Modernization (sociology)

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Modernization describes and explains the sociology of the social change as a transition from a traditional form of society or culture towards more modern forms, such as the industrial society to democratization , urbanization , social differentiation , individualization , bureaucratization and globalization . There is no consensus in the social sciences as to which of these indicators are crucial for modernization and how they relate to one another. The sociologist Dieter Goetze describes modernization purely formally as "permanent position and acceleration of change" (2004).

Modernization of the sociological classics

The classics of sociology of the 19th and early 20th centuries did not use the term modernization. Nevertheless, they described and problematized the historical experience of an epochal change in different terms.

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) formulated a three-stage law , according to which the human spirit progresses from a theological or fictional stage through a metaphysical or abstract stage to the positive or scientific stage, which represents its optimal development.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) saw in his historical materialism to progress less in the spiritual as in the technical and spatial development of capitalism , the industry and with an increasing division of society into two classes of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat goes hand in hand. This will lead to a revolution , which will lead to the abolition of all class antagonisms and for the first time in human history will allow a truly all-round development of personality and peaceful coexistence of all people without exploitation and oppression.

Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936), on the other hand, saw in his work Community and Society , published in 1887, the characteristic of the new age in the change from community to society : In premodern societies, primitive and organic social relationships such as the family would have prevailed, people would have a sense of community , Tradition and belief affirm one another. These values ​​would then be increasingly replaced by scientification and commercialization . Now artificial social forms such as companies or associations would dominate, which would be concluded on the basis of contracts .

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) saw in his book On Social Differentiation , published in 1890, an increased individualization as a central consequence of modernization: It results from the increasing structural differentiation of a society and the independence of its functions, tasks and activities. Traditional ties would be eroded, new ties created by bureaucratic organizations that increasingly intervened in the lives of individuals would not remain intense.

Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) saw in his work De la division du travail social , published in 1893, the division of labor as a decisive factor. It leads to the fact that the “mechanical solidarity” of the premodern people, who live in a close, unquestioned connection with their collective and its norms, would be replaced by an “organic solidarity”, which is no longer through the same living conditions, but through the functional Dependence on each other is justified. However, this form of solidarity is much less pronounced, which is why Durkheim saw a "hyper-individualization" emerging up to a social anomie , which is already becoming apparent in an increased suicide rate .

Max Weber (1864–1920), on the other hand, saw modernization primarily as a process of rationalization at work. The reason replace increasingly other justification ways such as tradition or authority, myth and magic would pushed back, the world might be manageable intended as cognitively and thus disenchanted . At the same time, people are becoming more dependent on “that powerful cosmos of the modern economic order, which is bound to the technical and economic requirements of mechanical-machine production [...], which today defines the lifestyle of all individuals who are born into this engine - not just the direct one economically employed - determined with overwhelming compulsion and perhaps will determine until the last hundredweight of fossil fuel has burned up. "

As different as the approaches of the sociological classics are, they all have in common that they understand modernization as a process with only one sense of direction, which is practically irreversible and with an almost natural legal necessity. The development that Europe took with the industrial and French revolutions is absolutized as a yardstick that is decisive for all other parts of the world. The modernization there has to follow the European model, or it is not a modernization. In this respect, these theses are criticized as being unilinear and ethnocentric . Some of the classics mentioned assign one of the factors mentioned dominance over the others or their causation, as, for example, Marx does in his understanding of base and superstructure . In this respect, these theses are also criticized as monocausal .

Development of the term after 1945

Sociology of Developing Countries

Since decolonization , i.e. from around 1960, the term modernization was initially important to explain the development lag in the so-called Third World . Until the end of the 1970s it was hardly used to describe the industrial societies of the West. The dictionary of sociology in its 1969 edition did not yet have a lemma “modernization”.

Following on from Daniel Lerner (1917–1980), who coined the new use of the term, the attempt was made to use the term modernization to replace previously used terms such as development (with a negative sign: underdevelopment, backwardness) or “progress” with a value-neutral expression. Modernization theories have a double function more than other social science fields: on the one hand, they should provide scientific explanations for (under-) development and, on the other hand, they should develop strategies for overcoming them. The spread of these modernization theoretical approaches in science happened against the background of the Second World War as a reaction to the East-West conflict and the release of former colonies into independence. In terms of development policy , the term was sometimes used with a teleological exaggeration, especially when reference was made to historical models: The United Kingdom was used as a model for the decades around 1800 and the USA for the 20th century ( Americanization or Westernization ). Such a focus on a particular historical model is often linked to a theory of convergence . The problem is, on the one hand, the thesis of the unilinear parallel development of industrialization (or economic growth ) and democratization (or the participation of citizens in political power ), as well as ethnocentrism , which lies in the alleged model character of western industrial countries. According to this notion, the developing countries would have to follow the example of Western societies, whose structural superiority is assumed.

Description of social change in the industrialized countries

Since the 1970s, the term modernization has also been used increasingly to describe social change in the first world . The sociologists understood the modernization of Europe initially as a uniform process that was characterized by various indicators and sub-processes: Peter Flora (* 1944) named population development, urbanization , overcoming illiteracy , general compulsory education , economic growth , social security , bureaucratic organizations , technical forms of communication and high Communication frequency, political participation of citizens, democratic form of government, party and association structures and cultural orientation patterns. The social historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler (* 1931) listed six sub-processes:

  1. Economic growth as the cumulative continuous movement of industrial expansion.
  2. Structural differentiation through division of labor, formation of a supra-individual state organization , outsourcing of private and intimate spheres from public life .
  3. Change in values ​​towards universalistic, functionally specified value patterns that are conveyed in socialization processes.
  4. Spatial and social mobility .
  5. Increasing participation to legitimize preference decisions.
  6. Institutionalization of conflicts that would be legalized, contained and thus less violent through certain procedures.

These six sub-processes would be mutually dependent, i.e. they would all run more or less simultaneously. This modernization model is accordingly dichotomous and optimistic: It describes an inevitable, irreversible, systemic development from the tradition to be overcome into the welcomed modernity.

Habermas' theory of communicative action

In his theory of communicative action presented in 1981, the social philosopher Jürgen Habermas (* 1929) understood modernization as the “decoupling of system and lifeworld ”, whereby this was “colonized” by the former. In the traditional societies of Europe, the living environment determined the communicative actions of people, i.e. the environment that can be experienced directly, which is characterized by personal relationships and unquestioned values ​​and norms. With the increasing rationalization of society, however, the “system” becomes more and more important, namely the bureaucratic apparatus, the state and the economy. Here, the individual and his specific social environment are no longer viewed personally, but a schematic approach based on tried and tested procedures. This is accompanied by a legalization of social relationships. The determining factor is no longer tradition and value rationality, but only purposeful rationality. The individual is pushed into the role of a client of welfare measures by the state or a consumer of goods and services.

Luhmann's system theory

For Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) the rationalization of society was not so much in the foreground in his systems theory , but its increasing differentiation . In his work, Social Systems , presented in 1984, he defined modernization as the “ functional differentiation of social subsystems”: Traditional societies are hierarchically structured and segmented differentiated, that is, there are simple, small, spatially separated, identically structured societies with face-to-face -Communication ( tribes , villages , etc.) whose members all have similar social roles . There is a stable classification and subordination of the social parts in the whole, the control of the social processes takes place centrally. Therefore, such societies are also comparatively static. Modern societies, on the other hand, are functionally structured: They are developing more and more social subsystems that are quasi autonomous and function according to a different logic: According to Luhmann, the political system is divided internally into the subsystems of party politics , administration and the public . There is no longer a central control instance, which explains the great dynamism of modern societies.

Transfer to historical studies

After the reorientation of historical studies away from historicism and towards a historical social science in the 1960s and 1970s, which was perceived as a “crisis” , historians tried to make the sociological term fruitful for their discipline. In Germany, the Bielefeld School was in charge. The social historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1931–2014) gave impetus to the discussion by publishing the volume Modernization Theory and History in 1975 . He also used the concept of modernization as a basis for his monumental German social history in order to gain directional criteria for the historical development described: Following Max Weber, he saw the evolutionary goal of the economy as the establishment of capitalism and industrial society; the social stratification amounts to the enforcement of market-conditioned classes that have achieved political agency; politically, modernization means the implementation of the bureaucratized institutional state; culturally it is about increasing rationalization, secularization and disenchantment of the world. The journal Geschichte und Gesellschaft , published in Bielefeld, testifies to these efforts .

Van der Loo and van Reijen: four dimensions, four paradoxes

The Dutch sociologists Hans van der Loo (* 1954) and Willem van Reijen (1938–2012) tried to modernize in their book . Project and paradox around a synthesis of the diverse approaches to the concept of modernization, which should be neither teleological nor ethnocentric nor one-sided. So they wanted to take greater account of the ambivalences of modernization. For them, modernization encompasses four typical sub-processes:

  • the domestication of inner and outer nature: Modern societies are characterized by permanently occurring technosocial innovations with which new natural resources are tapped, the use of known ones improved and human work potentials better and better exploited through qualification , specialization and discipline .
  • the differentiation of social structure: modern societies are characterized by an increasing division of labor, both between people within a society and internationally between societies. This division of labor finds its most striking expression in the market , to which social production and reproduction are increasingly being left.
  • the rationalization of culture: modern societies are characterized by a primacy of reason. Individuals calculated their actions and its consequences rationally, normative claims were no longer justified by authority and tradition, but by reasonable arguments, which could be critically questioned again and again, for the description and interpretation of the world is no longer religion but science responsible.
  • the individualization of the person : modern societies are characterized by the fact that the individual detaches himself from local and family relationships in the immediate social environment and thereby receives new room for maneuver. This increases his mobility - both socially through careers that were not available to the previous generation, and geographically (e.g. through labor migration ), but at the same time the risk of failure increases.

These four sub-processes would interpenetrate and condition each other, so that none of them can be regarded as the individual cause of the rest. There is a paradox inherent in every sub-process :

  • In addition to its liberating and life-making aspects, the domestication of nature also entails the need to coordinate one's actions with those of others, and requires a great deal of self-discipline and social discipline .
  • The differentiation of society means, on the one hand, a reduction in scale, insofar as one exchanges ideas in ever smaller, ever more specialized communities; at the same time, however, an increase in scale, since this exchange can be carried out worldwide ( global village ). In addition, more and more tasks that were previously the responsibility of the nation state are being given to supranational or global organizations.
  • On the one hand, rationalization leads to a pluralization of forms of life, since individuals no longer unquestionably follow the values ​​and norms of tradition and major institutions such as church and state. On the other hand, there is a generalization of these very values, which are now formulated in such a way that they can also be followed from others or without traditions; This goes hand in hand with a blurring of these values, which, like human rights , seem sublime, but hardly guide action in everyday life.
  • The individualization brings with it a liberation from directly acting constraints, at the same time the individual becomes dependent on new, bureaucratic collectives in an abstract and not immediately transparent way.

Nina Degele (* 1963) further developed this model, which emphasizes the diversity and ambivalences of modernization processes, and expanded it to include the aspects of acceleration and globalization.

Beck's reflexive modernization

Ulrich Beck (1944–2015) proposed a new version of the concept of modernization in an article published in 1996: According to this, the radicalization of its principles, in particular individualization and globalization, have the foundations of classical or, as Beck calls them, "simple modernization" undermined and thus opened up ways into other moderns or counter-moderns. Industrial society, nation-state, national economy, class, class, gender role , nuclear family are fundamentally called into question. It now follows the “reflexive modernization” or “second modernity”, which has to deal with the side effects that the first or simple modernization left behind in its deliberate pursuit of progress, such as environmental pollution , the change in family life through the increasing emancipation of the Woman , relocation of jobs abroad, the undesirable consequences of welfare state benefits, etc. This reflexive modernization differs from the first mainly in that it is more open, more risky and more contradicting: progress is not something that will be achieved at some point, rather modern, pre-modern and counter-modern phenomena would coexist.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dieter Goetze: Modernization. In: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexicon of Politics. Volume 4: The Eastern and Southern Countries. Directmedia, Berlin 2004, p. 380.
  2. ↑ Hans van der Loo, Willem van Reijen : Modernization. Project and paradox. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1997, p. 14.
  3. ↑ Max Weber: Ascetic Protestantism and Capitalist Spirit . In: Same: Sociology. Universal historical analyzes. Politics . Alfred Kröner, Stuttgart 1973, p. 379.
  4. ↑ Hans van der Loo, Willem van Reijen: Modernization. Project and paradox . Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1997, p. 18 ff.
  5. ↑ Hans van der Loo, Willem van Reijen: Modernization. Project and paradox . Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1997, p. 25 f.
  6. ^ Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht : Modern, Modernity, Modern. In: Otto Brunner , Werner Conze , Reinhart Koselleck (eds.): Basic historical concepts. Historical lexicon on political and social language in Germany . Vol. 8, Klett, Stuttgart 1978, p. 129.
  7. ^ Wilhelm Bernsdorf : Dictionary of Sociology. 2nd edition, F. Enke, Stuttgart 1969.
  8. ^ Daniel Lerner: The Passing of Traditional Society. Modernizing the Middle East. Macmillan, London 1958.
  9. ↑ Peter Heintz: Sociology of the developing countries. Cologne / Berlin 1962.
  10. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : Modernization Theory and History. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1975, p. 11; Dieter Goetze: Modernization. In: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexicon of Politics , Vol. 4: The Eastern and Southern Countries . Directmedia, Berlin 2004, p. 380.
  11. ↑ Peter Flora: Quantitative Historical Sociology. In: Current Sociology. Vol. 12, 1976, Issue 1. Peter Flora: Indicators of Modernization: A Historical Data Handbook . West German publishing house, Opladen 1975.
  12. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Modernization Theory and History . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1975, p. 11 f.
  13. ↑ Jürgen Habermas: Theory of communicative action. Volume 2: On the Critique of Functionalist Reason. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1981, pp. 229-293.
  14. ↑ Hans van der Loo, Willem van Reijen: Modernization. Project and paradox. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1992, p. 159 ff.
  15. ↑ Niklas Luhmann: Social Systems. Outline of a general theory. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984.
  16. ↑ Axel Schildt : Modernization. In: Docupedia . Accessed July 23, 2012.
  17. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Modernization Theory and History. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1975.
  18. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: German history of society. Vol. 1: From Feudalism of the Old Empire to the Defensive Modernization of the Reform Era 1700–1815. Beck, Munich 1987, p. 14.
  19. ↑ Hans van der Loo, Willem van Reijen: Modernization. Project and paradox. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1992.
  20. ^ Dieter Goetze: Modernization . In: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexicon of Politics , Vol. 4: The Eastern and Southern Countries . Directmedia, Berlin 2004, p. 382.
  21. ^ Nina Degele , Christian Dries: Modernization Theory. Fink, Munich 2005.
  22. ↑ Ulrich Beck: The age of side effects and the politicization of modernity . In: ders., Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash: Reflexive Modernization. A controversy . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1996, pp. 19-112.
  23. ^ Karl-Heinz Hillmann : Dictionary of Sociology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 410). 5th, completely revised and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-520-41005-4 , p. 739.