Modernization theory masked empire despite claiming objective social science
Evidence
In the nineteenth century, various European nations set up centers for the study of the Orient from which there emerged a huge body of Orientalist scholarship integrally tied to imperialism and colonization. In this chapter, and throughout the book generally, I focus mainly on the Middle East and North Africa, because it was these regions, due to their proximity to Europe, that largely informed the development of an elite Western vocabulary about “Islam.” After World War II, the United States took over from France and England, both literally and metaphorically. It began to exercise its hegemony in the region through the borrowed language of Orientalism, but also through the vocabulary of capitalist modernization, which was better suited to the new form of imperialism initiated by the United States. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 28 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Galilean science masks its pre-scientific practical basis behind an illusion of autonomous truth. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 601; The Frankfurt School disguised critical theory as traditional social science to secure funding. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1510; American exceptionalism repackaged empire because it could not inherit old imperial language (+11 more)
Broader Connections
- Modernization theory justified empire by framing other societies as needing outside intervention
#expands(0.95) - US post-war hegemony repurposed Orientalism and modernization theory to justify empire.
#corroborates(0.93) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 28