Modernization Thesis Research Articles

Globalization and Sites of Conflict: Towards Definition and Taxonomy

'Globalisation' is rapidly replacing the 'Cold War' as the most overused and under-specified explanation for a variety of events in international relations. For some, it represents a natural, indeed inexorable, progression towards a 'borderless world' signalling the end of the modern international state system as we know it. Analysis is underwritten by faith in, and exhortation to, the future. For others, the concept is over-stated and its benign influences are exaggerated. Indeed, globalisation is dangerous and perhaps even non-existent as a phenomenon. Furthermore, its invocation generates fear and resistance. This difference in interpretation has given rise to a dispute between those who see the emergence of a number of salient alternative authority structures, especially in the corporate world, that compete (increasingly successfully) with states in determining the direction of the global political economy (globalisers or globalists) and those who still see the states as the principal actors in global political and economic orders (internationalists) with security issues as still paramount. It is more accurate (albeit less parsimonious for theorising) to see state and non-state authority existing in a much more contingent, interactive and dynamic manner. We identify four definitions of globalisation in common use in both the scholarly and the policy community. These are we call (i) globalisation as historical epoch; (ii) globalisation as the confluence of economic phenomena; (iii) globalisation as the triumph or American values; and (iv) globalisation as sociological and technological revolution. Then we identify four propositions central to any understanding of the emerging field of 'globalisation studies' in international relations: (i) the Redistributive thesis, (ii) the Regionalism thesis, (iii) the Modernisation thesis and (iv) the Internet thesis. As analytical approaches they reflect the ontologies and epistemologies of the definitions from which we argue they are derived and help identify the arenas of power and policy contest and the principal actors involved in the changing relationship between market power and state authority thereby revealing significant contextual, empirical and normative variation in the authoritative relationship between states, markets and civil society.

Consumption, Identity-Formation and Uncertainty

This paper addresses some general issues concerning consumption that arise from the work of Bauman, Beck and Giddens. All maintain that biography is a reflexive project and that life-styles and consumption are critical to identity-formation and re-formation. Bauman, especially, maintains that this is a source of anxiety, the freedom implied by consumer choice entailing a commensurate degree of personal responsibility. He observes, for instance, that a function of advertising is to assuage the self-doubt that accompanies choice. I seek to argue that these accounts of the impact of reflexive modernisation on self-identity are misjudged. Consumption would be a much less pleasurable practice if it was both subject to ever-expanding free choice and the decisions made were fundamental components of a reflexive process of identity-formation. Indeed, the consequence might well be high and visible levels of distress among those individuals most deeply involved. That this is not apparent suggests that the relationships specified between the process of identity-formation and consumption is tendentious. Consumption may be anxiety-provoking for some groups; there is a real element of risk involved in choosing inappropriately. But there are many mechanisms that serve to compensate. I explore those mechanisms, suggesting that anxiety is avoided through certain processes of group identification and social regulation which the reflexive modernisation thesis claims have atrophied. I conclude that such considerations require that these theories about the relationship between consumption and self-identity be modified.

A Macrosociological Analysis of Change in the Marriage Rate: Canadian Women, 1921-25 to 1981-85

This study examines the historical changes in Canadian womens nuptiality patterns namely the first marriage rate and the age at first marriage from 1921-25 to 1981-85. Five hypotheses are developed...: the modernization thesis which predicts that increasing individualism is responsible for variation in nuptiality trends over time; the hypothesis of negative effects of national war and the Great Depression; the hypothesis of sex ratio imbalances concerning distorted numerical marriage markets; the hypothesis regarding the relative size of the cohort of men which calls for large cohorts to experience relatively low rates of marriage because of poor economic prospects; and the gains-from-marriage hypothesis that since the early 1960s the social psychological and economic advantages to entering legal marriage have diminished. Multivariate analyses of the first marriage rate and singulate age at marriage lend considerable support for the above explanations. (EXCERPT)

COMMUNITY STUDIES: THE SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL HERITAGE AND ITS POPULARITY IN IRELAND

A Community Studies tradition based on the theory and methods of a functionalist social anthropology has since the 1930's been the dominant one in both characterising the social structure of rural Ireland and in theorising social change in Ireland in general. This social anthropological method, while of possible utility in the study of primitive cultures and peoples, confronts certain difficulties when attempts are made to employ pure ethnographic analysis as a method for studying social change in either urban or rural settings in industrialising societies like Ireland. Despite attempts to do so, the Community Studies tradition has been unable to establish a coherent method for the study of local social systems and their structural relations of dependency on wider social, economic and political forces at play in capitalist social formations. Instead, it has fallen on an isolationist approach to studying local areas. In Irish sociology this abstractionism is inevitably undergirded by some variant of the modernisation thesis in which ‘traditional life and culture’ is progressively ‘threatened’ by the onslaught of urban‐industrial modernity.

Education and social change: An examination of the modernity thesis

Education and social change: An examination of the modernity thesis

Remarks on the Review Symposium on "Becoming Modern"

Previous articleNext article No AccessLettersRemarks on the Review Symposium on "Becoming Modern"Allan SchnaibergAllan Schnaiberg Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 84, Number 2Feb., 1976 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/443265 Views: 1Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in The School Review (1893-1979), which is continued by the American Journal of Education (1979-present). Copyright 1976 The University of Chicago PressPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Michael Armer Education and social change: An examination of the modernity thesis, Studies In Comparative International Development 12, no.33 (Sep 1977): 86–99.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686512

A "Landmark" from a "Time of Optimism" for the Modern World: A Review Symposium of "Becoming Modern" by Alex Inkeles and David H. SmithBecoming Modern: Individual Change in Six Developing Countries. Alex Inkeles , David H. Smith

Previous articleNext article No AccessReview SymposiumA "Landmark" from a "Time of Optimism" for the Modern World: A Review Symposium of "Becoming Modern" by Alex Inkeles and David H. Smith Becoming Modern: Individual Change in Six Developing Countries. Alex Inkeles , David H. Smith Henry A. Landsberger, Martin Carnoy, Arthur L. Stinchcombe, and Wilbert E. MooreHenry A. Landsberger Search for more articles by this author , Martin Carnoy Search for more articles by this author , Arthur L. Stinchcombe Search for more articles by this author , and Wilbert E. Moore Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 84, Number 1Nov., 1975 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/443245 Views: 1Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in The School Review (1893-1979), which is continued by the American Journal of Education (1979-present). Copyright 1975 The University of Chicago PressPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Michael Armer Education and social change: An examination of the modernity thesis, Studies In Comparative International Development 12, no.33 (Sep 1977): 86–99.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686512George W. Johnson Abstracts of Documents in This Supplement, (Jan 1977): 1–480.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5178-6_1