INTRODUCTION:
Sociology of development deploys
relevant theories to explain the direction of societal change and
development. Some of these theories are
historical and radical, others are a historical and conservative in their
exposition and explanation of societal development. Each of the theories however, provides
veritable tools for understanding global inequality in wealth and a leeway to
rapid and sustainable growth and development.
(i)
Evolutionism,
Functionalism and Modernization
The European school of modernization is
a product of three (3) historical events in the post world war II. These events include:
a. The
rise of America as a global super power;
b. The
spread of communism from Russia, Korea and China to the new nations or newly
independent nations of the third world; and
c. The
disintegration of the European colonial Empires i.e. the British, French,
German, Roman and Portuguese Empires in Africa, Asia, and South America.
This
collapse ushered in anti-colonial nationalism and independence in the former
colonial satellite states. Subsequently,
the new nations were in desperate search for development models for their
economy in order to secure their political independence and safeguard their
economic freedom. Consequently, America
showed interest and encouraged their bourgeois elites to support research efforts of their young social
scientists. The objective of this was to
entrench a neocolonial structure under their full control and halt the spread
of communism to new nations. Thus with generous donations and funding from
the US government and private individual, elites, young sociologist,
demographers, political scientists and economists published thesis and
dissertations on the hitherto unresearched third world. The dissertations became the centre piece for
national development plans/programmes for nearly all the new nations of Asia,
Africa and Latin America (SO, 1990).
(ii)
The
Theoretical and Intellectual Heritage of Modernization
At inception, modernization was in
search of a theory. And to acquire the
status of a theory, modernization had to adopt evolutionary and functionalist
theories, to provide key to understanding the processes of modernization in the
less developed society (LDS).
It is argued that since modernization
has helped to provide explanation for the transition of western and American
societies from traditional and backward feudal societies to technologically
advanced modern societies, modernization will equally shade more light on the
transition of the third world from traditional to modern societies.
However, modernization is shaped by
both functionalism and evolutionism. For
example, all the prominent members of the modernist school were trained in
functionalist school. Prominent
modernists such as Mario Levy, Daniel, Leaner David McClelland, Neil Smelser,
Gabriel Almond, Samuel Eisentadt, Walter W. Rowstow, James Coleman, Talcott
Parsons etc. were trained in the functionalist school and so their
modernization study could not resist being stamped with the trade mark of
functionalism.
(iii)
Evolutionary
Theory of Change
The evolutionary theory has its
epistemological origin in the biological science. Within the biological science, evolutionary
theory provides explanation for the development of organism from a single
simple cell to many complex cells. The
process of this growth and development is adopted by sociologists and applied
to human society as its object of study.
Thus the evolutionary theory of change was born in the last century, in
the aftermath of the bourgeois industrial revolution and the French revolution
(So, 1990). Both revolutions for example
did not only shatter, batter and destroy the existing social order but also lay
a foundation for a new social order.
Evolutionary theory thus begins with the premise that the transition
from traditional society to modern society is achieved through a gradual
process.
The change process is piecemeal; it is
also unilinear. Change according to evolutionary theory has a pattern, which
every society follows to attain the status of social progress or development. Prominent members of evolutionary theory
include Charles Darwin, Lewis Morgan, Herbert Spencer, Ferdinand Tonnies,
Sahlin and Service etc.
Each of these evolutionaries has
provided an insight into the process of change.
They argued that just like organism developed from a single simple cell
to a complex posture or object called organism, society has equally changed
from a simple form to a complex form.
Society has also transited from traditional to modern. For example, Morgan (1968) provided key to
understanding the evolution of human society from primitive Savagery to
Barbarism and to civilization. Each of these stages has its unique features
commensurate with its structure and formation.
Tonnies (1978) also discussed the progressive movement of society from
Rural-Folk Society to Urban-Modern Society and qualified these with the
concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. The transition of society from the
hunting and gathering band to chiefdom and finally to state, where the
instruments of brute force such as the police, the army, judiciary etc are put
in place to protect the interest of capital and ruling elites as articulated by
Sahlin and Service (1978).
PROPONENT
PROCESS OF TRANSITION
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From
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To
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Darwin
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Single cell or simple form (simple as
applied to society)
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Complex cell or complex (as applied
to society)
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H. Spencer
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Simple Society
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Complex Society
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Sahlin & Service
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Hunting and gathering band
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Chiefdom and state
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L.Morgan
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Primitive savagery
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Barbarism, civilization
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F. Tonnies
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Gemeinschaft
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Gesellschaft
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REFERENCE:
Otaki, O. (2006) Sociology of
Development: Kaduna, Nigeria.
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