Who is Walt Rostow?
Walt Whitman Rostow was born in New York on 7th October, 1916 to parents who were both active socialists. Rostow became a Rhodes scholar (1936-38) at , after graduating from . He completed his PhD at Yale and taught economics at Columbia University. He also taught at , and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1958 Rostow became a speech writer for President .
Rostow published his influential book, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto In 1960. was impressed by this book and so he appointed Rostow as one of his political advisers. Other books by Rostow include Politics and the Stages of Growth (1971), Rich Countries and Poor Countries (1987), Theories of economic Growth (1990). When Kennedy became president in 1961 he appointed Rostow as deputy to his national security assistant, McGeorge Bundy. Later that year he became chairman of the state department's policy planning council.
After the assassination of Kennedy he worked for President . This included writing Johnson's first state of the union speech. As national security adviser Rostow was also the main figure in developing the government's policy in . Rostow was convinced the war could be won and his failed policy played an important role in bringing Johnson's presidency to an end. Rostow left office when became president and over the next thirty years taught economics at the University of Texas. Walt Rostow died on 13th February,2003.
Rostow’s stages of development
In the text, “The stages of economic growth : a non-communist manifesto”, five main stages of sociological growth is outlined by Rostow, in an effort to define firstly where the constituent parts of the world stand in this scheme, and then how best for the South to move from developing to to a developed region.
The traditional society is the first of these stages , which can be said to encompass all societies prior to the 17th century, which possess little of the structural characteristics that can be seen today. The next stage Rostow terms the preconditions for take-off, which is best illustrated with respect to the third stage, the take-off itself. The take-off is the period whereby a society begins to grow at a steady rate, both in quantity and quality. Essentially, the political, social, and manufacturing sectors are reformed to allow growth within all aspects of the country, and the society can be said to be emerging as a modern, typically capitalist, civilization. The preconditions for this are various, but can be categorized as a general change in direction through all walks of society, toward the transition from a traditional to modern society. The final two stages are natural extensions from the take-off: the drive to maturity is the expansion of the newly developed ideas and technology into other divisions of society, and the age of high mass consumption, the final stage whereby the progress made previously has been fully filtered throughout the economy and culture, and is essentially the state of a country whereby little or no growth is longer necessary to maintain itself.
Simply put, modernisation theory is the 'fundamental proposition that people in traditional societies should adopt the characteristics of modern societies in order to modernize their social, political and economic institutions.
Criticisms of modernisation theory
In looking at development under modernisation theory, it is suggested that the North consists of modern societies, and the South of traditional societies. Taking into consideration that this theory does not come from the countries that are of the developing world but of those of the already developed world we would then have to assume that the developing countries have such desire, if any to become developed like these modern societies.
Developing countries, particularly those in the Caribbean and the southern world can not be classified as one big homogenous group, which is what modernisation theory tries to do. They are not all on the same level of development, and though some may share some aspects of the their historical background they all have different historical experiences.
In analysing the assets of modernisation theory, it should be understood that this school of thought emerged in the early years of the 1950s, and began to disappear in the 1970s when belief in it started to wane. In light of this, it could be presupposed that the weaknesses outnumber the strengths; otherwise the theories would still be relevant today.
The strenghts and weaknesses of modernisation theory
The simplicity of the model is the main quality of modernisation theory. The objective is already visible in the image of the West, and the path to follow is laid out by the history of Western evolution. All that remains is for the traditional society to recognise what is needed, from examination of other 'take-offs' to modernity, in order for their own culture to evolve. The modern societies can help the traditional or developing societies to become developed having already achieved their goal. This would be achieved by reference to their own history. Therefore, modernisation can be view as a case of mimicking, thus believing what works for the developed nations should work for us. The same concept was already covered in the term 'Westernisation' (effectively referring to the mimicking of the West), but the word 'modernisation' has far less geocentric connotations, and as a result gains much more affection from developing societies who are keen to retain some sense of their own history. (Bilig,2000)
As a theoretical model, Rostow's perspective on modernisation is useful in that it is, whether purposefully or not, very indiscriminate and simplistic: it requires little remoulding to adapt from one culture to the other, because there is no real substance to modify. The basis of the theory is that the ultimate goal already exists and can be examined readily, and that this is what the developing country should strive for. Rostow makes no attempt to isolate individual cases and discover different ways to adapt the theory to them, because this is not the purpose of the study - his theory, if not others, supplies the structure and ground rules, rather than the solution.
However, the strengths of modernisation theory also lead to its weaknesses. The straightforward approach of advancing a society by way of itself evolving internally is, though easy to grasp and as such has strong exterior appeal, far too basic to incorporate into the world system we see today. The very fact that there are modernised societies to 'look up' too entails that a communication and possible co-operation between North and South already exists, and that there are therefore links and ties already in place - not necessarily to the extent that dependency theorists would go, arguing that the South cannot grow without the severing of the North's stranglehold, but nonetheless significant ties in the organisation of society - which mean that the target society cannot be solely regarded as an internal entity; there is little hope of avoiding international factors in today's global village. This unavoidable factor seems to interfere with Rostow's hypothesis, since he pays no attention to the possible of external factors, as though the evolution of a society is a job which can be performed 'on the side', whereby a society can continue international relations without it interfering with the development of the country. Given Rostow's adamant view that Southern societies should follow the path of North exactly, it seems fanciful that there be a way of successfully realising this, short of stopping time and applying the necessary changes. To resolve this, some thinkers have developed the theory of diffusionism, which bears many of the same characteristics of modernisation, but accepts the diffusion of ideas, product, and workforce between both modernised and traditional societies during the take-off period. A culture can be changed sub-consciously and indeed overnight, in ways that may not be intended or in accordance with the planned evolution. Modernisation may be revolutionary, in that it replaces the traditional with the modern, but it must also be considered that revolutions can take some time - they are not an instantaneous event.
Indeed, the established time period for the duration of the take-off period of already modernised countries is roughly 20 years. While the developing country struggles to update its social, political, and economic structures to that seen at the beginning of the take-off, it is extremely likely that the modernised country will continue to grow at the same, or possibly faster, rate that the developing country is, and will find it difficult to catch up. Though global evolutionary equality is not a particular goal of modernisation theory, it is surely one of the aims of development as a whole, and something that is worth pursuing. If the 'closing of the gap' cannot be easily achieved by the performance of an established theory, such as seems to be the case with modernisation, then it is clearly not a comprehensive cure for the problem of development. (Foster-Carter,
1985)
Since modernisation theory is typically a Western phenomenon, its roots obviously must lie around capitalist society - the developing world is to be a mirror image of the civilised, which generally embraces capitalism. It is automatically assumed by thinkers like Rostow that this is the correct way for an underdeveloped society to develop, without considering the implications or alternatives. The most well known reaction to theories of modernisation is that of its antithesis, the theory of dependency. Dependency theory takes a far more global viewpoint, and postulates that the difficulties in development are not due solely to the internal workings of the country or region in question, but are more to do with the global structures imposed by the North onto the South. This is best illustrated by Andre Gunder Frank's conceptualisation of international relations as a chain of 'metropolis-satellite' relationships. Frank (of the socialist tradition) suggests that there is an unseen hierarchical structure to world relations: the chain begins with the first metropolis (usually attributed to the USA) that has no satellites. (Spybey,
1992)
That is it has no strong dependencies on any other region - and continues downwards; the next layer are still strong metropolises, but still require the USA or other well-developed Western societies in some way; until much further down we reach the ultimate satellite, which is dependent on everything above it for existence. Frank argues that these dependence links are both the key and the problem when an inability to develop arises. The sanctions imposed, often consciously, by the metropolises to which the satellite is dependent, strip the freedom of the satellite society to evolve and grow, because all of their output is effectively consumed by the upper society. This theory is actually visible in reality, with the situation revolving around aid to the Third World, where the interest rates and terms are so harshly imposed that the recipient country will always be at the mercy of the donor. Frank feels that it is the dismantling of these dependency relations that is the solution to the problem of development: notably, though, this is a very socialist perspective, since the release of such restrictions allows for much freer and potentially diverse global system, one which does not fit well with traditional capitalist characteristics. The connection this has with modernisation theory is simple: both have equal merits, even though they are completely opposed in attributes, but the question of which is most suitable is dependent on the belief of the observer - those brought up and embroiled in a capitalist society, and who believe in the benefits of capitalism, may be more likely to prefer modernisation theory. On the other hand, a neo-Marxist will almost certainly stick with theories of dependency. Clearly it is only the completely impartial spectator that can truly judge the pros and cons of both concepts.
Finally, it is worth noting that modernisation theory has not produced anything truly visible for Carribean countries in particular to follow as yet. This is not because there has been no development, there has been evolution related to this field of thought - but rather because the theory is so indistinct and vague: it does not paint a very precise picture of what should be happening, and more particularly, how it should be occurring. As a motivational aid, theory is an excellent boost to the drive of a developing society, but it is not the solution to the development in the Caribbean.
Bibliography
Aidan Foster-Carter, The Sociology Of Development, Causeway Press, 1985
John J Macionis & Ken Plumber, Sociology: A Global Introduction, Jason Alvey 2002, 2nd ed, Sociology
Spybey, Social Change, Development & Dependency, Blackwell, 1992
S.C.Dube, Modernization and development: The Search for Alternative Paradigms, Zed Books, 1988
Ankie M. M. Hoogvelt, The Sociology of Developing Societies, MacMillan,1978
David Harrison, The Sociology of Modernization & Development, Routledge, 1998
