Book Review: International Politics and Economics: The Politics of Modernization
| Published date | 01 September 1966 |
| Author | Nathan Keyfitz |
| Date | 01 September 1966 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206602100314 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
376
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Moreover
he
has
to
see
that
the
decision
is
given
effect.
He
must
will
it
so
and
throw
the
weight
of
his
authority
and
determination
behind
the
decision.
This decision-making
is
the
attribute
of power.
Discern
the
decision-maker,
and
you
have
found
the
source of
power.
The
international
institutions which
Mr.
Luard
describes
are
gradu-
ally
accumulating
by
precedent
some
decision.making
power,
but
the
decisions
are
largely
what Professor
Shackle
calls
"routine"
and
not,
in
his
language, "cruciar'
or
"strategic.
I
do
not
know
how
that
decision-making
authority
can
be
estab-
lished
on
an
international
level.
In
the
meantime
we
have
Mr.
Luard's
suggestions: work
with
what
we
have,
establish welfare
services,
an
international trades
union
organization,
increase
the
mobility
of
capital
and
labour,
improve communications
and
learn
each
others'
languages,
exploit
the
law
of
comparative
advantage
and
so
on.
(May
a
humble
economist say
that
it
is
nice
to
see
a
political
scientist
in
1964
agreeing
with
Ricardo's
thesis
of
18289)
Whether other
readers
will
find
this
book
as
stimulating
as
I
did
one
cannot
know.
What
is
certain
is
that
it
will
be
found
provocative,
interesting
and
well-written.
University
of
Toronto
B.
S.
KEIRSTEAD
TIiE
POLITCS
OF
MODERNIZATION.
By
David
E.
Apter.
1965.
(Chicago:
University
of
Chicago
Press.
Toronto: University
of
Toronto
Press.
xvi,
481pp.
$7.50)
Apter
writes
about modernization
in
a language
which
is
itself
so
modern as
still
to
sound
foreign,
and
readers
will
only
painfully
learn
it
as
they
work
their
way
through
the
book.
Modernity
is
not
mere
industrialization
and
can
even
dispense
with
industry-
it
is
complexity
in
human
affairs,
and
choice,
with
the
accentuation
of
individual
con-
sciousness
that
complexity
and
choice
imply
The
complexity
embraces
careers,
stratification,
professionalism.
Modernization
is
innovation,
but
it
does
not
exclude
traditionalism,
which
is
indeed
necessary
to
provide
the
symbol
system
which
makes
innovation tolerable.
Systems
in
which
choice
is
to
be
the
main dynamic
must
have
high
information;
systems
of
mobilization
simplify
choice
and
require
less
diffusion
of
information.
This
raises
the empirical
question
of
whether
within
the
bosom
of
any
traditional
society
information
can
possibly
be
sufficiently diffused
among masses
of
choosers
to
solve
political
and
social
issues;
most
parts
of
the
developing
world subscribe
to
some
degree
of
mobilization.
In
a
treatment
of
society
heavily
influenced
by
Durkheim,
Mann-
heim,
and
Parsons,
norms
will
inevitably
have
a
central
place. At
one
time
people
may
have
thought
that
method
distinguished
social
from
natural
science,
but
quantification and
empiricism
are
spreading
so
rapidly
through the
social
sciences
that
this distinction
no
longer
applies.
The
moral
component
is
the
touchstone
of
the
social. Apter
quotes
Naegele:
"Durkheim
dignifies society
as
a
moral
phenomenon
standing
stubbornly
beside
nature,
and
it
is
this
moral
phenomenon
that
divides
social
from
natural
science.
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