The Concept of Political Development
| Published date | 01 December 1978 |
| Date | 01 December 1978 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1978.tb01308.x |
| Author | Sushil Kumar |
| Subject Matter | Article |
THE
CONCEPT
OF
POLITICAL
DEVELOPMENT*
SUSHIL
KUMAR
Jawaharlal
Nehru
Universify
Absfracf.
The assumptions of universal unilinear development were articulated with Weberian
theoretical and methodological perspectives
to
discover principles
of
organizing politics and
administration in the new nations. The focus was
on
the capability of political organization in
relation to its socio-economic environment. The organismic criteria of structural differen-
tiation and integration were applied to political organization. Its development in terms
of
these criteria was viewed as political development: an immanent process with an evolutionary
spillover. Political development
so
conceptualized came to be characterized by a collectivist
orientation. It increasingly diverged from the norms
of
democratic-liberalism.
As
a concept it
became oppressive and
inimical
to freedom. The
need
was
to
restore a normative emphasis
to it.
THERE
are differences of opinion on the nature of political order concomitant
with social transition in third world nations. The possibility
of
diverse
interpretations
of
the transitional problems, as well as of the methods
of
their
solution, is a source of sharp ideological and political conflicts in the
contemporary world, while, at the same time, it is the
raison
d’etre
of
political
development studies.
A
regrettable result of this has been a confusion of the
specific contextual connotation
of
political development (seen in terms
of
the
largely American effort in its study) with its generic connotation, and the
consequent distraction of scholarly attention from its academic potentialities
as an analytic concept.
Political change is a spatio-temporal phenomenon of infinite variety and
complexity. Its analysis with a view to making empirico-deductive generali-
zation starts from certain postulates and assumptions which serve as its meta-
theoretical foundation.
Path.
In the beginning, the optimistic image
of
linear progression was
accepted after the fashion of Christian theology and enlightenment philo-
sophies. The ‘unilineal’ view implied that political development was an orderly
This is a revised version of the paper presented by the author to the international seminar
on
Political Development in South Asia, held
in
Jaipur, India,
in
1973.
The author wishes to express
his gratitude to Professor
S.
P. Varma. Visiting Fellow at the Institute
of
Advanced Study, Simla,
India.
for
helpful suggestions in the preparation of this paper.
Politics as predicate has various states bearing spatio-temporal relationships .among them-
selves.
In
the study of political development. these relationships are seen in terms
of
manifest
characteristics. These characteristics are found changing from one state to another. The problem
arises when a sufficient number of characteristics are found to have changed. How should one view
such
a change? The general trend has been
to
describe the new state as a new predicate. But this
trend of study is opposed by those who prefer to describe the change as a new state
of
the same old
predicate.
Political
Studies,
Vol.
XXVI,
No.
4
(423-438)
424
THE CONCEPT
OF
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
and continuous process occurring in a given direction through uniform
sequences of related forms. Historical data, comparative sociology and politics
were used to build theories of political development around this theme. But
soon this theme and the theories were discredited, and their place was taken
over by a more cautious image of ‘multilineal’ development, modelled after the
biological theory of phylogenetic evolution.
Perfectibility, Inevitability,
and
Universality.
When the study of political
development was first taken up in the United States, it was postulated that
there was a fully developed polity, an ideal form, a single state of perfection, to
which forms of political organization everywhere were moving, through the
automatic working out of autonomous forces. This buoyant hopefulness was a
combination
of
judaic prophetic zeal with Christian universalism, and was
rooted in the enlightenment faith in the perfectibility of all mankind. The
possibilities of cultural, ethical
(or
political) innovation were postulated to
visualize the concomitance of a kind of cultural universalism with the emerging
techno-industrial universalism. Cultural values were regarded not as static and
absolute; they were regarded as imbued with a historical sense and need for
continuing suitability to the requirements of science, industrialism and the
modern state. This postulate was taken to be of great potentiality for
constructing systems of purposive-rational action in the sphere
of
politics and
values.
As
a first step in this direction, general models of political development
were formulated in terms of polar concepts. These concepts were a synthesis of
similar concepts in traditional theories of social change, and were articulated
with Parsons’ alternative value-orientations. And, within the framework of
these models and concepts, it was assumed that observable differences in forms
of political organization throughout the world represented universal and
uniform stages
of
political development, and could even be converted into a
temporal series2 These postulated were soon found to
be
naiveties.
As
experience of political development in the new countries accumulated, and the
alleged perfectibility of the so-called developed countries (particularly the
U.S.A.) was exposed, it came to be realized that political development, in
different contextual settings, had different limits and possibilities, and, there-
fore, instead of one single state of perfection, there were many such states,
towards which different nations were moving along
a
succession
of
unequal
and broken curves. A further realization was that certain nations were
so
constituted and situated that the success of a political development effort there
was rather unlikely. The inevitability hypothesis based on positivistic fact-
value identity and the related belief in orderly progression of civilization and
virtue was also found
to
be
ill-conceived. The techno-economic advance was
not necessarily followed by political development in the form of better and
more harmonious interpersonal relations; often the case was just the contrary.
Freedom, Determinism and Teleology.
The mechanistic view of political
phenomena is postulated as part
of
the general belief in universal natural
lThese
in fact were
of
the nature
of
logico-spatial
series:
R.
A.
Nisbet,
Social
Change
and
Hisrory
(London, Oxford University Press,
1969),
pp.
195-7.
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