Comparative Political Development

DOES THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE REGARDING MODERNIZATION IN THE THIRD WORLD SUGGEST THAT POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IS POSSIBLE THERE OR NOT

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Many significant events took place in 20th century . Besides two major world wars , there has been seemingly an unending race for global hegemony commonly known as the cold war coupled with tremendous developments in the field of science and technology . The cold war era witnessed an emergence of yet another way of

life which was duly sponsored and propagated by the West led by United States . This new concept was termed as the process of modernization was characterized by two forms of societies called as the traditional societies and the modern societies . In the traditional societies , social relationships were supposed to have an affective component - personal , emotional , and face-to-face , which is a constraint in the process of developing efficient relations of production via a market . The modern societies on the other hand encompassed social relationships which were neutral impersonal , detached and indirect , which make possible efficient market relationships , etc

To defeat the traditional societies led by the Soviet Union , the United States started modernizing the world . The US efforts of financing the industrialization of Western Europe , the industrialization of South Korea and Taiwan , and the reconstruction of Japan proved worthwhile results . The post world two era also ended the colonial rule , and the new nation-states were in a search for a model of development . Thus , the United State 's political and economic elites encouraged their social scientist to study the new nation-states , to devise ways of promoting capitalist economic development and political stability so as to avoid their mergence with the colonial block . This process of creating modern societies did help in bringing political and economic developments in these regions however there had been a number of apprehensions regarding intents of the propagators of the modernization and many internal factors like culture and corruption which marred the developmental efforts of these countries

This has been designed to study the application of modernization concept on the third world countries and searching for any empirical evidence of political and economic development there . The will also focus on the factors of political and economic development while scrutinizing these in the light of modernization in the third world countries specially in South Asia and Africa

II . THEORY OF MODERNIZATION

Modernization in one sense is the process of liberalization paving way for globalization . It is also a socio-economic effort of a nation very often defused with the development theory , which highlights the positive role played by the developed world in modernizing and facilitating sustainable development in underdeveloped nations . Every nation has its own culture and fundamental differences with the West . The modernization theory therefore is an evolutionary process spread over a long journey of changing public perception , attitude and behavior in accepting and adopting the socio-cultural norms dictated by the process of modernization

The modernization theory combines...