Modernization theory, or modernisation theory, is a sociological and comparative political science theory positing that processes of structural socioeconomic development, including industrialization, urbanization, rising per capita income, and rising levels of education, generate systematic transformations in political culture, institutional structure, and value systems, culminating in the consolidation of liberal-democratic governance and rationalist-bureaucratic forms of authority. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s, most influentially articulated by Seymour Lipset, drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Talcott Parsons.Andrew C. Janos, Politics and Paradigms: Changing Theories of Change in Social Science. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986, pp. 44-64; Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. "Modernity and Modernization." Sociopedia.isa. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Israel (2000): 1–15. Modernization theory was a dominant paradigm in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s, and saw a resurgence after 1991, when Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of the Cold War as confirmation of modernization theory.Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man . New York: The Free Press, 1992, pp. 68-69, 133-134.
The theory is the subject of much debate among scholars. Critics have highlighted cases where industrialization did not prompt stable democratization, such as Japan, Germany, and the Soviet Union, as well as cases of democratic backsliding in economically advanced parts of Latin America. Other critics argue the causal relationship is reverse (democracy is more likely to lead to economic modernization) or that economic modernization helps democracies survive but does not prompt democratization. Other scholars provide supporting evidence, showing that economic development significantly predicts democratization.
History
The modernization theory of the 1950s and 1960s drew on classical evolutionary theory and a Parsonian reading of Weber's ideas about a transition from traditional to modern society. Parsons had translated Weber's works into English in the 1930s and provided his own interpretation.Smelser, Neil J. 1992. "External and Internal Factors in Theories of Social Change," pp. 369–94, in Hans Haferkamp and Neil J. Smelser (eds.), Social Change and Modernity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 370-81.
After 1945, the Parsonian version became widely used in sociology and other social sciences. Some of the thinkers associated with modernization theory are Marion J. Levy Jr., Gabriel Almond, Seymour Martin Lipset, Walt Rostow, Daniel Lerner, Lucian Pye, David Apter, Alex Inkeles, Cyril Edwin Black, Bert F. Hoselitz, Myron Weiner, and Karl Deutsch.Andrew C. Janos, Politics and Paradigms: Changing Theories of Change in Social Science. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986, pp. 44-64; Nils Gilman, Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, p. 2.
By the late 1960s opposition to modernization theory developed because the theory was too general and did not fit all societies in quite the same way.; Andrew C. Janos, Politics and Paradigms: Changing Theories of Change in Social Science. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986; Paul Anthony Cammack, Capitalism and Democracy in the Third World: The Doctrine for Political Development. London: Leicester University Press, 1997. Yet, with the end of the Cold War, a few attempts to revive modernization theory were carried out. Francis Fukuyama argued for the use of modernization theory as universal history. A more academic effort to revise modernization theory was that of Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel in Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy (2005).Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Inglehart and Welzel amended the 1960s version of modernization theory in significant ways. Counter to Lipset, who associated industrial growth with democratization,Seymour Martin Lipset, "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy," American Political Science Review Vol. 53, Nº 1 (1959): 69–105. Inglehart and Welzel did not see an association between industrialization and democratization. Rather, they held that only at a latter stage in the process of economic modernization, which various authors have characterized as post-industrial, did values conducive to democratization – which Inglehart and Welzel call "self-expression values" – emerge.
Nonetheless, these efforts to revive modernization theory were criticized by many, and the theory remained a controversial one.; "Should Modernization Theory Survive?", a special issue of The Annals of Comparative Democratization 16, 3 (2018)
Modernization and democracy The relationship between modernization and democracy or democratization is one of the most researched studies in comparative politics. Many studies show that modernization has contributed to democracy in some countries. For example, Seymour Martin Lipset argued that modernization can turn into democracy. There is academic debate over the drivers of democracy because there are theories that support economic growth as both a cause and effect of the institution of democracy. "Lipset's observation that democracy is related to economic development, first advanced in 1959, has generated the largest body of research on any topic in comparative politics,"Przeworski and Limongi, 1997.
Anderson explains the idea of an elongated diamond in order to describe the concentration of power in the hands of a few at the top during an authoritarian leadership. He develops this by giving an understanding of the shift in power from the elite class to the middle class that occurs when modernization is incorporated. Socioeconomic modernization allows for a democracy to further develop and influences the success of a democracy. Concluded from this, is the idea that as socioeconomic levels are leveled, democracy levels would further increase.
Larry Diamond and Juan Linz, who worked with Lipset in the book, Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, argue that economic performance affects the development of democracy in at least three ways. First, they argue that economic growth is more important for democracy than given levels of socioeconomic development. Second, socioeconomic development generates social changes that can potentially facilitate democratization. Third, socioeconomic development promotes other changes, like organization of the middle class, which is conducive to democracy.
As Seymour Martin Lipset put it, "All the various aspects of economic development—industrialization, urbanization, wealth and education—are so closely interrelated as to form one major factor which has the political correlate of democracy". The argument also appears in Walt W. Rostow, Politics and the Stages of Growth (1971); A. F. K. Organski, The Stages of Political Development (1965); and David Apter, The Politics of Modernization (1965). In the 1960s, some critics argued that the link between modernization and democracy was based too much on the example of European history and neglected the Third World.
One historical problem with that argument has always been Germany, whose economic modernization in the 19th century came long before the democratization after 1918. Political science professor Berman, however, concludes that a process of democratization was underway in Imperial Germany, for "during these years Germans developed many of the habits and mores that are now thought by political scientists to augur healthy political development".
One contemporary problem for modernization theory is the argument of whether modernization implies more human rights for citizens or not. China, one of the most rapidly growing economies in the world, can be observed as an example. The modernization theory implies that this should correlate to democratic growth in some regards, especially in relation to the liberalization of the middle and lower classes. However, active human rights abuses and constant oppression of Chinese citizens by the government seem to contradict the theory strongly. Interestingly enough, the irony is that increasing restrictions on Chinese citizens are a result of modernization theory.
In the 1990s, the Chinese government wanted to reform the legal system and emphasized governing the country by law. This led to a legal awakening for citizens as they were becoming more educated on the law, yet more understanding of their inequality in relation to the government. Looking down the line in the 2000s, Chinese citizens saw even more opportunities to liberalize and were able to be a part of urbanization and could access higher levels of education. This in turn resulted in the attitudes of the lower and middle classes changing to more liberal ideas, which went against the CCP. Over time, this has led to their active participation in civil society activities and similar adjacent political groups in order to make their voices heard. Consequently, the Chinese government represses Chinese citizens at a more aggressive rate, all due to modernization theory.
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel contend that the realization of democracy is not based solely on an expressed desire for that form of government, but democracies are born as a result of the admixture of certain social and cultural factors. They argue the ideal social and cultural conditions for the foundation of a democracy are born of significant modernization and economic development that result in mass political participation.
Randall Peerenboom explores the relationships among democracy, the rule of law and their relationship to wealth by pointing to examples of Asian countries, such as Taiwan and South Korea, which have successfully democratized only after economic growth reached relatively high levels and to examples of countries such as the Philippines, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia and India, which sought to democratize at lower levels of wealth but have not done as well. He suggests China will grant democratic rights when it is as modern and as rich as the West per capita.
Adam Przeworski and others have challenged Lipset's argument. They say political regimes do not transition to democracy as per capita incomes rise. Rather, democratic transitions occur randomly, but once there, countries with higher levels of gross domestic product per capita remain democratic. Epstein et al. (2006) retest the modernization hypothesis using new data, new techniques, and a three-way, rather than dichotomous, classification of regimes. Contrary to Przeworski, this study finds that the modernization hypothesis stands up well. Partial democracies emerge as among the most important and least understood regime types.
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (2008) further weaken the case for Lipset's argument by showing that even though there is a strong cross-country correlation between income and democracy, once one controls for country fixed effects and removes the association between income per capita and various measures of democracy, there is "no causal effect of income on democracy." In "Non-Modernization" (2022), they further argue that modernization theory cannot account for various paths of political development "because it posits a link between economics and politics that is not conditional on institutions and culture and that presumes a definite endpoint—for example, an 'end of history'."