Modernization theory pathologized non-Western societies as internally deficient

Evidence

Turner calls these theories “internalist” because they are based on the assumption that a society’s capacity for change is retarded by certain archaic features of the beliefs or personalities of individuals, their traditionalist orientation to social problems, their magical beliefs or their inability to save for future growth. The absence of Weberian ingredients of growth—asceticism, rational law, bureaucracy, free labour—is an internal social virus which incapacitates the economic system … development is treated as a process through a series of necessary stages—primitive, pre-modern, modern, post-industrial—which lead to an end-state society. The actual process of development takes the form of a gradual evolutionary unfolding of some inner essence (rationality) or the maturation of that essence (the modernisation process). The outcome of development is the achievement of a stationary end-state which is a faithful replica of the liberal democracies of Western capitalism. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 248

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘internal social virus’ framing of development is a powerful metaphor an essay could trace from Weberian social science into contemporary ‘failed state’ discourse and cultural-deficit explanations of poverty.
• DEEPTHINKING: The audacious teleology here—that all history converges on replicating Western liberal capitalism as a ‘stationary end-state’—is a genuinely striking worldview worth sitting with: it makes empire an act of maturation, and resistance a disease.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 248
• XREF: connects to: Röpke blamed failed industrialization on missing liberal cultural traditions — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1286; The concept of civilization emerged only in the modern era — , Stephanie B. Martens - Civilization and…, 37; Modernization theory blamed underdevelopment on internal cultural flaws within societies (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Modernization theory blamed underdevelopment on internal cultural flaws within societies #corroborates (0.95)
• Modernization theory attributed underdevelopment to internal cultural deficits in the colonized #corroborates (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 248
• Modernization theory located blockage to progress inside non-Western societies #expands (0.90)
• Modernization theory pathologized resistance to Western influence as laggard traditionalism, not rational choice #expands (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 262
• Modernization theory repackaged Orientalist racism in social-science guise #corroborates (0.80)
• Several non-Western societies modernized without adopting Western culture #contradicts (0.80)
• Modernization theory justified empire by framing other societies as needing outside intervention #expands (0.80)
• Non-European reform outcomes can index distinct traditions rather than failed modernization #complicates (0.75) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1038