Talcott Parsons and W. W. Rostow: Foundations of Modernization Theory
Talcott Parsons and Structural Functionalism
Parsons: The 1940s and 1950s marked the heyday of structural functionalism theory. Its theoretical basis legitimized U.S. global power and ideas, suggesting that optimal social change involved adherence to existing rules and guidelines. This approach, which contributes to the preservation and survival of the system, helped consolidate U.S. world hegemony.
Parsons proposed a functional theory of social change in social systems, following the organic analogy, designing what he called a paradigm of evolutionary change. To construct his great social theory, he relied on the contributions of Durkheim, Weber, and Pareto. Little attention was paid to Marx; as a result, Marxist theory continued to be excluded from the dominant sociological analysis.
Ritz: A system is a structure that is stable parts or properties. His focus, on the other hand, resembled the growth of an organism. Drawing on the concept of dynamic density proposed by Durkheim, Parsons argued that change happens as the population grows within a social system. Parsons assumed that every society is composed of a number of subsystems, which differ in terms of their structure and their functional significance for the rest of society. As society evolves, new subsystems emerge. These subsystems should be more adaptable than the former, suggesting that societal evolution increases its ability to solve problems.
W. W. Rostow and the Stages of Economic Growth
Rostow: W. W. Rostow’s most genuine representation of the bipolar environment and the process of Western modernization was expressed in the central work of this American author, whose title is quite significant: “The Stages of Economic Growth: A Communist Manifesto.”
He defined all pre-capitalist societies as traditional. Modernization, driven by technology, was seen as the mechanism for the convergence of ‘backward’ countries with developed ones. The nature of the technologies of industrial societies strengthens specific forms of social, political, and cultural patterns, behaviors, and even everyday beliefs and attitudes. It is assumed that technology has its own logic of operation, driven by the sequence of discoveries and innovations. The prevalence of modern technology would cause the “syndrome of modernity,” where societies tend toward standardization, eliminating local differences.
Rostow’s Five Stages and Developmental Ideology
Rostow’s vision of development is identified primarily with economic growth, without which modernization cannot occur. The problem of development thus centered on an ideal model of economic activities, social structures, and related policies that would occur in countries where conditions were ideal for “take-off.”
Rostow distinguishes 5 stages on the road to economic maturity that would lead to development. Rostow sought to show that the onset of development did not depend on a revolutionary state, as had happened in the USSR, but rather on a set of economic measures taken by any nation-state willing to assume the developmentalist ideology.
Rostow’s scheme was taken as a universal model of modernization and development by Western technocrats. Within this scenario, this approach only came under discussion by some Marxist authors and, specifically regarding the Latin American case, by dependency theorists.