Modernization : the dynamics of growth

These essays represent the efforts of twenty-five American scholars to present their reflections on the most challenging problem of the twentieth century-how modernization occurs and how it can be accelerated.

Though we all use it, the term "modernization" is an elusive one. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, "moderniza tion" was generally used to refer to the growth of rationality and secularism and to a process by which men broke away from the constraints of tyrannical regimes as well as the constraints of superstition. Today the term "modernization" is often used simply as another word for economic growth or as a more palatable synonym for still another elusive concept, "westernization." Be cause the term is so loosely used, it is tempting to drop it entirely and to speak more precisely of changes occurring in individual/ attitudes, in social behavior, in economics, and in politics. But scholars persist in using the term not only because it is a part of popular speech, but also because they recognize that these many changes are related to one another-that many countries in the developing world are today experiencing a comprehensive process of change which Europe and America once experienced and which is more than the sum of many small changes.

What are these changes, how are they related, how do we study them, how can these changes be hastened? These are among some of the most difficult questions facing both social scientists and policy-makers. As coordinator of this lecture series, I have tried to select some of the most important aspects of moderniza tion in an effort to provide the listener-and the reader-with a comprehensive view and to invite as participants some of the country's leading social scientists studying modernization. The scholars who have prepared these lectures have wrestled with these questions; many have combined their scholarly interest in modernization with an active role as consultants to governments and foundations concerned with accelerating the modernization process.

Obviously these talks have not been able to treat all aspects of modernization, and, given the need for brevity and simplicity, the contributors have only been able to make limited incursions into subjects on which they and others have written greater length. For those who want to study further, other writings on modernization by the contributors are listed in the respective biographies.