means by which anation should seek development goals.2 Almost every countryin Asia, Africa, and Latin America established a nationaldevelopment commission during the 1950s and 1960s. Bankersand economists were usually appointed to such commissions. Five-year development plans were produced to serve as a guideto the economic development activities of national governments. When invited, international agencies provided technical assistance to such planners. The Harvard Development Advisory Group was ready to help, and the World Bank more economists, more bankers. Complete with assumptions about the expectedeconomic rationality of "man". The focus on economic growth carried with it an "aggregatebias" about development: that it had to be planned andexecuted by national governments. Local communities, ofcourse, would be changed eventually by such development, but their advance was thought to depend upon the provisionof information and resource inputs from higher levels. Autonomous self-development was consideredunlikely or impossible. In any event, it seemed too slow. Further, growth was thought to be infinite. Those rareobservers who pointed out that known supplies of coal or oilof some other resource would run out in so many years wereconsidered alarmists, and they were told that new technologywould be invented to compensate for future shortages. Moreand bigger was better. It was not until the early 19 70s that the book byMeadows et al. (1972), The Limits to Growth,appeared to challenge the infinite-growth enthusiasts, andthe proponents of no-growth policies became heard.U. Quantification. One reason for reliance on per capitaincome as the main index of development was its deceitfulsimplicity of measurement.The expression "quality of life "was seldom heard until the very late 1960s (I cannot actuallyremember ever hearing it until then in the context of development) . It seemed reasonable that if some dimension of development could not be measured and quantified in numbers, then itprobably did not exist. Even if it did, it must not be veryimportant. Or so it seemed prior to the Stockholm Conferenceon the Human Environment in 1972.Further, the quantification of development invoked avery short-range perspective of 10 or 20 or 25 years at most.Development was today. It was facile to forget that India, China, Persia, and Egypt were old, old centers of civilization,that their rich cultures had in fact provided the basis forcontemporary Western cultures. Such old cultures were nowpoor (in a cash sense); and even if their family life displayed a warmer intimacy and their artistic triumphs weregreater, that was not development. It could not be measuredin dollars and cents.The drive for the quantification of development, an outgrowth and extension of North American social science empiricism,helped define what development was and was not. Material wellbeing could be measured. Such values as dignity, justice andfreedom did not fit on a dollars-and-cents yardstick. And sothe meaning of development began to have a somewhat dehumanizednature. Political stability and unity were thought to benecessary for continued economic growth, and authoritarianleadership increasingly emerged, often in the form of militarydictatorships. And in the push for government stability,Individual’s freedoms often were trampled.Further, what was quantified about development wasusually just growth, measured in the aggregate or on a percapita basis. Development policies of the 1950s and 1960spaid little attention to the equality of development benefits.The "growth-first-and-let-equality-come-later" mentalityoften was justified by the trickle-down theory-that leading

Sectors, once advanced, would then spread their advantage tothe lagging sectors. Anyway, income disparities were thoughtto provide incentives for hard work and sacrifice and to act. As a motivating force for individuals to invest in a lengthy

Formal education for themselves or for their children.It was not until much later, in the 1970s, that theFocus of quantification began to shift to measures of theequality of distribution. Gina ratios.Unemployment rates.Consideration of widening gaps.

Modernization plays an integral part in development

Modernization theory is a socio-economic theory, sometimes known as (or as being encompassed within) development theory, which highlights the positive role played by the developed world in modernizing and facilitating sustainable development in underdeveloped nations, often contrasted with dependency theory. It is also a part of the wider theme of theories in sociology, known as the sociocultural evolution. During the 1950s, its' initial focus was placed on the mass medias a modernizing force in the Underdeveloped World. Economically, the mass media was viewed as integral to the diffusion of modern forms of social organizations and technology over traditional economies, with literacy playing an especial cultural role in this. Modernization theorists also maintained that this would serve to promote a diffusion of liberal-democratic political ideals within less developed countries. Theories of modernization have been developed and popularized in 1950s and 1960s. It combines the previous theories of sociocultural evolution with practical experiences and empirical research, especially those from the era of decolonization. The theory states that. Westernworld countries are the most developed, and rest of the world (mostly former colonies) are on the earlier stages of development, and will eventually reach the same level as the Western world. Development stages go from the traditional societies to developed ones

Third World countries have fallen behind with their social progress and need to be directed on their way to becoming more advanced. Developing from classical social evolutionism theories, theory of modernization stresses the modernization factor: many societies are simply trying (or need to) emulate the most successful societies and cultures. It also states that it is possible to do so, thus supporting the concepts of social engineering and that the developed countries can and should help those less developed, directly or indirectly.