Modernisation Revisionism

Abstract

The first wave of criticism to be considered here broke in the late 1960s and focused on the oversimplified conceptualisation in political development theory of ‘tradition’, ‘modernity’ and their interrelationship. It was part of the broader reaction against underlying assumptions of modernisation theory as a whole: that there are recognisably traditional institutions, that these constitute a barrier to modernisation and that to the extent that modernisation takes place traditional institutions must decline. The criticisms were influenced by the findings of social anthropologists who, themselves challenged by developments in political science and by the changing context of the new nation-states they had to work in, were beginning to link their analysis of micro-communities with broader social and political institutions (see Vincent, 1969). Huntington called this new critical approach ‘modernisation revisionism’ (1971) and its exponents included amongst many others Joseph Gusfield, Reinhard Bendix, Lloyd and Suzanne Rudolph and S. N. Eisenstadt.