Economic Development and Traditional Social Structures: Some Theoretical Considerations

1988 ◽  
Vol 27 (4II) ◽  
pp. 501-507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soofia Mumtaz
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Industrial System ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Third ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Functional Logic ◽  
The Third World ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

This paper discusses some issues currently preoccupying social scientists with respect to the process of development and its implications for Third World countries. These issues have become highly significant considering the momentum and nature of the development process being launched in the so-called "underdeveloped" world, within the context of modern nation-states. Therefore, in this paper, we seek to identify: (a) What is meant by development; (b) How the encounter between this process and traditional social structures (with their own functional logic, based on earlier forms of production and social existence) takes place; (c) What the implications of this encounter are; and (d) What lessons we can learn in this regard from history and anthropology. Development as a planned and organized process, the prime issue concerning both local and Western experts in Third World countries, is a recent phenomenon in comparison to the exposure of Third World countries to the Western Industrial system. The former gained momentum subsequent to the decolonization of the bulk of the Third World in the last half of this century, whereas the latter dates to at least the beginning of this century, if not earlier, when the repercussions of colonization, and later the two World Wars, became manifest in these countries.

6. Cold wars at home

2021 ◽  
pp. 102-119
Author(s):  
Robert J. McMahon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Third World ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Third ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
State Relations ◽  
At Home

‘Cold wars at home’ highlights the domestic repercussions of the Cold War. The Cold War exerted so profound and so multi-faceted an impact on the structure of international politics and state-to-state relations that it has become customary to label the 1945–90 period ‘the Cold War era’. That designation becomes even more fitting when one considers the powerful mark that the Soviet–American struggle for world dominance and ideological supremacy left within many of the world’s nation-states. The Cold War of course affected the internal constellation of forces in the Third World, Europe, and the United States and impacted the process of decolonization, state formation, and Cold War geopolitics.

Social Science and Health Policy in Preindustrial Society

1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce Leeson
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Rational Solutions ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status ◽  
Preindustrial Society ◽  
The One ◽  
The Third World

In spite of unfortunate legacies from colonial days, social scientists in the health field in the Third World could make an important contribution by examining why “rational solutions” are not applied to the multitude of problems that exist. This would require an historical analysis of the status and roles of health personnel, and a recognition of the contradictions between the interests of the metropolitan countries and the urban elites of the Third World, on the one hand, and the rural masses on the other. The principles guiding the health services of the People's Republic of China have led to very different and apparently more appropriate services, but it seems unlikely that these will be applied elsewhere under present circumstances.

The Status and Significance of the Theory of Social and Cultural Pluralism

1987 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
James A. Monsonis
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Third World ◽  
Cultural Pluralism ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Class Interest ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sense Of Reality ◽  
The Third World

This is a paper tracing the history of an ideology, in the classical Marxist sense of the term: a framework of thought which purports to make sense of reality but which in fact masks its real dynamics, and which is developed in the service of class interest (Marx, 1970). The ideology in question here has to do with the ways in which social scientists conceptualize and analyse the dynamics of those societies usually described as the Third World. In recent years, following the failure of functionalism and such developmentalist schemas as Rostow's stages of economic growth, there has begun to emerge an interest in thinking about Third World societies in terms of social and cultural pluralism. It is this framework of thought which is to be examined here.

Introduction

1980 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy S. Alitto
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Modernization Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
Western Influence ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Full Maturity

A major issue in modernization theory, and in the study of the relationship between the expanding West and the “Third World,” has been the dynamism or lack of dynamism present in the indigenously idiosyncratic patterns of non-Western cultures. The concept of modernization was born and bred in the West, and seems to have reached full maturity in the late 1950s under the tender care of American social scientists. The bulk of the literature it generated assumed that modernizing cultures, following the West in their patterns of development, would become increasingly alike and eventually “converge.” Although Marxist theories of imperialism do not see Western influence as an unmitigated good, they too view the Third World nations as essentially passive.

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