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Modernization as a tacit concept used
in governance
Pertti Alasuutari
a
a
University of Tampere, School of Social Sciences and Humanities
Published online: 02 Aug 2011.
To cite this article: Pertti Alasuutari (2011) Modernization as a tacit concept used in governance,
Journal of Political Power, 4:2, 217-235, DOI: 10.1080/2158379X.2011.589180
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2011.589180
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Modernization as a tacit concept used in governance
Pertti Alasuutari*
University of Tampere, School of Social Sciences and Humanities
The article discusses the tacit concept of modernization in its various guises as
a transnational framework and as part of world culture. The historical formation
of the idea of modernization is traced back to the Enlightenment philosophers.
The article further discusses how the idea is embedded in contemporary discus-
sions of society and social change. In discussing how modernization discourse
is utilized in spreading and domesticating worldwide models, the paper points
out that it is coupled with the cultural framework of competition, in which
cross-national comparative data are commonly used as evidence. The article
concludes that to avoid unknowingly chasing its own tail, social science needs
to see its own role in society, and study the feedback loop from scientists desks
to policy models and back again
Keywords: world culture; tacit concept of modernization; world polity theory;
banal nationalism; globalization
In the social sciences and also in public discourse it is common to conceive of soci-
ety as a systemic whole that follows its own laws and complex dynamics. Such an
understanding of society and social change has its roots in Enlightenment philoso-
phy, and is also informed by the thinking of classical sociologists who wanted to
understand how and why European societies were changing by the end of the nine-
teenth century. For example, Max Weber conducted substantial comparative studies
about different civilizations and world religions in order to explain why modern
capitalism was born in occidental civilization and not in China. The idea was to
identify the unique features that made the difference, what created the ethos of the
capitalistic economic system, which Weber deemed as the most fateful force in our
modern life (Weber 1958, p. 17). Similarly mile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tn-
nies formed theories about particular features of modern societies and how they
evolved.
In this popular conception of the systemic whole whose transformations com-
prise social change, what actually constitutes a single society is seldom dened
explicitly. However, it is often applied to a nation-state. Thus social changes are
explained by the local conditions, inherent tensions, constellation of forces, and
power plays between local actors.
Email: pertti.alasuutari@uta.
Journal of Political PowerAquatic Insects
Vol. 4, No. 2, August 2011, 217235
ISSN 2158-379X print/ISSN 2158-3803 online
2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/2158379X.2011.589180
http://www.informaworld.com
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Within this perspective, similar developmental paths taking place in different
countries are a bit of a mystery. If and when isomorphic changes take place, they
are sometimes explained by external pressures or inuences. However, structural or
cultural trends in particular are commonly considered to be driven by some kind of
evolutionary trend or dynamic that is independent of actors intentions and which,
instead, guides or determines them. Hence, social scientists may talk about a new
or emergent era such as post, late or uid modernity or a trend such as
globalization or reexive modernization (Beck et al. 1994; Harvey 1989; Held
et al. 1999; Bauman 2000; Beck et al. 2003). Discussing how such trends evolve
or how they are communicated between different nation-states is disregarded,
because they are described as a natural outcome of a long historical development,
or as the unleashing of a tension inherent in any economically advanced society.
In this way, when diagnosing the spirit of the times, contemporary sociologists
follow in the footsteps of earlier sociologists who moved from case analyses about
particular trajectories to formulations of universal laws laws that could be used as
instructions for any society in which the leaders want to increase the wealth and
well-being of the population (see e.g. Parsons 1964; Parsons 1966). Already in the
case of Weber, the motive for identifying elements of western civilization which dif-
ferentiate it from others was that the phenomena that have appeared in the west lie
in a line of development having universal signicance and value (Weber 1958, p.
13). In other words, the underlying idea was to formulate a theory of the causal
chain that leads to contemporary society with its efcient economy and highly
developed science. In that form, analyses about the path to contemporary occidental
civilization cease to be studies of a unique historical process and become, instead,
attempts to form a universal theory of social development, or modernization as it
is often called.
Theorists of social development have made succinct points about necessary and
sufcient conditions for bringing about the kind of developmental path that has led
to wealth and well-being in contemporary advanced societies. Let me suggest, how-
ever, that we leave aside the question as to how accurate such models of develop-
ment are as academic theories, and instead consider the historical process that has
led to the current global institutional order as an outcome of global governance and
consultancy. From this perspective the international institutional order consisting of
sovereign regional states is a result of a global spread of the ideas that were rst
established in the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which recognized the existence of
an interstate system composed of contiguous, bounded territories ruled by sovereign
states (Brenner 1999, p. 47). On the one hand this global order established territo-
rial states as independent actors, and hence one might assume that nation-states fol-
low their unique developmental paths, but on the other hand these states were
established according to the same model, almost like copies of each other. In that
sense this institutional order was the starting point for isomorphic development.
This is also how world polity theory conceives of globalization as the spread of
world culture, comprising plethora ideals and worldwide models. According to it,
world culture is now carried by the infrastructure of world society and expressed in
the multiple ways particular groups relate to universal ideals (Lechner and Boli
2005, p. 6).
Empirical research related to world polity theory has shown that isomorphism
among nation-states is due to this constant spread of worldwide ideas and fash-
ions. As John Meyer (2004) has put it, nation-states are Babbitts, hypocrite
218 P. Alasuutari
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conformists who adopt and hence spread ideas such as policy models that become
fashionable. Research within world polity theory has focused on instrumental cul-
ture (Meyer 2000) as the set of ideas that world culture consists of, but it has
been pointed out that the same global spread of fashions is true of expressive
culture, such as rock (Regev 2007a; Regev 2007b), or the arts and art institutions
rst established in seventeenth to nineteenth century Europe (Alasuutari 2001;
Alasuutari 2009).
From this perspective, the tacit concept of modernization can be considered as
one such worldwide model, which has spread throughout the world and makes
isomorphism among national states understandable. By the tacit concept of mod-
ernization I do not simply mean the use of the term modernization; several other
concepts, such as globalization most recently, have been used in depicting the
same general idea. Instead, I mean the underlying assumption that any society is
a systemic whole that follows the same inherent laws of change which, if
observed, guarantee optimal development. This understanding of a law-governed
trajectory is coupled with a Darwinian evolutionary idea, according to which
modernization is guided by states and other actors adapting to changing external
conditions, which are however constituted by the bulk of such adaptive measures.
Within this cultural model, reforms are implied to be in concert with these laws
or trends by referring to them as modernizing something. I call this conception
a tacit concept to emphasize that it is a naturalized line of thought, deeply
ingrained in what is indeed succinctly called modern culture. In a number of
tacit ways our concepts promote change and newness, which is presented as better
than the old or existing state of affairs. Thus, for instance, social change is rou-
tinely called development, differences between different countries are placed
within an evolutionary continuum by talking about developing countries, and
existing practices may be deemed outdated. As a key feature of modern world
culture, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) point out that in our conceptual metaphors
new is up and old is down. Similarly, Greg Urban (2001) calls modernity a
culture of newness.
In this article I analyze the tacit concept of modernization as a worldwide cul-
tural idea, the social construction of which has a signicant effect on global gover-
nance. Furthermore, I argue that this construction in combination with the principle
of sovereignty, realized through the cultural framework of competition, contributes
to isomorphism of policy models between supposedly autonomous, democratically
elected governments. How has this concept of modernization been constructed and
how is it embedded in contemporary notions of society and social change? Further-
more, how is the idea of modernization used in consulting policy-makers and other
actors, whose decisions contribute to global social change? These are the questions
posed in this article.
Approaching notions of society and the idea of modernization as world cultural
models does not mean that such concepts are automatically considered erroneous or
ideological. Rather, my approach can be regarded as sociology of knowledge, in
which it is emphasized that not only error or illusion or unauthenticated belief, but
also truths are socially and historically conditioned and can be related to the condi-
tions in which they emerge (Merton 1973, p. 11). In other words, in this instance I
am not interested in the correspondence between concepts of society and its object,
because the attention is on them in their own right and their life in different social
and historical contexts.
Journal of Political Power 219
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From this viewpoint tacit concepts of society and social development can also
be considered tools of governance, and in this sense my article is indebted to
Michel Foucault who reminded us that power and knowledge are intertwined.
Hence, notions and theories of social development and research results related to
them have been, and continue to be, used as grounds for social consultancy and jus-
tication for policy reforms. Indeed, applying Foucaults governmentality frame-
work (Foucault 1991a), in this article all forms of knowledge about society and
conceptual frameworks by which social phenomena are described, studied and mea-
sured are regarded as means by which to affect and control social life.
The paper proceeds in the following manner. First the history of the idea of pro-
gress is discussed from the perspective of governance. Thereafter I will discuss cur-
rent occurrences of the tacit concept of modernization and how modernization is
used in consulting governments, and how actors in domestic contexts use it in justi-
fying policy reforms.
Historical construction of the concept of modernization
The origins of the tacit concept of modernization can be traced back to the eigh-
teenth century Enlightenment philosophers periodizations of history (Nisbet 1980;
Pollard 1968). Proposing a varying number of epochs, nally leading into the more
enlightened present and future, for contemporary readers these periodizations,
weakly if at all based on historical evidence, sounds quite nave. For instance, Con-
dorcet (174394) presented a ten-phase periodization model, which can be simpli-
ed into four periods with their respective world-views. They were: (1)
anthropomorphic and theological; (2) metaphysical; (3) mechanistic-materialist; and
(4) mathematic-scientic (Pollard 1968, pp. 8893). On the other hand present-day
readers may recognize and appreciate the Enlightenment philosophers attempt to
conceive of society and history not determined by the acts of individual kings or
other powerful people, but rather to see it in terms of social systems and processes.
This is the modern conception represented by social science.
It is however important to see that the philosophy of history started by the
Enlightenment philosophers and further developed by classical sociologists works
as a tool of governance through proposing periodizations and through suggesting
that history is determined by mechanical, law-like processes. Periodizations justify
the assumption that history has a goal and that contemporary societies can be
placed in a ranking order in terms of their level of development, whereas what I
call mechanization promotes the possibility of a social science detached from poli-
tics. Furthermore, these two combined are turned into a tool of governance also
through another means. That is, in the rst place observations about historical peri-
ods and about inherent mechanisms of society are presented as empirical observa-
tions, akin to natural laws. However, they become normative through feedback to
policy. Yet, their force relies on the fact that they are considered as law-like and
non-normative.
Periodization
As to the uses of periodization, one of the achievements of the Enlightenment phi-
losophers was the creation of the assumption of the dark Middle Ages character-
ized by feudalism. Later historical research has argued that such a uniform epoch
220 P. Alasuutari
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never really existed. The medieval era has turned out to be at least a simplication,
and the same goes for feudalist economy: it is a fairly late construction based on
scarce empirical evidence (Davis 2008). However, the inaccuracy of history writing
is less important than the point that the construction of medieval societies served as
a justication for colonial rule. As Kathleen Davis (2008, p. 20) writes, the
assumption that there was a medieval period characterized by irrational supersti-
tion was fully involved with the identication of colonial subjects as irrational and
superstitious. This assumption had effects upon colonized peoples through the sys-
tems of rule that it generated and legitimized:
The idea of a superstitious Middle Ages, in other words, did not preexist the supersti-
tious colonial subject upon which it became mapped; rather, they emerged together,
each simultaneously making possible and verifying the other. Likewise, the analysis of
land systems in colonies went hand in hand with the development of the concept of a
feudal Middle Ages, and this analysis played out in administrative decisions regard-
ing the organization and control of land for the purpose of extracting wealth, even as
it concretized a feudal medieval past. There was no such superstitious, feudal Middle
Ages before colonialism, and doubtless there never would have been such without
colonialism; vice versa, colonizers could not have mapped and administered foreign
lands and bodies as they did without the simultaneous process of imagining such a
Middle Ages. (Davis 2008, p. 20)
The way in which classical sociology developed Enlightenment philosophers perio-
dizations of history can be seen as a variant of the assumption that there was a
Middle Ages before modernity. When periodizations were replaced by the quasi-
historical and universal ideal types of traditional and modern society, they were
useful in promoting modernization.
For sociologists, historical research on earlier epochs as well as evidence about
non-western or premodern societies were only interesting as material from which
to nd contrast in highlighting what were understood as the main characteristics of
modernity. Thus, the historical consciousness collapsed into a two-stage dualistic
model consisting of traditional and modern, dened in terms of a set of vari-
ables. For instance, in his study, The division of labor in society, mile Durkheim
(1964) analyzed the differences and recent changes in the judicial system and linked
them to the extent to which there is an institutionalized division of labour in a soci-
ety that is, to what extent people specialize in producing one product or doing
one task and engage in exchange economy to get all the products they need. On
that basis he constructed two ideal type societies, primitive and modern. Primitive
society was characterized by a low division of labour and by a particular form of
solidarity, which he called mechanical solidarity. A similar kind of dualism between
two ideal types of society, the traditional (or primitive) and the modern are con-
structed by all the classical authors of sociology. For instance, Ferdinand Tnnies
(1988) constructed a similar dichotomy between two kinds of society, Gemeinschaft
and Gesellschaft. He associated these to two types of motivation or will; Wesenw-
ille, or essential will and Krwille, or arbitrary will. According to Tnnies,
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft are ideal types or Normalbegriffe, not empirical cate-
gories. They are two forms of social organization that coincide in any society, but
he assumed that as modernization progresses, Gesellschaft type social organizations
become more and more common.
The construction of such a quasi-historical dichotomous model as a means to
assess the developmental phase of a society has directly served policy-making,
Journal of Political Power 221
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particularly after World War II. It was in this context that Parsons and his followers
developed the idea that contemporary market democracies, most notably the US,
represent the end stage in an evolutionary course and that their features can be used
as criteria in assessing the relative modernity of the so-called developing countries.
By interpreting and further developing the thinking of Durkheim and Weber espe-
cially, Parsons conceived of modernization in terms of differentiation. Differentia-
tion for Parsons referred to a process whereby the tasks necessary in a society to
guarantee its survival are performed by an increasing number of substructures (or
institutions). Rather than overlapping or duplicating their functions, new institutions
take over fragments of the activities formerly performed by a single, less differenti-
ated (that is, specialized) institution. Such a multiplicity of tasks to be performed by
an increasingly large number of institutions requires interdependence as well as
coordination. Parsons promoted the view that modernization was likely to succeed,
thus assuring that developing countries would be provided with the resources for
what he called a general process of adaptive upgrading, including industrialization,
democratization through law, and secularization and science with the means of edu-
cation (Parsons 1951; Parsons 1964; Parsons 1966).
Parsons is a prime example of turning a periodization into a tool of governance
through normative feedback to policy. For instance in the re-democratization of
West Germany after World War II, Parsons consulted the US State Department in
designing German economic and political reconstruction and inuenced the Mar-
shall Plan (Gerhardt 1996; Gerhardt 1999; Gerhardt 2002), which subsequently led
to the formation of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, the pre-
decessor of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
(OECD 2011).
Mechanization
Closely intertwined with periodization and the formation of apparently descriptive
concepts related to it, the tacit concept of modernization promoted by social science
functions as a tool of governance and consultancy also through mechanization that
is, by suggesting that society is a systemic totality governed by certain inherent mech-
anisms. First, this view of society enabled a new way of thinking about governance,
which Foucault has called governmentality. Instead of using force and coercion, pol-
icy-makers manage social life by inuencing the comportment of the population
through acting upon their hopes, desires, or milieu (Foucault 1991a; Dean 1999; Inda
2005). Second, picturing society as a system that is guided by its own inherent laws
created the position of a social scientist as seemingly detached from the object of
research, albeit located within it and simultaneously consulting policy-makers.
This change in the conception of society and history, originally brought about
by the Enlightenment philosophers, is understandable in light of their own social
position. Although these thinkers conceived of themselves as unselsh men ghting
for their faith in truth and in humanism, the new view of history they promoted
served an obvious function: they advanced and defended the new economic and
social order based on a growing market economy that was developing in the cities.
Previous history writing had concentrated on the importance of singular individuals
such as kings or popes, which meant that the role of the bourgeoisie as a large
group of ordinary merchants in affecting social development was easily overlooked.
Therefore it is understandable that the Enlightenment philosophers emphasized the
222 P. Alasuutari
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importance of large-scale evolutionary processes on cultural, social and economic
levels. They conceived of history in terms of changes in mentality of the general
population. For the Enlightenment philosophers the causal factors that determine
social change resided in the natural law that human beings and rational govern-
ments had better observe in order to prosper, whereas for sociology nding out
about causal laws became more of an empirical challenge. Yet the premise accord-
ing to which society is conceived as a systemic whole is the same.
Hence throughout centuries social theorists have developed models by which to
crack the secret of social evolution as a law-like process. For instance, Karl Marx,
one of the inuential predecessors of classical sociologists, emphasized the impor-
tance of the relations of production as the motor of history. For him, the bourgeois
era meant an expansion of commoditization. Max Weber was particularly interested
in the process of increasing rationality as an outcome of the formation of capitalism.
In his early work Georg Simmel approached recent social change from the view-
point of increasing differentiation (see e.g. Simmel 1890), whereas in his later pro-
duction he concentrated on analyzing the effects of urbanization and capitalist
exchange economy on individuals mentality (see e.g. Simmel 1900; Simmel 1917;
Simmel 1957 [1904]). Modernization theory by Parsons was a later elaboration of
this line of thought.
Such theories and research regarding the dynamics of modernization or social
change more generally are typically assessed from the viewpoint of their adequacy
and predictive power, that is, how well they capture the dynamics of modern soci-
ety. From the viewpoint of governance, however, it is important to note that the cat-
egories by which society is framed as an object of research and measurement are
simultaneously tools of government; they are policy relevant, as the phrase goes.
So forms of knowledge and forms of power are interrelated; the more social science
is able to come up with features that affect peoples attitudes and behaviour, the ful-
ler is the toolbox of government. Society in social science is pictured as machine-
like, and social scientists conceive of this power/knowledge complex with the ethos
of wanting to learn how society really works, thus bracketing their and policy-mak-
ers partisan role in the construction of the object. Social science is likened to natu-
ral science both by scientists and policy-makers because the comparison with
natural science gives it legitimacy. Yet, that very legitimacy makes social science
unlike the natural sciences in that it becomes a self-fullling prophecy by giving
scientic authority to policy-makers, who are, after all, partly responsible for the
form which social order assumes.
Current occurrences of the concept of modernization
Compared with the codication of a universal modernization theory by Talcott Par-
sons, it appears as if the concept of modernization has gone out of fashion. Indeed,
within sociology it has been argued many times over that modernization theory is
dead (Alexander 1995, Wallerstein 1976). On closer scrutiny, however, moderniza-
tion or related notions of epochs and evolutionary change are frequently used both
in social scientic writings and political texts. The current uses also carry with them
many of the underlying assumptions that were rst established by Enlightenment
philosophers and classical sociologists, albeit typically not in a clearly outspoken
form. As in its earlier uses, the main motive or effect of both the academic and
mundane modernization talk is the creation of a sense of direction and of the
Journal of Political Power 223
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urgency of actors to follow suit, in other words to make reforms that help them bet-
ter adapt to the future.
In contemporary academic use of the notion, modernity or modernization are
typically given an epithet. Jean-Franois Lyotards short but inuential book The
postmodern condition: a report on knowledge (1984, originally 1979) is a classic
example and began the trend in which academic authors point out a new turn in
social development. Although the book was a starting point for a discussion about
incredulity towards meta-narratives, of which the modernization process is a prime
example, in fact it is an example of it. According to the main hypothesis of the
book, the status of knowledge is altered as societies enter what is known as the
postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern age (Lyotard
1984, p. 3). Thus Lyotard makes an interpretation about a transition from one stage
in development to another one, a transition that is presented as self-evident or inevi-
table on the condition that, or as soon as, societies have reached the postindustrial
age. Furthermore, characteristic of this genre of age-diagnostic writing, Lyotard
suggests how we can best adapt to the changes facing us by professing a preference
for a plurality of small narratives that compete with each other rather than clinging
on to a single grand narrative. Such recommendations are understandable also in
light of the fact that the report was commissioned by the Qubec government.
The discussion on late modernity focused on the age of post modernity. Hence,
Ulrich Beck suggested that modernization has occurred in two phases: the rst stage
replaced estate society by class society, whereas in the reexive modernization of
the latter part of the twentieth century, the markers of class were fading at the
expense of individual style and fashion (Beck 1994; Beck et al. 2003). According
to him reexive modernization means enhanced individualization:
Opportunities, threats, ambivalences of the biography, which it was previously possi-
ble to overcome in a family group, in the village community or by recourse to a social
class or group, must increasingly be perceived, interpreted and handled by individuals
themselves. . . And even the self is no longer just the unequivocal self but has become
fragmented into contradictory discourses of the self. (Beck 1994, p. 8)
In a similar vein Anthony Giddens argued that due to modernization, life
becomes increasingly reexive, which means that social practices are constantly
examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very prac-
tices, thus constitutively altering their character (Giddens 1990, p. 38). Thus, Gid-
dens maintained that, despite the increasingly central position of knowledge about
society, reexive modernization does not advance certitude but instead destabilizes
social life, changes the role of expert knowledge and creates a crisis of expertise. In
this line of thought Giddens was clearly indebted to Jean-Franois Lyotard, who
argued that the status of knowledge is altered in the post-modern age. At the indi-
vidual level, he assumed that these changes undermine peoples ontological secu-
rity and increase self-reexivity.
Zygmunt Bauman (2000) tells the same narrative by coining the term liquid
modernity. According to him, this new society of the twenty-rst century is no less
modern than the society which entered the twentieth, in that the compulsive and
obsessive, continuous, unstoppable, forever incomplete modernization (p. 28) goes
on. Two features nonetheless make it novel and different. The rst is the decline of
the early modern illusion that a state of perfection, a just and conict-free society
224 P. Alasuutari
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in which all needs are satised, could be reached. The second change is the dereg-
ulation and privatization of the modernizing tasks and duties (p. 29). That is, this
new stage of modernity is increasingly individualized and privatized in the sense
that the burden of pattern-weaving and the responsibility for failure (p. 8) fall pri-
marily on the individuals shoulders.
These interpretations about current signicant changes in late modern societies
do not seem to include an evident recommendation as to what actors should do
apart from the general message that we should be prepared for constant turmoil and
that we should question given truths and abandon old-fashioned attitudes. Or rather,
this narrative of late modern development argues that people have already lost or
have been forced to lose their faith in authoritative truths, even at the risk of their
ontological security. In this feature the narrative of reexive modernity carries on
the tradition of tragic, somewhat nostalgic stories that the tacit concept of moderni-
zation consists in from early on. This tragic tone is splendidly captured in Karl
Marxs classic text from 1848:
Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social condi-
tions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all
earlier ones. All xed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable
prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated
before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and
man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his
relations with his kind. (Marx and Engels 1976, p. 487)
Although this narrative has its tragic undercurrent, it depicts its characters as
heroic, ready to meet the turmoil and uncertainty that living in modernity
entails. In that way it also denes who belongs to modernity. As Marshall Ber-
man puts it:
To be modern is to nd ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure,
power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world and, at the same time,
that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.
Modern environments and experiences cut across all boundaries of geography and eth-
nicity, of class and nationality, of religion and ideology: in this sense, modernity can
be said to unite all mankind. But it is a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity: it pours
us all into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle and contra-
diction, of ambiguity and anguish. (Berman 1982, p. 15)
By dening who belongs to the moderns in that way the tragic narrative is somewhat
sympathetic to individuals difculties in getting adjusted to constant instability, and
many pathologies such as addiction (Giddens 1992, pp. 7077) or anorexia nervosa
(Giddens 1991, pp. 103108) are explained as caused by problems related to it. On
the other hand this denition of who are moderns is contrasted with those who are
ruled out that is, the ones who decline to be open-minded and who instead resort to
old beliefs and practices. Hence, Giddens opposes modernity with fundamentalism as
assertion of formulaic truth, which can be seen as a reaction to the difculties of liv-
ing in a world of radical doubt (Giddens 1994, p. 100). In this respect, recent interpre-
tations about religious extremists as opponents of modernity repeat the old
interpretation of modernization as secularization (Berger 1967, Wallace 1966, Wilson
1966), but this time in the form of cultural pessimism. The new rise of religion is pre-
sented as a backward phenomenon, as proof that modernity or part of the modern
Journal of Political Power 225
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world is drifting further away from its unfullled promises. For instance, Benjamin
Barber (1996) has argued that the polarization is between Jihad and McWorld,
between religious fundamentalism and global consumer capitalism. For Samuel Hun-
tington (1996), the polarization is between civilizations, especially between the west
and an emergent IslamicConfucian axis. In this way the interpretations about moder-
nity and modernization have a distinct normative facet: to be and to remain modern
one needs to be committed to an open and liberal frame of mind in the face of future
changes.
What changes moderns should be open to and prepared for has been dis-
cussed in recent decades, particularly in connection with the argument that the
world is increasingly becoming a single place due to a process called globaliza-
tion (see e.g. Robertson 1992; Held et al. 1999). As a variant of the idea that
one can identify stages or epochs in social development, the notion of globaliza-
tion differs from earlier versions in that within it, global change is explained by
the intensication of links that tie actors such as businesses and national econo-
mies in different parts of the globe together. Without going into detail about this
vast literature, it has been pointed out that the notion of globalization is com-
monly used as justication for policies that national governments or other actors
are advised to adopt. As Justin Rosenberg (2005) has argued, globalization theory
functions as justication for neoliberal policy because it entails an inversion of
the designation of explanans and explanandum: instead of giving sociological
explanations to spatio-temporal phenomena, it transforms a spatio-temporal pro-
cess into a causal force that explains social change. Similarly Ray Kiely (2005)
has maintained that there is a tendency to utilize globalization as a determining
variable, which ends up in fallacious explanations. Although globalization theo-
rists do not necessarily consciously promote neoliberal policies, according to
Kiely the overlap between globalization theory and neoliberalism becomes an
effective apology for neoliberalism.
The domestication of global trends
Whether it is neoliberalism or some other policy fashion, the rhetoric of constant
revolutionary change that urges us to respond, to keep up with the times and to
make the necessary reforms, is endemic also in popular literature aimed at consult-
ing decision-makers and recommending policy programmes to them. Such pro-
grammes, recommendations or best practices typically appeal to international
comparison and are often produced by international governmental or non-govern-
mental organizations. Yet they are understandably marketed to the local, state-level
or regional polities that make policy decisions. Through such constant transnational
knowledge production the tacit concept of modernization permeates common think-
ing about society and makes it understandable that governments conform to the
same models creating considerable isomorphism among nation-states. However, the
process of domestication through which this takes place in local contexts makes
actors retain their sense of agency rather than being just conformists.
Consider the collection of essays published as a result of a large-scale project
organized by the Policy Network, an international think tank, and led by Anthony
Giddens, Patrick Diamond and Roger Liddle. In addition to globalization and other
terms that depict a process of change, modernization is a frequently used term. Let
us take an example:
226 P. Alasuutari
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The economic necessity of reform and modernization of outdated policy systems of
social security, care and pensions is not denied. The worldwide trends in globalization,
technology, immigration and demography require far-reaching adjustments. There is
no doubt that modernization and innovation are needed in order to make the European
model economically and socially competitive in accordance with the new global rules
of the game. But the procyclic modernization of policy systems in response to mod-
ernization is not without political and social risks. Indeed, we live in perilous times.
(Giddens et al. 2006, p. 92)
The quotation shows evidence of two interrelated meanings of modernization: as
an evolutionary process and as a reform. The last occurrence of the term in the quo-
tation is an example of modernization as a process. The other three occurrences,
instead, are examples of the mundane use of the term as a synonym for some kind
of reform. These two uses of the term give connotations to each other. When mod-
ernization is used as a synonym for reform, it is associated with improvement such
as increased rationality and effectiveness. Correspondingly, depicting a process of
change, modernization connotes it with a trend toward general betterment and pro-
gress. In addition, the text mentions worldwide trends in globalization as another
version of the idea of evolutionary change that follows its own mechanisms akin to
natural laws. This description of a state of affairs is then presented to the readers,
Europeans or rather European policy-makers, as justication for reforms they need
to make. Hence modernization is necessary in response to the process of moderniza-
tion, created by others making similar reforms and hence changing the new global
rules of the game, which of course means that those acts become a self-fullling
prophesy. The assumed necessity of following others examples or even carrying
out reforms in anticipation of what others might do next is the prospect of success
or failure in this global game.
An example of another take on this can be found in the report Modernising gov-
ernment (OECD 2005). In it, modernization as a term is used as a synonym for pol-
icy reform. However, the report describes a general modernization trend found in
OECD member countries in the way in which government is monitored: while pre-
viously transactions or other decisions had to be approved beforehand, now they
are increasingly often externally checked after the event. Reforms to that effect, i.e.
toward performance audits and management, made in OECD member countries are
pictured as a general trend, which is thus used as proof of natural, evolutionary
development. It is also emphasized that there is no single reason or origin for it;
separate countries have independently adopted the new methods of government that
better meet the challenges posed by modern government (p. 44):
There is no one event that prompted this move, nor one reform that brought countries
to this stage. Rather it was the steady accumulation of many inuences and the grad-
ual evolution of systems. The changes include the growth in size and complexity of
government; technological advances; a focus on performance; increased delegation of
decision-making; and the use of service delivery entities outside direct government
inuence. (OECD 2005, p. 84)
Thus this OECD report, which promotes a move toward performance auditing
in public government primarily to the OECD member countries policy-makers,
uses the existing information that the OECD itself has collected as evidence that
there is already an evolutionary modernization trend going on. At the same time
the OECD plays down its own role in providing comparative information and in
Journal of Political Power 227
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formulating what the new stage is all about; rather, it is implied that countries
adapt to a global developmental trend in the same way independently because it is
the rational thing to do.
That kind of argumentation about an existing international trend as justication
for the government to make a similar reform is routinely employed in nation-state
contexts. As an example, consider the minutes of the Standing Committee on
Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the Canadian parliament on 11 May,
2009, in which Jennifer Stoddart, privacy commissioner of Canada says the follow-
ing:
In conclusion, in 1982 Canada took a leading role when it became one of the rst
countries to adopt stand-alone privacy legislation that applied to its government; how-
ever, the inevitable impetus of change has gotten the best of the Privacy Act. It no
longer reects our modern conception of privacy and is out of tune with the realities
of contemporary government.
The committees review of the act is certainly timely. It is joining an international
trend in modernizing privacy legislation to meet the realities of the 21st century. For
example, the Australian Law Reform Commission has recognized that its own 20-
year-old Privacy Act needs a host of renements to help navigate the information
superhighway. These renements are currently under consideration by the Australian
government. (Parliament of Canada 2009)
In the statement above, new legislation is justied by ever-changing modern con-
ceptions, which are evidenced by what other countries belonging to the right refer-
ence group are doing. Joining an international trend, used as proof of where
modernization is leading us, is presented as a necessary step to take in order to
keep abreast of the times.
Because of this widely spread tacit concept of society and its modernization it is
understandable that nation-states are astonishingly isomorphic and follow fashions
much more than would occur if they were responsive only to local cultural, func-
tional, or power processes. The global spread of world society models that shape
nation-state identities, structures, and behaviour via worldwide cultural and associa-
tional processes (Meyer et al. 1997, p. 173) makes actors receptive to reforms made
elsewhere. Constituted as actors by world culture (Meyer 2000, Meyer 2010), pol-
icy-makers are inclined to copy the same worldwide models even though decou-
pling between expressed ideals and actual practices is endemic particularly in
countries with authoritarian rule (Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui 2005; Hafner-Burton
et al. 2008; Koenig 2008).
In other words, world culture includes a general globally-shared conceptual
framework within which policy-makers and other actors view society and social
change. It is the starting point for their understanding about information on and
phenomena in the particular region or country in question, and therefore it is no
wonder that new policy trends and fashions appeal to them. Because of the under-
lying assumption that through reforms modern societies develop toward an ever
more effective, competitive and fully modern form, decision-makers pull through
reforms that other states have made, hence contributing to isomorphism. As
Meyer and colleagues (1997, p. 162) point out, in the name of (social) science
policy-makers are consulted about the functional requirements of the modern
society, organization, and individual, and the linkages among them, which justify
the assumption that there is basically only one right, or research-based way to
228 P. Alasuutari
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organize society and its institutions. Almost every aspect of social life is dis-
cussed, rationalized, and organized, including rules of economic production and
consumption, political structure, education, and peoples private and public every-
day life. In each arena, the range of legitimately defensible forms is fairly nar-
row. All the sectors are discussed as if they were functionally integrated and
interdependent, and they are expected to conform to general principles of progress
and justice (Mayer et al. 1997, pp. 16263).
Because states throughout the world seem to be eager to enact fashionable
reforms but often end up with striking decoupling between the expressed ideals and
actual practices, Meyer (2004) has suggested that nation-states are Babbitts, hypo-
crite conformists. That is a somewhat surprising conclusion considering the fact that
nation-states cherish their sovereignty and national culture.
1
Indeed, I suggest con-
formity is always coupled to the cultural framework of competition as the primary
driver for the enactment of transnational models.
The examples above show this clearly. The need for reforms or for moderniza-
tion and innovation are presented as compelling necessities, created by the postula-
tion that other regions or countries are already moving in that direction, and that
societies are in competition with each other. In other words, it is implied that such
a competition is a zero-sum game in which the best states prosper and less competi-
tive ones decline. In that way the particular reforms or best practices recom-
mended are represented as the obvious thing to do. The vernacular notion of
nation-states competing against each other in the global economy is a powerful rhe-
torical resource by which the adoption of new models is justied. Willingness to
follow a model adopted elsewhere is one motive, but competition between nation-
states is the factor that links isomorphism to the seemingly contradictory values of
sovereignty and national pride.
To understand how competition works in this instance we need to think about
the entire interstate system as an institution and how it guides our thinking. Within
it one assumes that regional states are political units each of which includes a
unique and precious national culture or a multicultural community. However,
simultaneously it is taken for granted that the wealth and well-being of a nation is
dependent on the success of the regional state in global competition. That success
is, in turn, assumed to be dependent on the ability of the national team to keep up
with scientic and technological development. Because competitors that come up
with a more efcient way of doing things may gain an advantage in the competi-
tion, states keep a keen eye on developments elsewhere and quickly copy a model
believed to be superior to older ones.
On the other hand the strictly instrumental rationale is always muddled up with
national image management. Countries not only want to do well in international
competition by keeping up with technological development; they also want to con-
vey the image of themselves as advanced, modern or, even better, leading coun-
tries. That is why national leaders want to adopt fashionable models even if they do
not know whether they are better than the old ones. For the same reason national
teams compete also in areas such as art and sports that have no direct link to, say,
economic or military competitiveness. If compatriots are successful, it boosts
national pride and supports the image of the nation as a talented and successful
people.
These different shades of the discourse of international competition could be
seen in an analysis of the way in which future reforms are justied in governmental
Journal of Political Power 229
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documents (Alasuutari and Rasimus 2009). For one thing, the unquestioned need to
maintain or improve the economic competitiveness of the nation is used as a pre-
mise as such. However, several other premises are coupled with it. For instance,
sometimes the premise of competition acquires the form of national pride. Accord-
ing to this premise, a country has to do well, compared with other countries in its
reference group, regardless of any assessment of its wealth or the well-being of its
citizens in absolute terms. Furthermore, these two premises are entwined with the
underlying assumption of modernization, according to which there is only one right
developmental path that countries and the entire global system can follow to
increase wealth, happiness and well-being of the population. For instance, when it
is pointed out that the most prosperous countries of the world are moving in a par-
ticular direction, it is regarded as the direction in which modernization is going,
and for image reasons as well the nation is advised to be seen as part of that devel-
opment.
Through these different forms of justication that draw from the cultural frame-
work of state competition, the apparent contradiction between national sovereignty
and isomorphism of nation-states is transformed into a mutually reinforcing mecha-
nism. The more you compete, the more sovereign you appear to be. Yet, the more
you compete, the more ahead, thus part, of the trend you are, which as a whole
contributes to isomorphism. Isomorphism is invigorated through this mechanism,
but it is not easily recognized because the cultural framework of competition simul-
taneously reinforces the dominant banal nationalist (Billig 1995) framework, accord-
ing to which the nation is a self-evident entity or community (see also Lfgren
1989; Foster 1991). When reforms are justied in a nation-state by the need for the
country to do well in international competition, such texts address their audience as
the national team with shared interests in relation to other nations and hence con-
tribute to constructing it as an unquestioned category.
Furthermore, the cultural framework of cross-national competition adds another
shade to the tacit concept of modernization. The modernization theory canonized by
Parsons aimed at laying down the structural requirements of modernization of any
society at any time, which implied a pre-deterministic understanding according to
which history has a goal. The emphasis on states and other actors competing
against each other, however, draws on the Darwinian theory of evolution, according
to which development is only determined by the survival of the ttest, in this case
by the ability of states and other actors to exibly adapt to the social forces of glo-
bal change. This emphasis has gained more strength in recent decades in policy
consultancy, which is evident for instance in the fashionable idea of collecting and
promoting best practices. Underlying this concept there is the idea that such prac-
tices are not scientically designed, but rather evolve through trial and error and
can then be copied and adopted elsewhere.
Because of the converging effect of national comparisons and competition
between countries, comparative data collection and evaluation of national perfor-
mance are also used as a conscious method of governance at a distance (Rose
1999; Miller and Rose 2008). For the OECD the evaluation and monitoring of
member states behaviour and the exertion of peer pressure on that basis has been
the main method used for decades (Woodward 2004; Mahon and McBride 2008),
and in recent years the technique has been adopted by many other actors, for
instance the UNESCOs MOST (Management of Social Transformations) pro-
gramme (UNESCO 2003). Within the European Union, government at a distance
230 P. Alasuutari
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goes by the name of open method of coordination (OMC), and it has been dened
as an instrument of the Lisbon strategy (European Parliament 2000). It entails that
Member States jointly dene objectives to be achieved, instruments used in measur-
ing performance (statistics, indicators, guidelines) and comparing countries perfor-
mance, and exchange of best practices. This method is used in areas in which the
Member States sole sovereignty is respected, but in which political leaders still
consider it important that the states policies converge upon a joint strategy.
Education policy and the development of higher education in Europe is one exam-
ple; in this area the joint strategy goes by the name Modernising universities
(Europa Summaries of EU Legislation 2009).
Following the example of other countries in order to keep up with the times,
together with the framework of international competition does not mean, however,
that nation-states become identical. Rather, the introduction of a transnational idea
typically triggers a process in which actors defend their positions and interests in
the changes that the potential reform causes to the existing status quo. The nal
outcome depends on this eld battle, in which all kinds of counter discourses are
mobilized to negotiate the form the reform will take. Consequently, the result may
be a far cry from the original ideals and there may be considerable differences
between different countries in which the same model has been introduced. This
local process has the effect that citizens of a nation-state retain a banal nationalist
(Billig 1995) experience of social change as an upshot of domestic politics and a
national developmental path, so that although reforms are justied by international
comparison or worldwide models, the transnational inuences are forgotten.
There are national differences in the way in which transnational fashions are
turned into actual practices, but on the whole the local processes of domestication
contribute to isomorphism among nation-states. Even if the effects of a new model
are restricted to the level of a public political discussion, it means that the domestic
discourse in this area is harmonized with that in other countries. It must be remem-
bered that not only the model being domesticated but the rationalities, counter-argu-
ments and forms of resistance which different parties invoke to defend their
positions and interests are global, often promoted by international non-governmental
organizations. In that sense any transnational model must be seen as part of a com-
plex regime of practices (cf. Foucault 1991b; Dean 1999).
Discussion
When talking about organizations in general, Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson (1996, p.
70) has pointed out that problems are observed and dened by comparing the local
situation with that of other organizations. That does not mean that change is some-
how determined by such inter-organizational comparison and competition because,
depending on their interests, actors choose which organizations and indicators they
select as the benchmark. In any case this means that the common assumption,
according to which an internal tension or crisis leads into reforms, is not the model
case of organizational change. The same is obviously true with regard to nation-
states. In them, too, cross-national comparisons are part and parcel of both con-
structing problems and suggesting solutions to them.
As has been discussed, cross-national comparisons are not, however, the neces-
sary and sufcient condition for the promotion of a reform. National league tables
and other comparative data are typically used as empirical proof of a global trend
Journal of Political Power 231
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that the nation-state in question should follow in order to retain and increase the
wealth and well-being of its population. While constructing such a trend and con-
tributing to its strengthening if and when the state in question takes heed of the
advice, this rhetorical strategy also appeals to the trend in question as an additional
motive by representing it as a law-like, inevitable process. Indeed, many versions of
the tacit concept of modernization share the tendency to explain isomorphic change
in contemporary nation-states by an inherent dynamic. Consequently, the expected
or on-going changes are understood as inevitable, and the role of actors is mainly
to adapt to them, trying to make the most of the new opportunities or to minimize
the damage.
The concept of modernization in its various guises thus has a central place in
the talk of the policy consultants and political leaders, who use it to justify the
reforms they promote. In this way sociological theories of social change and forms
of governance are intermingled. As Michel Foucault reminds us, forms of power
are mutually interrelated with forms of knowledge (Foucault 1977; p. 224, Foucault
1980, pp. 9294). An appeal to scientic evidence and to what the competitors are
already doing works better to depoliticize political decisions. Practices formed else-
where are promoted as being transferable into the domestic context and presented
as more efcient, rened and advanced than the old ones.
The critical view on the concept of modernization taken in this article does not
mean, however, that all assumptions about a systemic nature of human societies
must be discarded. I only suggest that instead of unquestionably treating a nation-
state as a society in which social change follows its inherent developmental path,
states must be seen in their transnational institutional context as part of the world
polity, which is governed by the promotion and domestication of transnational mod-
els. Such models often draw on social scientic theories of society and moderniza-
tion, for instance on the assumption about increasing differentiation of social
spheres, which consequently become self-fullling prophesies. Therefore, to avoid
unknowingly chasing its own tail, social science needs to see its own role in soci-
ety, and study the feedback loop from scientists desks to policy models and back
again. In this undertaking we cannot entirely cast off the tacit concept of moderni-
zation because it is used to justify policy measures.
Acknowledgements
Support from the Academy of Finland funded project The Moderns: A Study on the
Governmentality of World Society (code 218200) is gratefully acknowledged. I would also
like to thank Maarit Alasuutari, Karen Armstrong, Karin Creutz-Kmppi, Mark Haugaard,
Risto Heiskala, Peter Holley and the anonymous reviewers, whose constructive comments
on earlier versions of this article have helped me to develop it further.
Note
1. For that reason it has in fact been argued that the success of norm diffusion depends on
the extent to which those who promote transnational norms are able to build congruence
between them and local beliefs and practices (Acharya 2004)
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