The Politics of Development

The preindustrial forms of political organization are at least as variable as the potential forms of the modern state. The most reliable generalization is that most of the newly developing political entities are or have been under some form of external rule. This preindustrial political organization has had several standard patterns significant for commitment to political groups: (1) The establishment of imported educational systems somewhat independent of placement opportunities has usually produced an oversupply of prospective civil servants; these unemployed intellectuals commonly form the nucleus of new political associations. (2) Even “indirect rule" results in the political education of native intermediaries along modern lines, while the loyalty of their followers is generally maintained along traditional or quasi-traditional lines.14 (3) Native leaders often have encouraged active and even violent political participation directed toward nationalistic ends; this not uncommonly is subsequently a source of embarrassment to the same postindependence leaders. (4) Historical imperialistic competition and modern ideological competition among the more developed areas have resulted in political penetration and activation of the backward or "uncommitted" areas.

Because the nature of the adult (or any) socialization process requires emotional involvement for internalization of norms, it is not surprising that transitional forms of political involvement are commonly characterized by "charismatic” authority. The Latin American concepts of caudillismo and personalismo are outstanding cases in point. The general principle of the "routinization of charisma" may be expected to apply, but this may be a slow and uneven process that does not bar the possibility that the maintenance of commitment to political groups may entail a succession of civil disorders inimical to economic development. In other words, institutionalization of political participation may be very slow, unless accomplished by totalitarian organization.

COMMON ORIENTATIONS

One of the most frequently noted features of industrial societies is their internal diversification. A complex division of economic function is integrated through the impersonal operation of the market or the

14 See Apter, op. cit.; Lloyd A. Fallers, Bantu Bureaucracy (Cambridge, England: W. Heffer and Sons, for East African Institute of Social Research, n.d.).

quasi-impersonal discipline of administrative organizations. Urbanization and other forms of geographic mobility potentially bring together people of highly diverse backgrounds. Income and status differences result in variable styles of living. A multitude of associations vie for members, whether to press economic and political interests or simply to represent expressive and recreational affinities. Behind such diversity there are three principal common orientations: a minimal cognitive consensus; an acquiescence in, if not positive acceptance of, a normative order without which coordination could not emerge from specialization; and a minimal consensus on ultimate values.15

The importance of the educational system in providing common cognitive orientations has been noted. Many less formal agencies of socialization contribute to the same end-at work, in the market, in urban neighborhoods. Also, mass communication media are used increasingly for the quick dissemination of information, for propaganda, and for persuasion. The person in transitional situations must learn a multitude of facts and skills, from survival tactics in urban traffic to the arbitrary divisions of life's activities into temporal units.

The normative order has been a central concern throughout this discussion and needs little further comment. The fully committed individual has internalized the appropriate norms, and thereafter needs little help from external sanctions. By nature rules are specific and therefore arise in particular action contexts. More general normative orientations appear to operate pervasively. Promptness and a rational orientation toward decisions are two examples of such generalized norms in industrial systems. The transferability of such norms from one action pattern to another aids role playing by individuals and indirectly serves to maintain the systemic character of highly specialized substructures.

Finally, a value consensus is a theoretical necessity of a viable society. Not only is the normative order usually referable to common values; but such values may be directly explicated and thus serve as incentives to appropriate action. Standards of equity and justice, the allocation of wealth, power, and position, and the maintenance of institutional balance, all serve as value premises for particular sets of rules. In addition, political and religious ideologies may provide goals as well as standards of conduct.

The debate over the importance of Protestantism in the rise of capi

15 Marion J. Levy, Jr., The Structure of Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), pp. 168-197.

talism is now largely academic, but the general problem of ultimate values is not. The mystical elements in nationalism, the transformation of "scientific socialism" into a religious doctrine, and the very acceptance of economic development as a goal serve as warnings that common ultimate values cannot be dismissed as inconsequential for policies and patterns of action. Conventional sociological analysis puts value questions last, as they are placed here. In the last analysis, they may be first.

5 PREINDUSTRIAL FORMS

OF ORGANIZED WORK

Stanley H. Udy, Jr.

The collective organization of productive effort is, as a general phenomenon, probably universal to all human societies. It may, of course, assume varied forms both technologically and organizationally. Often, however, types of organized productive effort that appear on the surface to be quite different prove on closer examination to possess many important similarities. Some knowledge of the principal similarities and differences between nonindustrial and industrial production systems, in particular, seems fairly crucial to an understanding of the problems involved in industrial development. The purpose of this paper, then, is to examine the major ways in which technological processes are socially organized in nonindustrial societies, with a view toward discovering some major organizational similarities and differences between nonindustrial and industrial systems, and isolating certain organizational problems of industrial development that seem likely to be widespread. Any organization manifestly engaged in the production of some material good is a production organization. All such organizations, whether industrial or not, are subject to structural limitations both technological and social in character. The nature of any technological process sets limits on the kinds of organization by which it can be carried out, and the social setting limits the kinds of organization institutionally possible in the society concerned. These limiting mechanisms affect at least four structural variables of any production organization: its permanence or impermanence, specificity or diffuseness, use of achievement or ascription as the basis of rewards for work, and social or territorial recruitment of personnel. A production organization is here designated as permanent if its structure is expected to outlast the job spans of its members, and impermanent if not. If its objectives are explicitly limited to material productive ends, the organization is deemed specific; it is diffuse to the extent that other ends are involved or if its objectives are obscure. When rewards for work depend in any respect at all on the amount of work done or effort expended, achievement is considered to be emphasized; when rewards are consistently allocated independently of work or effort, evaluation of performance is said to be

based on ascription. Recruitment is based on social grounds if membership in the organization depends on prior membership in some other social group within the society concerned; recruitment is territorial if the criteria are solely spatial.1

The structure of any industrial enterprise is typically characterized by permanence, if only because of the considerable fixed capital outlay involved. Specificity of objectives tends to be requisite to industrial production, owing at least to the necessity of coordinating diverse technological operations. Similarly, some modicum of achievement must be emphasized, since highly specialized skills are ordinarily relied on for successful production. And recruitment must be territorial insofar as reliance is placed on a potentially mobile labor force, irrespective of traditional social ties.2 Industrialization, then, implies a commitment to this peculiar combination of organizational attributes. Such commitment is by no means automatic, for indigenous forms of nonindustrial production are often likely to involve quite different organizational characteristics. However, if any society is to become industrialized, institutionalized commitment to this particular pattern must be possible.

MAJOR TYPES OF NONINDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION

In analysis of the structure of any production system, recruitment is a crucial variable, for it has reference to both organizational and general social structure. The social or territorial aspect may be further broken down on the basis of the obligation to participate. Examination of available data has suggested four general types of recruitment: familial, custodial, contractual, and voluntary. The first two types are predominantly social; the latter two, predominantly territorial.

A production organization is familial if the obligation to participate is based on ascribed kinship status. Personnel are drawn from some kind of kinship group; the group may range in scope from a nuclear family to a ramified set of extended kin affiliations. Membership is compulsory in the sense that sanctions of whatever sort relative to the maintenance of kinship solidarity are operative. Other institutional content may reinforce kinship obligations, but not necessarily.

1 See Talcott Parsons and Edward A. Shils, Toward a General Theory of Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), pp. 80-84, for a discussion of specificity and diffuseness and of achievement and ascription. See also Marion J. Levy, Jr., The Structure of Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), pp. 240–298.

2 See Chapter 2 supra; Levy, loc. cit.; and Wilbert E. Moore, Industrialization and Labor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1951), pp. 106–139.