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Critiques of Modernization Theory: Modernization: Factors, Pre-Requisites and Conceptual Formulations

Modernization theory holds that societies evolve from traditional to modern through a process involving industrialization, urbanization, increased education, and democratic values. This includes a shift to more complex division of labor and bureaucratic organizations, and a decline in religion's public role. Critics argue it fails to address issues like worker exploitation under capitalism and environmental degradation. While traditional values may decline, elements can still influence modern societies, as seen in Japan. Modernization involves deeper changes in thinking and attitudes across political, economic, social, and technological spheres to establish a nation's identity and prosperity.

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286 views

Critiques of Modernization Theory: Modernization: Factors, Pre-Requisites and Conceptual Formulations

Modernization theory holds that societies evolve from traditional to modern through a process involving industrialization, urbanization, increased education, and democratic values. This includes a shift to more complex division of labor and bureaucratic organizations, and a decline in religion's public role. Critics argue it fails to address issues like worker exploitation under capitalism and environmental degradation. While traditional values may decline, elements can still influence modern societies, as seen in Japan. Modernization involves deeper changes in thinking and attitudes across political, economic, social, and technological spheres to establish a nation's identity and prosperity.

Uploaded by

younus shaikh
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Modernization( Ideology also plays a significant role in changing mass behaviour and attitudes.

Attitudinal and value changes are pre-requisites of the creation of modern society, economy and
political system. )

modernization is a process that involves industrialization, urbanization, rationalization, bureaucracy,


mass consumption, and the adoption of democracy. During this process, pre-modern or traditional
societies evolve into the contemporary modern societies that we know today.

Modernization theory holds that this process involves increased availability and levels of formal
schooling, and the development of mass media, both of which are thought to foster democratic
political institutions.

Organizations become bureaucratic as the division of labor within society grows more complex, and
as it is a process rooted in scientific and technological rationality, religion declines in public life.

Critiques of Modernization Theory


Others, like critical theorists including members of the Frankfurt School, have pointed out that
Western modernization is premised on the extreme exploitation of workers within the capitalist
system, and that the toll of modernization on social relations has been great, leading to widespread
social alienation, a loss of community, and unhappiness.

Still, others critique modernization theory for failing to account for the unsustainable nature of the
project, in an environmental sense, and point out that pre-modern, traditional, and indigenous
cultures typically had much more environmentally conscious and symbiotic relationships between
people and the planet.

Some point out that elements and values of traditional life need not be completely erased in order to
achieve a modern society and point to Japan as an example.

Modernization: Factors, Pre-Requisites and Conceptual Formulations


Modernization refers to the deeper change in man’s way of thinking and feeling, a change in his whole attitude to
life’s problems, the society and the universe.
The term modernization is used not only to describe the changes in the material culture of a nation but also in its
belief system, values and way of life on the whole.
. It is a process of transformation of a society from its backward framework to a forward looking, progressing and
prospering structural build up.
: the achievements in the field of science and technology, rapid growth of industrialisation and urbanisation, the
rationalization of social life, the emergence of a rational outlook in every walk of life, rapid development of mass
phenomena like mass production, mass communication, mass, education and participation, democratization of
political structure and growth of large heterogeneous complex societies Weiner points out that each social science
discipline is primarily concerned with modernization in terms of man’s application of technologies to control the
resources of nature so as to achieve a marked increase in the growth of per capita output. Basically the process of
modernization is concerned with the natural, behavioural and social processes and the application of the new
knowledge to human affairs.
This process also involves an achievement, orientation and self-reliance in each individual.
It is a process which helps a nation to establish its own identity. Of course a nation has to learn much from the
developed countries. But being a replica of the developed nations will not necessarily result in modernization. Society
in the process of modernization recognizes its values of cultural heritage, but is not bound by the outmoded patterns of
beliefs.
It is a society which has cultural patterns favoring the adaptation of new methods and techniques in enriching its,
physical, moral and socio-economic life.
Modernization is experienced in different spheres:
(i) In the political sphere, as simple tribal or village authority systems give way to systems of suffrage, political
parties, representation and civil service bureaucracies;
(ii) In the educational spheres, the social system strives to bring down the rate of illiteracy and enhance economically
productive skills;
(iii) In the stratification sphere, geographical and social mobility make a shift from fixed and ascriptive hierarchical
system.
(i) In the realm of technology, a developing society changes from simple and traditional techniques towards the
application of scientific knowledge.
(ii) In agriculture, the developing society evolves from subsistence farming towards the commercial production of
agricultural goods.
(iii) In Industry, the developing society undergoes a transformation from the use of human and animal power towards
industrialization, or men working for wages at power-driven machines, which produce commodities marketed outside
the community production.
Political modernization comprises of the following features:
(iii) The capability of maintaining national integration through orderly accommodation of various divisive forces.
(iv) The capacity to blend administrative expertness, responsibility and rationality along with the popular will into an
effective amalgam.
Value change is considered essential for institutional rearrangement which is absolutely necessary for modernization.

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