Modernisation and Political Change

Abstract

Modernisation theory is a body of thought which attempts to incorporate a large number of societies, many of which were in the process of becoming new states, into a theory about change. It is a theory that must be located in a specific historical and global context. It had some of its roots in the optimism following the Second World War and the widespread belief that the countries achieving or approaching independence would not only be freed from exploitation by the First World but would also have benefited from contacts with the exploiter’s technology, culture, liberal democracy and capitalism. The advanced countries were perceived as having poverty and inequality (especially in levels of education and welfare) under control. Democracy had triumphed over fascism in war and Marxism had been discredited by Stalinism. Social scientists in the West believed beneficial social engineering, based on a scientific understanding of the new states of the Third World, to be possible (Higgott, 1983).