Political Order in Changing Societies (The Henry L. Stimson Lectures Series)

508 Pages·1968·26.83 MB·english

by  Huntington

Political Order in Changing Societies
Samuel P. Huntington
Foreword by Francis Fukuyama
New Haven and London, Yale University Press
Copyright © 1968 by Yale University.
Copyright © renewed 1996 by Samuel P. Huntington.
Foreword © 2006 by Yale University.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including
illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107
and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public
press), without written permission from the publishers.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2005932004
ISBN-ig: 978-0-300-11620-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-io: 0-300-11620-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and
durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council on Library Resources.
10 9876543
For Nancy,
Timothy, and Nicholas
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Contents
List of Tables x
Foreword by Francis Fukuyama xi
Preface xix
1. POLITICAL ORDER AND POLITICAL DECAY i
The Political Gap i
Political Institutions: Community and Political Order 8
Social Forces and Political Institutions 8
Criteria of Political Instinationalization 12
Political Institutions and Public Interests 24
Political Participation: Modernization and Political Decay 32
Modernization and Political Consciousness 32
Modernization and Violence 39
Modernization and Corruption 59
The City-Country Gap: Urban Breakthrough and Green
Uprising 72
Political Stability: Civic and Praetorian Polities 78
2. POLITICAL MODERNIZATION: AMERICA vs. EUROPE 93
Three Patterns of Modernization 93
Rationalization of Authority 98
Differentiation of Structure 109
Tudor Institutions and Mass Participation 122
Tudor Polity and Modernizing Societies 134
3. POLITICAL CHANGE IN TRADITIONAL POLITIES 140
Power, Institutions, and Political Modernization 140
Traditional Political Systems 148
Policy Innovation: Reform vs. Liberty 153
Group Assimilation: Pluralism vs. Equality 166
The King's Dilemma: Success vs. Survival 177
Transformation 177
Coexistence 180
Maintenance 185
Vlll CONTENTS
4. PRAETORIANISM AND POLITICAL DECAY 192
The Sources of Praetorianism 192
Oligarchical to Radical Praetorianism: Breakthrough
Coups and the Soldier as Reformer 198
Radical Praetorianism: Social Forces and Political
Techniques 208
Radical to Mass Praetorianism: Veto Coups and the 219
Soldier as Guardian
Praetorianism to Civic Order: The Soldier as Institution-
Builder 237
5. REVOLUTION AND POLITICAL ORDER 264
Modernization by Revolution 264
Institutional and Social Circumstances of Revolution 274
The City and Revolution 278
Lumpenproletariat 278
Industrial Labor 283
Middle-Class Intelligentsia 288
Peasants and Revolution 291
The Revolutionary Alliance and Nationalism 300
Political Development by Revolution 308
Community and Party 308
Mexico 315
Bolivia 325
Leninism and Political Development 334
6. REFORM AND POLITICAL CHANGE 344
Strategy and Tactics of Reform: Fabianism, Blitzkrieg,
and Violence 344
Reform: Substitute or Catalyst? 362
The Urban Intelligentsia: Reform as a Catalyst 369
The Peasantry: Reform as a Substitute 374
The Politics of Land Reform 380
7. PARTIES AND POLITICAL STABILITY 397
Modernization and Parties 397
Political Community in Modern Society 397
The Fragility of the No-Party State 403
Strong Parties and Political Stability 408
Processes of Party Development 412
Adaptability of Party Systems 420
CONTENTS IX
The Green Uprising: Party Systems and Rural Mobiliza-
tion 433
Parties and the Rural-Urban Gap 433
Rural Mobilization through Nationalist Struggle 438
Rural Mobilization through Party Competition: The
Conservatism of Democracy 443
Two-Party Competition and Ruralizing Elections 448
The Organizational Imperative 460
Index 463
Tables
1.1 Military Conflicts, 1958-1965 4
1.2 Per Capita GNP and Violent Conflicts, 1958-1965 40
1.3 Literacy and Stability 43
1.4 Rapid Economic Growth and Political Instability 52
1.5 Political Modernization: Changes in Urban-Rural
Power and Stability 76
1.6 Types of Political Systems 80
1.7 Institutional Development at Time of Independence 85
3.1 Political Systems and Power Configurations 144
3.2 Traditional Political Systems 150
3.3 Types of Contemporary Monarchies 151
5.1 Extent of Labor Organization 285
6.1 Attitudes Toward Political Change 364
6.2 Vulnerability to Agrarian Unrest 382
7.1 Coups and Coup Attempts in Modernizing Countries
Since Independence 408
7.2 Party Strength and Party Number 421
7.3 Party Stability and Party Number 422
7.4 Successful Coups in Modernizing Countries:
1945 or Date of Independence through 1966 423
7.5 Institutionalized Party Systems (Major Party
Age Index of 30 or more in 1966) 424
x
Foreword by Francis Fukuyama
It is an immense honor for me to write the Foreword to the new
paperback edition of Samuel P. Huntington's Political Order in
Changing Societies. This book, which first appeared in 1968, was one
of the classics of late twentieth-century social science, a work that
had enormous influence on the way people thought about de-
velopment, both in academia and in the policy world. The breadth
of knowledge about developing countries, as well as the analytical
insight that Political Order brought to bear, was astonishing, and
cemented Samuel Huntington's reputation as one of the foremost
political scientists of his generation.
In order to understand the book's intellectual significance, it is
necessary to place it in the context of the ideas that were domi-
nant in the 19508 and early 19605. This was the heyday of "mod-
ernization theory," probably the most ambitious American at-
tempt to create an integrated, empirical theory of human social
change. Modernization theory had its origins in the works of late
nineteenth-century European social theorists like Henry Maine,
Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Ferdinand Tonnies, and Max Weber.
These authors established a series of concepts (e.g., status/con-
tract; mechanical/organic solidarity; Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft;
charismatic/bureaucratic-rational authority) to describe the
changes in social norms and relationships that took place as
human societies made the transition from agricultural to indus-
trial production. While basing their works primarily on the experi-
ences of early modernizers like Britain or the United States, they
sought to draw from them general laws of social development.
European social theory was killed by the two world wars; the ideas
it generated migrated to the United States and were taken up by a
generation of American academics after the Second World War at
places like Harvard's Department of Comparative Politics, the MIT
Center for International Studies, and the Social Science Research
Council's Committee on Comparative Politics. The Harvard de-
partment, led by Weber's protege Talcott Parsons, hoped to create
xi
Xll FOREWORD BY FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
an integrated, interdisciplinary social science that would combine
economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology.
The period from the late 19405 to the early igGos also corre-
sponded to the dissolution of European colonial empires and the
emergence of what became known as the third or developing
world, newly independent countries with great aspirations to
modernize and catch up with their former colonial masters.
Scholars like Edward Shils, Daniel Lerner, Lucian Pye, Gabriel
Almond, David Apter, and Walt Whitman Rostow saw these mo-
mentous developments as a laboratory for social theory, as well as a
great opportunity to help developing countries raise living stan-
dards and democratize their political systems.
Modernization theorists placed a strong normative value on
being modern, and in their view, the good things of modernity
tended to go together. Economic development, changing social
relationships like urbanization and the breakdown of primary
kinship groups, higher and more inclusive levels of education,
normative shifts towards values like "achievement" and rationality,
secularization, and the development of democratic political in-
stitutions were all seen as an interdependent whole. Economic
development would fuel better education, which would lead to
value change, which would promote modern politics, and so on in
a virtuous circle.
Political Order in Changing Societies appeared against this back-
drop and directly challenged these assumptions. First, Huntington
argued that political decay was at least as likely as political develop-
ment, and that the actual experience of newly independent coun-
tries was one of increasing social and political disorder. Second, he
suggested that the good things of modernity often operated at
cross-purposes. In particular, if social mobilization outpaced the
development of political institutions, there would be frustration as
new social actors found themselves unable to participate in the
political system. The result was a condition he labeled praetoria-
nism, and was the leading cause of insurgencies, military coups,
and weak or disorganized governments. Economic development
and political development were not part of the same, seamless
process of modernization; the latter had its own separate logic as
institutions like political parties and legal systems were created or
evolved into more complex forms.
Huntington drew a practical implication from these observa-