The Rise and Fall of ‘Political Development’

Ríggs, Fred W.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-3878-9_6

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Changes in the worldview from the imperial centre, which moved from Lisbon in the sixteenth-century to Madrid in the seventeenth, Paris in the eighteenth, London in the nineteenth and (during the high point of capitalist imperialism) to Washington, D.C., after World War II, reveals trends in the organisation and production of knowledge. The US recognised the strategic importance of acquiring knowledge about territories coming out of decades of colonialism (Riggs 1981). Huntington, an influential contributor to modernisation theory, admitted this: ' After World War II scholarship followed the flag into the Cold War against the Soviet Union and then into the expansion of the American presence in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa' (Huntington in Greenstein and Polsby 1975, 1).…”

Section: South African Democratic Studies and The Influence Of Modernisation Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most researchers of politics considered politics derivative of the larger process of modernisation (Huntington 1987). Curiously, 'political development' referred to many different goals (Sartori 1976) and had as many definitions as scholars writing on the subject (Randall 1985;Greenstein 1975;Migdal 1983;Huntington 1987): democracy, stability, national integration, and governmental effectiveness, legitimacy, participation, mobilisation, institutionalisation, equality, capability, differentiation, identity, penetration, distribution, integration, rationalisation, bureaucratisation, security, welfare, justice and liberty (Riggs 1981). Geographically, the term applied to the 'lesser-developed countries' of Asia, Latin America and Africa.…”

Section: The Idea Of Political Development?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The functionalism of Almond and Powel had proposed that political development was found where the attributes of modern society functioned properly or, in other words, political development was found only in functionally modern societies. As political parties are found only in modern societies, it could be reasonably concluded that they were functional to modern but not traditional societies (Riggs 1981). Huntington made waves by arguing in response to this influential structural functionalism that modernisation brought with it political decay, and that even traditional societies could produce strong political institutions (Huntington 1965) and express modern features.…”

Section: The Idea Of Political Development?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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South Africa, Settler Colonialism and the Failures of Liberal Democracy

Reddy¹

2015

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This book could not have been completed without the support and assistance of many people who contributed in large and small ways. I have been thinking about the issues raised in this work for over a decade. I had first decided to write on contemporary democratic politics in 2009, and I received funding support from the Oppenheimer Foundation Trust. Aspects of research from that project have found their way into this text.In 2011, I received a Nordic Africa Institute scholarship. The Institute is a wonderful place to research and write. I thank Tor Sellström, Sonja Johansson, Inga-Britt Isaksson Faris and my fellow researchers Chibuike Uche and Mary Njeri Kinyanjui for their friendship and support.The book began to look realisable when I confirmed a contract with Zed Books in 2013. As with most book projects, this one went through periods of frantic writing, excitement, flowing ideas and also uncertainity. I extend many thanks to Ken Barlow for taking this unusual argument on, spending many hours reading my drafts and being such a patient, encouraging and supportive editor. I thank Dominic Fagan and the anon ymous reviewers for close reading of the manuscript and providing me with detailed questions and corrections. I want to thank those who read individual chapters, including Harry Stephan, Movindri Reddy, Ziyana Lategan, Harry Garuba and Shathley Q. Finally, I am grateful for my circle of friends and for the patience of my elderly parents, Jackie and Leela Reddy. My parents kept asking me when I would be finished, and now I can say that my excuses not to 'take them to the shops' have finally run out. I thank them for their love, support and sustained encouragement over many years.Throughout, my strongest support and most consistent encouragement has come from my partner, Neetha Ravjee, who read all the different versions, made detailed editorial corrections and forgave me when I did not use all of them, and our son, Ché-Len, a saviour, my role model and an inspiration.It is ironic that democratic South Africa continues to use the racial categories defined historically under Apartheid (African, Coloured, Indian/Asian and White). I reject this system of classification, and I would always place these terms within scare quotes if that were possible. Because it is not, I follow the convention associated with historical resistance practice and use the term 'Black' to refer to all those Africans, 'Coloureds' and 'Indians' whom Apartheid laws discriminated against, and I reluctantly use the historical racial group categories when referring to specific group political experiences.South Africa, a country known for Apartheid and Mandela, adopted a radical liberal democratic constitution after Apartheid. Unanimous praise for the peaceful transition from Apartheid between 1990 and 1994 came from all quarters of the globe. Hope, goodwill and a general sense of relief that Apartheid had been left behind prevailed. As Mandela eloquently said upon becoming the first democratically elected president of the 'new' South Africa, 'N...

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Section: South African Democratic Studies and The Influence Of Modernisation Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Idea Of Political Development?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Idea Of Political Development?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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South Africa, Settler Colonialism and the Failures of Liberal Democracy

Reddy¹

2015

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“…Indeed, astonishingly, despite all the hullabaloo over that paradigm, and particularly structural-functionalism, it had virtually no discernible impact on political Africana which emerged during the period (Fishel, 1978: 679-685). Illuminating the tenacity of the image-reality gap was Ake's (1979) cry of alarm over the imperialist threat the paradigm posed, and Riggs's (1980) claim that effectively it was moribund a few years earlier. Young (1983) reflected "I can't remember anyone among Africanist political scientists who was, in classroom or writing, dogmatically asserting that universal truth was to be found in these approaches."…”

Section: Image Vs Reality In Africanist Political Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

American Political Science and Tropical Africa: Universalism vs. Relativism

Coleman¹,

Halisi²

1983

African Studies Review

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Probably no two of the scholarly works punctuating the past quarter century better exemplify the intellectual voyage that Africanist political scientists have taken than do Thomas Hodgkin's pioneering classic, Nationalism in Colonial Africa (1956), and Crawford Young's recent admirable comparative study of political economy in Ideology and Development in Africa (1982). These two broadly comparative works reflect the major shift from the study of the processes of African self-assertion and decolonization–the quest for and acquisition of state power–which characterized the concerns of the first decade of that period, to the study of how that power is maintained and in whose interest and with what effectiveness it is exercised, foci which have increasingly become the preoccupations of the last decade. The intention here is to examine some of the features of this intellectual trek–from first generation conventional studies of nationalism, elections, and constitutions to the current preoccupation with the state, class, and political economy–not by a travelogue of the journey, but by focusing upon an enduring issue, namely, the antinomy of universalism vs. relativism. The antinomy exists at two levels. The first is that of the individual scholarly endeavor and product; namely, does the product reflect (a) a generalizing and scientific mode of inquiry in which the scholar's intent and perspective is to identify uniformities and regularities–as well as differences–through systematic comparison? In short, is it nomothetic? Or is it (b), a mode that is idiographic, i.e., that aims to describe and to understand a phenomenon in all its configurative, situational, and cultural-historical particularity and uniqueness? The antinomy at the second and obviously related level concerns the conceptualization of the discipline by a particular set of practitioners as either (a) a social scientific endeavor aimed at generalization and universality, or (b) an intellectual vocation which is essentially descriptive and interpretive of political phenomena that are inherently historically and culturally relative to a particular human group or situation (cf. Fallers, 1968: 576; Pye, 1975: 6).

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“…Thus, "political development can be defined as political modernization" (Weiner, Huntington, & Almond, 1987). F.W Riggs define political development as "The process of politicization by increasing participation or involvement of the citizens in the state activities, in power calculation and consequences" (Riggs, 1981). It has also been defined by Rustow as "The increasing national political unity plus a broadening base of political participation" (Waseem & Hayat, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lucian Pye and Political Development: A Case of Pakistan

Naqvi¹

2021

plhr

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This study was designed to analyze the political development of Pakistan in respect of Lucian Pye's theory of Political Development. Political development is a process of change in the political scenario of a country. It enhances the capability, effectiveness and efficiency of performance of a political system. The data was collected from the students of M.S/M.Phil, PhD, and faculty members of the department of political Science, History, Pakistan Studies and International Relations to the public and private sector universities of Punjab province of Pakistan. A questionnaire was developed to collect the data from respondents. The data was analyzed by applying descriptive as well as inferential statistics and results were generalized. The results of Building of Democracy in respect of Lucian Pye's theory of Political Development showed that the level of political development remained low in Pakistan. This study recommends that government should take measures to change parochial and conflictive political culture.

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The Rise and Fall of ‘Political Development’

Cited by 7 publications

References 17 publications

South Africa, Settler Colonialism and the Failures of Liberal Democracy

South Africa, Settler Colonialism and the Failures of Liberal Democracy

American Political Science and Tropical Africa: Universalism vs. Relativism

Lucian Pye and Political Development: A Case of Pakistan

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