The Doctrine for Political Development

The functional and cultural studies reviewed in the previous two chapters for an essential part of the history of political development theory, but they provide only the background to its central component – the attempt to produce a theoretically informed 'doctrine for political development' for the guidance of policy makers in the United States and throughout the developing world. Intensive collaborative research directed to this end took place between 1961 and 1964, under the auspices of the Ford Foundation and the Committee on Comparative Politics of the Social Science Research Council, leading to a number of publications in the Studies in Political Development Series between 1963 and 1966. The emphasis in the series as a whole was squarely upon institutions and public policy. Of the six volumes published in this period, four – Communications and Political Development (Pye 1963a), Bureaucracy and Political Development (LaPalombara 1963a), Education and Political Development (Coleman 1965a), and Political Parties and Political Development (Palombara and Weiner 1966a) – focused on specific institutions and their role in promoting stability in transitional societies. A fifth volume, Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey (Ward and Rustow 1964a), compared key institutions – Education, the mass media, the civil bureaucracy, the military, and leadership and political parties – in the two countries. In its preference, Almond noted that while the volumes on communication, bureaucracy, education, and political parties were intended to improve understanding of how specific institutions affect particular processes of political change, the comparison of Japan and Turkey examined institutions in historical and cultural context in a bid to illuminate the relationships between various components of the process of modernization. The result was a focus on 'two fundamental problems in the theory of political change':

First, are there necessary and recurrent sequences in political and social change which have to be respected in all planning for political development? Second, how can we 'invest' most effectively in the 'growth' of particular institutions in order to produce the political outcomes which we prefer? (Ward and Rustow 1964a: v-vi).

The remaining volume from the period, Political Culture and Political Development (Pye and Verba 1965), integrated these concerns in a series of country case studies, and pointed ahead to future directions the research effort would take. As noted in Chapter Four, it abandoned the attempt to develop a cultural theory, despite its title, in favour of a direct concern with the elite management of mass behaviour. This was the hallmark of the Studies in Political Development series as a whole, and the core of the doctrine for political development.
  ​Except for Political Culture and Political Development, whose contents were partially reviewed by the Committee during the summer of 1962 and completed in 1963, the volumes were the product of an organized programme of conferences on 'Communication and political development' (New York, September 1961), "Bureaucracy and political development' (the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioural Sciences, Stanford, January 1962; 'Education and political development' (Lake Arrowhead, UCLA, June 1962), 'Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey' (New York, September 1962) and 'Political parties and political development' (Villa Falconieri, Frascati, Italy, January 1964). There was a clear break, both in time and orientation, between this set of studies and the next to appear in the series, Crises and Sequences in Political Development (Binder et al. 1971) although its systematic concern with comparative history, which is the subject of the next chapter, was prefigured in the closing pages of Political Culture and Political Development, and was a dominant theme in Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey. The texts discussed here (for which short-form titles are used from this point on) represented the most sustained attempt to apply the insights of political development theory to policy-making in the developing world. The chapter considers the 'doctrine for political development' which they contained, and the empirical analysis and policy prescription they offered in the light of it.

The Doctrine for Political Development

The six volumes considered here involved seven different editors, and ran to a combined length of over 3,000 pages, with over 100 individual contributions from 69 different individual authors. Of these, 56 made only one contribution, generally on the basis of specialist knowledge of a particular country. Every single one of the 69 contributors was male, and only one came from the developing world. This common identity gave rise to a similarity of perspective, but the level of co-ordination between the practical and theoretical concerns of the series, the general introductions and conclusions and individual case studies was uneven. Repetition abounded, particularly in opening discussions of approaches to modernization and the political development. At the same time few contributors gave any sign of awareness of even the broad concerns informing the series or particular volumes. It would be misleading, then, to suggest that there was a high level of unity across individual volumes or the series as a whole. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify in them a coherent policy-oriented 'doctrine for political development', to which Coleman, Pye and LaPalombara were leading contributors.
  Pye's introduction to Communications, which opened the series, complained that Western political theory had 'ignored the problems of nation building as a systematic goal of public policy.' As a result,

in spite of the accelerating interest of political scientists in the problems of the underdeveloped areas, we have not as yet accumulated the necessary insights and generalized knowledge to provide the basis for a sound doctrine for political development which in turn might be of value for the policy makers in the new countries (Pye 1963b: 12, emphasis mine).

At this point Pye offered his version of such a doctrine, describing political development (for which 'nation-building' and 'political modernization' were used as synonyms) in terms of a set of simultaneous requirements to be achieved through institution-building and public policy. His point of departure was 'the generally recognized gap between the Westernized, more urbanized leaders and the more tradition-bound, village-based masses, which is the hallmark of transitional societies' (8–9). This created the related problems of 'changing attitudes and reducing the gap between the ruling elites and the less modernized masses' (13). Initiatives were required in two areas: first, in 'the domain of administration and formal government' and second, in 'the political processes of the society which permeate in a diffuse fashion the entire society and provide the fundamental framework of the polity'. Political development involved 'both the strengthening of formal government and the establishment of mechanisms for giving coherence to the policy as a whole'. At the same time, the 'functional requirements of being a member of the nation-state system and the particularistic character of each nation as it reflects its cultural and social history' made it necessary to recognize 'the tension between meeting the standards of the nation-state and adhering to the particularistic standards of a cultural tradition' (16-17).
  Pye presented political development as an outcome of public policy, an operation that leaders and institutions would perform upon the mass of the people. Emphasis had shifted from a diffuse social process of political socialization to a conscious process of resocialization by and through the state. He spelled out the implications of this approach in an extended definition of political development (Box 5.1). It assigned to the governing elite a central role defined later as 'the process of organizing sentiments, articulating and aggregating interests, and the orderly extension of participation' (18). These were explicitly tasks of the state rather than functions of the political system or orientations of the population. As it pursued them, the state had to contain conflict, while retaining and expanding its capacity to further the collective interest and the ability of the society to mobilize its people. To do so, it required the ability to set its own course, and to resist direct pressure from social forces.

Box 5.1 Political development according to Pye

Within the domain of governmental rule and authority, modernisation is clearly associated with the degree of specificity of function, the extent of universalistic norms of conduct, and the prevalence of achievement considerations. Since there is a little question as to what constitutes development in this dimension of the political sphere, it is not strange that almost all conscious attempts have focused on strengthening the formal organs of government… It is in contrast considerably more difficult to characterise the modernisation of the process of politics in the society at large. Yet it is in this domain that the ultimate test of political development must be met. It is possible, however, to identify certain minimum considerations as to what should constitute development in the purely political sense. With the organisation of a policy should go and increase in the capabilities of the society to mobilise its people for national efforts. Modernisation also implies a widening of participation in ways which affect the decision-making process. Also also in a developed policy there should be a wide range of interest interest,, all freely represented and well rooted in the social and economic life of the socie a modern policy is this one that contains conflicts and seeks to manage controversy so that no significant interest is our betray suppressed while at the same time the collective interest is guarded. We might further characterise a modern political process as one capable of coping with change in the sense of being able to purposefully direct change and not just be buffeted by social forces. There are also such matters as stability, orderly transfer of power, respect for constituted authority, adherence to legal procedures, and a clear recognition of the rights and duties of citizens.

Source: Pye 1963b: 17-18.

The issues of government capacity and the role of the state were pursued further by Coleman in his introduction to Education in a brief discussion which would appear in an expanded form in Crises and Sequences in Political Development. With direct reference to Pye's discussion, Coleman suggested the notion of a

development syndrome, consisting of three major subsuming principles: (1) differentiation, as the dominant empirical trend in the historic evolution of human society; (2) equality, as the core ethos and ethical imperative providing the operative ideals of all aspects of modern life; and (3) capacity, as not only the logical imperative of system maintenance, but also the enhanced adaptive and innovative potentialities possessed by man for the management of his environment (human and non-human) through increasing rationality, applied science, and organizational technology (Coleman 1965b: 15).

The notion of 'political capacity' was embodied in an accompanying definition of political development as:

the acquisition by a political system of a consciously sought, and qualitatively new and enhanced, political capacity as manifested in the successful institutionalization of … new patterns of integration regulating and containing the tensions and conflicts produced by increased differentiation and … new patterns of participation and resource distribution adequately responsive to the demands generated by the imperatives of equality (15).

The discussion of political capacity was extended in the introduction to the fourth and final section of the volume, on 'Educational planning and political development'. Echoing Pye's argument that the state should focus on both 'the domain of administration and formal government' and 'the process of politics in the society at large', Coleman claimed that the development of political capacity would not come solely from the growth in organizational technology or efficiency in the highly differentiated administrative structures of a modern polity' but also from 'the capacity of the total political system', derived from social institutions and political culture. This was not only a function of efficient government but also of

the extent to which the society itself – the economic, social and political infrastructure – can absorb, deflect, or respond to the enormous demands of a modernizing society, and thereby minimize or obviate explicit government involvement. It also depends upon the character of the political culture, particularly the extent to restrains, moderates or postpones demands upon the government, or in other ways reduces the decisional load on formal administrative structures (Coleman 1965: 539).

As explicated here, the idea of the 'development syndrome' echoed and extended Pye's 'doctrine for political development'. For both, the key feature of modern society was that elites must govern under regimes of extended participation and consent, but at the same time retain control through both the machinery of government, and the active shaping of broader social processes. Underlying the series from the start was the fundamental idea, addressed by Pye and again in Lerner's conclusion to Communications, that the masses in the developing world had to be subjected to elite authority, and taught that their aspirations for social, economic and political progress could not yet be met. As Pye had put it, they had to learn that they could not immediately 'possess all the attributes of the modern nation state' (Pye 1963: 12). Lerner gave this blunt message a pseudo-scientific gloss, diagnosing the situation as one of a disparity in the 'want:get ratio', in which 'people are encouraged to want more than they can possibly get, aspirations rapidly outrun achievements, and frustrations spread' (Lerner 1963: 345), and describing it as the direct outcome of the willingness of unscrupulous politicians to pander to insatiable demands for instant gratification:

The communication catastrophe in transitional societies has been their failure to discourage – often, indeed, their effort to encourage – the 'insatiable expectations of politics' that lead ultimately only to frustration. Short-sighted politicians have been sowing a storm they may not be able to harvest. The policy of whipping up enthusiasm on short-run issues by creating insatiable expectations has never produced long-run payoffs (350).

  It followed that the time was not yet ripe for the final realization of the vision of a harmonious society in which elites governed with the consent of docile majorities. In conclusion, therefore, Lerner called upon the media, the schools, and community leaders to unite to 'mobilize the energies of living persons (sic) … by the rational articulation of new interests', and to induce a 'new process of socialization among the rising generation that will ... recruit new participants into political life'. But the appropriate conditions for democracy would not be met until these conditions existed: the two processes of short-run mobilization and long-term socialization could converge, a generation later, in new aggregations of private interests which are the stuff of a democratic polity' (350; emphasis mine).
  This argument, that regimes of extended participation based upon consent were essential to the political stability of the developing world but not yet possible, was the principal claim of the 'doctrine for political development' and the policy pronouncements which it generated. It prompted a call for the development of responsible political elites and the creation of social and institutional mechanisms through which the masses could be subjected to their control as a a necessary prelude to the organization of emerging interests and the eventual possibility of the expanded participation for which pressure was mounting throughout the world. It is in this sense that it can be described as a transitional programme for the dissemination of liberal democracy throughout the developing world.
  The doctrine produced by Coleman, Lerner and Pye provided a backdrop to the analysis in the volumes on Communications and Education of the role of the mass media and education in shaping the process of political socialization. It also suggested that it was not yet possible for the populations of the developing world to enjoy either high levels of personal consumption or the introduction of Western liberal democracy. These implications of the doctrine – relating to strategies of economic development and political participation respectively – were worked out more fully in the volumes on Bureaucracy and Political Parties, which between them produced a strategy for transition to economic and political modernity. In so doing, they responded to the core concern which had motivated political development theorists from the beginning – their perception of enormous pressure for rapid economic development and extended political participation in the developing world, in the context of the appeal exerted by the strategies pursued by Communist regimes.
  Introducing the volume on Bureaucracy, LaPalombara emphasized the current universal demand for the massive intervention of government:

the time is evidently past with public officials are expected to sit on the developmental sidelines, limiting their roles to the fixing of general rules and to providing certain basic services and incentives for those private entrepreneurs who are the major players in the complicated and exciting game of fashioning profound changes in economic and social systems (LaPalombara 1963b: 4).

At one level, this line of argument led LaPalombara to concur with ideas already familiar from Chapter 2. Thus he rejected the idea of a universal linear pattern of modernization, and called for the fusion of 'traditional' and 'modern' traits in bureaucrats and bureaucracies in the developing world. But his direct focus on economic development as the central challenge facing bureaucracies in the developing world forced him to confront a central dilemma within the doctrine for political development – the conflict between the assumption that economic development in the developing world required state intervention on a massive scale, and the end goal of economies based on private enterprise, with limited direct government involvement in the promotion of social and economic change.
  The central dilemma experienced by LaPalombara was that the experiences of the Soviet Union and the states of Eastern Europe suggested that rapid economic growth might be related to the systematic harnessing of political power and ideology by the state, and 'an undemocratic pattern of social and political organization' (10). In the developing world, moreover, the bureaucracy was often the only indigenous source of entrepreneurial skills and motivation, and without its participation there was precious little prospect of satisfactory economic growth. However, if it played a leading role in initiating economic development there was a danger that it would insist on retaining that leading role indefinitely, and that the desired growth of a private entrepreneurial class would be hampered.
  LaPalombara concluded that economic development and political democracy were unlikely to emerge unless 'the bureaucracies of the new states make quite deliberate efforts to encourage the flourishing of the private sector' (25). In the light of this predicament, it was necessary to check the power of bureaucracies, and push them in the direction of support for private enterprise. Bureaucratic power might be checked by 'strong and articulate local centres of political power' and by dominant single parties in preference to two-party or multi-party systems (25-6). Failing that, 'it might be possible to experiment with such mechanisms as ... the use of democratic ideological indoctrination as a means of controlling bureaucracies', or, in view of the vital importance of the development of the private economic sector to democracy,

The bureaucracy might limit its role to that of setting systemic goals and of providing the objective conditions without which economic development is seriously hamstrung. Beyond this, the bureaucracy might exercise self-restraint, relying as much as possible on the private sector for the performance of the function of input transformation (27; emphasis mine).

Faced with this dilemma, and looking as Lerner had done for a transitional strategy to overcome it, LaPalombara resigned himself to the fact that in the short term state bureaucracies would play a leading role in promoting national economic development, but at the same time sought to identify means by which they could be brought to back private enterprise and in the end to withdraw in its favour. In Political Parties, he and Weiner laid out the basis for a similar transitional strategy for the eventual achievement of liberal democracy in the developing world. In some parts of southern Asia and Africa, they argued, 'the conditions necessary for the establishment and maintenance of parties were absent' (LaPalombara and Weiner 1966b: 7). Such states were likely to be governed by

one or more 'political parties' that may be nothing more than limited cliques or oligarchies. This was the way which most Western countries were governed over many centuries, and no one would presume to analyse palace cabals, coups d'état, alternations in power of rival families or rival segments of a small aristocracy as the emergence or disappearance of political parties in one-party or competitive-party states (30).

  In other cases five factors made for 'a strong impetus toward one-party solutions' (31). These were the absence of an indigenous parliamentary framework, the tendency towards extremism of parties created outside such a framework, the lessons in the monolithic exercise of power taught by the colonial regimes themselves, the lack of socialization of indigenous politicians into the art of political compromise and responsible leadership as a consequence of repression and underground activity under colonial rule, and the reluctance of new elites to be displaced by younger challenges. At the same time, the concatenation of crises which leaders faced made a single-party solution understandable, and even desirable:

newly active social groups may demand greater political participation for economic improvement or for equitable distribution of goods and services. Simultaneously the new political elites may be confronted with the crises of legitimacy and national integration. The accumulation of these pressures is an impelling force leading to single-party solutions (32).

Building on a distinction drawn by Coleman and Rosberg in relation to tropical African regimes, LaPalombara and Weiner then distinguished between two types of one-party systems in the developing world, alongside the totalitarian type found in Communist, Nazi and Fascist regimes. These were authoritarian and pluralist respectively. The authoritarian variety was dominated by a single, monolithic, ideologically oriented party, regarded opposition as treason, and sought to repress demands and preserve itself in power, while the 'one-party pluralistic' systems were 'quasi-authoritarian systems dominated by a single party which is pluralistic in organization, pragmatic rather than rigidly ideological in outlook, and absorptive rather than ruthlessly destructive in its relationships to other groups' (38-9; emphasis mine). While the authoritarian systems were driven to more and more totalitarian forms of control, systems which promoted pluralism within a one-party context and did not make 'rapid regimented development' an overriding consideration suggested 'ways and means whereby (traditional) structures can be peacefully harnessed to the tasks of economic development and in the process contribute to the entrenchment of some newer but nevertheless vigorous form of democratic pluralism' (40). Where political parties were concerned, then, the doctrine for political development suggested that authoritarian interventions were to be expected where the conditions were not yet appropriate for parties to exist, and that single parties were in the medium term the most appropriate vehicles for political development, providing that they took the 'pluralistic' form which might eventually lead to competitive democracy, rather than the 'authoritarian' form which would lead to totalitarianism.
  All in all, though, there was still an unresolved contradiction at the heart of the doctrine for political development. It called for autonomous state institutions capable of unifying elites and bringing the majority of the population in line behind them. But it required the same state elites to refrain voluntarily from too direct a role in the promotion of economic development, against the current global trend, if the longer term goal of the fostering of new interests and the eventual establishment of a private enterprise economy was to be achieved. At the same time, it identified competitive liberal democratic political systems as the appropriate form of regime for such a society, but recognized that for the time being single parties were most likely to contain pressures that could take a generation to dissipate. A closer examination of the specific institutional analyses offered reveals that these related dilemmas were not resolved in the studies published in the period.

Political Institutions: Communications, Education, Bureaucracy, and Parties

Pye turned to communication studies because he was impressed by the close links in the field between theory and public policy. The papers collected in Communications analysed 'how investments can be made in institutions of communications, and how communications as a distinctive industry can be advanced as a part of national development' (Pye 1963b: 21). In editorial essays dispersed through the collection in order to introduce individual chapters, Pye discussed the forms such investment should take, and the rationale behind them. The mass media should bridge the gap between the ruling elites and the less modernized masses, expose the masses to new ways of thinking, and lead them to adopt new attitudes. Modernization required 'the acceptance of new values and the changing of preferences, and at a deeper level a fundamental change in motivations and in the directions in which it is felt that human energies can be properly directed' (Pye 1963a:149). It therefore required attention to elite-mass relations, and the ability of elites to influence mass attitudes and behaviour. Investment in modern mass media focused only on small urban elites would risk further alienating the masses from the process of modernization. Instead, it should aim to draw the mass of the population into new ways of thinking and behaving, and its messages should be suitably 'packaged' in order to enhance their acceptability (121). In addition, the requisite changing of mass attitudes required reinforcement through direct face-to–face contact and through traditional networks of communication and interpersonal trust. The process would be a long one, and the strengthening of elites and reshaping of mass attitudes had to precede the introduction of greater participation. While the modernized elite was small, 'the weight of communications policies should be on the side of protecting the freedom of these leaders and strengthening their influences throughout the society'. Once the elite had expanded the prime problem was that of mobilizing increasingly larger segments of the mass of the people through broad appeals and ... the repetition of theses basic to civic education'. Only later would the problems 'centre more on facilitating adjustments among different emerging interests and on the need for providing the population with effective channels for communicating its views to the elite (229–30). Point for point, then, Pye's recommendations mirrored Lerner's transitional programme; and at present, Pye suggested, the gulf between the elites and masses was such that in treating with the mass of their people the ruling elites of some transitional societies are in a position essentially analogous to that of persons employing psychological warfare across national boundaries (232). Other contributions to the volume supported Pye's prescriptions. Schramm thought that it was

probably wrong… to expect a country which is trying to gather together its resources and mobilize its population for a greater transitional effort to permit the same kind of free, competitive, and sometimes confusing communication to which we have become accustomed (Schramm 1963: 55).

Shils, echoing Pye on Burma, saw the creation of a 'sober, task-oriented, professionally responsible' middle class and its welding into an influential community as perhaps 'the most important precondition of the political development of the new states' (Shils 1963: 69). Such professionals, he argued, led by technologists and the 'educated managers of the larger commercial and industrial enterprises' (75) would form a bulwark against the demagogic politicians and ideological fanatics who preached easy solutions, and draw the working classes slowly and safely into national politics. Hyman extolled the virtues of Western advertising and subtle messages concealed in other formats, giving a glowing account of the use of cartoon movies and 'highlife music' to persuade West Africans to save with Barclays Bank (Hyman 1963: 130), and noting that an innocent arithmetic primer could instil concepts basic to capitalism and its commercial practices. McClelland linked rapid economic growth in Turkey to the adaptation by educational authorities of traditional stories to stress loyalty to one's country, honest personal achievement and public morality (McClelland 1963: 181). Pool noted the importance attached in Communist societies to 'hortatory communications through the mass media' and their reinforcement by face-to-face leadership (Pool 1963: 236-8), and concluded that

The media can be a far more potent instrument of development than has yet been recognized in almost any non-Communist developing nation or by American development planners. But for their potential to be effectively used, their development must also be linked to effective grassroots political organisation (253).

Yu (1963) provided a detailed examination of communications policies in communist China which reinforced the same message, while case studies of Thailand and Turkey each stressed the significance of elite-led processes of attitude-formation in which opportunities for mass participation were delayed and carefully controlled. In the case of Thailand, Mosel described a process of change 'largely initiated from within the culture', 'initiated and executed by the society's own political leadership' and 'for the most part consciously planned and under their control', and 'made in response to leaders' own perceptions of the country's needs for the future, not in response to popular pressures and discontentments in the mass society' (Mosel 1963: 186), while in the case of Turkey, Frey identified two stages in the 'Turkish Revolution', the first the modernization of the ruling elite and the strengthening of the State 'before plunging ahead to more grandiose ventures with the entire Turkish populace', the second the absorption into the Turkish polity of the thousands of isolated vintage communities, seen as 'a regular phase of the tutelary journey to political development' (Frey 1963: 313, 319). In keeping with the overall tone of the volume, he found this second stage of the process the source of 'almost as much cause for alarm as there is for thanksgiving', noting 'the great temptation presented to our parties to pander to short-run peasant greed and political immaturity', and indicating that 'short-run political development can lead to a reverse trend under certain conditions which may prevail in Turkey (and in other developing nations) at the present time' (324–5). A constant theme running through through the collection was the systematic and effective use made of communications in Communist regimes, in comparison with their neglect in the non-Communist world. At the heart of the volume on Bureaucracy was a similar awareness of 'the attraction which the Soviet model of industrial development has for many non-Communist as well as Communist intellectuals in the developing countries:

For minds and imaginations possessed by the mystique of industrialization, with its promise of growing power and a swift solution to pressing economic problems, the Soviet experience provides a living demonstration that a backward country can industrialize rapidly and in the space of decades take its place as a leading industrial and a military power (Fainsod 1963: 264).

  The volume was addressed not to the general issue of bureaucracy as administration, but to the specific question of the role of the State in fostering economic development in the developing world in the light of the potent appeal of the Soviet example. All the contributors recognized the pressure for rapid economic and social advance in the developing world, and argued in favour of economic systems based upon private enterprise. Where specific strategies of economic development were discussed, emphasis was placed upon the need to provide attractive opportunities for foreign skills and capital (Spengler 1963). The goal of elite-led development and the containment of demands for mass political and economic participation was also strongly advocated. Eisenstadt argued that if the bureaucracy was to maintain a 'basic service orientation' without developing inappropriate goals of its own or accumulating autonomous power, 'the existence of strong elites in the initial stages of political unification and modernization' was 'to some extent more important than the existence of political groups which are strongly articulate', as 'such groups which tend to develop very intensive political demands and pressures may undermine the stability and viability of the political framework,  and may also inhibit the rulers' ability to implement realistic policies Eisenstadt 1963: 118).
  While some contributors endorsed the commonly espoused ideal of a neutral, rational, merit-oriented bureaucracy (Hoselitz 1963; Marx 1963), others questioned the supposed connection between economic modernization and such a bureaucracy.  LaPalombara argued that a spoils system 'might represent the most rational way of moving the new states along in certain developmental directions that they greatly desire' (LaPalombara 1963c: 45), and that highly politicized bureaucracies willing to interfere in the policy-making process and 'rampant with particularistic behaviour' were often better able to make fundamental contributions to national development than the Weberian ideal type (54-5). Riggs, too, argued for a bureaucracy based on spoils as 'one of the strongest props of a nascent political party system' (Riggs 1963: 128). However, the central argument advanced by Riggs was that bureaucracies in the developing world tended to be over-developed in relation to other parts of the political system, and that therefore the overwhelming need was to subject them to the control of politicians and local elites, as 'premature or too rapid expansion of the bureaucracy when the political system lags behind tends to inhibit the development of effective politics' (126).
  These and other related considerations led both Riggs and LaPalombara to argue that just as modernization did not necessarily generate ideal Weberian bureaucracies, it did not lead automatically towards Western democratic politics. It was therefore essential for policy-makers in the United States to pay for more attention to strengthening political institutions, and to make a 'more open and conscious effort to export not merely American technical know-how but our political ideology and reasonable facsimiles of our political institutions and practices as well' (LaPalombara 1963c: 60). Elsewhere, attention was directed to the apparently stable combination of economic development and dictatorial leadership in Eastern Europe (Beck 1963). Overall, the volume was concerned with the need to limit the influence of bureaucracies in the developing world in order to make their operation more conducive to an economic regime based upon private enterprise. At the same time, though, it recognized that they had an indispensable role to play in the short term.
  Coleman's introduction to the volume on Education noted the gap between the educated elite and the uneducated masses in the developing world, the role of formal education in forming new political elites, and the fact that 'political scientists in general have paid very little attention to the overall character of the education-policy nexus' (Coleman 1965b: 8). He argued that in developing countries the formal educational system was 'obviously among the most effective and potentially manipulable resocializing institutions' (22). But education stood in a problematic relationship to political development of the present time, as it could produce discontented unemployed and unemployed school leavers, perpetuate the elite-mass gap and, in the short term, exacerbate divisions between different national communities.
  This analysis was extended in his introduction to the final section of the volume, on educational planning, which first restated the case for 'devising educational strategies aimed at the potentialities of education as a manipulable instrument for controlling and guiding change while at the same time minimizing political vulnerability (Coleman 1965f: 523), then turned again to the inadequacy of existing policies. Coleman argued that education had a crucial role to play in expanding the 'political capacity' of society, but found considerable cause for concern in current attitudes and practices. Some assumptions regarding the potential for education to boost the prospects for democracy were over-optimistic, and major policy changes were required if short-term dangers were to be avoided, and long-term possibilities realized. Countering 'exaggerated hopes and expectations regarding the returns on an investment in education' (523) from such politicians and policy advisors as Dean Rusk and Arthur Lewis, Coleman argued that an arts-based syllabus tended to produce 'large numbers of unproductive and destabilizing unemployables' (532-3), while a predominantly scientific-technological emphasis in education is not in conflict with – indeed, it possibly may be conducive to – a non-democratic pattern of political development' (531).
  The long-term solution, said Coleman, lay in feeding into the educational process and particularly the training of strategic elites in the developing world the practices and findings of the newly resurgent 'empirical social science' as developed and taught in the United States. Here, too, though, there were obstacles to speedy progress. Its findings appeared culture-bound because they drew primarily on research conducted in the United States itself, and although they often had genuine cross-cultural relevance this had not been adequately communicated to the developing world. As a result, they were often dismissed as the irrelevant product of academic imperialism. Overall, then, Coleman concluded, 'except for economics, the relevance of social science knowledge and theory for understanding and guiding the development process is still not generally comprehended or appreciated, least of all in the developing countries themselves' (534). In Political Parties, LaPalombara and Wiener expressed equal concern with the way in which political parties functioned in the developing world. Drawing a fundamental distinction between 'cliques, clubs, and small groups of notables' on the one hand and modern political parties as permanent organizations in search of popular votes and support on the other, they argued that the latter could only appear as a result of 'the occurrence of political crises of systematic magnitude at a point in time when sufficient modernization has taken place to provide conditions for a party development' (LaPalombara and Weiner 1966b: 21). They then contrasted patterns of the origins and development of parties in Western Europe and the new states respectively. The general pattern in Western Europe had been for competitive party systems to emerge gradually within legislatures under the tutelage of existing elites, and to face and manage successive crises over a protracted period of time. More radical parties appearing as challengers outside the existing political system were socialized over time into a prevailing culture of pragmatic compromise or excluded from the system, sometimes after considerable conflict. In the new states in contrast (primarily in Africa, which was the focus of the discussion), parties had arisen outside such legislative institutions as existed, committed to uncompromisingly ideological programmes, and lacking commitment to the establishment or maintenance of a competitive framework.

Political Culture and Political Development

Political Culture and Political Development was the key text in the elaboration of the doctrine for political development. It complemented and extended the specific topics taken up in the studies reviewed above, restated the case for elite control over the masses, explicated the form most appropriate for such control in the developing world, and justified the postponement of the introduction of democratic regimes. As noted in Chapter 4, it retained the label of 'political culture' for convenience, but shifted the emphasis to the ability of governments and political elites to change the basic political beliefs of the masses, and to evidence that the manipulation of such basic beliefs was commonplace. Verba dropped Britain and the 'civic culture' as points of reference in favour of the systematic remaking of the political culture in Germany after the Second World War, and suggested that various patterns of political attitudes might prove compatible with political stability. Pye's point of departure in Political Culture was similar, and was summarized in

the observation that in no society is there a single uniform political culture, and in all politics there is a fundamental distinction between the culture of the rulers or powerholders and that of the masses, whether they are merely parochial subjects or participating citizens (Pye 1965a: 15).

Within this framework a crucial shift took place as different analytical perspectives were adopted for 'less developed' and 'more advanced' countries respectively:

In general for the less developed countries there is a fundamental crisis of leadership, and since the prospects for development depend so heavily upon the capabilities of leadership it is understandable that in our studies of Turkey, Egypt and Ethiopia attention is directed more to the elite cultures. In the more advanced countries the principal issue becomes one of whether democracy will survive and whether popular sentiments will support continuing development (15).

In the 'less developed' countries the concern was not whether mass culture would support democracy, but whether elites could provide effective leadership. Both Pye and Verba placed the emphasis on elite capacity to provide leadership, and treated 'political culture' in terms of elite-mass relations and conscious manipulation and control.
  The analysis provided in Political Culture, then, flowed directly from the assumption that the objective of political elites was to manipulate the political beliefs of the masses in order to win their commitment to elite rule. This was the issue which Verba addressed under the four headings of national identity, identification with one's fellow citizens, governmental output, and the decision-making process. These categories closely shadowed those of The Civic Culture – orientations towards the political system in general, its input and output aspects, and the self as political actor – but now the emphasis was placed squarely on the issue of elite control. Verba argued that a sense of identity with the nation 'legitimizes the activities of national elites and makes it possible for them to mobilize the commitment and support of their followers' (Verba 1965b: 529), while 'if non-elites do not in some way identify with and have confidence in political elites, the elites will have to exact obedience by more forceful and perhaps more destabilizing means' (536). As for governmental output, attention was drawn to the problem of overload, to which elite activity made itself contribute. Societies in which 'the culture emphasizes activist and achievement orientations are more likely to generate political beliefs that load a heavy weight of demands on the political process' (538); in the modern world, 'expectations of social improvement involve expectations that this will be accomplished through the activities of the government', so 'the rise in expectations among the masses places pressures on the elites to satisfy them'; and in many cases the belief that the government ought to take responsibility for generating such change may have its origin in attempt by the elites to crack traditional patterns in order to mobilize the society for social change'. In such cases 'elites are ... called upon to deliver what they themselves led the masses to expect' (539). It was therefore important that citizens should acknowledge the authority of government, and its right to make demands of them, and reflect this in acceptance of government regulations and obedience to the law. Finally, the focus on the decision-making process was concerned explicitly with beliefs about 'the proper behavior of non-elites; it was argued that effective participation is essential, as 'in the twentieth century the service state that administers output – no matter how successfully – may not be able to produce a deep and effective commitment to the system' (543).
  There was a shift of perspective here from a simple endorsement of an elitist conception of politics to the interpretation of key issues in terms of the need for non-elite acceptance of elite authority and the means by which it was to be achieved. In The Civic Culture the unique logic of the civic culture itself was the centre-piece of the argument. Once its character had been established an argument was made for its ability to facilitate elite-mass relations in such a manner as to make democracy workable. Here, in contrast, the logic of the need for elite authority and its acceptance by non-elites took pride of place, with no particular preconception as to the means by which it should be achieved.
  For all that the collection took the apparent form of a comparison of different patterns of political culture, then, its substantive content was concerned with relations between elites and non-elites and the implications for the preservation of elite authority and political stability in times of challenge and rapid political change. Within this perspective a consistent approach emerged: elites were judged on their ability to manage modernization while incorporating elements of tradition. Ward's essay on Japan pointed to the favourable conditions for reform inherited from the late Tokugawa period to 1868 (particularly the emergence of a unified and progressive elite), the gradual nature of the ensuing process of change (with the move from limited to full franchise over nearly six decades), the deliberate cultivation of national symbols, and the continued use of the school system as 'an active agent of political indoctrination' (Ward 1965: 45). Overall, he argued, 'the general policy of early governments was to give as little as possible as slowly as possible in terms of institutions which would make effective even limited popular participation in the political decision-making process' (76), while the Liberal-Democratic party continued to exploit 'traditional control devices' centred on personal clientism to secure the loyalty and electoral support of the rural population. Rustow concluded that Turkey fully shared the combination of progressivism and conservatism, and continuity and change characteristic of Britain and Japan: 'when the political elite changed most drastically, political institutions remained stable in their major features; when political institutions were thoroughly refashioned, the political elite remained unchanged in its social composition' (Rustow 1965: 197). Scott, in the case of Mexico, identified a unified, effective and increasingly homogeneous set of elites emerging out of the Mexican Revolution, agreed 'upon the most basic values affecting modernization and the practical process', and enjoying a relatively free hand over 'unintegrated and inarticulate masses' (Scott 1965: 372), while Binder related the success of Egypt's revolution to the fact that 'most of the prerequisites of a unified and centrally rationalized political system had been provided by the reforms and changes of the preceding 150 years (Binder 1965: 397), and saw the aspirations of the country's leaders as being best understood 'in terms of their desire to modernize in order to preserve a maximum of the social and personal values associated with tradition' (403).
  Where political elites had failed to modernize through the incorporation and use of traditional values, they were condemned. Weiner argued that in India elites had been too quick to reject traditional values and practices, while the emerging mass culture had managed the requisite blend with greater success. Here, therefore, leaders were needed with roots in the rural politics of patronage and ethnic loyalty, and capable of 'making the emerging mass political culture acceptable to the national elite while at the same time modifying that culture so that it is truly conducive both to modernization and to stable democratic government, (Weiner 1965: 244). At the other end of the spectrum Levine found the Ethiopian Amhara elite too traditional rather than too modern in its outlook, and suggested that rationalization and dynamism would come, if at all, either by 'redefining the relevant beliefs and values of Amhara culture' or by 'more radical changes in political orientation (Levine 1965: 281).
  In sum, a common thread ran through all the case studies in Political Culture: the search for a universal 'civic culture' disappeared, to be replaced by an endorsement of the strategic utility to elites of processes of modernization which preserved their authority and secured mass consent through the retention and manipulation of traditional values.

The Public Policy Impasse 

Despite the switch of emphasis from abstract theory to policy relevance and the enunciation of a sound 'doctrine for political development' in the Studies in Political Development series, little progress was made in defining specific public policies which might realistically promote the objectives identified. This was because the 'doctrine for political development' tended to reveal with even harsher clarity the dilemma which had rendered Almond and Verba helpless in The Civic Culture: the more precisely the conditions for appropriate political development were defined, the less they appeared to be met, or capable of realization in the developing world. This was particularly the case in Bureaucracy. Along with the general recognition of the potent attraction of the Soviet model of development, it was recognised that the prospects for the adoption of Western models were made less likely by the 'disposition of newly emerging national bureaucracies to view private and foreign entrepreneurs and enterprise more or less unfavourably' and the unwillingness of Western firms to invest in anything other than mineral or agricultural production in the developing world (Spengler 1963: 223, 228). Equally in Education Coleman endorsed the value of the concepts of 'elite political culture' and 'elite-mass gap', but pointed to the prevalence in the developing world of situations of elite weakness, heterogeneity and disunity, and of situations in which 'political elites are still trying simultaneously to create a basic societal consensus, to establish their own legitimacy, and to consolidate and preserve their supremacy over other elites (Coleman 1965e: 357). In the few cases where these problems had been overcome, as in Japan, it was the result of an historical process every bit as long and as specific to the particular case as the train of circumstances alleged to have produced a 'civic culture' in Britain and the United States. As a result, the switch of emphasis from civic culture to elite authority as a desired end state made it no easier to specify how that end state should be brought about.
  A second problem associated with the doctrines and policy perspectives canvas in the series went beyond the fact that the developing world appeared to offer unpromising territory for unified elites able to exercise leadership over the masses. This was the persistent evidence which suggested that where these conditions were met, they were met by elites whose political orientation was unwelcome to the theorists of political development. For example, the Tunisian Neo-Destour was identified as thoroughly open to Western ideas and successful in building a party which linked the political elite to a mass space, thanks to 'a group of French-trained Tunisians, mostly of modest, provincial origin, who had the dedication and good sense to go right back to their own people in organizing a mass party rather than using their education simply as an entrée into the rapidly declining Tunis elite (Brown 1965 :153). However, as a result the party was achieving its purpose of 'broadening the base of the elite which fully accept the leadership's idea of social revolution' (167).

The Doctrine According to Huntington

This is an appropriate place to review Huntington's work, as his primary contribution was to popularize the doctrine for political development, and draw it to the intention of policy-makers. Little of what he had to say was original, but his flair for executive summary and his willingness to abandon excess theoretical baggage without ceremony made him its leading communicator. As we saw in Chapter 2, his perspective on the central issues of political development was shared with Almond, Verba and Pye. The insulation of the political sphere from social pressure and the strength of elite authority were the key elements in his distinction between 'civic' and 'corrupt' or 'praetorian' polities. He too saw modernization as posing a threat to institutions and traditional sources of authority, and called for the blending of traditional and modern practices to increase the prospects for stability. So there was little that was revisionist in his 'modernization revisionism' (Huntington 1971: 293–8). However, he made a cleaner and earlier break than the authors of the doctrine for political development were able to do with the temptation to produce a theory to justify their position, and he proved far more able than they were to communicate the doctrine they developed. It was his work, rather than the largely unread Studies in Political Development, which rescued the political project at the heart of political development theory from the problems created by speculative, over-zealous and misdirected theorization.
  Huntington attacked the core issue directly, offering a clear and simple policy message which began and ended with institutions. Taking the view that the functional approach was indirect in its approach and ambiguous in its implications, he remarked that 'if effective political institutions are necessary for stable and eventually democratic government and if they are also a precondition of sustained economic growth, it behooves us, as policy analysts, to suggest strategies of institutional development' (Huntington 1965: 233). If institutions were weak, the solution was simple: strengthen them. Violence and instability in Asia, Africa and Latin America were 'in large part the product of rapid social change and the rapid mobilization of new groups into politics coupled with the slow development of political institutions', and the primary problem of politics was 'the lag in the development of political institutions behind social and economic change' (Huntington 1968: 4-5). Rather than dropping the term 'political development' as he later claimed, Huntington defined it institutionally, arguing that the level of political development of a society in large part depends upon the extent to which ... political activists ... belong to and identify with a variety of political institutions' (9). In doing so, of course, he precisely echoed the revisionist theory of liberal democracy.
  Point by point, the analysis Huntington offered in support of this position mirrored the doctrine for political development. First, public political institutions were defined as such by their autonomy from social forces. Political institutionalization meant autonomy, or 'the development of political organizations and procedures that are not simply expressions of the interests of particular social groups. A political organization that is the instrument of a social group – family, clan, class –lack autonomy and institutionalization (20). Thus the capacity to create political institutions was synonymous with 'the capacity to create public interests' (24), and where the institutions of government had their own interests, the public interest was 'whatever strengthens governmental institutions', or in short 'the interest of the public institutions' (25). Rejecting democratic, procedural or representative theories of power, Huntington argued that governmental institutions derived their legitimacy and authority, 'not from the extent to which they represent the interests of the people or of any other group, but to the extent to which they have distinct interests of their own apart from all other groups' (27). Above all else, it was 'the existence of political institutions ... capable of giving substance to public interests' (28) which distinguished politically developed societies from undeveloped ones.
  Second, it followed directly that 'political development' was a task to be performed by the state, and one which states in the developing world could not perform, as 'social forces were strong, political institutions weak. Legislatures and executives, public authorities and political parties remained fragile and disorganized. The development of the state lagged behind the evolution of society' (11; emphasis mine).
  Third, the process of institutionalization should focus not on elites alone, but on the capacity of elites to incorporate the masses and control their behaviour. Thus the political organizations and procedures created to remedy the deficiencies of 'corrupt' states should extend beyond a small upper-class group to incorporate a large segment of the population.
  Fourth, in terms which captured the essence of his approach to political development, Huntington applied these arguments to the question of the incorporation of new social groups into politics under the control of an authoritative state elite:

Where the political system lacks autonomy, these groups gain entry into politics without becoming identified with the established political organizations or acquiescing in the established political procedures. The political organizations and procedures are unable to stand up against the impact of a new social force. Conversely, in a developed political system the autonomy of the system is protected by mechanisms that restrict and moderate the impact of new groups. These mechanisms either slow down the entry of new groups into politics or, through a process of political socialization, impel changes in the attitudes and behavior of the most politically active members of the new group ... Thus the political system assimilates new social forces without sacrificing its institutional integrity (21-2).

  Fifth, the circumstances of the new states demanded the development of new political institutions to meet the new challenges they faced. The political party was the 'distinctive institution of the modern polity' (89), and the single or dominant party was appropriate to the level of development of modernizing societies. While cliques, factions and informal groups existed in all political systems, 'parties in the sense of organizations are a product of modern politics. Political parties exist in the modern polity because only modern political systems require institutions to organize mass participation in politics' (90).
​  Echoing the view expressed in Bureaucracy and Political Development (LaPalombara 1963c: 45), and developed at length in Political Parties and Political Development, Huntington argued that where traditional political institutions were weak or non-existent, 'strong party organization is the only long-run alternative to the instability of a corrupt or praetorian or mass society', and concluded that 'the prerequisite of stability is at least one highly institutionalized political party' (Huntington 1968: 91; emphasis mine).
  Sixth, Huntington shared the view that if appropriate institutions and relationships were created, democracy was an eventual possibility, and produced his own version of the Lerner-LaPalombara-Wiener stage model of democratization. In the process of modernization, he argued, power should first be concentrated in the hands of a modernizing elite, in order to allow them to innovate, then expanded, in order to assimilate new groups. At a later stage, not yet reached in the contemporary modernizing world, it could be dispersed in order to allow those new groups a greater say within the system. Praetorian systems were least and single-party and dominant-party systems most able to concentrate and expand power, while 'more competitive two-party or multi-party systems may have considerable capacity for expansion and the assimilation of groups but less capacity for the concentration of power and the promotion of reform' (147).
  Seventh, he argued, following Verba in particular and the Political Culture case studies in general, that the United States could not serve as a model for contemporary new states, as the unique circumstances of its early development made it unnecessary to concentrate power in order to overcome entrenched traditional forces, and that as a consequence the political system was plural from the start, and the expansion of power in order to include new social forces was relatively easy (Ch. 2).
  Eighth, he adopted the view expressed earlier by LaPalombara and Riggs that advanced bureaucratic organization was not necessarily conducive to appropriate political development. The bureaucratic states which had modernized early, by concentrating power in order to overcome resistance to modernization, were paradoxically less able to expand their political systems at a latest stage than those feudal states which had retained a more dispersed power structure. As a consequence, countries judged at a particular point in time to be more institutionally backward because they had a more dispersed power structure – Britain, the United States and Japan for example – had later proved more successful at assimilating new social groups and transforming their political systems. Here Huntington faithfully followed the doctrine for political development, extending the argument to identify the dilemma created for contemporary absolutist states, the 'modernizing monarchies' of the Third World. In such states – Iran and Ethiopia for example – monarchs were obliged to concentrate power in their own hands and pursue a programme of reform if they were to survive, but in doing so they greatly reduced the likelihood of a smooth extension of power to new social groups at a later stage. They therefore faced the prospect of revolt from the traditional groups they antagonized, or revolution from below (Ch. 3). Similar arguments had been advanced by McClelland (1963) and Levine (1965).
  Point for point, then, Huntington endorsed and repeated the central arguments of the doctrine for political development. Even his celebrated rejection of the term 'development' in favour of 'change' (Huntington 1971) was foreshadowed by LaPalombara, who had said long before that concern with the nature of change rather than with definition is likely to permit the development of a science of comparative politics' (LaPalombara 1963c: 39).
  It is necessary, then, to correct the misapprehension that Huntington made an original contribution to the analysis of political development for his true contribution to become clear. He took the ideas we have identified as the major themes of the functional and cultural approaches, the need for an autonomous political sphere and for elite control over the process of mass participation, and made them the basis of an energetically asserted policy position. By treating them as axiomatic, and declining to develop a supplementary body of theory to support them, he avoided the trap into each other theorists fell in seeking to advanced their policy goals. He offered instead selective historical illustration, and encapsulations of the doctrine either in epigrammatic form ('modernity breeds stability, but modernization breeds instability'; 'It is not the absence of modernity but the efforts to achieve it which produce political disorder' (Huntington 1968: 41)), or in new vocabulary (complexity, adaptability, autonomy and coherence for the hallmarks of the modern state; concentration, expansion, and dispersion of power for the process of democratization). In essence, he argued a single point: that a political system must be able to promote change in its own interest by state action, for which it requires 'the ability to assimilate successfully into the system the social forces produced by modernization and achieving a new social consciousness as a result of modernization' (140). This precisely echoed the perspective with which Pye introduced Political Culture and Political Development. Huntington's work exemplified his own own maxim that 'for reasons that are undoubtedly deeply rooted in human nature, scholars often have the same ideas but prefer to use different words for those ideas' (Huntington 1991a: 114). His freedom from ties to the early protagonists of political development theory enabled him to play a crucial role in marketing the doctrine for political development.

Conclusion

A number of substantive themes dominated all the contributions to the political development literature, giving it a degree of unity beyond their various theoretical orientations. Two related ideas ran through all of them: that the political system and specific institutions within it should be separate and insulated from other aspects of society, and that mass participation should be mediated and controlled by elites. The first of these ideas was prominent in the functional approach, while the second emerged as a central theme in discussions of political culture. At the same time, these approaches were conducted at a high level of abstraction, and failed to provide the 'realistic guides to the problems of nation building' and the 'practical guides for action' for which Pye (1962: 10) had called. The ideas of institutional autonomy and elite control were brought together with such practical advice in the Studies in Political Development series inaugurated in 1963, and the 'doctrine for political development' which they sought to promote.
  The doctrine for political development reflected in the early studies in this series was designed to influence public policy towards and within developing countries. In order to achieve its ends, it called for both direct governmental action, and a broader programme aimed at shaping social processes and interactions. It argued that the state required sufficient autonomy from social forces to define and pursue the collective interest in freedom from the direct influence of particular private interests. Against this background it advanced the central proposition that political stability would only be achieved in the developing world if appropriately oriented governing and political elites could control mass attitudes and behaviour. Such elites should give priority to private enterprise in the promotion of economic development, and restrict the bureaucracy to a supportive rather than a leading role. Because rapid improvements were not possible either in individual economic circumstances or in overall social provision, governments and elites should seek to control their agenda of change, setting priorities in terms of nation- and state-building, and postponing or deflecting demands for increased levels of consumption, whether of private or public goods. At the same time, the immediate extension of political participation along the lines enjoyed in the most democratic Western societies should be postponed until the masses could be trusted to recognize and accept the limits to both participation and welfare which their own expectations and the exhortations of unprincipled demagogues continually pressed them to challenge. It might be possible for the next generation to enjoy a fully democratic system, if currently interventionist bureaucracies could be persuaded to give priority to private enterprise, and if investment in the mass media and in education could reshape social attitudes. In the meantime, however, it was necessary to prevent the emergence of monolithic ideological single parties which sought rapid, regimented development through state control of the economy, and to support 'quasi-authoritarian' single parties which had the authority to impose the appropriate agenda for sequential reform, but also left space for the emergence of new interests which would later take centre stage in a capitalist economy and in a consensual and competitive political system.
  However, the prospects for the adoption across the developing world of the agenda proposed in the doctrine for political development appeared bleak, in view of the current attachment of new leaders to massive state intervention, the expectation on the part of citizens that the state would address their pressing social and economic needs, and the general demand for forms of political participation which will allow the masses to transmit their demands directly to their rulers. In the circumstances, the doctrine for political development was kept on hold, and attention turned directly to the historical record of political development in the West.