The Sociology of Development

The Sociology of Development

Development can be viewed as “organized social change” (McMichael 2000). Social change has long been a topic for social theorists and sociological studies. But viewing it as influenced by the intentionality of external actors is relatively recent and refers primarily to the economic performance of the global South1 (Elliott 1994:10).

The development era and the modernization project began in the 1940s as the United States became the undisputed military and economic power in the capitalist world and the Soviet Union emerged as its chief military and economic rival. Through the establishment of multilateral institutions at the end of World War II, in which the United States held primacy, and through the development of bilateral aid institutions and economic, political, and military relationships, the United States sought to improve conditions, first in Europe and then in the global South, and to tie nations in Asia Minor, the Middle East, and the South in general to the capitalist camp. The Soviet Union, through close integration with its client states in Eastern Europe and military, economic, and political ties to selected countries in the South, competed with the United States for influence. While one system was capitalist with varying degrees of market economies and the other state socialist with command economies, both pursued modernization projects. Ultimately, the promise of modernization was what each superpower dangled before nations of the global South. This chapter is about the modernization project of the surviving capitalist system. Whether the United States–led modernization project itself succeeded is the question addressed. We seek to answer this question through the lens of the sociology (and economics) of development.

There are few areas of sociology where theory is so closely linked to changes in the global landscape than in the sociology of development, which takes as given that the causes of underdevelopment are linked to its “cure.” Development theories have been used to justify a set of policies consistent with the modernization project that support capital accumulation. That use has impelled other sociologists, practitioners, and activists to provide countertheories with different causal models of how to, first, get to the modernization goal, then expand that goal, and ultimately reject it. The study of the organization of development efforts, the degree to which development can be intentional, the very definitions of development, whether it is unidimensional or multidimensional, and the actors involved (global, national, regional, local) make the sociology of development a highly contested and potentially influential realm of sociology.

To understand this contextual and contrapuntal relationship between competing development theories, we will look at different stages and turning points in the world economy and political situation in relation to the global North's dominant assistance paradigms in relation to industrial and agrarian developments and characterize the South's responses to them. Thus, we will address each time period by looking at the global context, the particular modernization project applied in that context (both industrial and agricultural manifestations), the response of the South, [Page I-497]and the alternative development theories used to respond to the modernization project. We will sum up with an assessment regarding future directions of the sociology of development.

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