From Social Darwinism to Current Theories of Modernization: A Tradition of Analysis

Much of the most interesting work in political science in the last decade or so has been concerned with processes of modernization, institution-formation, and sociopolitical change at large. In fact, modernization and political development have been, along with system analysis, the most important themes of the new political science. In this article we are addressing ourselves to this developmental revolution in political science. We propose to argue that the idea of analyzing and classifying nations on the basis of the stage of modernization reached has long-standing historical connections with a tradition that goes back to social Darwinism and beyond. But it must be emphasized from the outset that this argument is not intended as a criticism of the new political science.