Kutuyev P. Concepts of Societal Development and Modernization: Historical-Sociological Analysis of the Research Programs.

The dissertation undertook an extensive examination of the historical dynamics of the research programs of societal development and modernization in sociology. The dissertation redefines the concepts of modernization and development, as well as introduces the notion of the formation of modernity. The dissertation tackles the issue of the predominance of conflicting theorizing over synthetic theory, and seeks to defend the idea of a synthetic sociological theory of modernization and development. Development is defined as a society's drive to upgrade its technological infrastructure and its economic, political, and state institutions in an attempt to tackle issues of equity, efficiency, and participation. Development is instigated by the developmental state and is usually a response to external challenges. Thus, development is a transformation by imitation and emulation. It is also a process of reshaping local cultural patterns coupled with the adjustment of policy to the existing sociocultural environment. Modernization is the process of coming into being of the modern society, launched by endogenous values promoting an activist attitude toward the world. Development takes place at the level of the change of structures - economic and political - thus leading to the transformation of the social composition of the society. The evolution of sociological concepts of societal development and modernization is structured as a sequence and interaction of research programs. It is argued that the sociological discourse on societal development and modernization came into existence in the US, which emerged as global hegemon in the aftermath of the World War II. Having synthesized the ideas of classical sociological theory, Talcott Parsons developed a general frame of reference which provided students of the emergent Third World with background assumptions and analytical tool boxes. The research program of modernization has gone through two developmental stages - optimistic and pessimistic ones. While the scholars affiliated with the former hoped for the smooth reproduction of Western institutional and cultural patterns in the settings of the Third World countries, the latter came up with a bleaker picture of the social world. The paradigm example of the pessimistic stage is S.P.Huntington's emphasis on political order as stability. The dissertation defines the relationship between academic discourse and ideology in the thinking of A.G.Frank - the founder of the research program of dependency and development of underdevelopment. For Frank the underdevelopment of the Third World is a product of the development of the world capitalist system dominated by the West. Frank's concept of dependency is reformulated and a cultural dimension - along with a structural economic one - is incorporated. It is argued that the research program of world-systems analysis draws on the world-systemic insight of the Marxist tradition. It is demonstrated that the ideological bias of world-systems analysis results in a distorted, one-sided conceptual picture of social reality. The world-systems analysis treatment of the origins of the modern historical / capitalist system is evaluated and juxtaposed with a Weberian account of the rise of rational capitalism. The dissertation defines the Leninist regime as an organizational weapon which developed the system of impersonal norms based on the notion of impersonal charisma. Leninist regimes go through the following developmental stages: transformation, consolidation, and integration. The last stage led to the revival of neotraditionalist social practices in societies ruled by Leninist regimes, resulting in their ultimate demise and extinction. It is argued that the developmental state paradigm draws upon the structuralist interpretation of Max Weber. The ideas of the developmental state research program are contrasted with the hegemonic wisdom of neoliberalism. The state can and does play a critical role in instigation, promotion, and maintenance of societal development. The features of a successful developmental state are as follows: coherence, autonomy vis-a-vis vested interests, and social embeddedness. The chief research finding is that the dynamic of sociological knowledge is more adequately modeled as gradual and cumulative evolution of the research programs which interpenetrate each other. Thus it is imperative to replace the conflicting mode of theorizing with a synthetic one. This type of theorizing transcends disagreements while incorporating relevant findings of competing research programs.