Penalosa, James Ryan S. Political Science 67 – A AB Political Science - III

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT & POLITICAL DECAY

Samuel P. Huntington

Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927–December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist who gained wider prominence through his Clash of Civilizations (1993, 1996) thesis of a post-Cold War new world order.

Huntington noted that during the 1950s and 1960s political violence and disorder actually increased dramatically. The period was marked, not by political development, but by “political decay.” Contrary to the expectations of modernization theory, this “violence and instability” was “in a large part the product of rapid social change and the rapid mobilization of new groups into politics coupled with the slow development of political institutions.” In many Asian, African, and Latin American countries “the rates of social mobilization and the expansion of political participation are high; the rates of political organization and institutionalization are low. The result is political instability and disorder. The primary problem is the lag in the development of political institutions behind social and economic change.”

Huntington argues that the level of political community in a society is a function of the relationship between its political institutions and the social forces which compromise it. Modernization causes the multiplication and diversification of social forces. Political institutions, on the other hand, are arrangements for “maintaining order, resolving disputes, selecting authoritative leaders, and thus promoting community among two or more social forces.” As a society becomes more complex and heterogeneous, it becomes more dependent upon the workings of political institutions. In the words of Stephen M. Walt, “Huntington’s work emphasized the importance of effective political institutions and the cultural foundations that underpinned them. He was a conservative because he never took order for granted…”

Turning back to the core argument, political community in a complex society “depends on the strength of political organizations and procedures in the society.” This in turn reflects the scope of support and the level of institutionalization enjoyed by these organizations and procedures. Institutions are defined as “stable, valued, recurring patterns of behavior.” Organizations and procedures have varying levels of institutionalization. The level of institutionalization of a particular organization and procedure can be measured along four axes: adaptability-rigidity, complexity-simplicity, autonomy-subordination, and coherence-disunity.

Huntington believes the relationship between the culture of a society and its institutions is a dialectical one. In societies whose cultures are characterized by a “lack of mutual trust” among its members, creating stable and effective political institutions is difficult. Indeed, only a few peoples, such as the Japanese, have shown the skills to make a relatively easy transition to modernity. Thus, the main attraction of communism is that it offers modernizing countries the possibility of creating a “legitimate public order.” This conclusion was in itself controversial. The emphasis on culture is also a harbinger to ideas expressed in his later work, particularly “The Clash of Civilizations.” As he puts it, “the chief issue in world politics henceforth will be the cultural issue.”

In fact, poor countries are generally stable. Modern countries also tend to be stable. Political disorder is most likely to occur during the process of modernization, in Huntington’s words “it is not the absence of modernity but the efforts to achieve it which produce political disorder.” Economic development and social mobilization can have disruptive effects. In particular, economic development leads to increased economic inequality, while social mobilization makes that inequality less legitimate. As a society modernizes, a distinction between public welfare and private interest emerges, leading to the emergence of corruption as an issue. Corruption can help integrate new groups into the political system, or to stimulate economic development when it is produced by the expansion of government regulation. Although corruption tends to weaken government bureaucracy, it can strengthen political parties, and actually aid political development in countries where the bureaucracy has too much power.

“It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

Another aspect of modernization is the gap between town and country. This gap “is the primary source of political instability and a principal, if not the principal, obstacle to national integration. ” The countryside is crucial in determining whether a society will take a revolutionary path. Faced with urban opposition, political leaders may mobilize the peasantry as a force to contain the cities. The “Green Uprising” in this case has a “highly traditionalizing” impact on the political system. But if political elites fail to mobilize the countryside, the peasants may join the opposition in the violent overthrow of the existing political system. In that case the “Green Uprising” becomes revolutionary in character.

Huntington identifies two different pairs of polities: modern and traditional polities distinguished by their level of political participation, and developed and undeveloped polities distinguished in some measure by their level of political institutionalization. To these two pairs, he adds a third axis: polities where political participation is high relative to political institutionalization (praetorian polities) and those where institutionalization is high relative to participation (civic polities). This distinction share similarities between differences between legitimate and law-abiding states, and perverted or law-neglecting systems, identified by Plato, Aristotle and other classical political philosophers. Civic societies can exist at low levels of political participation, but as society modernized and political participation increases it becomes necessary to develop “stronger, more complex, and more autonomous institutions.” In a traditional polity, institutions only needed to “structure the participation of a small segment of society.” But in a modern, developed polity they must “organize the participation of the mass of the population.” Consequently, “the distinctive institution of the modern polity … is the political party.” The political party reflects the “logic of politics” (rather than the “logic of efficiency” of the bureaucracy) through the modernization process, and is essential to achieving political stability.

Huntington took issue with the theory's relatively unproblematic picture of social change. He argued that modernization theorists were right in seeing economic development as unleashing profound social changes but wrong in assuming those changes would necessarily be benign or progressive. Societies in the throes of dramatic social transformation, he noted, tend to be unstable and even violent. Positive outcomes are likely to emerge only where healthy political institutions capable of channeling and responding to such changes exist -- and building such institutions is an extremely difficult and time-consuming task.