Domination and Containment: An Approach to Modernization

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This paper is built upon the assumption that modernization consists of processes of structural transformation which tend to increase both the resource-producing or energy-producing capacity of a social configuration and the extent to which this capacity may be realized and coordinated by strategic elites. There are a number of qualifications. For example, modernization involves an increase in resources or energy producedand/oran increase in the extent to which such resources are channelled into the hands of groups such as capitalist entrepreneurs and state officials. In the short run, rapid increases may occur in either of these aspects while the other remains relatively stable. ‘Resources’ and ‘energies’ are terms broadly interpreted to include the enthusiasms and allegiances of a population experiencing profound alterations in the conditions of its existence, the fruits of colonial expansion and frontier exploration, and the outcomes of scientific research and technological innovation. A proportion of resources is likely to be drawn from outside the national polity (for example through colonial receipts or ‘development aid’); a proportion is also likely to beappliedoutside this polity (as in warfare and commercial activity).