The Disparate Third World

...Paperback $3.95 POLITICAL MODERNIZATION Edited by Claude Welch Jr...

...Particularly relevant is the relationship between "modernization" and "Westernization...

...All too frequently, a narcissistic smugness about the "modernized" nature of the Western world leads them astray...

...126 pp...

...It is even difficult to determine which countries should make up this Third World...

...Extremely pertinent to the Third World, too, is the issue of the nation-state as the basic unit of political organization...

...The small number of highly educated, technically proficient personnel available in the new nations are needed by their governments and cannot be spared to form nonpar-ticipating competing groups...

...At the same time, the authors are careful not to neglect the important matter of one-party politics...

...Roderick MacFarquhar's treatise on the significance of the Chinese model for the Third World (stressing the stability and cohesiveness of the Chinese leadership) was originally published in 1963...

...Wadsworlh...

...Surveying the issue in terms of domestic policy, they see little relationship between espoused ideological commitments and government practices...

...His book, a concise introduction to Third World foreign relations, is more concerned with advancing concepts and destroying stereotypes than with providing just another historical summary...

...Samuel Huntington contributes a useful distinction between modernization and political development...

...Still, a one-party system need not automatically preclude political competition...

...and provide the necessary organization and discipline during the crises of the early post-colonial years...

...it has since been outdistanced by the Cultural Revolution...

...Most countries have accepted this unit, despite its artificiality, because neither federation nor subdivision have proved viable alternatives...

...political development is related to "the mobilization of people into politics" and can be reversed...

...Anderson, von der Mehden and Young critically analyze the concept, carefully delineating other vital levels of an individual's loyalty (region, religion, caste, race, linguistic group) and distinguishing the origins of various types of nation-states in the Third World...

...The list of its contributors reads like a Who's Who of political modernization (David Apter, Myron Weiner, Samuel Huntington, James Coleman, Carl Rosberg Jr., Lucian Pye, William Foltz, etc.,), yet the book is disappointing...

...One does not always know what its components are, or if they are measurable...

...Policies do differ, though, in regard to nationalization of industry, state control of light industry and state involvement in banking, commerce, planning and taxation...

...They also question the value of stability, noting that both Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia have experienced a long period of stability yet appear to be stagnating...

...In fact, given so many disparate political tendencies, prospects for economic development, and cultural amalgams, terms such as "underdeveloped," "developing" or "emerging" nations are at best overgeneraliza-tions and at worst distortions...

...Among the most illuminating essays are Huntington's "Political Development and Political Decay," Coleman and Rosberg's "African One-Party States and Modernization," and Pye's "Armies in the Process of Political Modernization...

...This had led many Western analysts to assume that it is the most desirable or effective form of political organization...

...Miller maintains that national interest predominates over any form of ideological cohesive-ness, and Anderson, von der Mehden and Young tend to concur...

...The current boundaries of states trying to forge themselves into nation-states bear little relevance to cultural, linguistic or ethnic patterns, but the concept appears to be a significant legacy of the colonial era...

...Thankfully, all of these books take a long first stride away from self-esteeming prophecy and toward realism and objectivity...

...Ideology is of fundamental importance in the Third World, where basic issues already decided upon in the West are first being broached...

...Another revealing perspective is presented by Malcolm Quint in his case study of Iraqi villagers...

...Another important issue open to question is the concept of "modernization...

...Paperback $4.50 THE POLITICS OF THE THIRD WORLD By J. D. B. Miller Oxford...

...The very notion of modernization may be considered a Western value judgment, since it presupposes the desirability of changes away from traditionalism...

...the views of Rousseau, Tolstoy and Gandhi provide an effective counterargument...

...Many Western analyses contain the built-in value judgment that the modernization of Europe provides the model for Asian, African and Latin American countries...

...This assumes, of course, that Western civilization should be the prototype for any progressive society, and that countries seeking to modernize want to follow the Western pattern...

...in Tanzania the electorate chooses between two candidates from the same party for each legislative seat...

...The plethora of theories regarding the modernization of the Third World suggests that Western students are still trying to understand the subject...

...Any catch-all label that embraces Latin American nations having a long history of independence and political domination by the descendents of the Spanish colonialists, Communist nations (North Vietnam and Cuba), technologically advanced states (Japan and South Africa), and a partly transplanted Western society (Israel), is surely debatable...

...it is possible to combine traditional institutions and values with the industrial process, as the Japanese have done...

...Its interdisciplinary approach is quite effective, and an impressive array of examples dispels any doubts about overabstraction...

...Specific case studies, on the other hand, are used in a most illuminating way, and the authors realistically affirm: "There is something rather deterministic, rather Hegelian, about the propositions of the science of development when it is used incautiously...

...This strengthens the feeling that the goals and aspirations of the Third World states should provide the basic framework for analysis, rather than the theories of academicians ingrained in Western culture...

...They almost invariably favor modernization, but envision it as something the government owes them to make up for their poverty and centuries of neglect...

...They make the often neglected point that modernization alters not only the individual's relation to the nation-state but his subnational loyalties...

...The former, being concerned with such elements as literacy, urbanization and capital investment, is "practically irreversible...

...The editor's introduction provides little original insight, some contributors write in obfuscating jargon, and several of the essays are out of date...

...3.75 Reviewed by ARTHUR JAY KLINGHOFFER Assistant Professor of Political Science, Fairleigh Dickinson University While the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have certain common internal and external problems, each possesses its own individual characteristics, and there really is no such thing as a monolithic "Third World...

...Other interesting points about modernization are discussed in the book edited by Claude Welch Jr...

...All three books avoid the now extraneous question of whether certain countries were "ready for independence...

...But, J.D.B...

...In his Introduction, he contends that modernization and traditionalism need not be considered mutually exclusive...

...The authors state that their objective "is to capture and convey the diversity and heterogeneity of the experience of the developing nations in confronting some of the problems that all of these nations have in common...

...Opposition parties, moreover, are considered a luxury that only countries rich in talent can afford...

...Thus the villagers do not work to bring about modernization themselves, they simply hope their government will do the job...

...have more in common with the traditional structure of authority...

...As Sekou Toure has noted, the right to independence is an absolute that does not require analysis...

...Each of the three authors is a specialist in one of the major areas of the Third World, and their combined study is immensely thought-provoking and significant...

...National needs are paramount, and only colonial, economic and racial issues evoke a common response...

...The study by Anderson, von der Mehden and Young is concerned with "issues" of political development, rather than "theories...

...Among these issues are cultural pluralism, political violence, revolution, and socialism...

...Patterns of modernization are avoided, not only because of the dangers of generalization, but because they are adequately covered elsewhere...

...These books also wisely sidestep the cliche-ridden subject of countries being "ready for democracy...

...Successfully dissecting many worn shibboleths and current cliches, they go on to ponder whether national integration is necessary for modernization, citing Canada and Belgium...

...are better able to unite diverse cultural, linguistic, ethnic or regional elements...

...Political Modernization is a collection of articles organized around basic themes...

...continue the authoritarian colonial political structures...

...They argue cogently that one-party systems have proliferated because they are extensions of the unified movement that achieved independence...

...A former Malian cabinet minister, explaining why Third World governments do not opt for a fully capitalist system, observed that you can't be a capitalist if you have no capital...

...Miller asserts that the Asian, African and Latin American countries have acquired greater diplomatic maneuverability as a result of the decline of a bipolar world...

...Issues of Political Development is an excellent study that scrupulously avoids ethnocentrism and a biased cultural perspective...

...Yet perhaps modernization should be measured by the goals individual nations set for themselves, instead of those enunciated by culturally biased Western theorists...

...He disagrees with the proposition that poverty breeds Communism, believing that war gives Communism its greatest impetus...

...Those who hold this position quite naturally stress industrial growth, literacy, per-capita income, political competitiveness, urbanization, the extent of mass communication, etc., etc...

...383 pp...

...Miller clearly shows that although certain interest blocs function in harmony, there has never been a unified "Third World" foreign policy...

...In comparing the avowedly socialist and non-socialist states of the Third World, they find almost no difference in state ownership of enterprises, state investments in economic projects, and state roles in transportation, utilities, communication, heavy industry or mineral exploitation...