TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................2

1. THE SEARCH FOR CRITERIA.................................................................................................9

THE CRITERION AS PARTICIPATION.................................................................................9

2 THE CRITERION AS..................................................................................................................42

DIFFERENTIATION

3 THE CRITERION AS CAPABILITIES....................................................................................67

4 THE CRITERION AS CONVERSION......................................................................................85

5 The Concept of Development.......................................................................................................180

Political Development: A Critical PerspectiveBy Daya Krishna,Delhi , Oxford University Press, 1979. LBSNAA 320.011kri.

INTRODUCTION There can be little doubt that the concept of political develop- ment has Become the central pivot around which most of the recent thought in political science tends to organize itself.This may bespeak a certain development in the field of political science itself or in that with which the study of politicalscience is concerned, viz. the realm of politics itself Bothseem to be the case. The imperial responsibilities of the UnitedStates after the Second World War, coupled with its competitiverole on a global scale against a country with a differentpolitical system, led American political scientists almostinevitably to view their field in comparative perspective. Andonce things begin to be viewed in that way, specially from thevantage point of a superpower with global responsibilities forclient and protégée states, the distinction between the'developed' we and the 'underdeveloped' they gets built into theway issues are seen, questions are asked, and theoriesformulated. The political scientist almost inevitably identifieshimself with the polity of which he happens to be a member, andthat to some extent determines the way he sees the phenomena he wants to study -scientifically, that is, with detachment and objectivity. Theepistemological problems raised by this determination of thesocial perception of social scientists in general and poli- tical scientists in particular have seldom been the subject of focal attention by these scientists themselves or by philosophers concerned with the social sciences. To some extent,'anthro- pologists in their study of so-called primitive, non-literatecul- tures have been aware of these problems, along withhistorians who have studied literate cultures other than theirown. And it is generally amongst practitioners of anthropologyand history that the concept of development as it was applied totheir fields came to be,seriously questioned. The sociologistand the poli-

2 Political Development tical scientist, however, generally look on the study of man and society as embodied in history and anthropology as not being scientific in the sense that they are not concerned with the discovery of laws of the phenomena they study, but only with their description which at best is sought to be, madeintelligible in terms of meanings which they embody or purposesthey fulfil. The historian and the anthropologist are supposed merely to provide the data against which the social scientist may test his theories. And, if they do attempt to formulate laws, they quickly become oriented to the same type of concerns and perspectives which the sociologist or the political scientistenter- tains. The early search for comparative methodology had some such purpose in mind. It was to do what lack of experimentation precluded or appeared to preclude in the social sciences. The diversity of cultures and civilizations was supposed to provide that variety of conditions and combinations which the theorist in the social sciences would re-quire to test his hypotheses. The Human Relations Area Files attempt to provide such data, and the early work of Malinowski, Roheim, Margaret Mead, and Herskovits tries to do something like this for psychoanalytic and economic theories. The work of Whiting and Child on child-training and personality development is another good example of this type of use of cross-cultural material. However, comparative studies do not remain confined for longto what may be called the testing of hypotheses, and they beginto ask whether the same functions are being performed well orill in different settings and thus to judge societies com- paratively and find whether one is better than the other, at least in those respects in which they are being compared. The cognitive enterprise thus subtly turns into an evaluative enter- prise, without explicitly declaring itself to be such. One reason for the subterfuge n-iay possibly lie in the fear that theeffective- ness of the evaluation may be jeopardized if it wereto be ex- plicitly declared as such. Another, and perhaps moresubtle, reason may lie in the feeling that the cognitive and theevalua- tive elements are so intermixed in the situation that totest a hypothesis is inevitably to make an evaluative judgementalso. The two directions of the cognitive interest, however,are not merely different but also opposed to each other. Thesearch

Introduction 3 for laws which have universal validity goes counterto the idea that there are better or worse ways of exemplifyingthose laws. It would be strange to hear someone say that the lawof gravitation is better exemplified by one phenomenon than byanother. Such a statement may be true in some educational contextwhere the task is to make somebody understand what exactly ismeant by the law concerned. But there are no intrinsicdifferences in exemplification, and once one has understood whata law means, one also understands that the example used by theteacher exemplifies it in no special, pre-eminent sense. Also,the law, in so far as it is a law, cannot but be exemplified, andthus in the purely cognitive perspective, the distinctions ofbetter and worse can only be treated as something illusory or theresult of the intrusion of non-cognitive interests in a fieldwhere they do not belong. On the other hand, the intrusion of the category of 'function'with its correlate notion of 'efficient performance' brings theidea of 'purpose' into the heart of the social sciences-an ideawhose banishment from nature was supposed to have beenresponsible for the triumph of the natural sciences. But once webegin to talk in terms of 'functions' and their more or less'efficient' fulfilment, we generally assume that everything thatwe are comparing is trying to fulfil the same function and thatthe notion of efficiency that we employ happens to be the sameeverywhere. But once diversity in functions and differencesamongst criteria of efficiency are admitted, the whole purposefor which the comparative approach was being used fails to makesense. It may be urged that the developmental perspective can berelevantly built into the strictly cognitive enterprise, ifreality is seen as dynamic rather than static in nature. Theopening of the evolutionary perspective in biology has taught usto do just that. Everything in the world, and the world itself,may be un- derstood only when seen in the perspective of time andin the context of the question 'how has it come to be what it istoday?' But this assumes that 'temporal', 'changing', 'dynamic','evolu- tionary', 'developmental' all mean the same thing, whichthey obviously do not. To change is not necessarily to evolve,and to evolve is not necessarily to develop. Change, for example,may be mere fluctuation or even mere movement, a change of posi-

page 4 Political Development tion with respect to certain other co-ordinates. And evolution mayjust be a patterning of change in a particular direction, as, for example, when we talk of the evolution of the solar system. Also, to talk of reality as dynamic does not solve the problem posed by the so-called static perspective, as it is usuallythought to do. If there is a law that governs the dynamics ofchange or, in less anthropomorphic language, if the change is inaccordance with a law that can be discerned, then the change isonly apparent, since it is already known what the situation isgoing to change into or ' in other words, what change isgoing to occur. If the trouble with a static system was that thelaws could not but be exemplified by whatever happened to be,the situation remains the same even when we make our system dynamic. Only now laws are exemplified not so much by whatever is but rather by whatever occurs. The shift from things to processes does not change the situation in any essential respect. Neither the functional nor the dynamic perspective, thus, seems to necessitate a developmental perspective such as came into favour in the political sciences in the United States in the sixties. Nor does the comparative method require it in any significant way. What could then he the possible reasons for its emergence and almost uncontested doninance for more than twodecades amongst intellectual circles in that country? @ Thereasons given are of many kinds. But the two most often found inliterature concerned with this subject relate to the desire toescape the parochial limitations of the earlier state of political science in the United States which was, by and large, confined to the American political experience alone, and, to the failure of U.S. economic aid in fostering economic development in countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The latter reason is, perhaps, more important as it continues to be repeated in almost every work on political development, while the former has almost dropped out of sight. However, it is not easy to determine the exact role of the failure of economic development in countries of Asia, Afdca, andLatin America in the elaboration of the concept of political development by political scientists in the United States. One wonders to what extent it was a part of or, for that matter, implication or even a cause of political, interventionism, which

introduction 5 ,nay be considered to be some sort of political aid onthe analogy of economic aid., In any case, if politicaldevelopment is a precondition of economic development, itneeds to be arti- culated and studied in its own right. But ifit is treated only in the context of economic development,then wherever there is economic development we would bejustified in assuming that political development has alsooccurred. It is not always made clear in discussions whether political development is treated as both a necessary and a sufficient con- dition of economic development or merely as a necessary condi- tion. As the lament is that economic development is not oc- curring for political reasons, it may be taken that it is un- doubtedly considered a necessary condition and perhaps both asufficient and a necessary condition of economic development. The phenomenon of economic development is, however, it- selfvaried and diverse in character. It not only continuously fluctuates even in the so-called developed economics but even has sharp and prolonged periods of depression in many of them. Also, the relative economic growth rates of different countries vary over different perio 'ds of time, as do the growth rates ofthe countries themselves. But if changes in the politicalsphere were to be theoretically required as necessarypreconditions for change in the econon-iic sphere, we wouldhave to assume cor- relate precedent changes in the politicalsphere without which the changes in the economic sphere wouldbecome unintelli- gible. It would be, so to say, thefluctuation or decline in political growth rate which would beshown in the fluctuation or decline in, the economic growthrate. This would, however, bring into question the autonomy ofthe economic realm and the immanent causality which may besaid to obtain therein. This interpretation might appear tosome readers to be a gross misunderstanding of the relationsbetween the political and the economic realms as argued by thewriters on poli- tical development. It may be argued that whatwas actually suggested is that there are certain politicalprerequisites to economic development without which noeconomic develop- ment can take place. But this is preciselywhat is meant by calling political development a necessarycondition and nothing is gained by calling it a prerequisite,for both mean the same thing and raise the same problem. 2

6 Political Development If, on the other hand, both the political and economic realmsare treated as relatively autonomous and independent of eachother with the possiblity that either may grow and developindependently of the other, then the question of independentcriteria for the growth of both may be raised and investigated.But, then, the failure of the so-called underdeveloped countriesof Asia, Africa, and Latin America to make good economically,even if true, could not be taken as a sign of their political under-development. Nor, for that matter, could the economic develop-ment of the so-called developed countries of North Americaand Western Europe be taken as a sign of their political devel-opment. The two could vary independently and thus wouldhave to be judged and established independently also. The search for independent criteria for political developmenthas taken place, though not in a clear-cut way. Hardly anyonehas faced the question what it would mean for a polity to bedeveloped even if its economy were stagnating or declining. Onthe other hand, the, problem of a developing economy with anunderdeveloped polity has been discussed to a certain extent,especially in the context of totalitarian societies. To consider ornot to consider the Soviet Union as a developed polity has beenthe perennial dilemma of Western writers on political develop-ment. Those who are inclined to treat the achievement ofdemocracy as a criterion of political developjnent tend to denythe Soviet Union the claim of being a developed polity. On theother hand, those who think in terms of power or in terms ofindustrialization tend to treat it as highly developed. The situation becomes even more complicated because of thepersistent tendency to bring in notions of modernization andsocial development which themselves are neither clearly definednor demarcated from what is usually regarded as economic orpolitical development. One is not quite clear whether 'modern-ization' is the same as 'social development' and 'social develop-ment' the same as 'economic and political development', as-suniing the two to be diff@rent. It is surprising that sociologistswho continuously talk of 'modernization' and 'social develop-ment' do not make their distinctiveness from economic andpolitical development fairly clear. Perhaps they too feel that if asociety is achieving economic development then it must also beachieving social development. But, if so, we would have the

introduction 7 same problems as we had earlier with political development. To cap all this, the notion of 'social evolution' has been brought in to buttress the concept,of development in all these fields, as if it could not be sustained by itself. It is interesting in this respect to note that the notion of evolution has not been much applied to the domain of economics where the idea of development is perhaps most securely entrenched. In fact, one hardly hears of 'economic evolution' though 'social evolution' is a fairly common term these days and 'political evolution' is slowly coining into its own. It is tacitly assumed that, 'to he evolved' is 'to be developed' and 'to be developed' is 'to be better' and 'what is better' is one's own society. Along with this is the belief that there is something in evolution which neces- sitates it to be so. But if it were really so, then, first, there would not be much virtue in being what one is and, secondly, there would be no point in lamenting that others have not made good. What the idea of evolution perhaps does for its proponents is to ensure that there will be no sliding back for those who have arrived. But even this could not ensure that they themselves would be the bearers of the next evolutionary thrust, unless they chose to believe that evolution had stopped with them. In fact, if past experience is to be believed, the greater likelihood is that it would be some other group which would break into the next phase of evolution, if any. But, as evolution is supposed to be both inevitable and involuntary, there does not seem much point in lamenting or lauding it either way. The questions with respect to political development, thus, have on the one hand to be separated from the larger questions of development in general and, on the other hand, to be dis, tinguished from development in other domains. We propose to do this by examining in detail the proposed explications of the concept of political development and the criteria suggested for assessing and measuring it in diverse ways. Along with this, we also propose to discuss the larger question regarding what exactly is meant by the concept of development and what are the conditions of its relevant applicability to a domain.

1. THE SEARCH FOR CRITERIA

THE CRITERION AS PARTICIPATION If one is to discuss political development and compare different politics to find which are developed and which are not, then obviously one has to find some criterion or set of criteria in terms of which one can make the comparison. Many have been the criteria offered, and as the concept itself has been elaborated primarily in the United States, it would be natural to expect most of these criteria to be idealized versions of what prevails or is supposed to prevail in the political system of that country. The criteria, in order to serve the purpose for which they are intended, must be measurable directly or indirectly. Also, they should, to a large extent, be quantitatively variable, as other- wise a characteristic would either be present or absent and thus show a country to be either completely undeveloped or completely'developed politically. Quantitative variability, on the other hand, would make it a matter of 'more or less', that is, a matter of relative degree. Also, if the criteria are multiple in character. they would have to be given relative weightage with respect to each other so that some generalized judgement might be reached in cases where they diverge from one another. The criteria, it should be remembered, are for purposes of determining the degree of political development that a parti- cular society may be said to have achieved, especially when compared with other societies or even with past stages of its own history. Further, if the concept of political development is to be treated as even relatively autonomous, then the criteria for it should at least to some extent be different from those that are supposed to measure, say, economic or social or cultural

The Criterion as Participation 9 development. This would raise the question of the relationship between these different realms and whether development in any of them presupposes at least some development in the others also. If, however, the concept of 'autonomous realms' itself he questioned, then we would either have one set of criteria for measuring all development or development in one sector would be taken as indicating development in other domains as it is treated as determining them. The attempt to understand 'social development', for example, poses this problem. Is 'social devel- opment' merely a sumination of development in all other fields, or does it have any distinctive characteristics of its own? If the former, then obviously to talk of 'social development' is also to talk of all the other kinds of development which are cncom- passed in it. On the other hand, if it is something over and above all of them, then either it has to be treated as itself sectoral in character or as something emergent from the inter- relationships between what may be called parts or subsectors of itself. Many of these questions have not been faced by writers on political development. In fact, the relation of sociology to other disciplines which deal with specific sectors of society has never been clearly articulated. Besides the Marxists who have been the most prominent and influential amongst those who have signalled one particular substructure as foundational and ulti- mately determining for all the rest, Parsons is perhaps the only person who has systematically, tried to articulate these relation- ships. Within the fourfold task of adaptation, goal attainment, latent tension management, and pattern maintenance and in- tegration, the political system is primarily supposed to be con- cerned with goal attainment only, while the economic system is supposed to be concerned with adaptation and the cultural system with pattern maintenance and latent tension manage- ment. The task of integrating all of these is supposed to be the speciality of the social system, but what exactly the social system is, apart from the political, cultural, and economic systems, is not clearly indicated. Also, it is not quite clear as to who sets the goals which the political system is supposed to try to attain. And why could adaptation not be treated as some sort of goal in itself? Similarly, it is difficult to see why pattern maintenance and tension management do not perform the integrative fune-

10 Political Development tion which the social system alone is specifically supposed to do. It may be said that these are just analytic categories which characterize any action and the so-called concrete subsystems are differentiated by the predominance of one category rather than another. But even if this were granted, it does not blunt the edge of the objections raised. For analytic categories them- selves should be kept distinct, and it would be difficult for Parsons to maintain that pattern maintenance and tension management could be separated, even analytically, from inte- grative or even adaptive functions. In considering the problem of any subsector development, therefore, one has inevitably to face the question as to how it is related to developments in other sectors. To the extent that the sector has autonomy, it is bound to have some immanent goals of its own in terms of which development or lack of development may be said to occur. Also, as the very concept of autonomy implies some sort of immanent dletern-tination of the system, the development or lack of development has to a large extent to be explicated and understood in its own terms. However, as the system is actually a subsystem, the autonomy is boun to c relative in character, and thus determination from the outside, at least at the margins, has always to be taken into account. Yet, exactly what the immanent goal of the political system is and what the immanent causality which operates therein seems to be nowhere explicitly stated by most writers who are concerned pre-eminently with the notion of political development. Or, if it is suspected or even explicitly recognized that there is perhaps more than one goal immanent to the system, then what the relationship is between the goals themselves is hardly ever ex- plicated by these writers. The trouble, therefore, with the concept of political develop@- ment is that we do not quite know what is supposed to develop or whose development we are supposed to discern. Unless this fundamental point is clarified, the search for criteria is bound to he diffused and vague, as one would not know what one was looking for. In a certain sense, we would find this true of most of the criteria that have been offered by writers in this field. They are usually so general as to have hardly anything to do specifically or exclusively with the realm of politics. Perhaps they are general descriptions of what these writers consider

The Criterion as Participation 11desirable in their society or even in any society. This reaction isunderstandable, as the concern with political developmentarose primarily in the context of the failure of many of the newnations which emerged after the Second World War to achievepolitical stability and economic growth.11 The political system, though a subsystem of the society, is sup- posed to perform the overall and overriding function of looking after the society and managing it to the extent that this can be done at a conscious, corporate level. The first criterion that comes to mind is, therefore, the extent to which members of any society participate in the exercise of this function. Certain groups may be legally or actually deprived of the right to participate in this process, while even many who have the right to participate may not choose to do so unless it be made mandatory for them. The extent of the formal right of participa- tion in the political process which is concerned with the total whole, the actual facilitation of the exercise of such a right, and the actual exercise of the right, then, may be taken as deter- mining the degree of political development which a society has achieved when compared to other societies or to itself in a former stage. In fact, most writers on political development have used participation as a basic criterion for judging and measuring political development. But exactly what participa- tion in the political process is, is. seldom directly discussed. Per- haps it is assumed that the relevant discussion has already oc- curred in the debate about democratic and representative poli- tical institutions. But if that is the end of the matter, there should be no uneasiness about the populist type of participation in the political process. Nor, for that matter, should the un- believably large turnouts in the $ovict and Nazi-style patterns of election cause such dismay among the democratic theorists of Western countries. Deeper than this, however, are the questions relating to the fact that if the criterion of participation were to be accepted, then most politics in human history would have to be character- ized as undeveloped for the simple reason that not only has it always been a minority which actually participated in the

12 Political Development political process, but also because the majority generally were not supposed to participate in it. As most of the existent politics in the world have been, so to say, non-democratic in the past, it would be impossible to judge them on the basis of this criterion and say which is more and which is less developed even among themselves. They are lumped together and thrown into the limbo of development where nothing relevant can be said about them as far as political development is concerned. In a certain perspective, this may not be considered some- thing to be deeply worried about, as in the process of socio- political evolution fundamental breakthroughs may naturally be expected to occur. And, in fact, as we shall see later on, it has actually been argued that modernity is such a break- through in the process of social evolution. But whatever may be meant by evolution in this field-and we will have occasion to examine this in detail later on-this would tend to show that participation' is hardly something immanent to the field of politics, since otherwise it would have been its central concern wherever it obtained. Rather, it becomes such a concern only when a certain level of development is achieved, and this is perhaps more a result of certain technological breakthroughs, if 'modernization' is seen as integrally related to 'industrializa- tion' even if not identical with it. There are other problems in treating 'participation' as a criterion of political development. The first and foremost relates to the fact that it is doubtful whether a majority of the people can ever actually participate in the political process except in a marginal or symbolic manner. Any society, in order to function, has to perform functions other than the political one. And most of these functions are fairly time- consuming. The Greek polis, where the male citizens lived what Hannah Arendt has called 'the public life', had women and slaves to perform the other functions. Today when we do not believe that there ought to be slaves in a society, the question is whether all can live 'the public life' lived by a minority in the Greek polis and described so eloquently in Arendt's book On Revolution.' Perhaps automation will permit the slaves and free human beings to engage in the full-time public activity about which she writes. But even then, there may be economic pre- requisites of political activity which everyone mayuot possess,

The Criterion as Participation 13 and there may be large numbers of people who may not want to devote all or even most of their time to political activity. This point has seldom been seriously discussed by those political scientists who have treated 'increasing participation in the political process' as a criterion of political developme .nt. They seem to write as if there were no economic costs to politics, as if all the obstacles to people's participation lay either in legal disabilities or obstruction by those who did not want any effective participation by certain groups, ethnic or otherwise. Also, there seems to be the unstated assumption that if people had the legal right, the actual facilities, and perhaps the eco- nomic resources, then they would engage in political activity, even to the exclusion of other activity if a choice had to be made.2 But these assumptions are not true. There are sub- stantial economic costs to political activity and, automation or no automation, people both have to and prefer to engage in other activities. Full-time political activity can be engaged in only by those who either have independent means, or are sup- ported by somebody else, or are provided for by the party of which they are members and for which they work. In the last case, the party itself must have control over economic resources, and this can come only by having direct command of them or by serving, to some extent at least, 'the interests of those who have such command. In the former case, there is bound to be an erosion of distinction- between party and government and a tendency towards some sort of one-party totalitarian control of the state. The second point is equally important. Most people, at least in non-crisis situations, have little interest in political activity. And this for the simple reason that time is a scarce commodity and if one engages in something, then one cannot engage in something else as fully. The whole idea of an engaged or committed consciousness does not merely absolutize the moral perspective but, what is perhaps even more important, politicizes it also. The assumption is that moral action is nothing but political action and that the moral point of view is itself nothing but a political point of view which, if genuine, must result in political action. The total politicization of life, thus, is7 the demand not merely of populist totalitarians, as has generally been thought, but also of all those who have identified

14 Political Development the moral with the political and, at least implicitly, of those who urge 'participation in the political process' as a criterion of (political development'. There is still another implication of the 'participation' criterion hardly noticed by those who have propounded it so often. And that is the non-differentiation or at least the non- professionalization of political activity as against most other activities in the system. Obviously, if everyone can participate and in fact is expected to participate in political activity, then there could hardly be any prerequisites required for engaging ,in that activity. This is anomalous, especially in the light of the fact that most thinkers who treat 'participation in the political process' as a sign of 'political development' also treat 'differen- tiation' as a sign of development in general. Yet, if it is a sign of social development that the realm of politics becomes different- iated from other realms, then it would also obviously follow that everybody cannot engage in it to the same extent, unless, of course, 'differentiation' were. merely to mean 'differentiation' in the time devoted to it and not the specialized cultivation of skills for the pursuit of that activity. There is, so to say, a denial of the need for 'professionalization' for the achievement of efficiency or expertise in political activity. Yet, the virtues of 'differentiation', as we shall see later, are supposed to lie in its contribution to greater efficiency. But if this is not true for any one domain, then one wonders why 'differentiation' per se should be regarded as desirable or necessary. The objection is bound to be made that we are misinterpret- ing the notion of 'participation' as used in the current dis- cussion about political development. 'Participation', in this context, does not mean actual participation in the decision- making processes of the polity. This would be almost impossible in any large community, as not everybody can be a legislator or a member of a group that collectively legislates. And if execu- tive and judicial functions are also regarded as political func- tions, then it is perhaps even more obvious that everyone, whether the society be large or small, cannot be involved in a participatory manner in the performance of political functions. It is at least theoretically conceivable that technology could permit the participation of all members of a society in the discussion and decision on any issue that came before them for

The Criterion as Participation 15 collective consideration. But it would he difficult to think of ways in which all could he involved in the discharge of execu- tive and judicial functions. That perhaps is the reason why the political function is so pre-eminently identified with the enact- ment of laws and the authority to do so. Even those who have tried to argue that there is an inalienable political element in both the executive and the judiciary have generally done so on the ground that there is an element of rule-making involved in the exercise of their functions. Cardozo's is one of the best- known discussions with respect to the judiciary in this con- teXt.3 'Participation', then, should not be taken to mean actual participation in the 'law adjudicating' and 'law enforcing' processes which are generally thought to be important elements of the total political process. As for the 'law formulating' process, the thinkers writing on 'political development' have seldom seriously considered actual participation as a criterion for its determination, even though there now seems no intrinsic reason why, in the light of new technological innovations in communication and computerized calculation, this should not be regarded as feasible. Perhaps their framework of thought is still determined by the older situation where the practice of direct democracy was thought to be intrinsically impossible because of the large numbers involved, and have not yet caught up with the possibilities offered by new technological break- throughs. There may, however, be another reason for this neglect. The 'participation' envisaged may not be so much for the purpose of ensuring that everybody has a say in the decision-making pro- cesses which concern the group as a whole but to ensure that those who make such decisions do not do so to their own special or sectional advantage. The right to vote is, so to say, the right to refuse to re-elect those who have exercised the function of making the laws and done so poorly in the opinion of those who are choosing to cast the adverse vote. It is the right to say 'no' and, by doing so in sufficiently large numbers, to remove from office those who presumably misused the mandate to rule wisely and in the interest of the whole. Thus, it should be seen mor 1e in negative than in positive, forms. It is in insuring against the possibility of tyranny in the system that the real significance of

16 Political Developinent 'participation' through the right to vote lies'. The primary purpose of 'participation', thus, consists of ensuring and strengthening 'political liberty' which may be regarded as a value immanent to the political realm. But, surprising as it may seem, the concept of 'political liberty' plays hardly any role in discussions about political development. Ludan Pye, who has made a supposedly exhaus- tive survey of all the definitions offered for political develop- ment in his well-known work Aspects of Political Development, barely mentions it. The closest that he comes to it is perhaps in the definition of political development as the building of democracy. But that democracy in this context is hardly con- cerned directly with the issue of 'political liberty' is revealed by the fact that neither the words 'freedom' or 'liberty' nor the phrases 'political freedom' or 'political liberty' are to be found in the index to this book. The whole notion of 'public liberties' around which the great debate between totalitarianism and democracy raged seems to have lost all interest for students of political science concerned with questions of political develop- ment. In fact, even those who have tried to develop some measurable criteria of what may be called indicators for poli- tical development have hardly concerned themselves with the issue of 'public liberties' in devising their indicators. The suspicion that 'participation' is not being used by these thinkers in what we have called the negative or 'public liberties' sense of the term is confirmed by Pye's statement that 'parti- cipation may be either democratic or a form of totalitarian mobilization.'4 But if it can take either of the forms, then obviously it cannot be linked in any essential way to the notion of 'political liberty', for the contrast between democracy and totalitarianism is supposed to lie in this very domain. However, as already pointed out, as far as Pye is concerned, the differen- tiation of democracy does not seem to lie in the realm of what may be called institutional safeguards against the possibility of tyranny. Rather, he, along with many others, seems to be con- cerned with what has come to be called in the recent literature of political science, 'interest articulation' and 'interest aggrega- tion'. Perhaps it is in the open and almost unlimited oppor- tunity for 'interest articulation' that the distinguishing charac- teristic of democracy lies in this framework. It is hopefully

The Criterion as Participation 17 assumed that this unlimited opportunity would facilitate the achievement of 'interest aggregation' also. That 'participation' is used in the positive sense can further be gathered from the fact that many writers have considered it, to some extent, to be antagonistic to the achievement of effective capacity or capabilities on the part of the political system. Riggs has developed a whole thesis out of the supposed dialectical conflict between participation and capacity and sees in it the clue to the immanent force determining the development of any political system.5 And Huntington has seen in the tension between participation and what he calls 'political institutional- ization' the clue to both political order and political decay.6 We will have occasion later to discuss in detail the conten- tions of these thinkers, but it should be of interest here to note that, even though the relation is supposed to be antagonistic, participation' is still treated as a criterion of political develop- ment per se. But if there is a negative correlation between participation and capacity, and if development is regarded as enhancement of capacity, then how can participation be regarded as a criterion of development? Presumably, as in Riggs, it may be regarded as such because it provides that negative source of tension which results, at least sometimes, in a higher stage of development. But then it could not be regarded by itself as a sign of development. Rather, what is a sign of development is enhanced capacity, and 'participation' in the political process becomes one only by virtue of the fact that it produces tensions which may result in even greater enhancement of capacity. Thus, in this perspective, it has only an instru- mental value as far as political development is concerned. And in case it fails to achieve this enhancement of capacity or, as is even more likely if Huntington's analysis is to be believed, results in a decline in capacity, then it can only be treated either as neutral or as counter-development, depending on which of the alternatives actually takes place. The criterion in terms of 'capacities' or 'capabilities' will be the subject of detailed discussion later on in this work. Here, however, we would like only to point out the incompatibility between holding 'participation' as an independent criterion of 'political development' on the one hand, and simultaneously 'dering it as a key factor obstructing 'political develop- consi

18 Political Development me-at', on the other. If it is one, then it cannot be the other also. Yet, most writers tend to argue as if it were both at the same time, without in any significant way trying to bridge the apparent incompatibility between the two. The positive interpretation of the notion of 'participation', then, may be accepted in the context of its discussion as a criterion for 'political development'. Yet 'participation', even in the positive sense, can be of different types, as has recently been argued by Verba, Ahmed, and Bhatt in their book Caste, Race, and Polities." According to them, 'participation is, in our view, not a single, undifferentiated entity. There are alternative modes of participation that differ significantly in the ways in which they relate the citizen to his government."' Besides voting, which is accepted almost without exception as the standard political act, they mention three other modes: 'Campaign activity', 'co-operative activity', and 'citizen-initiated con- tacts'.9 'Campaign activity' obviously refers 'to activity in political campaigns beyond the act of voting',"0 or, rather, before the act of voting. Both voting and campaign activity are, in a sense, direct political acts, assuming a political system which requires at least some sort of electoral process for the legitimation of those who wield political authority in the system. The other two modes, however, seem basically different in character. The first, that is, 'co-operative activity', is defined as activity 'in which the individual works with others-either informal groups or formal organizations-to deal with the problems of his community'." The term '.his community' in this definition is perhaps not meant to be interpreted too strictly, for otherwise it would exclude activity concerned with causes which relate to a community that is abstract in character. On the other hand, if it is loosely interpreted, it would include activity which transcends national boundaries and thus is, to that extent, transpolitical in character. Perhaps, therefore, such exclusion is implied in the definition and only the community of which one is directly and immediately a member is meant. In fact, the questions asked to ascertain the respondents' participa- tion in co-operative activities, as given in appendices B and C of Caste, Race, and Politics, tend to confirm this interpretational Yet, whatever be specifically meant by the term 'community'

The Criterion as Participation 19 in this context, it tends to blur the distinction between social and political activity. The fourth form of 'political participation' which the authors have discussed relates to what they call 'citizen-initiated con- tacts'. By these they mean 'contacts with government officials initiated by individuals'.13 This category is supposed to provide an index of 'participation' in the sense that the citizens show by their actions not only an awareness of the political system and their expectations from it, but also their initiative in realizing those expectations from the system. The authors have not made any relevant distinction between 'citizen-initiated contacts' at a group level and those at an individual level. Nor have they considered differences in the content of the citizen's needs in the context of which the contact with government officials is made. Nor have they made any distinction between the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the purposes for the fulfilment of which the contact is made. The emphasis presumably is on individual needs as the question is asked in the context of a person's apprehension of the government as the solver of per- sonal problems. This is related to some extent to the focus of the study, which is concerned 'with the way in which deprived groups use politics to attempt to overcome their deprivation'.14 But however natural in the context of the authors' study, it is obvious that 'citizen-initiated contact' by a group or its repre- sentative for the amelioration of collective needs is far more a political act than an individual initiating a contact on his own for the fulfilment of his own needs. If the earlier category of gco-operative activity' tends to blur the line between the poli- tical and the social, the present one tends to do so between the political and the personal. The category of 'citizen-initiated contacts' can, conceivably, be regarded as an instance of what in the literature of political science has come to be called 'politicization'. It would be difficult, however, for 'co-operative activity' to be regarded as such. It would be such only if its purpose was either to make demands on the political system or to play some effective role in the selection of its personnel. In the latter case, it would be something like 'campaign activity', though far, far wider than what Verba, Ahmed, and Bhatt mean by the term. In the former case, on the other hand, it would be very much akin to

20 1 Political Development what is called 'interest articulation' in the literature of political science. Even in the positive sense, then, the concept of 'participation' can be treated in a wide variety of ways. In fact, the use of the term 'politicization' has opened the doors wide to almost any type of relationship with the system being regarded as sqme sort of 'participation'. Any awareness of the polity in the cognitive domain and any active relationship with it, whether of a positive or negative character, can then be interpreted as some sort of 'politicization' and, thus, some sort of 'participa- tion' also. It is in this sense that reading newspapers, watching TV and listening to radio, become as much indices of 'participa- tion' as membership in political parties, turnout at political rallies, the percentage of people voting, etc. But through this extension, the term loses its direct, specific sense of participa- tion for positive effectiveness in the decision-making process of a polity. However, even in this specific sense there is some sort of implicit assumption of legitimacy which makes it seem odd to say that people taking part in violent or non-violent demon- strations against the system and going to prison or dying in the process are 'participating' in the political processes of the system. Yet there is a large class of political scientists who treat all evidence of activity which is concerned in any way with politics as evidence of 'politicization'. In fact, many of them have a special name for it-'inverse 'articulation by anomic groups'.", The term.'interest articulation' is in many of its uses very close to what in certain other contexts is denoted by 'politiciza- tion' and in still other contexts by 'participation'. It has itself been used as a criterion of 'political development', and we will have occasion to discuss it in that context. But, as far as 1 am aware, there has been little systematic attempt to differentiate participation', 'politicization' and 'interest articulation', and 2 delineate the interrelationships between them. Most authors tend to use these terms interchangeably, depending upon the context they are emphasizing. Yet it would be useful if the differences between them are kept in mind. There seems little point in taking 'interest articulation' as 'participation' in the political process unless it happens to be what may be called 'structured articulation' required by the system itself. Similarly,

The Criterion as Participa ption 21 all 'structured participation' need not be treated as 'politiciza- tion'. It may be better if the term 'politicization' is reserved for areas in which the category of the 'Political' dominates all others in social life, thought, and action. But whatever be one's feelings about the way these terms are or Ought to be used, there should be little dispute over the fact that if they are treated as criteria of 'political development', then an increase or decrease in each category should be taken as an increase or decrease in political development also. Yet an awareness of this point seems to be absent from the writings of most of those who show a concern for the problems of political development. Most of the so-called new nations which emerged after the Second World War, and in whose context the dis- cussions about political development originated, started with universal franchise and have given effect to it in large measure in their countries. Yet this has seldom been treated as a reason for considering these countries politically developed. In fact, the consensus, if any, seems to be that such an enlarged political participation is one of the root causes of many of the problems these countries face with respect to their political development. Huntington goes so far as to relate political instability directly to political participation and inversely to what he calls 'poli- tical institutionalization'.16 Assuming that political instability is a sign of political decay, it would follow that the less there is of political participation, the less chance there will be for poli- tical instability in a country. Of course, Huntington treats political instability as a ratio between political participation and political institutionalization, but as in most cases institu- tionalization may be expected to take a far longer time than it ever takes for political participation to occur, it may be taken as axiomatic that if a polity seeks both, it would be far easier for it to achieve the latter rather than the former and thus ensure the impossibility of its own political development. A detailed discussion of Huntington's thesis along with a consideration of stability as a criterion of 'political development' will be undertaken later on. Here we only want to note that if an increase in 'political participation' results in political decay, then it obviously cannot he taken, at least not without any ifs and buts, as a criterion of political development. But if $participation' is considered as a value per se which immanently

22 Political Development belongs to the realm of politics, then its increase should be regarded as a sign of political development even if it is considered undesirable on other grounds. And this should be true even when one extends the notion of 'participation' to mean 'politicization' in the sense in which violent protests are supposed to imply some sort of 'participation' in politics on the part of citizens. Perhaps the only relevant distinction on this count will be the one between 'structured' and 'unstructured' participation, and political development will then consist of the conversion of the latter into the former. Different politics, then, could be compared on the basis of the extent, range, intensity, and quality of this participation, and be determined to be politically more or less developed. Perhaps a participation index could be developed and the politics ranked in its terms. But it would not be reasonable then to express dissatisfaction with a polity on political grounds even when it was doing well on the basis of the criterion for determining whether it was politically developed or not. The objection may be made that we are taking the term 'political development' in too evaluative a sense of the word. Basically, the term is value-neutral in the sense in which it is usually employed in the literature dealing with the field. Almond and Powell, for example, suggest the possibility of 'negative development' when they write that a 'decline in the magnitude or a significant change in the content of the flow of inputs may result in "development" in the negative or re- gressive sense. The capabilities of the political system may decline or be overloaded; roles and structures may atrophy; the culture may regress to a more traditional pattern of orienta- tion.117Similarly, talking even more explicitly concerning 'hang- ups about evaluation', Almond writes, 'It is symptomatic of the primitive state of theoretical work in the field that we should be so anxious about the words we use and the definitions of our concepts. Biologists and psychologists speak of the growth and development of organisms, of human growth and development, assuming that the concept of development includes break- downs, decay, decline, even the death of the organism. The literature on economic growth and development is not em- barrassed by the fact that economics fluctuate in national pro- duct, that some stagnate, and some decline. We are not bound

The Criterion as Participation 23 by the connotations of the words we use to label our concepts. These should be viewed as open terms which acquire content as we use them to order and explain reality."8 Now it is not very clear what Almond is trying to say through all this. If he means that any characteristic or set of character- istics which is considered as a criterion of political development is capable of increase or decrease and thus includes in itself indications both of political growth and political decay, then obviously one can have little quarrel with what he is saying. Any theory of political development would obviously be also a theory of political decline or decay. But, equally obviously, a theory is different from the criterion or criteria of development. True, economists are not embarrassed by facts of fluctuation, stagnation, and decline in national product; nor are biologists by the decay and death of organisms. But it is equally true that they are not in much doubt as to whether an economy is growing or declining or remaining static or whether an or- ganism is ill or healthy. The same, unfortunately, can hardly he said about political scientists and the political development about which they write so continuously and voluminously. The day Almond or anybody else achieves this, the controversy about the concept would cease. However, the situation with respect to the concept of political development is that nobody seems to know what constitutes 'political development'. Does, for example, an increase in 'political participation' constitute positive political development? Suppo@ing somebody answers 'yes', then he would not be justified in holding any polity to be undergoing negative political development if 'political parti- cipation' is increasing in that polity. Also, if there is more political participation' in one polity than in another, then the first would necessarily have to be considered politically more developed than the other. There could also be differing rates of growth in 'political participation' in different countries, and these would determine the rates of political development also. The same obviously would be true of any other criteria which may he offered for political development. Yet almost all the criteria which political scientists offer for 'political development' suffer from the defect that their presence or absence or increase or decrease is seldom uniquely correlated with what is considered to be either 'positive' or 'negative'

24 Political Developmentdevelopment. Let this situation be clarified and then we willknow where a country stands with respect to what the authorconsiders a 'positive' or 'negative' political development. Yetthis is what one seldom finds. Almond talks of economic devel-opment and suggests that the concept of political developmentis equally viable. Yet, if this were so, why is it that we have noquarterly, half-yearly, or yearly reports on the rate of 'positive'or 'negative' political development, say, of the United States?Has any political scientist concerned with political developmenttried, for example, to determine whether the 1960-70 decadewas a period of 'negative', 'positive', or 'static' growth in rela-tion to political development for the United States or, for thatmatter, any other Western country? Even if the conclusion bethought so self-evident as not to require any investigation, therates of growth may still'decline or vary between di&rentcountries. There seems something pathological in the almostexclusive concentration of attention on the countries of Asia,Africa, and Latin America among thinkers concerned withpolitical development. Would it not be strange if economistsconcerned with economic development had nothing to sayabout the econon-iic growth in their own countries? Almond compares the concept of political development notonly to that of economic development, but also to that of bio-logical and psychological growth, ignoring the importantdifferences between the two. One wonders what biologicalgrowth could mean, outside the evolutionary context, exceptwhat is generally known as maturation on the one hand andhealth on the other. Maturation, to a great extent, is an almostinevitable process inherently determined and containing in itthe future seeds of decline and death also. 1 hope Almond doesnot mean anything analogous with respect to the concept ofpolitical development. We will have occasion later to examinethe biological analogy in greater detail in connection with thenotion of evolution as applied to social and political fields. Buteven here it seems clear that 'political development' is notbeing seen on the model of an almost inevitable maturation im-manently determined, as the complaint usually seems to be thatso many societies fail to make good politically. It is not thatthey are stillborn or that they die when young, but that theydo survive and yet somehow fail to mature, which in the bio-

The Criterion as Participation 25 logical realm would be regarded as almost an impossibility. @ The analogy with health, on the other hand, creates problems of a different kind. One surely does not get healthier and healthier and healthier, just as one may get richer and richer and richer. And, while there are hundreds of ways of getting ill, there is only,one way in which one may be healthy. It is not that the phrase 'one is getting healthier' has no application, but that it has relevance only in the context of recovering from illness. It would be odd to say 'I am getting healthier' when 1 had not felt ill or weak earlier. Health is not the same kind of thing as wealth, and Almond does not make clear whether he conceives of political development on the model of one or the other. The very fact that he refers to both health and wealth without showing any awareness of the significant differences between them may be taken as a sign that he has not reflected upon the kind of development which 'political development' is. The same criticism, of course, may be made of all the others who have written on the subject. They have not even asked whether 'political development'is the sort of development that is capable of indefinite, incremental growth. Sometimes they seem to ask this question or something analogous to it. Yet the fact that they do not stop and seek an answer before moving forward suggests that. though the question appears to have been asked, its significance was not perceived at all. Lucian Pye, for example, asks, '-What is the meaning of "political development" and what characterizes "modernization" in the realm of poli- tics? In politics is there the same distinction as in economics between "developed" and "underdeveloped"? Are there cer- tain forms and conditions of politics that are necessary to support, or at least not inhibit other forms of social and eco- nomic development?"9 Yet, as far as 1 know, he has nowhere tried to come to terms with these questions. In fact, he does not seem to have even reflected upon the implications of the ques- tions asked. The:first question, for example, involves a distinction between 'political modernization' and 'political development' which seems to have hardly ever been clarified by Pye or anybody else., Similarly, the second question raises in a crucial way the fun- damental problem of whether the concept of 'political devel- opment' is analogous in essential respects to that of 'economic

26 Political Development development' or radically different from it. And, if the latter, then what is the nature of this radical difference? Are- there, then, different kinds of development, with almost typal differ- ences between them? If so, the first task should have been the analysis, delineation, and classification of different kinds of development, 'since only then could it be detern-iined to which type 'political development' belonged. Yet there is nothing of the kind in Pye or any of the other political scientists who have written on 'political development'. The third question raises doubts about the autonomy of 'political development'. If political forms are to be judged as 'developed' or 'undeveloped' only by the fact that they are or are not conducive to 'social and economic development', then there is no such thing as 'political development'per se. Rather, it is to be understood in purely instrumental terms. But then, many different kinds of instrumentalities may achieve the same goal, particularly if the goal itself is not too precisely defined. Also, it is not quite clear as to what exactly is meant by 'social development' as distinct from 'economic development'. Is it implied that the two may occur independently of each other, or that one is a precondition of the other, or that there is some sort of an inverse relation between them ? To ask these questions and try to find answers to them is to become aware that the literature on political development is silent about them. Lucian Pye raises them, but does not even attempt any answer. Almond tries to escape these questions by calling the concepts used in the discussion of 'political develop- ment' 'open terms which acquire content as we use them to order and explain reality'. But does this solve any problem? Fuzziness, ambiguity, lack of clear thought, imprecision in the formulation of questions cannot be brushed away merely by calling the terms 'open'. In a sense, all terms having empirical referents are 'open', but that does not mean that all objections against any of their specific formulations can be brushed aside merely by saying that they are 'open'. The term 'development', then, may be 'open' as Almond contends, and may even he treated as value-neutral as he wants us to treat it. But, even then, none of the troubling questions that we have been raising would cease to exist. After all, if 'development' is treated as a neutral term-and Almond is at

The Criterion as Participation 27 liberty to do so--it becomes something like 'change'. But would not the same problems arise with respect to 'positive develop- ment' and 'negative development'? The search for criteria for 'political development' obviously does not relate merely to finding out whether something labelled 'political' has changed. This presumably would not be very difficult to do. The problems basically relate to what is to count as positive 'poli- tical development' and what as negative. Usually, the term 'development' itself was assumed to have the term 'positive' implied in it, and almost all the literature on 'political develop- ment' testifies to this. But even if it were to be disinfected and made value-neutral as Almond wants, the problems would reappear with respect to what he himself chooses to call, 'pgsi- tive' or 'negative' 'political development'. The same is true with respect to Huntington's claim to have given up the concept of 'political development'. He writes, 'In my 1968 book, Political Order in Changing Societies, which other- wise builds extensively on the 1965 article, the concept of political development was quietly dropped. 1 focus instead on what 1 conceive to be the critical relationship between political participation and political institutionalization without worrying about the issue of which should be labelled "political. develop- ment".120 Now, one may not worry about what is to be called 'political development', just as one may choose to cut out the positive implication involved in the term 'development', but the obligation to spell out what one considers the positive direc- tion of change in the realm of politics can hardly be given up so easily. Though Huntington may not talk of 'political develop- ment', he talks of 'political decay' all right. In fact, the first chapter of his 1968 book is entitled 'Political Order and Poli- tical Decay' in contrast to the 1965 article which was entitled, 'Political Development and Political Decay'. The only change, thus, is in the replacement of the term 'order' for the term 'development', which presumably provides only a more specific content to what was meant more generally in the earlier title. He almost admits as much when he observes in the Preface, 'Economists who write about economic development presum- ably favor it, and this book originates in parallel concern which 1 have for political stability.'21 Political stability, then, is per- haps the same as political order, and provides for Huntington

28 Political Development the criterion for what he considers 'political development'. In his 1971 article, he says, 'The concept of political development thus serves in effect as a sign of scholarly preferences rather than as a tool for analytical purposes.'22 His own preference for order is fairly clear as he chooses to call the reverse 'political decay'. Some of Huntington's arguments against the notion of 'political development' are important and, to some extent, we ourselves will use them in various parts of our discussion in this work. But the impression which he tries to create of having given up the concept of 'political development' is not quite accurate. Only it is now conceived of as a relationship between two variables. rather than being singly determined by either of them. He himself has given the basic equation as Political Participation Political Institutionalization' = zull[lcal 'Lnsx:a Dility..Assuming that political instability is the opposite of politicalorder, it would follow that - -. . - - . Political. Institutionalization Fohtical Urder Political Participation Further, if 'political decay' is the same as 'political instability', then it is obvious that for Huntington 'political institutionaliza- tion' is positively and directly correlated with whatever is the opposite of 'political decay'. The correlation of 'political parti- cipation', on the other hand, is negative, and thus he was not very wrong in titling his 1965 article 'Political Development and Political Decay'. Only now the dynamic thrust is seen as coming from the negative factor, that is, 'political participation', and whether it results in political decay or political order depends upon the capacity of political institutions to absorb it and, in the process, adapt to each other. Riggs has developed a slightly more sophisticated and generalized theory out of this, but at least he has admitted that what he is talking about is 'develop- mental conffiet'.24 There seems no reason to think that Hunt- ington is talking about something which is different in any essential respect from what Riggs is talking about. We will have occasion later to discuss in detail the contentions of both with respect to what they regard as 'political development', but

The Criterion as Participation 29 there seems no reason to think that Huntington does not believe in something which others call 'political development' and which he seems afraid to designate as such. 'Participation', then, has been regarded as a criterion of positive political development by most political scientists. However, there are some like Huntington who regard it primarily as a negative factor, while others like Riggs regard it as that negative element in the dialectics of development which makes it possible to reach higher levels of political synthesis. But whether positive or negative, and whether creatively negative or just negative, it has always played a key role in all thought concerned with political development. Yet if there is such diversity in the ways in which it can be understood as a criterion, ranging from the purely positive to the purely nega- tive, it is obvious that, apart from the purely subjective idio- syncrasies of the authors, there must be something besides participation itself which tends to make some relate it positively and others negatively to what they regard as 'polit@cal develop- ment'. The reason why 'participation' is regarded as a positive sign relates to the fact that it is only through participation that one can make known what one thinks or feels or wants with respect to the system, and that one can play some part in shaping it nearer not only to the desire of one's heart but also to the judgement of one's head. But for this reason, it is also felt- to use a phrase of Almond-that 'the capabilities of a system may be overloaded', and that the proverbial too many cooks can indeed spoil the broth. The point obviously is that if participation' is seen in terms of 'demands' upon the system, then too many demands may break the system. On the other hand, if it is seen in terms of 'counselling and taking part in the decision-making process', then too many counsels and too many decision-makers may frustrate the process itself. The former is usually known in the literature as 'interest articulation', while the latter has been given no specific, distinctive name, though 'interest aggregation' and 'capabilities' refer to some of its aspects. We will discuss each of these in detail later on. The notion of 'participation' has recently been modified by some thinkers. Brunner and Brewer, for example, suggest that a more useful conceptualization of political participation may be

30 Political Developmentfound in 'the capacity of a group or section to respond tochanges in its life situation by giving or withholding support forthe government'. And, 'more generally, participation i@ theextent to which stimuli or felt needs can be converted intomeaningful responses at the aggregate ICVCII.2,1 This is close towhat Almond calls 'interest articulation'. But it seems a littlestrange to define 'participation' in terms of 'capacity' which isbasically something dispositional rather than actual. Also itseems odd that the definition, if taken literally, would excludeany political concern or response that was related not to changesin the group's own life situation but to issues of concern to othergroups in the same polity or even in other countries. This wouldmake all idealistic involvement in politics non-participatory bydefinition. The authors, further, fail to see that if 'politicalparticipation' is defined in terms of the capacity to give orwithhold support to the government, then it is only aminority which can ever, even potentially, participate in thepolitical process, as it is only a minority which possesses thiscapaci@y in any significant or substantial degree. Not only this, itwould, on this analysis, be in the interest of each group to seethat others do not get this capacity. This may occur. But if, insuch a circumstance, 'participation' is still treated as a criterionof 'positive political development', then the latter can only beachieved by an egalitarian distribution of all that contributes tosuch a capacity. Yet, as such distribution would not be to theinterest of any specific group, and as unselfish participation is,ruled out by definition, it would follow that positive politicaldevelopment in the sense of enlargement of participation wouldhappen only rarely and then too by accident. The hope in sucha situation may perhaps be seen to lie in the possible conflictamongst those who have this capacity and in their attempts toaugment their capacity by trying to win over those with littleor no capacity of their own except numbers. It is interesting, however, to see why the authors consider itnecessary to view the notion of 'participation' in this manner.The reason lies in the f@ct that they found voting turnout ratesin Turkey and the Philippines too high for their taste. Thesecountries, after all, have to be regarded as politically under-developed, and if they show high levels of political participationas measured by voting turnout, then either 'participation' is not

The Criterion as Participation 31 a criterion of 'political development' or voting turnout is not a measure of 'participation'. The authors chose the latter alterna- tive. They write, 'In man' countries that are still considered y relatively underdeveloped there are already very high levels of voting turnout. In Turkey, for example, the turnout rates were 39%, 89%, and 77% of the eligible electorate in the general elections of 1950, 1954, and 1957, respectively. The Philippine presidential elections of 1946, 1949, 1953, 1957 and 1961 had turnout rates of 89.6%, 67.7%, 77.2%, 75.5% and 79.4% of the registered electorate. If the phenomenon called participa- tion is increasing in the less developed countries, then turnout rates are not an accurate measure of it. 121 But why not? They may not be an accurate measure, but they certainly are some measure of it. The trouble with most criteria of political deve pnient, as we shall see later on, is that they either turn countries which are presumably 'politically developed' into being politically under- developed or vice versa or both. The only criterion which seems an exception to this is the criterion of economic growth. But if that criterion be accepted, then there remains no real need for thinking about 'political development' in any specific, separate sense of the term. 'Participation' is a case in point. If voting turnout, especially in democratic countries, is accepted as at least one of the key measures of 'political participation', then the United States appears woefully underdeveloped politically. 'The number of eligible Americans who have actually voted in presidential elections since World War 11 has ranged from 51.5 per cent in 1948 to 63.8 per cent.in 1960.'27 If one compares these figures with those for Turkey and the Philippines given earlier, one sees the degree of 'political underdevelopment' which the United States suffers in contemporary times. Unfor- tunately, this conclusion is not very acceptable to writers on political development' as not only do most of them happen to 3 be U.S.'citizens but also, if they were to accept it, they would find little to make a country such as Turkey or the Philippines interesting as examples of emulation for'political development'. But it is not only the so-called 'underdeveloped' countries which have a higher voter turnout than the U.S.A. Most Western European countries seem to enjoy the same advantage. For example, 'Turnout in Italy and Belgium in the years since

32 Political Develo pment World War 11 has approximated 90 per cent; in Denmark, West Gerniany, and Great Britain, 80-85 per cent; and in Canada, Norway, Finland, and japan, 70-80 per cent.'28 Yet, it seems diflicult for any political scientist to conclude on the basis of these figures that the U.S. is far, far more 'politically underdeveloped' than these countries. The writer, of course, goes on to say that 'The few cross-national studies conducted so far indicate, however, that despite the low turnout, other indexes of participation-political interest and awareness, ex- pressed party afffilation, sense of political competence, etc.- tend to, be higher in the United States than in many other countries, such as France and Italy."" He does not give any judgement as to the relative weightage of all these factors vis-a- vis voter turnout, nor does he give any explanation as to why politics which @core high on other indices should he low on voter turnout, when perhaps that is the area where citizens can be most effective in the political system. The deeper problem with respect to 'participation', however, relates to the fact that so few people who can participate in the political process actually do so to any great extent. As Bryce observed, 'only a small group gives constant attention to politics, a slightly larger group is interested but comparatively passive, while the mass of men are largely indifferent'.30 The only alternative in such a situation seems to be to force people to 'participate' in politics, to make participation involuntary rather than voluntary-not a matter of choice, but of com- pulsion. This, to a great extent, has been the tendency o f totalitarian politics. Yet there are very few persons who would consider such 'enforced participation' a sign of 'political devel- opment'. The very fact that participation has to be forced shows that it is not desired and that if the enforcement were to be removed, in all likelihood non-participation would increase tremendously. It may be that large-scale participation in the political pro- cess is a sign not of health but of disease in the body politic. When the polity is healthy, people can take it for granted and pursue other interests which they regard as worthwhile. It is only when they find it impossible to take it for granted, as it becomes increasingly difficult for them to pursue ends which they regard as worthwhile, that they begin more and more to

The Criterion as Participation 33 concern themselves with politics. The body politic may be some- thing like the human body, in that the less you are aware of it as a problem, the healthier you are. There are obvious ex- ceptions to this, but on the whole it is a fair description of the situation. The 'participation' criterion of political development, thus, appears to run into difliculties for which there seem no very adequate answers in the literature' concerning the subject. First, it is not quite clear whether it is a sign of positive or negative political development. Though generally it is treated as a positive indicator, many of the political problems that plague the so-called developing countries are usually attributed to it also. Second, it is not quite clear whether 'participation' is to be voluntary or involuntary in order to be counted a criterion of 'political development'. If voluntary, it is not quite clear whether an increase indicates the sorry state of affairs in the polity or just a growing sense of responsibility and a desire for self-determination in the populace. If involuntary, on the other hand, it is not very clear whether it is only formal parti- cipation which is to be obligatory or whether even the direction which one's participation is to take is to be prescribed. At an even more fundamental level, it is seldom made clear what exactly is meant by 'participation'. Also, as there is a limit to participation, there would have to be one to political develop- ment also. The voting age, for example, can be reduced, but not indefinitely. The franchise can be extended and legal disabilities removed. But obviously there is a point beyond which one cannot go. There is such a thing as universal franchise, and it is not difficult of achievement either. The obstructions in the w@@ of the exercise of franchise could also be removed, and thus complete political development could be achieved on the basis of this criterion. Is 'political development', then, a sort of development which can be completely achieved? If 'participation' be the criterion and if it be understood in the usual sense, then there seems no reason why this should not be so. But then, 'political develop- ment' would not he the indefinitely incremental sort of thing we usually tend to think all 'development' to be. Perhaps that is the reason why most thinking concerning 'political develop- ment' tends to concentrate on the countries of Asia, Africa, and

34 Political Development Latin America, as the U.S. and most countries of Western Europe may be assumed to have reached the goal already. Development, of course, need not be conceived of as just incremental in character. Instead, it may be conceived of as involving radical breaks between one level and another. The movement from one- level to another and the relationship between the levels may be thought of in dialectical terms, but this is not necessary. Yet, whether it is conceived of dialectically or not, the idea of development in terms of radical breaks does not escape the, problem raised by the denial of the possibi- lity of indefinite incremental growth with respect to 'political development'. The advocates of socialist or communist notions of 'political development' find themselves in the same dilemma as those who espouse what are usually called democratic con- ceptions. One's ideal paradigm may be the Soviet Union or Maoist China, just as the paradigm of democratic political development may be the United States of America or Great Britain or any other country of Western Europe. But the issue as to what ''political development' means for such a country remains the same. The advocates-of each pattern could easily spell out what it would mean for a polity of the other type to, develop politically. But what development would mean in their own case they could hardly tell. To admit the possibility of 'political development', except in a very, very marginal sense, is to admit that one. has not achieved the polity one wanted to achieve. What would it mean for revolution to occur; say, in the Soviet Union or Maoist China? The question when posed in terms of 'revolution' brings the dilemma into the open. But 'revolution' is merely another name for 'political develop- ment' in this context. What can occur, for those who accept these nations as paradigms of communist politics, is only 'counter-revolution'. The situation is the same on the other side, though few appear to regard it as such. But that is primarily because most writers on such matters tend to accept com- munist countries as paradigmatic examples of developed poli- tics. It is, however, not difficult to find explicit statements on the other side. Euge-ne Kamenka writes, for example. 'The conc@pt of universality has been exhausted for all practical purposes, in the attaining of representative government and reasonable economic affluence. The revolution of the future in advanced.

The Criterion as Participation 35 democratic, industrialized society could only be counter- revolution, a seizure of power by a group intent on re-establish- ing despotic rule and a status society.'311 The term 'development', in fact, is used in many senses and does not always connote the possibility of indefinite growth. Perhaps 'political development' is a development of the sort where this connotation is not made. But if this is so, then this is -the first thing to he clarified..Nornially, it is discussed, debated, and written about on the analogy of economic development. But if it does not permit of indefinite growth in principle, it is different from economic development in certain fundamental and essential respects, and the analogy then becomes very misleading. On the other hand, if it is treated as an ideal which societies only asymptotically approximate and which they may approach but never completely realize, and if 'participation' is conceived of as dchning what this development consists in, then 'parti- cipation' itself has to be thought of in such a way that it could be indefinitely approximated to but never completely actual- ized. ln,such a situation, it obviously has to go beyond voter turnout and even beyond the other so-called indices such as political interest and awareness, expressed party affiliation, sense of political competence, etc., which McClos@y mentions in his article, cited earlier. But if the sense of 'participation' is extended beyond what is involved in the notion of 'representa- tive' government based on universal suffrage, we run up against what we have earlier called the difficulty of 'involuntary vs. voluntary participation', and, at a deeper level still, against the basic asymmetry involved in all power relations themselves. It may be correct, as Dahl observes, that 'even today what one ordinarily calls democracies are, as we all know, a very long way from being fully democratized political systems..'32 But if 'the plateau on which the democracies repose is ... a long way from what a reasonable observer might regard as the summit of political democracy', because 'it is obvious that political influence is distributed with great unevenness',33 then iparticipation' in the sense of 'democratization' would seem to mean equal distribution of political influence or, in other words, equal distribution of political power. But can power be equally distributed? And even if, by some miracle, someone were to

36 Political Development distribute it equally@whatever may be meant by that term- would it remain so distributed for long? The basic asymmetry which is involved in all power rela- tionships has seldom been the object of sustained reflection on the part of those who have conceived of 'political development' in terms of equality of political power. But if political power is distinguished from other kinds of power by its ultimate com- mand over instruments of physical coercion, then equal dis- tribution becomes even more difficult in its case. The relation between different kinds of power has seldom been clarified, but if the political realm claims a certain foundational primacy because of its control over means of legitimate coercion, then it is obvious that such a control could not be distributed equally. Further, if a certain positive relationship be accepted between other kinds of power and political power in the sense of exercise of political influence, then it is intrinsically impossible that political influence could ever be evenly distributed amongst all members of a polity. The- situation could perhaps be retrieved theoretically if we- were to postulate that each individual has supremacy in one particular type of power and if all types of power were to be treated as equivalent in strength or influence. This, however, would run against the primacy of political power over all other powers and against the possibility of some people combining and thus forming a more powerful combination against others. The latter possibility is presumably taken care of by the democratic principle of majority rule, but it reinstates to some extent the asymmetry between those who command the majority and those who do not. Yet, however intractable may be the problem raised by the asymmetrical character of power relationships, the hoped-for amelioration through extension of participation in the political process reveals at least one of its essential purposes. It mitigates to some extent the unevenness in the distribution of political influence. And, to the extent that the capacity for political influence is itself a function of other kinds of inequalities, it works for their amelioration also. But the type of inequalities whose amelioration may be sought has to be such that mitiga-, tion is possible. In other words, they have to be man-made, that is, social or institutional in origin. Yet this very origin suggests the difficulties in the way of their removal. There are vested

The Criterion as Participation 37 interests in the perpetuation of existing inequalities, and it is the task of those who want to remove them to articulate and attempt to secure their counter-interests. Political development, then, may be seen as an increase in 'interest articulation', and the latter may he treated as another criterion in terms of which political development may be articulated andjudged. The concept of 'participant citizenship' has been articulated by Inkeles in terms of freedom from traditional authority, interest in public affairs, and political rationality. He suggests that-there is a participant citizenship syndrome which consists of five factors. It 'includes identification with an allegiance to supra-local and non-parochial public authority; interest in civic affairs; information about political figures; participation in public organizations; and adherence to rational organiza- tional rules as a basis for running government affairs' .34 Itis not quite clear whether he would take an increase in this syndrome as a sign of political development, but as he takes it as almost a sine qua non of modernity an 'd as, presumably, to be modern is to be politically developed, it may be assumed that he would take it as such also. Yet, whether the so-called syndrome be an empirical fact or not, it is fairly obvious that he has not even raised the questions we have been concerned with, let alone made any attempt to answer them. In fact, the continuous con- fusion between 'modernization' and 'development' seldom permits most writers on the subject to come clearly to grips with the problem and to tackle the fundamental issues related to it. Inkeles' study, for example, is concerned with the empirical establishment of what he calls the 'participant citizenship syndrome' and its specific relation to what may be considered some sort of 'modernity scale' on which various politics may ranked. The notion of 'modernity' is generally tied up with temporal considerations in such a way as to make it impossible for any country or civilization in the past to be considered 'modern'. On the other hand, it is identified with certain characteristics which were supposed to be first exhibited in countries of Western Europe and then taken over elsewhere by other countries also. It is not made quite clear whether these characteristics, once acquired either by some process of creative innovation or by imitation, would last forever, or whether they 4

38 Political Developmentcould possibly slip away onc 1c again. Is the possession of'modernity', in other words, a permanent possession? Or canit be got hold of and lost, like other things in life? Or is it thesort of thing with respect to which possession may fluctuate?There, can always be, so to say, 'more' or 'less' modernity, andthere are no reasons why a particular polity may not moveforward or slide back, as the case may be. But to adn-iit thepossibility of sliding back is to admit that time is not the essenceof the matter, for a country which is not 'modern' today couldvery well have been so in the past. Yet once this'is admittedthere seems no intrinsic reason why politics in ancient timescould not have been 'modern' in comparison to many thatexist today. Also, by the same logic, those that are moderntoday could cease to be so tomorrow.35 In fact, it is a little strange to find someone seriously implyingthat the five factors constituting 'participant citizenship' canonly be found in the so-called 'modern societies' in moderntimes. It is difficult to believe that someone could be seriouslycontending that interest in civic affairs, or identification withsupra-local, non-parochial public authority, or participationin public organizations, or adherence to rational organizationalrules as a basis for running government affairs, or informationabout political figures could individually or collectively besignificantly absent from any large, complex polity at any time,whether present or past. If it is suggested that it is all a matterof quantitative mix and significant proportions, then the authorconcerned should make clear what he considers to -be the exactcritical minimum which would constitute 'modernity'. Yet thisis seldom even attempted. As we have already pointed out, thevoter turnout proportions for the United States, for example,would make it relatively undeveloped in relation to many so-called undeveloped countries. Inkeles' study, thus, suffers from the basic defect of not evenhaving raised certain crucial questions, and it is thereforemostly irrelevant to the issue we are discussing. Even on theempirical plane, one must conclude that something is seriouslywrong with the study, as at least one of its findings seems com-pletely mistaken in the light of later developments. Accordingtolhim, 'only in East Pakistan does the observed pattern supportthe unitary conception of the modern political man. There,

The Criterion as Participation 39those who are active citizens are also consistently more benevolenttoward other groups and more satisfied with the government'sperformances'' One wonders what is meant by 'active citizens'in this context. Everyone who had anything to do with EastPakistan knew of the deep dissatisfaction felt by the peoplethere against a government which was controlled mainly bypeople in West Pakistan-a dissatisfaction so widespread anddeep-rooted that it later resulted in a civil war leading to thedismemberment of Pakistan and the establishment of an inde-pendent country, Bangla Desh, out of what was formerly knownas East Pakistan. Yet this empirical study, scientifically con-ducted with liberal funds, technical expertise, and sophisticatedmethodology, came to an opposite conclusion which, if true,would have rendered impossible what is already a fact ofhistory. If such studies can go so far wrong in understandingpresent societies, one wonders how far they can be relied uponfor characterizations 'of societies that are past. One should,perhaps, take what they say not merely with a pinch, butrather, a ton of salt.*' * Professor Inkeles in a personal discussion pointed out that my criticism was misplaced as in the study mentioned he was 'not making generalizations to the national populations' (p. 1120). But then we may legitimately wonder what is the significance of his findings regarding the exemplification of 'the unitary conception of modern political man' in East Pakistan or of those relating to the 'active citizens' in that country. The reader may judge the matter for hirwelf, as presumably the presence of these findings would. not only suggest the relative modernity of East Pakistan in the light of the criteria mentioned but also be regarded as favourable for the chances of political stability in that country.

NOTES 1. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973). 2. For an interesting discussion of this, see Robert A. Dahl, After the Revolution? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970). 3. Benjaniin N. Cardozo, The ivature of the 7udkial Process (New Haven: Yale University Press, 192 1). 4. Lucian W. Pye, Aspects of Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1966), p. 45. 5. Fred W. Riggs, 'The Dialectics of Developmental Conffict', Comparative Political Studies, 1 (July 1968).

40 Political Development 6. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968). 7. Sydney Verba, Bashiruddin Ahmed, and Anil Bhatt, Caste, Race, and Politic.% (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1971). 8. Ibid., p. 29. 9. Ibid., pp. 29-32. 10. Ibid., p. 29. 11. Ibid., 12. Ibid., pp. 255, 262. 13. Ibid., p. 32. 14. Ibid., p. 2 1. 15. Arthur S. Banks and Robert B. Textor, A Cross-Poli@y Survey (Boston: M.I.T. Press, 1963). 16. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, p. 55. Also, 'The Change to Change', Comparative Politics, April 1971, p. 314. 17. Gabriel A. Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr., Comparative Politks: A Developmental Approach (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1966), p. 34. 18. Gabriel A. Almond, 'Political Development: Analytical and Normative per- spectives', in Comparative Political Studies, 1969, p. 458. 19. Lucian Pye and Sidney Verba (eds), Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton: Prinecton University Press, 1965), p. 4. -20. Huntington, 'The Change to Change', pp. 304-5. 21. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, p. vii. 22. Huntington, 'The Change to Change', p. 304. 23. Ibid., p. 314. 24. Riggs, 'The Dialectics of Developmental Conflict', p. 197. 25. Ronald D. Brunner and Garry D. Brewer, Organized Complexi@y (New York: Free Press, 197 1), p. 1 1. 26. Ibid., pp. 10-1 1. 27. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1965, p. 384, quoted by I-Ierbert MeClosky in the article 'Political Participation', in International ~clopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 12, p. 254. 28. MeClosky, p. 255. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid., p. 254. 31. Eugene Kamenka, 'The Concept of a Political Revolution', in Revolution, ed. Cari T. Friedrich (Nomos VIII, New York: Atherton Press, 1966), p. 134. 32. Dahl, AM the Revolution @', pp. 4-5. 33. Ibid., p. 6. 34. Alex Inkeles, 'Participant Citizenship in Six Developing Countries', The American Political Science Review, 63 (Dec. 1969), p. 1 1 39. 35. Tome of the issues raised here are closely rel@ated to the question whether there is any such thing as political evolution. We will discuss this in detail later in connection (see pp@ 47-65) with the so-called evolutionistic perspective in the discussion on political development. 36. Inkeles, 'Participant Citizenship in Six Developing Countries', p. 1129. Italics mine.,

2

THE CRITERION AS

DIFFERENTIATION (1) Differentiation 'Participation' may be said to be immanently embedded in the domain of the political itself. And, though we have pointed out the intrinsic conflict caused by the asymmetrical character of power, which also belongs inalienably to the domain of the political, one may yet concede participation to be a moral demand that arises from and belongs to the realm itself. The same, however, can hardly be said of the other criterion most commonly offered by writers in this field. 'Differentiation' is so often offered as a criterion of 'political development', and by writers of such different persuasions, that it will not be amiss to exan-iine it in some detail at this stage. And the first thing to note about differentiation is that it has nothing to do specifically with political development. Rather, it is regarded as a criterion of development in general, and therefore political development, as a type of development, may be expected to show this characteristic also. The political character of development, then, may be considered as detern-iining the fact that differen- tiation in this domain lies in the realm of institutions and func- tions which are specifically political in character. Normally, differentiation is taken as a sign of development (and by 'development' from now on we will always mean 'positive development') because it is supposed to contribute to the efficient functioning of the system. But it may also be implied that unless differentiation has occurred, an entity will not have come into being, and without this one could not even talk of development or non-development or underdevelopment. Differentiation, in this perspective, would be a precondition for

42 Political Development the emergence of a separate, distinctive entity. But by the same logic it would not be a sign of development unless it be the development of the undifferentiated entity from which or within which it has been differentiated. Yet if the latter alterna- tive is accepted, the differentiated entity would still be seen in terms of that within which it has been differentiated and not in terms of its own separate, distinctive identity. The function which differentiation was supposed to perform, thus, gets nullified in this perspective. Further, if differentiation is sup- posed to be a development of the, undifferentiated, then the differentiated, in order to develop itself, must become further differentiated, and so on ad infinitum. Also, in the undiffer- entiated stage- the differentiations must, to some extent, have been implicit. Riggs has used the terms 'fused' and 'refracted' for these notions. These two dimensions in the notion of 'differentiation' as a criterion of political development are themselves fused in the writings of most political scientists on the subject. The separa- tion of the 'political realm' itself is taken as a sign of social development, and the further differentiation of the political realm into specialized institutions concerned with specific func- tions is taken as a sign of political development. It is not clearly- indicated whether a further differentiation of these specialized institutions with t4eir specific functions would be regarded as development and, if so, of what. Presumably@ on the previous analogy, it would be a development directly of these institutions and their functions, and indirectly of the political realm, and still more- indirectly, of society as a whole. Following this logic, it may and perhaps will be said that ultimately it is a develop- ment of the whole human race, and, in fact, of the whole cosmos itself. The presupposition that structures and functions are capable, of infinite analysis is writ large on this way of conceiving the notion of development. The analysis is not to he merely con- ceptual in nature. Rather, it is an actual process of subdivision which perhaps can be carried on ad infinitum. This possibility of unlimited subdivision is, in fact, the ground of the possibility of infinite development which otherwise would find its necessary limitation in the limits to the possibility of differentiation itself Most thinkers, however, have not concerned themselves with

The Criterion as Diferentiation 43the problems raised by this requirement of a perpetual possibi@lity of differentiation as a precondition for the existence of apermanent possibility of development. If, for any reason, fur-ther differentiation could not be conceived, or, if conceived,were not actually feasible, then, in this perspective, develop-ment would not be possible either. Differentiation, thus, may be seen either as the coming intobeing of something distinctive with an independent separatebeing of its own, or as a process which, when it takes placewithin an entity; provides for a more effident performance ofthe function attributed to that entity. In the former case, thenotion of development does not make sense unless interpretedin the purely quantitative sense of an increase in the number ofentities in the world. In the second sense, however, one wouldhave to integrate the function of the.differentiated structure tothat of the one within which the differentiation has taken place.This integration may presumably be effected by some otherdifferentiated structure which specifically performs the integra-tive function, or it may be brought about by the interrelationbetween different structures which, occurs, perhaps,. automatic-ally. The first alternative would probably be regarded as anexample of greater development by those who accep't the idea ofdifferentiation per se as a criterion of development. But in what-ever manner the integrative function be performed, the neces-sity for it -arises because of the fact that differentiation has takenplace. On the other hand, if the so-called integrated differentia-tion is to succeed, then the function of both entities or structureshave to be in balance with each other. But, in that case, thereseems little reason to call one rather than another a criterion ofdevelopment. There are other difficulties in the notion which have hardlyengaged the attention of those who have sought to find in it aclue to the secret of what development really consists in. If, forexample, integration is necessitated by the fact of differentialtion, then differentiation per se could not be a criterion of devel-opment, political or otherwise. Rather, it would be a sort ofnegative indication, for whatever it brings into being has some-how to be balanced by integrative forces or mechanisms whichmust be able to cope with it. If this is not done, then differen-tiation may be just another name for dissolution. Yet, once the

44 Political Develo ,pmentpossibility of there being too much differentiation is admitted,it would follow that differentiation per se could not be taken asa criterion of development. Rather, the criterion would be somesort of a ratio between integration and@ differentiation, whereeach tends to be balanced by the other. But, as everybodyknows, a ratio is a function of two numbers and the more wewould have of differentiation, the more we would need ofintegration, and even though the two numbers may change theratio could still be the same. There is no difference, for example,between 214 and 418. Therefore, if development be treated as aratio between integration and differentiation, then, even thoughthere may be an ostensible increase in both, it would be illusoryto think that there has been any real development.* The notion of integration, if brought into a discussion of theproblem of development, raises problems of its own. If it issupposed to occur automatically, it raises the question whetherthere can be any such thing as disintegration. The relevance ofthe question may be seen if we ask what it would mean for theuniverse, meaning by that the totality of all that is. to lackintegration. In a fundamental sense, whatever is, must by thatvery fact be assumed to be integrated, since if it were not sointegrated, it would just not be. In the context of a largertotality, then, there would always be integration, whether thereoccurs any differentiation or not. On the other hand, if integration itself is the function of thedifferentiated structure, then the .@hole co-ordinated systemwith its differentiated structures along with their differentiatedfunctions would be a sign of development. But if one asks'development of what ?'then one would have difficulty in findingan answer. It could not be a development of itself, for 'develop-ment' is a comparative term, and the whole differentiatedsystem is a'sign of the development of something which wasundeveloped before. But if the whole system, including theintegrating structure, has differentiated itself into an autonom-ous entity, then how can it be considered a development ofanything else ? The issue may perhaps gain a little more clarity if we ask * The problenu related to development conceived as a relationship betwee:two or more factors wW be discussed in Chapter 4, section (8), pp. 160-78.

The Criterion as Differ..ntiation 45 ourselves whether the coming into being of any entity is in itself a sign of development. This could only be so when it is taken as a sign of something else, whether quantitatively or qualitatively or both. In itself, it could not be considered in a developmental perspective, though development could be con- ceived of with respect to it or even in relation to entities other than itself. Thus, the concept of development may be said to be applied to an entity either in relation to its own previous states or in relation to other entities having some property or set of properties in respect of which they may be regarded as rele- vantly comparable. Now, in none of these senses can differentiation per se be con- sidered a sign of development. It may well be such a sign, but it does not have to be such. Whether with respect to an entity's own past or with respect to a relevant comparison with some other entity, there seems no surety that the mere fact of differentiation by itself would ensure development. In bureau- cratic structures, differentiation may simply be a sign of what has been called Parkinson's Law. In the case- of a political entity like an empire or a nation, it may just he a sign of the weakening of central authority, or even of an'increasing ques- tioning of its basic legitimacy. In a social structure, it may be a sign of alienation or even of an increase in parochial, self- centred interests.* The objection may be made that these are not the types of differentiation which are meant when it is offered as a criterion of development. But there would then be different types of differentiation, and it would have to be specified as to what type is to be taken as a criterion of development. Unfortunately, the literature on the subject offers little help in this connection. It talks only of differentiation and does not seem to distinguish between those types that are a sign of positive development, and those that are not. Basicall@, differentiation is supposed to result in a more efficient functioning of the system and is, therefore, accepted as a sign of development. But, viewed in this manner, it would be such a sign only indirectly. The direct sign would be the * The criterion of political development in terms of interest articulation will bediscussed in Chapter 4, section (1), pp. W94.

46 Political Development effidiency of the, performance itself. Yet, unless it be assumed that differentiation always results in an increase in the efficiency of performance, it would be difficult to hold that it is always a sign of development. But, though this assumption seems most difficult to establish, it is taken as almost axiomatic in most literature on the subject. There seems hardly any attempt to establish empirically that it.is so. The facts of evolution and the social and economic benefits associated with the division of labour are apparently supposed to make the exercise unneces- sary. But even if the evidence were as decisive as it is usually thought to be, this would still not settle the issue. It is quite possible that, the functions we expect from a living organism or from an economic system are of such a type that they are best accomplished by a differentiating process wherein each sub- system performs its own specialized function. But it does not follow from this that all functions need necessarily be of this type. Or, even that these functions provide some pre-eminent paradigm which ought to be accepted till the case for a radical distinction with respect to some other functions is securely established. One does not find the functions which a political system is supposed to perform delineated very clearly in the literature on the subject.* Nor does there seem to be any attempt to establish that they would be, better performed if there were to be a differentiation of structures and functions And, it does not seem even to be asked whether there is such a thing as an unlimited possibility of differentiation of both structures and functions. Further, the ideal of a one-to-one correlation between structure and function tends to be im- plicitly assumed, even though according to many of the same writers the two :@re almost invariably mixed up in actually existing institutions. Yet, if there are such mix-ups, and if it is true that even when institutions are specially set up to perform a particular function they tend to take on other functions also, then it should be a matter for reflection as to why this happens to be so. If, in fact, the distinction between manifest and latent functions is taken seriously, and it is also accepted that these two kinds of functions are found everywhere and are usually ' Those which have been suggested will be discussed at length in Chapters 3and 4.

The Criterion as Differentiation . 47different, then the very notion of a one-to-one correlationbetween structure and function is jeopardized at its very core.For it would then be impossible in principle to have a structureperform just one function, since besides carrying out the so-calledmanifest function, it would also be performing a latent functionwhich is different from the first. The criterion of differentiation, then, to say the least, is anill-thought-out notion. Yet, as its strength is derived from itsbase in evolutionary theory, and as the concept of developmentitself is supposed to be grounded in evolution, it will not beamiss to examine this foundation itself. 1 (2) The Theory of Evolution as a Groundfor the Criterion as Differentiation Evolution means many things to many people. For some, ittakes the place of religion in that it provides a grounding forthe belief that there is something inherent in the universe whichmakes for progressive development. Darwin himself tried tomake evolution do what was supposed to be a function of thebiblical god, that is, the creation of species. Since then, manyother people with great reputations have tried to discover allthe divine functions in evolution. We need hardly refer toTeilhard de Chardin's Phenomenon of Man or Sri Aurobindo'sThe Life Divine, when we have a supreme example in Sir julianHuxley, the eminent biologist, who is surcharged with a lyricalpassion for what he himself has called 'the evolutionary vision5. 1According to Huxley, 'the evolutionary vision ... illuminatesour existence in a simple, but almost overwhelming, way. Itexemplifies the truth that truth is great and will prevail, andthe greater truth that truth will set us free. Evolutionary truthfrees us from subservient fear of the unknown and supernaturaland exhorts us to face this new freedom with courage temperedwith wisdom and hope tempered with knowledge. It shows usour destiny and our duty. It shows mind enthroned abovematter, quantity subordinate to quality.'? Now anything that can do all this must be miraculous indeed.And perhaps Sir julian intends it to be taken in just'that way.After all, he is an eminent scientist and would not use his wordsin too loose a fashion. Yet, it was he who insisted all through

48 Political Development the Chicago Conference on 'Evolution After Darwin' to celebrate the Centennial of the Origin of Species that evolution was 'no longer a theory, but a faet'.3 But if something which is a fact involves all the value components which he ascribes to it in the above statement, then it is a very odd kind of fact indeed. It does not merely involve the identity of the factual and the valuational, but also a guarantee that there is something in the nature of reality which ensures the triumph of value over disvalue or, in more traditional language, of good over evil. But this, as most students of philosophy would recognize, is usually regarded as a fallacy. G. E. Moore christened it'the Naturalistic Fallacy'4 at the beginning of the century and since then it has generally been referred to by that name. Not all philosophers are in agreement about it (they hardly agree on anything), but anyone who does not subscribe to this view usually feels it incumbent on himself to come to terms with it. Not so Sir julian, or any of the other luminaries gathered together to celebrate the Darwin Centennial. In fact, as one looks through the roster of celebrities who participated in the conference, one is struck by the fact that hardly any philosophers were listed. Perhaps philosophy was not supposed to be relevant to any of the discussions that were to be held. But if the sort of ideas Sir julian propounded were considered relevant to the issue of the conference, then it is difficult to see how the contributions of philosophers who have concerned themselves with the notion of evolution could have been considered irrelevant to it. One is struck, in fact, by the paucity of critical attitudes throughout the conference as reported in the commemorative volumes. It was as if the Centennial were a celebration not so much in honour of Darwin as of evolution itself. To be critical in such an atmosphere would have appeared a sign of bad manners, if not downright heresy. It was a meeting of the faithful, and the doubting Thomases had perhaps been deliberately excluded. All this may seem unfair to the organizers and participants in the conference. The reason why everything was discussed except the notion of evolution itself, we may he told, lay in the situation itself. Within the scientific community, there is no dispute about the fact of evolution. As Huxicy said at the very beginning, in television previews called 'At Random', 'the

The Criterion as Differentiation 49 first point to make about Darwin's theory is that it is no longer a theory, but a fact. No serious scientist would deny the fact that evolution has occurred, just as he would not deny the fact that the earth goes round the sun'. 6 And, slightly later on, 'But all scientists agree that evolution is a fact. There.are two problems involved here. First whether evolution has happened -and there is absolutely no disagreement among scientists that it has. The second problem is how evolution takes place, and here there has been argument, although we have made enor- mous progress in understanding the process of evolution and the role of natural selection in it.'6 But do all serious scientists understand the same thing by evolution? Would, for example, everybody" agree with what Sir julian has written in The Evolutionary Vision from which we quoted certain passages earlier? And if anyone disagreed, would he, in Huxley's view, not be a scientist at all, or at least not a serious scientist? Presumably, Hermann J. Miiller and Sir Charles Galton Darwin are serious scientists. They were participants in the Centennial celebration and each presented a paper there. Miiller's paper was entitled 'The Guidance of Human Evolution' and Sir Charles Darwin's, 'Can Man Con- trol His Numbers?' These were later published in Volume 11 of the Centennial proceedings. Yet, any reader of these two articles 'will find the evolutionary vision of Sir julian absent from their pages. There is no feeling that 'truth will necessarily prevail' or that it will 'set us free', whatever may be meant by these phrases. Darwin's is a frankly pessimistic conclusion, and he is aware that it is such. He writes, 'I am very fully conscious that the views 1 have expressed run entirely counter to many of the optimistic hopes of the present age."' Miiller tries to sound optimistic, but basically he makes his favourable prognosis dependent on genetic control and improvement of population, which is even more difficult than the mere control of population about which Sir Charles, amongst others, is so pessimistic. Miiller concludes by saying 'from now on, evolution is what we make it, provided that we @-hoose the true and the good. Otherwise, we shall sink back into oblivion."' His words sound almost theological. And, if everything depends on man's choice of the true and the good, the situation is hopeless indeed. It may be said that the diiterence we are pointing to may

Political Developmentbetter be understood as a difference in temperament ratherthan a difference in'the substantive positions held about evolu-tion. It is a difference between pessimism and optimism, eventhough the facts discerned and the possibilities envisaged ;irethe same. After all, Huxicy is as much aware of the alarmingpitfalls on the evolutionary path as anyone else. And thoughhis list of dangers contains such oddities as 'the rise and appealof communist ideology especially in the underprivileged sectorsof the world's people', and such generalities as 'our generalpreoccupation with means rather than ends, with technologyand quantity rather than creativity and quality',10 it still showsan awareness at least of the threat of overpopulation with whichDarwin is concerned, if not of the problem of genetic controlwhich Miiller deals with in his article. Yet, even if this be true,it is fairly obvious that Huxley is f@ir less self-critical in ap-praising what he is writing than are the other two scientistsreferred to. It is basically not merely a question of temperament,but of how much one wants to read into the idea of evolution,and whether one is prepared to examine critically what is thusincluded. The difference, for example, between Huxley'sassessment of Teilhard de Chardin's ideas on evolution and thatof P. B. Medawar can hardly be understood in terms ofdifferences in temperament between the two authors, butrather, must be viewed as a consequence of differences in theirideas about what evolution means." We have emphasized the Darwin Centennial discussions,,asthey provided the occasion for the largest concentration inrecent times of eminent scientists who had concerned them-selves with issues relating to evolution. Yet, it would not be unfairto say that they hardly touched the central core of the notionitself. Rather, they tended to imply not only that there wasnothing problematic about it, but almost that it was axioma-tically true. It would not be amiss, therefore, to inquire as tohow far the idea of evolution necessarily involves the conceptsof development and differentiation as many political scientists,amongst others, have supposed it to do. Normally, the idea of evolution is supposed to relate pri-marily to the realm of living organisms and the way they dif-ferentiated into species over a period of time. The pre-eminentassociation of the idea with the name. of Darwin and the title

The Criterion as Differentiation 5 1 of the book in which he propounded the idea are evidence of this. Yet, no one hesitates to talk about the evolution of the earth or the solar system or even of the cosmos. On the other hand, there is equally little hesitation in talking about social and cultural evolution, or even the evolution of an idea or art form, or thought system. There should perhaps he little objection to the use of the word in a loose, popular sense provided this does not lead to, any serious confusions. Also, it may be legitimate to extend by analogy a notion that has arisen in a certain field to other areas where its application helps in understanding them. Yet, there is always an extension where the analogy is superficial or even misleading. And, equally, there is looseness of usage which only confuses thought. Is the extension of the term 'evolution', then, an example of either of the latter types? It is well known that the idea of a systematic sequence of changes appeared earlier in relation to geology and was fairly firmly established in that field long before Darwin appeared on the scene. But a mere systematic sequence of changes is not evolution, for it is 'ust another name for what is usually known as causality. Within the Darwinian perspective, the systematic sequence of changes has to be brought about in a certain manner and has to result in certain consequences in order to be called evolution. These stipulations relate, on the one hand, to what is known as natural selection and, on the other, to what is usually called origin of species. If there were no such things as species, there would remain nothing to explain, thus rendering the hypothesis of evolution (pace Sirjulian) unnecessary. Equally, if there were no such thing as natural selection, then W atever we m ght postulate to account for the fact of there being species, it would never be of the nature of what Darwin meant by evolution. It is only the distinctive linkage of the two which makes for the distinctive notion of evolution. If even one is absent in a situa- tion, the concept can hardly be applied to it. But, however obvious this conclusion may appear, it has been continuously ignored in the writings on the subject. It never seems to have been asked by those who have written about cosmological, geological, or chemical evolution, what it would mean for there to be species of inorganic matter or for natural selection to take place with respect to them. Perhaps the chemical elements could be thought of as species of inor ,game

52 Political Developmentmatter, or even the ultimate particles of matter, such as elec-trons, protons, neutrons, and the diverse types of mesons. Butwhat would be gained by calling them 'species' is difficult tounderstand. The basic point is that it does not make sense totalk about natural selection with respect to non-living matter.A complex structure may dissolve and we may say that it hasbeen pronounced unfit to exist by the environment or that ithas failed to meet the challenge of the environment. But this isonly a manner of speaking, and everyone knows it to he so.Further, there is none of the replication and variation which isneeded before natural selection can play its role. But supposingthere is replication and variation in non-living matter, as somehave argued,n there would even then remain the question as towhich factor is supposed to do the selection, or with referenceto which the process of selection is said to take place. Is non-living matter itself evolving? And if it is, with respect to what ?113 There are, however, not only complex structures of non-living matter, but also those that are not complex, but rathermost elementary in nature. Shall we say that there is evolutionwith respect to these also? But they are supposed to be the verystuff out of which the universe is made, and if this is so, howcan they be said to evolve? Many scientists objected in theconference to Gaffron's use of the term 'chemical selection'which, according to him, started 'with the solubility of mole-cules in water'.114 But in order to talk of evolution at this levelwe would perhaps have to talk in terms of 'physical selection',which, if anything, would be still more monstrous. If, asDobzhansky has said, 'the term chemical selection' was amisnomer then there is still more reason to think -that 'physicalselection is such. .If, on the other hand, we think in terms of energy rather thanparticles, it becomes even more difficult to think in terms of astruggle for survival or natural selection. There are supposedto be conservation laws which ensure that the amount ofenergy in the universe, whatever may be meant by the word,remains constant. As there is, therefore, neither an increase nordecrease of energy, there could not possibly be any talk ofevolution with respect to it. One may, of course, amuse oneselfby thinking of the transformation of potential into kineticenergy as evolutionary in character, or perhaps even of the

The Criterion as Differentiation 53 counter-tendency to the second law of thermodynamics as having this nature. Many biologists do seem to believe, in the words of Medawar, 'that evolution flouts or foils the second law of thermodynamics', even though in his opinion this is a misconception arising from 'a confusion of thought'.",' But whether evolution flouts it or not, no one disputes that in the realm of non-living matter, the second law of thermodynamics reigns supreme. However, if this is so, it would equally obviously follow, at least for those who argue for the distinction, that there can be no evolution as far as non-living matter is con- cerned. Yet, many scientists hold both positions without seeing the contradiction involved therein. One may, in fact, amuse oneself further if one wants to -think of the various types of energy as species of energy. But as most types of energy are transformable into one another, this would destroy the notion of species at its very core. This, in the eyes of many, would be sufficient to dispose of the application of the notion of evolution to the realm of non-living matter. But exactly the same situation obtains in sociocultural evolu- tion. Even those who are aware that something different is meant when we talk of sociocultural evolution tend to slur over the problems involved. Sol Tax, for example, points out that, 'the term "evolution" is applied to both socially transmitted cul- ture and gene transmitted biology because neither can establish an exclusive claim. However ' there is no identity between the two usages. The cultural processes of continuity and change are different, and it is only by analogy, if at all, that one can speak of "natural selection". for example, in the development of cultures.'-"' But if there is no identity between the two usages, then why use the same word to connote two different things? At least 'in the context of scientific discussion where clarity of thought and precision are considered so important in expression, it would presumably be best to avoid such a practice altogether. The only reason Tax gives for the continued use in both biology and cultural anthropology of the term 'evolution', even when the meanings differ, is that 'neither can establish an exclusive claim' to it. But this is too legalistic a view of the matter and, in any case, can hardly be considered a sufficient reason for the retention of a practice that facilitates confusion in thought, if it

54 Political Development does not actually create and perpetuate it. The term 'evolution' is so closely associated with the biological realm that its exten- sion backward into the realm of noii-living matter or forward into the realm of society and culture cannot but lead to serious confusions in thought. It is on the basis of these ambiguities that the thought of a Chardin or a Huxicy thrives. The inclusion of everything under the rubric of 'evolution' becomes possible, and we can have statements like the following from the pen of an eminent scientist without their arousing any debate or disagree- ment. In talking about the Centennial, Huxley said that 'this is one of the first public occasions on which it has been frankly faced that all aspects of reality are subject to evolution, from atoms and stars to fish and flowers, from fish and flowers to human societies and values-indeed, that all reality is a single process of evolution."" But does this mean anything more than that everything changes? And hasn't this always been known to man? On the other hand, if it is contended that evolution is some- thing more than change, then what the 'more' is has to be specified. Does this 'more' consist in the specific mechanism through which-change is brought about, and has it anything to do with the direction in which change takes place? Normally, the mechanism is supposed to be 'natural selection', and the result is supposed to be 'speciation'. But in order that 'natural selection' may operate, it is necessary that there should exist what Mililer has characterized as 'the property of replica- tion of mutations-that is, self-copying and self-copying of changes','.8 or even 'the ability for continuous mutation' which, according to Evans, 'seems to be an inherent characteristic of living cells',19 or what Miiller calls the level 'where an un- limited number of changes in pattern are possible, each of which is self-replicating' .20 1-lowever expressed, the point is that gnatural selection' should have something to play upon or to select from if such anthropomorphic expressions are to be permitted But, whether anthropomorphically stated or not, what is gnatural selection' supposed to do? It is supposed to eliminate those mutations or changes which make an organism unfit to survive and thus leave only those to reproduce which are relatively better able to survive. This explanation, however,

The Criterion as Differentiation 55would account only for the origin of species and their elimina-tion, but not for the simultaneous existence of diverse kinds ofspecies. For, if many kinds of species may simultaneously existin any environment, then it can only be presumed that theenvironment is neutral with respect to them. Or that, as far asthe environment is concerned, they are all equally fit and nonemay be regarded as better than the, other. It may be suggestedthat one possible explanation for the simultaneous existence ofdifferent species is not that the environment is neutral betweenthem, but that there are different kinds of environments andthat each of the species is fitted to its own environment. Thiscorresponds ' to some extent, to the notion of 'niche' in theliterature on biological and even cultural evolution. But thiswould imply that there is a one-to-one correlation betweeneach species and its environment and that no two species canexist in the same environment. This may seem to be logicallyvery neatbut, unfortunately, the diversity in environment isgenerally inferred from the diversity in species, and no indepen-dent criteria are ever given for determining what is to count asdiversity in environment. The whole contention, thus, becomesmerely tautological in character. In fact, what constitutes an 'environment' is not clearlyspecified in the literature. If, for example, 'environment' in-cludes other species also, then all the species play a role in thegnatural selection' of each one of them. In such a situation eachspecies is exercising a selection role in relation to all the otherspecies. The simultaneous existence of all the diverse speciesmay, then, be considered the result of a checkmated positionin which none can win over the others. The equilibrium can bedisturbed only by some relatively favourable mutations withinsome species or by some sudden change in the physical environ-ment which renders some species more favourably situated thanothers. But mutations are going on all the time and so aresudden chan es in the environment. It seems surprising, there-- 9fore, that the orchestrated equilibrium of the simultaneousexistence of so many diverse species should have continued formillennia-as seems to have been the case in biological history. On the other hand, it might be asserted that any of thechanges that happen to be severely disequilibrating, whetherchanges in species or physical environment or both. tend to set

56 Political Developmentthe selective activity in motion once more, with the result thatthe equilibrium would once again he restored with all thespecies at a higher level of survival capacity than before. This,however, would make the disappearance of species a very rarephenomenon-far rarer, perhaps, than what we have observedin biological history. If, on the other hand, we turn to the question of physicalenvironment, we find the situation still more baffling. Normally,we find a great many different species within the same environ-ment. Certainly, it is true that there are different environmentalregions and that different species are found settled there. Butthe converse of this does not seem true, unless it is made toappear so by a definitional transformation. Within any homo-geneous climatic or environmental zone, one can find as muchdiversity amongst species inhabiting it as one wishes. But whatever the solution to these problems may be, therecan be little doubt that the exercise of 'natural selection' is con-cerned only with survival, and this too in the simple biologicalsense of the term. There is, and can be, nothing more in thestrict scientific view of the matter. The 'survival of the fittest'merely means the survival of those who have been fittest tosurvive and this, though true, is almost tautological. Perhapsit is saved from being a complete, tautology by the fact thatsurvival of any living organism, whether as an individual or asa species, is not necessary at all. To put it in other words, alllife is an accident and nothing in the physical world ensuresthat it is not so. As G. E. Moore pointed out long ago, 'thesurvival of the fittest does not mean, as one might suppose, thesurvival of what is fittest to fulfil a good purpose-best adaptedto a good end; at the last, it means merely the survival of thefittest to survive. . . .'21 It is no part of Darwin's theory, hepoints out, that 'more evolved' is necessarily equivalent to'higher', as many have thought and propagated. According tohim, 'that theory will explain, equally well, how by an altera-tion in the environment (the gradual cooling of the earth, forexample) quite a different species from man, a species which wethink infinitely lower, might survive USI.22 This is the hub of the problem. Is there anything in the theoryof evolution as developed by Darwin to suggest that anythingmore than survival is ensured by 'natural selection', or that if

The Criterion as Differentiation 57something survives, it shows any other fitness besides thatwhich enabled it to survive? All who have tried to develop aworld-view based on evolution have tended to imply that some-thing more than mere survival is involved. But they haveseldom given open expression to this assumption, or tried todefend it by arguments or evidence. Why should that whichsurvives be necessarily better in the moral, aesthetic, or spiritualsenses of the term? And why should any quality or qualities beconsidered indispensable to survival, when what survives is notso much a fi@nction of itself as of that which performs the select-ing function, that is, the environment? Environments maychange, and this change may render superfluous or even harm-ful qualities that were earlier helpful in survival. Further, if thestruggle is for survival, and if surviving species were all selectedon the basis of their possessing qualities essential to survival,then it is difficult to see what exactly could be meant by callingone species 'more evolved' than another, if the species whichare being compared are both surviving and, in fact, havesurvived for a long time. This, 1 think, is an important question. If 'survival' alonematters, and in the evolutionary perspective 'natural selection'means just that, then there is no point in talking about speciesthat have not yet been eliminated from the biological scene interms of 'more evolved' or 'less evolved'. The only relevantcriterion in that situation would perhaps be the length ofsurvival andlor the diversity of environments in which a speciessurvives. Man has had a very short span of biological survivalas compared with many other species, and though his capacityto survive in many different kinds of environment is wellattested, this may be taken only as enhancing his potentialityfor survival rather than as assuring survival itself. The point may be clarified in a different way. The capacityto survive in different enviroifinents only shows that, if any ofthe specific environments were to change but remain within therange where survival has already been shown to be possible,man would still be able to survive. This only gives a greaterrange within which a species can survive. But if there is aparticular environment suited to a particular species, and ifthat environment persists somewhere or other and the speciescontinues to live in-it, then there seems no intrinsic reason to

58 Political Developmentthink of it as evolutionally 'more evolved' than another. Certaintypes of bacteria can survive very high and very low tem-peratures, and yet this fact alone hardly makes anyone thinkof them as more evolved. It may be thought that, by virtue ofthe variety of environments in which one species can survive, itwould have the potentiality for existing in larger numbers thanother species that cannot live in several environments. Yet,however attractive this argument may seem, many of thespecies restricted to a specific environment exist in far largernumbers than man can even dream of himself having. It appears, therefore, that there is little to choose betweenman and other species on the basis of survival. And, if a choicehad to be made, most other species would win in the com-parison. There is, however, one respect in which man may bethought to be 'more evolved', in the strictly evolutionistic senseof the word, and that relates to his capaci@y to destroy otherspecies or to use them for his own purposes, including that ofsurvival. If this is correct, such a capacity also provides thecriteria for judging between any species, as to which is 'moreevolved' than another. These criteria would be 'the capacity todestroy other species', and 'the capacity to use other species forpurposes of one's own survival'.* But, in spite of the persuasive-ness of these criteria, it does not seem quite clear whether anyspecies, including man, actually has the first capacity or evenwhether it could exercise such a capacity, if it had it, withoutdestroying itself in the process. As Gregory Bateson remarked inthe Nineteenth Annual Korzybski Memorial Lecture, 'if theorganism ends up destroying its environment, it has in factdestroyeditSelfl.23Bateson, of course, was referring more to thenatural environment, but his remark is equally apt for thebiological environment. The more we understand the ecologicalbalance, the more we discover a symbiotic interdependence ofspecies rather than a competitive fight-to-the-finish between * There is a slight difference in the two formulations with respect to the capacityto use others. The one referring to man designates the capacity to use others as'the capacity to use theni, for his own purposes, including that of survival', whilethe generalized formulation restricts use of others to 'purposes of one's ownsurvival'. The difference derives from the distinctive nature of man which isdifferent from those of all other species. But in the evolutionistic context it is onlythe perspective of survival which is relevant.

The Criterion as Diferentiation 59 them. And, while the elimination of some isolated species might be practised with success, it is difficult to think of the elimina- tion of all species. The symbiotic relation of interdependence, to the extent that it exists, also disposes of the second criterion ('the capacity to use other species for purposes of one's own survival'), as the relationship of 'use' may be considered mutual in character. The trouble, basically, is that thinkers who offer such criteria generally forget that in the evolutionary perspective there cannot be any other value except that of sheer biological survival. And hence the fact that a certain species flourishes or survives because it is of 'use' to some other species is irrelevant to the fact that it survives. 'Being of use' is useful to it, for it ensures its survival. One might object that if it ceased to be of guse' in such a situation it would cease to survive. But this is 5 fallacious, for it is very likely that the species would find some other means for survival. In fact, in such a situation, 'natural selection' would favour those that are relatively less dependent for their survival on their being of use to some other species, and these would then reproduce and survive. It may be said that the suggested criteria were meant to be understood in terms of capacity rather than the exercise of capacity. But even if it be so, 'capacity' has to be conceived of in such a way that the conception makes coherent sense. In the evolutionary perspective, 1 suggest that the capacities which are being offered as criteria for considering one species as 'more evolved' than another do not make sense. Take, for example, the capacity to destroy another species or even all the other species, which is being suggested as a possible criterion of evolutionary development. Now-, unless we assume the simul- taneous, sudden destruction of all the members of the species at once, the evolutionary hypothesis suggests that those who will survive would develop an immunity to our method of destruc- tion. And this is what we have found with respect to so many species we have attempted to destroy. After some time the surviving members and their progeny over successive genera- tions develop increasing immunity against the particular method that was so effective against their members several generations earlier. But how can anybody ever be sure that all the members of a species, not to talk of all the members of all

60 Political Development the species, have been eliminated or destroyed? Evolution, if we may say so, has and can have no favourites. It has no pre- ferences between man and any other species. To think it has, is tG negate the theory of evolution and it is strange to find eminent biologists doing this and, that too, in the name of evolution itsel£ The egocentric or rather species-centric illusion could go no farther. This may seem to confine the meaning of the term 'evolution' too much to what Sahlins has called 'specific evolution', and to ignore what he has called 'general evolution'.24 General evolu- tion, according to him, consists of the emergence of 'higher forms of life', which are 'higher' absolutely. It has got nothing to do with the origination of species which, according to him, is what 'specific' evolution is concerned with. In his own words, 'it is accurate to say that specific evolution is the production of diverse species, general evolution the production of higher forms.'2,5 And, 'the fundamental difference between specific and general evolution appears in this: the former is a connected, historic sequence of forms, the latter a sequence of stages exemplified by forms of a given order of development.'211 Specific evolution is primarily concerned with adaptive special- ization and accounts for the origination and diversification of species. In Sahlins' words 'specific evolution is the phylogene- tie, adaptive, diversifying, specialising, raniifying aspect of total evolution.127 General evolution, on the other hand, 'is the emergence of higher forms of life, regardless of particular lines of descent or historical sequences of adaptive modification'.28 And while 'in the specific perspective advance is character;s- tically relative-relative to the environmental circumstances',29 'to embrace general evolution is to abandon relativism'.30 For, 'the study of all-round progress requires criteria that are absolute, that are relevant to all organisms regardless of parti- cular environments.'31. And the absolute criteria for deciding which is higher on the evolutionary scale, and which is lower, may 'be conceived in functional, energy-capturing terms', for 'higher forms harness more energy than lower'.32 Or. 'the criteria of general progress may be structural, the achievement of higher organization'.33 'Thermodynamic achievement', Sahlins writes, 'is the ability to concentrate energy in the organism, to put energy to work building and maintaining structure.... It

The Criterion as Differentiation 61 is the amount (of energy) so trapped (corrected for gross size of the form) and the degree to which it is raised to a higher state that would seem to be evolutionary measure of life.134 Further, 'thermodynamic accomplishment has its structural concom- itant, greater organization. The relation between energy- harnessing and organization is reciprocal: the more energy con- centrated the greater the structure, and the more complicated the structure the more energy that can be harnessed.'3,1 These diverse ideas are summed up in Sahlins' notion of 'level of integration'. He argues that 'the idea of level of integra- tion can be broken down into three aspects. An organism is at a higher level of integration than another when it has more parts and sub-parts (a higher order of segmentation); when its parts are more specialized; and when the whole is more effec- tively integrated.'36 To sum up, in Sahlins' own words, 'Specific evolution is "descent with modification", the adaptive variation of life along its many lines; general evolution is the progressive emergence of higher life "stage by stage". 137Thus, 'the advance or improvement we see in specific evolution is relative to the adaptive problem', while 'the progress of general evolution is, in contrast, absolute, it is passage from less to greater energy exploitation, lower to higher levels of integration, and less to greater all-round adaptability'.311 These exhaustive quotations may be expected hopefully to make clear the difference between the two types of evolution which Sahlins is trying to distinguish and which, according to him, have generally been confused in most writings on the subject. But the distinction itself is overlapping to a significant extent. Sahlins himself treats 'adaptability' as a common feature both of specific and general evolution. In fact, general evolution is supposed to be a movement in absolute terms from 'less to greater all-round adaptability'. True, it is also supposed to be a movement from 'less to greater energy exploitation', and 'less to higher levels of integration', but it is not quite clear whether these are to be treated as independent of each other or not. Could we have, for example, 'greater energy exploitation' without achieving a 'higher level of integration', or vice versa? The more crucial question, however, is whether one could have both or any of them without ensuring 'greater all-round adapt- ability', and if so, would such a species survive for long? To ask

62 Political Development the question is to answer it. The evolutionary perspective permits no other value except that of survival to don-iinate the scene of life, and Sahlins' attempt to get out of the tight noose of survival succeeds no better than that of others. Sahlins does not discuss the relationship between the three criteria he gives for general evolution. But it is fairly obvious that the first two are basically instrumental for achieving the third. Yet, if this were accepted, it would make general evolu- tion as relative as specific evolution, since for Sahlins adapt- ability is primarily a characteristic of specific evolution and is essentially relative in nature. On the other hand, if we treat them as independent of adaptability, it should he possible to conceive of an increase in them at the cost of adaptability. But in that case the requirements of competitive survival would work against those who overshot the mark and forgot that their basic task was to survive and reproduce, and reproduce and survive and nothing more. Even if we forget the essential underpinning and primacy of survival values, as Sahlins tries to do in his notion of general evolution, it is not clear what exactly is meant by 'greater energy exploitation' which is advanced by him as the key criterion in the new formulation. 'Thermodynamic achieve- ment or accomplishment' is supposed to be the objectively measurable distinguishing feature of general evolution as con- trasted with specific evolution. But if it is a quantitative notion, it could be measured on@y in terms of some input-output ratio where the efficiency of the transforming structure would be reflected in either cutting down the loss involved in the trans- formation, or in its relative ability of translating potential energy into actual energy, or in transforming it into a more serviceable form. This is necessitated by the principle- of con- se,rvation of energy which implies, in principle, the quantitative equivalence between input and output. In real terms, therefore, there can be no gain or loss. It only appears to be so because of our desires, interests and purposes. The, deeper point, however, relates to the fact that the criterion of energy-exploitation cannot but be purely quantitative, in nature. There is little reason to think. that great qualitative achievements also involve great expenditure of energy. A person running a race obviously uses a greater amount of energy than, say, one who composes a

The Criterion as Diferentiation 63 poem or solves a mathematical problem or cogitates about a philosophical issue. Not only this, one could not even distinguish between a good or bad poem or between elegant and inelegant solutions to a mathematical problem or between a profound and trivial cogitation on a philosophical issue on the basis of the amount of energy spent on them. In fact, one could not even distinguish between absolute failure and relative success on any such ground. Yet, this is what Sahlins requires the criterion to do. But it is obvious that it is impossible, in principle, for the criterion to achieve this. One cannot wring out quality from quantity, however hard one may try. But without this, Sahlins' criterion is as useless as any other. Sahlins fails to see the problem as he smuggles in the notion of 'higher' levels or states without specifying what he means by 'higher' or 'lower' in this context. He argues, 'it is the amount (of energy) so trapped (corrected for gross size of the form) and the degree to which it is raised to a higher state that would seem to be evolutionary measure- of life.'39 Now, not only does he not give any detailed measurements of the energy so trapped by various species determining their absolute ranking in general evolution, but he also fails to specify what it means for the energy to be raised to a 'higher state', and how it is to be measured. The utterly unoperationalized use of concepts to demarcate a fundamental distinction in one of the major areas of biological theory suggests not only the theoretical naivet6 of the author, but also reflects on those, who have hailed it as a major achieve- ment concerning the theory of evolution. As far as energy is concerned, there can only be 'more' or 'less', but not 'higher' or 'lower'. Perhaps, Sahlins does mean by 'higher', what is usually meant by 'more', for there is a usage in which it just means that. But then it is doubtful if he could establish his thesis at all, as mos 't of the major achievements of man which enable him to exploit larger amounts of energy than any other species on this planet are themselves not the result of the possession of any greater energy on his part or of its greater utilization in quantitative terms. The same may be said With respect to Sahlins' attempt to correlate 'thermodynamic accomplishment' with what he calls its 'structural concomitant', that is, 'greater organization'. It may be so in some cases but there equally are cases where it is

64 Political Develo ,pmentnot so. Otherwise, the movement towards simplifying structureswould always mean a depletion of energy, which it does not,either in theory or practice. As we have already pointed out,there can be such a thing as 'over-organization' and 'too muchstructure'. And, on a purely qualitative level, it would beequally difficult for anyone to maintain that Baroque is thehighest form of architecture merely because it is more com-plexly organized than others; or, that the attempt of manymodern artists to achieve almost ideal simplicity of structure isbound to be self-defeating, as it violates the criterion derivedfrom a study of what Sahlins calls 'general evolution'. Thus, Sahlins' attempt to link the notions of diitcrentiatedand complex structures to those of development in the absolutesense of the term via his notion of general evolution'fails as muchas the attempts of other evolutionists who do not make anysuch distinction. All the considerations urged earlier againstthe position on evolution typified by a thinker such as Huxicy,apply equally to Sahlins. And if evolution can provide nogrounding to the criterion of development as 'differentiation,'it is difficult to believe that anything else could. It was perhapsnatural for political scientists to accept the authority of biologywhich had in their eyes the status and prestige of a naturalscience. But a more critical attitude would have revealed thateverything which is propagated in the name of 'natural science'is not 'scientific'. The resurgence of neo-evolutionism in thesocial sciences, then, is the revival of a superstition which wasthought to have been banished long ago. Political science canhardly gain anything by basing its notion of 'political develop-ment' on such a weak foundation.NOTES 1. See Sol Tax, Evolution After Darwin, vol. 111 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), pp. 249-61. 2. Ibid., pp. 260-1. 3. Ibid., p. 7 1. 4. G. E. Moore, Principia Ethira (Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1903). 5. Tax, p. 41. 6. Ibid., pp. 42-3.

The Criterion as Diferentiation 65 7. 'Everybody', meaning every 'serious scientist', whatever may be incant by that term. 8. Tax, vol. 11, p. 473. 9. Ibid., vol. 11, p. 460, italics mine. 10. Ibid., vol. Ill, p. 255. 11. See in this connection Sir julian 1-luxley's Introduction to Teilhard de Chardin's 77m Phenomenon of Man, and the review of the same book by P. B. Medawar, included in his work, The Art of & Soluble (London.. Methuen, 1967). 12. See in this connection the interesting discussion between Gerard, who ask, 'Why is not the replication of the architecture of a crystal or the replication ol a branching polymer from monomers, which depends on the preexisting polymer, life?' and others, in Tax, vol. Ill, pp. 80-4. 13. For a discussion of this question, see p. 41 ff. 14. Tax, vol. Ill, p. 562. 15. Medawar, p. 77. 16. Tax, vol. Ill, p. 280, italics author's. 17. Ibid., p. 249. 18. Ibid., p. 79. 19. Ibid., p. 81, italics author's. 20. Ibid., p. 81. 21. Moore, p. 28, italics author's. 22. Ibid., pp. 47A. 23. Gregory Bateson, Steps k an &ology of Mind (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972), p. 451. 24. Marshall D. Sahlins and Elman R. Service, Evolution and Culture (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968). 25. Ibid., p. 19. 26. Ibid., p. 33. 27. Ibid., p. 16. 23. Ibid. 29. Ibid., p. 14. 30. Ibid., p. 20. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid., p. 21, italics mine. 35. Ibid., p. 2 1. 36. Ibid., pp. 21-2. 37 Ibid., p. 22. 38. Ibid., pp. 22-3, italics mine. 39. Ibid., p. 2 1, italics mine.

3

THE CRITERION AS CAPABILITIES If 'participation' seemed to emerge naturally as a criterion of development immanent to the realm of the polity itself, and 'differentiation' as relating to the structure which all politics ,must have, the criterion in terms of 'capabilities' may be said to belong to the functions which every political system is expected to perform. And, as any system may work well or ill, better or worse, we may determine the degree to which it performs its functions. Also, as presumably all political systems are expected to perform the same functions, they may be compared with one another in respect of the way they discharge these functions. Development in this context would perhaps mean the elabora- tion of such new political structures as raise the very level of performance itself. The 'raising of the level' would perhaps mean a rise in both the floor and the ceiling of the performance concerned. The term 'capabilities', on the other hand, has another dimension which relates it primarily to a polity's relations with other politics. There certainly are relati 'ons which a polity has with members and groups belonging to itself, but, in a world where other politics exist, its 'capabilities' are measured with respect to what it can do to use, exploit, overcome and even conquer other politics for its own benefit. In former times, there was little hypocrisy about all this. It was regarded as the first duty of a ruler to enlarge his domains, conquer other king- doms, capture booty and slaves, force them to pay tribute and accept his suzerainty or sovereignty over them. Until compara- tively recently, the great rulers in history have always been those who founded or extended or consolidated great empires. The art of war, in a certain sense, presupposed 'high capability' in all fields and was perhaps its ultimate test also. Yet, few thinkers

The Criterion as Capabilities 67in modern times would be prepared to accept this in its nakedformulation. It is difficult for them to believe that Tamerlaneor Genghis Khan had created a more developed political struc-ture than the civilizations they destroyed. And if war were to beaccepted as an arbiter of 'political development', then politicalscientists would have to welcome it as the ultimatejustifier of alltheir hypotheses about which polity happened to he more'politically developed' on the basis of their measurements. It may seem a little far-fetched to bring in 'success in war'as the operational criterion for judging the relative 'capabili-ties' of different politics. But, basically, there could he noother criterion, unless we accept that a polity defeated in warcould still be regarded as 'politically developed' in the sensethat it had greater 'capabilities' than the one that defeated it.As this would seem to many to be almost a contradiction interms, there appears no escape to accepting the consequences ofadmitting 'capabilities' as the criterion of 'political develop-ment', unless we are prepared to give up the criterion itself. Itmay not he amiss here to note that this is also one of the con-sequences of the so-called evolutionary perspective in the studyof political development. To be defeated in the struggle forsurvival is the ultimate test of evolutionary inferiority. Thebusiness of war is superior to the business of peace which, in thisperspective, is nothing but the continuation of war by othermeans. The phrase is that of Clausewitz, but the truth of thecontention is merely a function of the perspective in which it isembedded. The existence of politics other than one's own is, however,logically contingent in the sense that they are not necessarilypresupposed by the existence of one's own polity. To put it inother words, there is no necessity for there to be politics ratherthan just one polity. And, in case there were to be only onepolity, there will he no problem of its proving its superiority inpolitical development over others through victory in war. Butthough a polity may be one, yet even in its case, there is theproblem of its relationship with its own members. And theserelationships can be of various kinds. Also, over a period of timethe relationships may change and thus raise the problem ofpolitical development or decay in a diachronic perspective. What sort of relationships, then, are to be taken as signs of

68 Political Development 9political development', and of 'political decay'? Considered in the perspective of 'capabilities' as the criterion of 'political development', there could be little doubt about the answer. Only a polity which extracts the utmost out of its members could be regarded as 'politically developed'. It will be the degree of exploitation or extraction achieved that would deter- mine the degree of development attained by a polity. But this would be to underwrite totalitarian dictatorship as the most developed form of political system, as presumably it is the most efficient organizational instrument for the extraction of what- ever is sought to be extracted by the ruling 6lite of a polity. Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia would be the most devel- oped politics according to this criterion. In a certain sense, the very notion of the state as the embodi- ment of supreme coercive power may be said to underwrite the primacy of the coercive function which a polity is supposed to perform. It is a short step from this to regard an increase in the coercive capabilities of any polity as a sign of its political devel- opment. And once this step is taken, there is little to stop it from being regarded as a desirable goal in the direction of which every polity should try to develop. There is, in fact, a fundamental ambivalence in the notion of the state as embody- ing the unity of society in itself and also as being the ultimate scat of coercive power. The notion of coercion divides the polity into those who are coerced and those who coerce, while the notion of unity tries to suggest the common interest of the whole which is supposed to be embodied in the state. The bridge between the two conflicting aspects is built by the pernicious doctrine enshrined in Marxist apologetics that coercion is ex- ercised in the interest of those who are coerced. There is, however, the complementary truth in the deeper thought of Marx that till the actuality of coercion exists, no state can claim to embody the unity which it ideally wishes to be. This, of course, is coupled with the Marxist illusion that the continuing technological miracle of capitalism when combined with the organizational, institutional structure of a socialist society would result in the elimination of conflicting class interests which necessitate the coercive character of the state. But even if the utopian vision of a society to which the science of economics would have become irrelevant (because of the non-scarcity of

The Criterion as Capabilities 69goods and services) were to be accepted as factually possible, itis difficult to.sce how the essential asymmetry of power-relationscould be avoided without giving up the notion of polity alto-gether. Perhaps it is felt that the asymmetry of power-relationsis itself a consequence of the existent scarcity of goods andservices, and the abolition of the latter would also mean theabolition of the former. But in that case a polity would no moreremain a polity. Rather, it would lapse into society from whichall political scientists have tried to distinguish it. Yet, to theextent that the necessity of the distinction remains, a polity'sclaim to represent or articulate the so-called unity of societywould be suspect. It may be urged, on the other hand, that the functions of thestate may be conceived better in a different way. After all, nostate has ever been valued just for its victories over others or forits coercive control over its own people. It is the ideas and idealsembodied in the notion of the welfare state that point to theway the concept of 'capabilities' should be understood andarticulated. -But this would lead to the question of choosingbetween diverse notions of welfare and of exploring the inter-relations between them. 'Welfare', obviously, is not such ahomogeneous category as many seem to think, nor is the rela-tion between its different conceptions so positively correlatedas many appear to imply. Even the question of weightagebetween different conceptions is not easy to handle, and theultimate choice between a laissez-faire notion of the state, whichallows the issue between different weightages to he settled bythe market-mechanism whether of the economic or politicalvariety, or the @lite decision of a dominant minority, which issupposed somehow to know the real interests of the people, isdifficult to make. Perhaps, at least on the intellectual plane, thehonest solution may be said to lie in articulating with clarity asmany concepts of 'welfare' as one can think of, provide diverseweightages in different models. and work out the possible co-herence and incoherence between them. But, however honest such a solution may seem, it wouldintroduce a plurality into the very heart of 'welfare', and thusjeopardize the idea of 'political development' in terms of whichdifferent politics were sought to be measured and compared. It'nay be objected that, theoretical subtleties and logical possibili- 6

70 Political Development ties apart, the notion of 'welfare' belongs primarily to the realm of material goods and public services with special emphasis on their just or equitable distribution between groups and classes of people. Yet, even if this were- to be accepted there would remain a formidable difficulty in conceiving of 'capabilities' in terms of 'welfare' alone in total exclusion of all other notions of 'capabilities', specially those that concern the relation of a polity to other politics. It is possible that a high rate of per capita consumption of goods and services in a particular polity is itself a direct consequence of its direct or indirect exploitation of other politics, making it impossible for the exploited politics to achieve higher rates of 'welfare' for their citizens. This situation is not likely to be affected in any substantial manner by the extent of distributive justice obtaining in a particular polity. For it is highly probable that a substantially high level of distributive justice in a particular society is itself ensured by the fact that it is able to exploit others to a significant degree. The role of colonial exploitation in the development of indus- trial societies.of the West is well known. But what is not so well known is the fact that the ideal of the welfare state with the corresponding notion of distributive justice might not have featured in the practical programme of hard-headed politicians except for the fact that a situation of relative abundance had been created by that very exploitation of colonial peoples. The so-called socialist countries are in this respect no different from those that are called capitalists. The relations of the Soviet Union to countries of Eastern Europe which it had conquered niilitarily from Hitler's Germany did not show any marked difference from those between Western countries and the territories they had conquered earlier in Asia and Africa. Marxist thought has always pointed out the crucial importance of the accumulation of capital. But the need and the necessity of this accumulation has got nothing to do with either the socialist or the capitalist character of a polity. It has to do only with the economic factors involved in the situation. Marx was saved from this terrible realization by the fact that in his own thought he relegated this necessary but unpleasant task to capitalism which was supposed to have completed the process by the time socialism appeared on the scene. Unfortunately, the countries in which the communist movement succeeded did not

The Criterion as Capabilities 7 1 have their work of capital accumulation completed by the capitalists and thus it had to be undertaken by the communists themselves. In doing so, they not only put the capitalist ex- ploiters to shame- by showing how the whole thing could be done more efficiently, but also, incidentally, proved the utter ir- relevance of the capitalist-communist dichotomy to the issue concerned. The deeper assumption of Marx, however, consists in his belief that there is some sort of upper limit beyond which further accumulation of capital in significant quantities is not needed. But this could only be true on the basis of a static economy which would involve not only a static population and a static technology, but also a static structure of wants. On the other hand, one could perhaps assume a moving equilibrium between the three to give the same result also. But, whether the situation is conceived of in terms of a moving equilibrium or a static economy, the assumed conditions seem too unrealistic to be taken seriously. Even if they were to be realized, it could only be by accident and for short periods. The need for savings and capital accumulation for faster rates of economic growth may, therefore, be assumed to obtain in most societies niost of the time. And if savings and capital accumulation involve the postponement of current consumption, necessitating painful sacrifice on the part of the populace, it would always seem preferable to impose this on other people or peoples of other countries, if possible. It is usually done on both the fronts, and that too simultaneously. But the rigours of internal exploitation of one's own people can be niitigated to a large extent by the external exploitation of other peoples. It thus serves in the economic self-interest of a people to turn a blind eye to, if not actively connive at and even welcome, the direct or indirect ex- ploitation of other people. In fact, it is easier in respect of other peoples as not only are aliens considered barbarians in almost all cultures, but also because they are too distant for their sufferings to be visibly registered on the sensitivities of those who benefit from the exploitation. Of course, the same mechanism is used for safeguarding one's own psyche against the intrusion of the fact of exploitation of others even within one's own society or country. But as there is at least some identification specially in the context of societies which have become nation-states with

72 Political Developmentuniversal franchise and citizenship, it becomes a little moredifficult to continue to do so than in the case of peoples withwhom one has little, if any, identification. The notion of distributive justice in the context of materialgoods and services in terms of which a polity's 'capabilities' aresupposed to be measured thus makes sense only if the wholeworld were to be a unified political system. Yet, if that were tobe the case, the only assessment of comparative 'capabilities'would be with respect to the world polity's own past, as therewould be no other polity with which it could be compared. Thismight be taken as rendering the whole enterprise of finding ameasurable criterion of political development meaningless.What purpose would it serve to formulate a criterion if thereare no politics to compare? Yet, if multiple politics are to benecessarily postulated so that criteria for purposes of comparisonmay be significantly employed, it is very likely that the so-called 'political development' of a particular polity may implyas a necessary precondition the lack of such development inother politics. And this, not only in the logical sense that 'moredeveloped' implies the 'less developed', but in the causal sensethat one becomes more developed' by making some otherpeople or country 'less developed'. The objection may be raised that we are taking too seriouslythe Marxist analysis which predicates economic developmenton the necessary exploitation of the producers of their surplusvalue, and its utilization as investment for further production.The term 'exploitation' in Marx is both a technical and a moralterm, the two senses of which are conflated together to producethe scientific revolutionary ardour which most communistsclaim for themselves. But, as psychologists have pointed out,most violent emotions thrive on confused thought, and theMarxist revolutionary seems no exception to this. To the extentthat the notion of 'exploitation' is the result of a technicaldefinition it can have no moral connotation. It may give ascientific aura, but that is another matter. The hard core of Marx's definition of exploitation lies in itsbeing derivative from the more fundamental notion of 'value-creation' in his system. 'Exploitation' is, on the one hand, afunction of the notion of 'value-creation' in his system and, onthe other, of the fact as to whether the surplus value so created

The Criterion as Capabilities 73 is appropriated by the creator himself or by somebody else. As Marx does not concede the value-creating function to the entrepreneur, all collective value-creation is bound, by defini- tion, to be exploitative in character. Similarly, because Marx does not accord any value-creating function to the socio- political functionaries who ensure the existence of conditions without which no productive activity can occur for long, any complex society is bound to be 'exploitative' by definition. The only way to get out of this definitional impasse is to give- up the definition, and see society as a co-operative enterprise in which each is necessary for the other. This also could take us out of the necessity of seeing a polity as an exploitative mechanism. The functional perspective in the social sciences tries to do just this; but in doing so, it unwittingly underwrites the, justification of all existing institutions, whatever may be their complexion or character. It excludes the idea of 'institutionalized exploita- tion' by definition andjustifies the status quo, whatever may be its nature. This, in fact, is the critique from the radical camp of the structural-functional perspective in sociology. The con- cept of 'dysfunctionality' tries to take care of this, but in doing so it takes the heart out of functionalism itself. The Marxian and the non-Marxian frameworks, thus, suffer from an identical defect. They make it impossible for a so- ciety or polity to be both 'exploitative' and 'co-operative' in character. What is needed, therefore, is a conceptual framework which, without making all social relations necessarily exploita- tive, does not gloss over the fact of exploitation itself. This, however, is not exactly our task here, and may, therefore, merely be taken as a criterion of the adequacy of any con- ceptual framework in this field. The thinking of 'capabilities' in terms of 'social justice', specially in its economic form, thus, encounters basic problems which appear difficult to avoid, at least as presented in the usual form. The other direction which comparison of 'capabili- ties' in terms of the amount of 'social justice' achieved in different politics may take, is what has usually been called the observance of 'due process of law'. Law, in fact, is supposed to ensure justice, and to the extent a polity is able to ensure that no discrin-iination is practised in the application of the law to different classes or castes or categories of persons, it may be

74 Political Development said to have actualized or achieved a just state of affairs within its boundaries. The laws themselves, however, may be con- sidered discriminatory or even unjust in a deeper sense. The usual Marxist critique tends to emphasize this aspect of the matter. But, then, it is obvious that the critique of any positive law can only be undertaken in terms of some ideal notion of justice which the usual thinking about law designates as 'natural law'. The critique may, of course, be undertaken from different viewpoints. But, then, the natural laws implicit in them would also be diverse, and though there will be a natural tendency to decide between the different ideals or seek some overarching coherence or transcending synthesis between them, the result can hardly be expected to be acceptable to all or even taken as final by any particular group for all times. The comparative estimate of 'social justice', then, may per- haps best be undertaken by finding on the one hand the extent to which 'due process of law' is observed in a particular polity and, on the other hand, to discover the extent to which its positive law departs from the natural law as conceived of or determined by a particular group of thinkers. The other dimen- sion which should perhaps equally be taken into account relates to the actuali@y of discrimination in the application of law to persons of different economic, social, political or racial status in a polity. This obviously is different from the degree of actual observance of 'due process of law' as demanded by the legal system itself. The former concerns itself with the distortion or even perversion of the positive legal system by forces extraneous to it, while- the latter concerns itself with the 'manner' rather than the 'matter' of justice as ensured by law. The- idea, of course, is that the observance of due procedure is as important as the final .udgment reached or delivered in any case. It is an emphasis on the formal aspect of the matter, a counterpart of the notion of 'formal truth' in Western logic. 'Social justice', however, forms only one part of the total spectrum of values which a society tries to realize for itself, and the 'capabilities' of a polity may be judged by finding the extent to which it is able to achieve their realization for its citizens, both individually and collectively. The 'values' whose realization is to be assessed may be those professed by the society itself, or those by the thinker concerned. But, whatever

The Criterion as Capabilities 75 the case, they have to be specifically articulated so that the assessment may be made as openly and concretely as possible. However, even then the distinction between 'manifest' and 'latent' values, 'verbalized' and 'behavioural' values, and between 'individual' and 'collective' values would have to be keptin mind. On the other hand, the notion of 'capabilities' may be seen in predominantly 'instrumental' terms, that is, as essentially neutral between the realization of diverse kinds of value. It would be like 'wealth' or 'power' which, it is generally ad-, mitted, may be used for the achievement of different ends, depending upon what one desires to achieve. And, even though it may be true that there are many things intrinsically valuable which cannot be achieved by these generalized instrumental- ities, it can hardly he disputed that, in certain amounts, they are the necessary precondition for the realization of any value whatsoever. This perhaps follows from the fact that our exis- tence is an embodied existence, and that the notion of the %realization' of values involves their concrete embodiment in spatio-temporal reality where it achieves a public visibility which is different from mere imaginative projection. Such an 'instrumental-neutral' sense of 'capabilities' has been worked out in detail by Almond in his 'Input-Output' model of a political system in which the relationship between the two is mediated by what he calls 'conversion-functions'. It is the best-thought-out framework for the understanding of political systems in a comparative developmental perspective yet to be offered by any political thinker who has devoted himself to the task. It therefore deserves the serious and sustained attention of anyone concerned with the notion of 'political development' and its availability for a comparative assessment of different political systems in a cognitively significant and meaningful way. The 'Input-Output' model of Almond has been developed over a long period and adumbrated in a number of books and articles published at different times. However, it would perhaps not be wrong to concentrate on only a few focal expressions of his ideas which seem sufficient for our purposes. These are found in his book Comparative Politics: A Developmental -4pproach' and two articles, entitled 'A Developmental Approach to

76 ' Political DevelopmentPolitical Systems'2 and 'Political Development-Analytical andNormative, Perspectives'.3 He takes from David Easton the distinction between twoclasses of inputs into the political system, viz. demands - andsupports. Demands are further classified under four headings:(1) demands for goods and services such as wage and hour laws, educational opportunities, recreational facilities, roads and trans- portation;(2) demands for the regulation of behaviour, such as provision of public safety, control over markets and labour relations, rules pertaining to marriage and the family;(3) demands for participation in the political system, for the right to vote, hold office, petition govermnental bodies and officials, organize political associations and the like; and(4) symbolic inputs, such as demands for the display of the majesty and power of the political system in periods of threat or on ceremonial occasions, or demands for the affirmation of norms or the communication of the policy intent from political 61iteS.4 Support inputs also may be classified under four headings:(1) material supports, such as the payment of taxes or other levies, and the provision of services; such as labour contributions or military services;(2) obedience to.laws and regulations;(3) participation, such as voting, joining organizations, and com- municating about politics; and(4) manifestation of deference to public authority, symbols and ceremonials." The output side is also classified into four types of transac-tions initiated by the political system. These are:(1) extractions, which may take the form of tribute, booty, taxes, orpersonal services; (2) regulation of behaviour, which may take avariety of forms and affect some subset of the whole gamut of humanbehaviour and relations; (3) allocations or distributions of goods andservices, opportunities, honors, statuses, and the like; and (4) symbolicoutputs, including affirmation of values, displays and political sym-bols, statements of policies and intent." The inputs consisting of demands and supports are convertedby the political system into 'extractive, regulative, distributiveand symbolic outputs'.7 The political system, so to say, 'pro-

The Criterion as Capabilities 77cesses inputs, and converts them into outputs'." 'The demandsentering the political system are articulated, aggregated, orcombined; converted into policies, rules, regulations; applied,enforced, adjudicated."a The conversion-functions of the politi-cal system, thus, may be divided into.(1) the articulation of interests or demands; (2) the integration orcombination of interests into policy proposals; (3) the conversion ofpolicy proposals into authoritative rules; (4) the application of generalrules to particular cases; (5) the adjudication of rules in individualcases; and (6) -the transmission of information about these eventswithin the political system from structure to structure and betweenthe political system and its social and .international environrnents.10 These, in other words, are the well-known conversion-functions of Interest Articulation, Interest Aggregation, Rule-Making, Rule-Application, Rule-Adjudication and Political Commu- nication. The Rule-Making, Rule-Application and Rule- Adjudication are merely new names for the legislative, execu- tive and judicial functions of traditional political theory. The other three, however, have perhaps not been so explicitly for- mulated before. This rather detailed delineation of Almond's classificatory terminology of Input-Output factors in his own words was necessary in order to get as clear a grasp of his contention as possible. It all seems very neat, clear-cut and precise till one begins to examine it closely and ask some pertinent questions. There is, first, a radical difference on the Input side between Demands and Supports, and to treat the two together as though they were of the same type is to confuse the issue at the very beginning of the analysis. The two may, and actually do, vary independently of each other and may even be opposed to each other. Supports, in fact, are treated as almost the same as Output, except for the fact that there is a difference in the point of view from which the phenomenon is viewed. For example, the same taxes or levies which are paid count as support-inputs when regarded from the viewpoint of the taxpayer or the citizen who has to pay the taxes or perform the services, and as an output when viewed as extraction on the part of the political system from its citizens. One wonders if the enforced collection of booty and tribute on the part of an exploiting political 6lite would be

78 Political Development called a Support-Input by Almond. The term' 'support', how- ever, may not imply that what is given for the system is being given,voluntarily and willingly, but only that it is being actually given, whether willingly or not. The same is true about all the other sub-divisions of the so- called classification of Support-Inputs and Outputs quoted earlier. One may, in fact, arrange them in tabular form facing each other and see the point we are trying to make. The classi- ficatory schema may be presented in the following way: Supports (Inputs) output 1. Material supports, such as 1. Extractions, such as tribute, payment of taxes or other booty, taxes, personal levies, and the provision services, etc. of services, etc. 2. Obedience to laws and 2. Regulation of behaviour regulations 3. Participation, such as voting, 3. Allocation or distribution of joining organizations, etc. goods and services, honours, statuses, etc. 4. Symbolic output, such as affirmation of values, statement of policies, etc.4. Manifestation of deference to public authority, symbols and ceremonies The first, second and fourth items are obviously the same,seen from two different sides. Only item 3 shows a discrepancywhich perhaps is mediated by the unstated assumption thatallocation or distribution is related in some direct or indirectway to the actual fact of 'participation' in the system. But theterm 'participation' includes so many things that it is difficult toconsider all as Support-Inputs into the political system. In fact,a closer scrutiny may reveal that it is difficult to distinguish inmany cases between the so-called Support-Inputs and Outputsof the system. For example, it is not clear why the extractionseffected by a political system should be treated as its output,when that is what it effectively gets from its subjects or otherpolitics in the environment for itself. Similarly, one wonders ifthe output entitled 'Regulation of behaviour' refers to the actualenforcement of law or merely to the making of laws whichhopefully will be obeyed by most of the people for whom theyare made. In the former case, they are completely identical with

The Criterion as Capabilities 79 the so-called Support-Input entitled 'Obedience to laws and regulations'. 'In the latter, they would be identical with the rule-making function which is supposed to be not an Output at all but a conversion-function in Almond's system. The role of conversion-functions will be analysed in Chapter 4, but here it may be pointed out that there seems to be little consistency in the different Support-Inputs and Outputs that are given in the table. Thus, while the first cannot be different even in principle in the two columns, the second can be so only if it is identified with a conversion-function. The fourth, on the other hand, may he interpreted either as identical or different depending upon the treatment of symbolic output, as that which evokes a manifestation of deference whenever it is dis- played, or as such whether it does so or not. The third, on the other hand, bears hardly any relation unless it be assumed that the distributive allocation of goods and services is in proportion to one's participatory input into the political system. This obviously is not the case, specially if we remember all the ambiguities involved in the notion of 'participation' and the related discussion concerning it in the first chapter. The Input-Output model has been borrowed from economics where it has been a relatively successful tool in assessing the comparative efficiency of different economic systems. Yet, un- less certain basic conditions are fulfilled, the model is not meaningfully applicable, as it may make no sense to talk of inputs and outputs in the situation. One such condition is the existence of what may be called a common measure in terms of which the so-called inputs and outputs may be aggregated, computed and compared. The other, and perhaps even more fundamental condition, is the existence of a fairly clear-cut demarcation between what is to count as input and what as Output. In other words, there should be fairly determinate criteria on the basis of which we should be able to judge, at least in most cases, which is to be regarded as input, and which, output. The former condition is fulfilled in the field of eco- nomics by money which functions as the common measure in terms of which the value of everything may be expressed. The second condition is also fulfilled almost completely in the case of individual units, though in the case of large aggregates cer- tain problems arise. What is input for one unit can be output

80 Political Developmentfor another, and thus the computation for the total economywould obviously have to be different in character. Marx sawthis as the key issue with respect to the problem of profit, forwhile one- could understand one man's profit as another person'sloss, how could one understand the profit in a total economywhere all the individual profits and losses would cancel out?An analogous problem in the field of physics may be, said toarise with respect to the conservation laws,which postulate acomplete constancy of mass orland energy in the total system. The- problems arising out of the concept of a 'total system',however, are so purely theoretical that none of the empiricalsciences concern themselves with them in great detail. Also,at the purely theoretical level, the question always ariseswhether the universe can be treated as a 'closed system',specially when it has to be treated as essentially 'open' withrespect to time. But on the other hand, if it is not a closedsystem, how can it be called a 'universe', or considered as a'total system' ? Time is essential to any Input-Output analysis. The purposeof the undertaking is to know what amounts of input of aparticular kind would result in what amounts of output thatwe want. For the basic purpose of the exercise is to be able tocontrol the phenomena to some extent at least'@The investment-output ratio, for example, is a key factor in the planning ofeconomic development in any country. One would have toknow what rate of investment is needed to achieve a particulargrowth rate in the economy. Similarly, one would have to,knowhow much of the investment required is to come out of savings,whether enforced or voluntary, and how much out of deficitfinancing. Similarly, one has to have some idea of the directionof investment and the so-called gestation period when the out-put may be- expected. These are all elementary examples, as every student of eco-nomics knows. They can, however, he made as complicatedand sophisticated as one likes. The basic point, however, wouldremain the same :An Input-Output analysis makes sense onlyif we can determine what types of inputs determine what typesof outputs, and in what quantity. Also, we should be able tocontrol the inputs into the system to some extent so that we mayget the desired outputs. If these two conditions are missing, the

The Criterion as Capabilities 8 1 Input-Output analysis is a futile exercise which may provide aesthetic satisfaction to those who undertake it, but is utterly irrelevant for the understanding or the control of empirical phenomena. But these conditions are not found in the Input-Output analysis offered for political systems by Almond. There is not oni y no common measure in terms of which all the so-called political inputs and outputs could be expressed, but also no idea as to what types and quantities of inputs would result in what types and quantities of outputs. Similarly, it is obvious that the so-called inputs into the system cannot be controlled in any significant sense of the term. Almond, of course, has argued that amongst the possible inputs in the system, the most important are those put in by the political 6lites themselves. As he writes.. 'We do not wish to leave the impression that inputs necessarily come only from the society of Which the political system is a part, and that the political system must be viewed only in "conversion" terms. It is typical of political systems that inputs are generated internally by political @lites-kings, presidents, ministers, legis- lators'and judges."' It may, therefore, be legitimately held that to the extent the inputs are generated by the political @lites themselves, they can also be controlled by them. And if they also form the most important part of the inputs, the control exercised by them would become crucial also. Unfortunately for Almond's analysis, his contention not only cuts at the root of the Input-Output analysis, but also ignores the fundamental difference between the inputs generated by the political 6lites and those generated by all the rest for the system. There seems to be a built-in structural conflict between the inputs originating from the political 6lites and those ori- ginating from others who do not occupy the position occupied by the political @lites in the system. This arises mainly from the fact that, while the major interest of the political 6lites is to continue to occupy, strengthen and improve the positions they already hold, the interest of those outside is to oust them from the positions they are in. The so-called interest-aggregation function about which we shall have more to say later on, finds its essential limitation in the natural self-interest of the political @lite to strengthen and perpetuate itself. This is perhaps a part

82 Political Development of what are called the 'system maintenance and adaptation functions', but it is clear that the terminology adopted merely glosses over the essential conffict involved in the situation. A deeper question arises with respect to the contention that the political 6lites themselves generate demand-inputs into the political system. Normally, a system does not have demands of its own, except perhaps for its maintenance and perpetuation, which mostly happen to be fairly conservative in character. The Input-Output analysis takes the system for granted and works only on the assumption that no arbitrary inputs shall be generated by the system itsel£ The system's neutrality and instrumentality is an essential prerequisite for any Input- Output analysis to be successfully applicable also. The conten- tion, therefore, that the most important inputs into the political system arise from the political 6lites themselves renders the whole Input-Output model irrelevant for purposes of political analysis, unless we treat the political 6lites in this role as out- siders to the system. This, however, would save the model at the expense of making it almost impossible for empirical appli- cation. If the political @lites occupying positions of power are analytically treated as outsiders making demands on the system, then the system would become almost metaphysical in character. Or, alternatively, the system would become an elaborate game where the same set of persons are alternatively seen in their role of making demands on the system and then in the role of fulfilling the dem -ands. made on them by the system. This may be welcome to protagonists of the Theatre of the Absurd, but presumably not to those who claim to be political scientists. The measurement of the 'capabilities' of a political system in terms of Input-Output ratios on the model of economic theory thus runs against some basic and fundamental difficulties which do not appear easy to overcome. Perhaps it may be said that the heart of the political system lies in what Almond has called the 'conversion-functions', as it is primarily through them that 'output' is realized by the political system. It may, then, be in the performance of the 'conversion-functions', that the concept of political development might find its sure footing and in terms of which different politics could be compared. 4 detailed consideration of 'conversion-functions' is therefore.

The Criterion as Capabilities 83required to find out whether they could adequately fulfil thetask of serving as possible criteria for judging political develop-ment.NOTES 1. Almond and Powell, Comparative Politks: A Developmental Approach (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1966). 2. Almond, 'A Developmental Approach to Political Systems', World Politics, vol. XVII, no. 2, January, 1965. 3. Almond, 'Political Development: Analytical' and Normative Perspectives', Comparative Political Studies, vol. 1. 4. Almond, 'A Developmental Approach to Political Systems', World Politics, vol. XVII, no. 2, January 1965, p. 193. 5. Ibid., pp. 193-4. 6. Ibid., p. 194. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., p. 195. 9. Ibid. 10. pp. 196-7. 11. Ibid., pp. 194-5.

4

THE CRITERION AS CONVERSION FUNCTIONSThe 'conversion-functions' are divided by Almond into sixseparate functions which, though interrelated, are yet regardedas relatively autonomous in character. They are designated asInterest Articulation, Interest Aggregation, Political Commu-nication, Rule-Making, Rule-Application and Rule-Adjudica-tion. The last three are the well-known functions of government,traditionally designated as the legislative, executive and judi-cial functions. Interest Aggregation is perhaps nearest to whatin traditional political theory is known as justice. InterestArticulation is perhaps a new function explicitly ascribed to orexpected of a political system. On the other hand, politicalcommunication is presupposed by all the other functions aswithout it they could not be performed at all. The conversion-functions may legitimately be regarded asthe heart of the political system, and thus it is reasonable toexpect that the criteria of political development may be foundthere. The conversion-functions, however, happen to be bothrelatively autonomous and interrelated in significant ways withone another. Ii would therefore be desirable to consider themboth individually and in interrelationship with each other. (1) The C@iterion as Interest Articulation Interest articulation is regarded by Almond as 'particularlyimportant because it marks the boundary between the societyand the political system'.' He defines it as 'the process by whichindividuals and groups make demands upon the political deci-sion makers'.2 Even the differences between di&rent types ofpolitical systems may be understood in terms of 'the forms which

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 85 interest articulation takes, the degree to which interest articula- tion structures are specialized and autonomous and the style of interest articulation' .3 Almond has divided his discussion of the matter into four parts, viz. (1) the kinds of structures which perform the interest articulation function; (2) the variety of channels through which demands are articulated; (3) the styles of interest articulation; and (4) the effects of moderniza- tion on articulations It is obvious, therefore, that to the extent interest articulation is to be treated as a criterion of political development, it would have to be considered in these dimensions. However, while one is fairly clear that the degree of specialization and autonomy in the structures that perform the function of interest articulation and the varieties of channels through which the demands are articulated would usually he accepted as indicating political development, it is difficult to see what forms or styles of interest articulation would be regarded as indicators of political devel- opment. The interest articulation structures have been classified according to two major components: 'the type ofgroup initiating the articulation, and the type of access channel through which it passes the message'.5 Besides the generalized fact that indivi- duals are 'articulators of their own interests'," and that there are 'anomic interest groups'," the major division is between what have been called 'nonassociational interest groups"' and 'institu- tional interest grou .ps'.9 Now, it may he taken for granted that, given the perspective of the current writings on political devel- opment, an increase in interest articulation would he taken as a positive indicator of political development. But it is not quite clear whether equal weightage is to be given to all the forms of interest articulation. For example, should an increase in the nonassociational interest group in relation to the institutional interest groups be taken as indicating political development or not? Similarly, if the reverse tendency is observed, how are we to interpret it? Also, is an increase in the anomic interest groups to be taken as an indicator of political development or political decay? This is important, as the interest articulation of anoriiic interest groups consists of 'riots, demonstrations, assassinations ,and the like''10 If treated as positive indicators along with all other forms of interest articulation, we would have the problem 7

86 Political Development of treating its absence as a counter indicator of political devel- opment in many societies. In fact, riots, demonstrations, assassinations, would have to be welcomed and even planned, given such a positive interpretation of interest articulation of anomic interest groups. On the other hand, if we treat it as a negative indicator we would have the added problem of balancing the weight of the negative indicators against the positive. Further, if we have to distinguish 'between (a) spon- taneous violence by anoniic interest groups, and (b) violence and demonstrations as a means of access, which any group may use'," we would have to face the added problem of either regarding both as negative indicators or only one, and, if so, which. The problem gets more complicated if it is accepted, as Almond and Powell do, that 'demonstrations and mass vio- lence' may be 'an integral part of the system itself'.12 One wonders what such a statement means. The reference to Peru is not of much help as it is confined to the labour groups which use it as a means 'to bring pressure to bear upon the centralized executive'."3 Also, if 'violence always has the possibility of passing beyond the control of its promoters',14 and if such a 'passing beyond' is accepted as undesirable, it is difficult to see how violence could be treated as an integral part of the system unless there are structural mechanisms to see that it does not pass beyond some permissible lin-tit specified by the system itsel£ The problem of associational interest groups and their relative weightage vis-a-vis non-associational groups on the one hand and institutional groups on the other, would also have to be satisfactorily resolved if interest articulation is to be treated as a criterion of political developments Besides the problems posed by the diversity in structures through which the conversion-function of interest articulation is performed, it may be presumed to become even more com- plicated if we are also expected to take into account the diversity of access channels and the styles of interest articulation. Both are supposed to be important in the classificatory scheme elaborated by Almond and Powell, and if interest articulation is to be treated as a criterion of political development, they too must be taken into account.

The Criterion as Conversion Fun,@tions 87 The question of channels and means of access is, as Almond and Powell urge, 'largely @x question of political communica- tion'.'.5 But if so, it overlaps with another conversion-function which is supposed to be independent and autonomous in character. The interrelations between different conversion- functions will he the subject of detailed discussion in section (8) of this chapter, but the fact of significant overlapping between them raises problems of its own. Political communica- tion and channels of interest articulation are merely two names for the same reality, just as style of interest articulation is the same as designated by the term 'political culture'. Political culture, of course, is wider than the style of interest articulation as it includes patterns of political behaviour in other realms also. But 'channels' of interest articulation are not a sub-sector of political communication; they are identical with it. Such an identification will become untenable if the 'communication' of interests that are aggregated is also considered as political communication. But, then, the so-called rule-making, rule- application and rule-adjudication activities would also be seen as performing the function of political communication and, thus, fall under it. The concept of 'communication channels' is wider in fact than those which are supposed to subserve only the function of political communication, or even just that of interest articula- tion. It is doubtful if communication channels are ever so specialized as to subserve only one function, he it political or any other. Normally, the channels are neutral with respect to the messages conveyed through them. However, when the channels primarily consist of persons, there may be substantial selectivity and systematic distortion in the messages that are conveyed. Perhaps the distinctive nature of political commu- nication may lie in the fact that it consists primarily of persons who try to bring various matters to the notice of those who are in a position to take effective decisions with respect to those matters. There would then be the spedfic problems relating to selectivity and distortion which are peculiar to human agents of communication. But whatever be the problems, they would hardly affect the basic identity of 'channels' of interest articula- tion and political communication, as pointed out earlier. The channels described by the authors range from physical

88 Political Development demonstrations and violence to the formal and institutional channels such as established political parties, legislatures, bureaucracies and mass media. In between these two extremes comes what they have called 'personal connection'. and '61ite representation'. Similarly, in the discussion of political com- munication, they have designated the major types of commu- nication structures as '(1) informal face-to-face contacts, which spring up more or less independently of other social structures; (2) traditional social structures, such as family or religious group relationships; (3) political "output" structures, such as legislatures and bureaucracies; (4) political "input" structures, including trade unions and similar interest groups, and political parties; and (5) the mass media'.16 If we compare the two lists given above, one in the context of interest articulation and the other in the context of political communication, it is obvious that they are the same. The channel designated as 'personal connection' in the context of interest articulation has merely been bifurcated into two in the context of political communication and designated 'informal face-to-face contacts' and 'traditional social structures'. One significant omission in the list of political communication structures is the lack of any mention of physical demonstrations and violence, which is supposed to play such an important role in the channels of interest articulation that the authors have gone out of their way to point out that it may be treated in at least some cases as an integral part of the system itself. In fact, the footnote on page 82 in connection with james L. Payne's book Labour and Politics in Peru goes on to suggest that the 'views of possible roles of violence long held by Western political scientists"'7may just be ethnocentric. But if this is so, violence would have to be taken as a positive indicator of political devel- opment for, presumably, the ethnocentricity of western political scientists lay in regarding it as negative in character. The still more significant feature of the quotation designating the types of communication structures, however' is its explicit admission of political 'input' and 'output' structures. The signfficance of this admission, particularly in relation to the conversion func- tions and our earlier discussion on construing political develop- ment in terms of input-output ratios, will be discussed later on. Besides the diversity in the structures of interest articulation

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 89 and the channels through which they make themselves felt, there is diversity in the styles of interest articulation. As Almond and Powell write, 'The performance of the interest articulation function may be manifest or latent, specific or diffuse, general or particular, instrumental or affective in style.'.18 Besides these, there is 'the distinction between a pragmatic, instrumental style and an ideological one', which 'is particularly important in interest articulations The dimen- sions in which the distinctions of style have been articulated by the authors are too ivell known to students of political science to need explication here. They are fairly close to the pattern- variables of Parsons discussed earlier. The onl ' y important departure from the Parsonian scheme lies in the admission of the dichotomy, pragmatic vs. ideological. The use of the term 'instrumental' in the quotation is not very happy as it had already been used by the authors as a contrast to 'affective' and it does not exactly connote the contrast to the 'ideological' which is sought to be conveyed by the term. Further, it is diflicult to see how the contrast 'ideological- pragmatic' could refer to s@yles of interest articulation. The reference to catholic and communist groups in France and Italy is hardly illuminating, as they are distinguished by the content of their demands and their views about the nature and function of political systems. It is not a question, therefore, of style at all, but rather of a fundamental difference in the way one conceives of the nature of a polity. In a sense, the other contrasts also refer more to the content rather than the style of interest articulation. However, perhaps the more relevant point in the context of any discussion of political development is to discover as to which of them are to be regarded as positive or negative indicators of such development. The Parsonian variables have been closely linked to the dichotomy of tradition and modernity with which most socio- logists and political scientists approach social and political phenomena. As modernity is almost always treated as the equivalent of development, the criteria characterizing modern- ity are also treated as indicators of development. Thus it is that manifestness, specificity, generality, and instrumentality are usually treated as indicators of modernity and thus of development also. There are certainly those who talk of the

90 Political Development modernity of tradition and even question the identification of Weberian 'rationality' with development.211 But such voices are few and far between. The dominant majority still interprets the notion of development in Parsonian and Weberian terms. As Almond and Powell point out; 'The more latent and diffuse the style of interest articulation, the more difficult it is to aggregate interests and translate them into a public policy which will alleviate sources of discontent.'21 And they write further, 'rigid ideological perspectives, highly particularistic demands, and emotionally charged expressions of desires also make reconciliation of diverse interests more difficult than when the style of these interests is more pragmatic and ins- trumental'.22 The above interpretation of the styles of interest articulation in the context of political development sees them primarily in terms of their facilitating or hindering interest aggregation. But if this be the case, then interest articulation per se cannot he an index of political development in any significant sense of the term. Rather, it would be the aggregation of interests which would be central to the matter. But before we turn to a dis- cussion of interest aggregation, it would be advisable to con- sider the three dimensions of interest articulation together. The predominant structures through which interests are articulated, the type of access channels that are habitually used and the styles which are most frequently adopted are the three major dimensions in which the phenomenon of interest articulation is to be assessed in relation to political development.. Normally, it may be assumed that an increase in institutional and associational groups increasingly making use of political parties, representatives in the legislature, bureaucracies and the mass media for articulation of their interests in a pragmatic manner and formulated with clarity, specificity and generality, is a sign of political development in a society. On the other hand, if non associational or anomic groups increasingly emerge on the scene utilizing violence, demonstrations and riots for the articulation of demands which are diffuse, particular, emo- tional and ideological in nature, it would presumably indicate political decay rather than political development in a society. However, for those who opt for a dialectical view of develop- ment such phenomena would have to be interpreted differently.

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 9 1 They would he seen as providing that dialectical tension which would most probably result in a synthesis of conflicting interests at a higher level. Also they would be seen as evidence of either the absence, insufliciency or breakdown of the usual access channels for the articulation of interests in a political system. In other contexts, it might merely be evidence of extra pressure generated by organized interests which are also using the legitimate access channels for pressing their demands. The problem posed by the diverse and conflicting interpreta- tions of the same phenomenon depending upon the context in which it is seen, the values in terms of which it is evaluated and the understanding of the dynamics of the situation in terms of what it is supposed to develop into, creates insuperable difficul- ties in the way of any straightforward interpretation of any phenomenon as an indicator of political development. Perhaps the solution would lie in the explicit articulation of the values in terms of which the evaluation is being done, the context in which the phenomenon is being placed and the dynamic inter- relationships on the basis of which the future is being pro- jected. But the moment.this is done, alternative contexts, values and dynamic interrelationships would come into the picture and thejudgementaboutpolitical development begins to depend upon the choices one makes regarding them. Also, the moment all these factors are taken into account, the judgement would become so subtly qualitative in nature as to lose all relevance for purposes of quantitative measurement and comparison. It would become more like the judgement of historians, and the whole attempt to render the study of political science 'scientific' would relapse into the situation from which it was sought to be retrieved. The deeper problem, however, relates to the assumption that the articulation of any and every interest is desirable in a polity, and that the task of a political system is to reconcile and aggregate all interests so that they may be satisfied to the maximum. The assumption, it is generally forgotten, pre- supposes not only the primacy of politics but also its totaliy vis- a-vis the social system. Such a totalitarian view of the function of politics may be natural and perhaps even welcome to practising politicians, but that it should be so to political scientists also is surprising indeed. For, it should be obvious to

92 Political Developmentthem that if freedom is one of the central values to be preserved,safeguarded and enhanced by the political system, it is essentialthat freedom from politics itself be seen as one of its essentialcomponents. It is not exactly a happy situation if people con-tinuously think in terms of their interests, articulating them andpresenting them as demands to be fulfilled by the politicalsystem. Political scientists hardly realize how much their viewof what may be called'political welfare'is built on the economicmodel. Instead of 'wants', they talk of 'interests', and as 'wants'for the economist are and ought to be unlimited, so also for thepolitical scientist 'interests' are and ought to be unlimited. Butas economists are discovering that 'unlirnitedness' of wants isessentially suicidal when confronted with the essential 'limited-ness' of non-renewable resources, so also political scientistsmight discover increasing articulation of interests to c amenace to the health and stability of a political system.: The other assumption of those who write of interest articula-tion in the context of political development appears to be thatthe- 'interests' of various groups are ultimately harmonious incharacter. For if this were not so, the more the interests werearticulated the more would they tear the polity apart by theessential impossibility of the resolution of their conflict. TheMarxists, -along with all who have a dialectical view of devel-opment, take just such a view of class interests. They treat themas essentially irreconcilable and thus as the ultimate motiveforce for the revolution through which alone antagonisms willbe resolved. But while the revolution reverses the position ofthose who hold power, it does not abolish the conflict of interestsamongst the various groups, which is a result of that relativescarcity of goods and services which renders, in principle, theirequal distribution impossible. The only recourse in such a situa-tion is to suppress the articulation of interests as much aspossible, and to replace the notion of 'wants' with 'needs' inthe economic sphere and of 'interests' with 'values' in thepolitical sphere. The term 'values' refers to something for thesake of which the 'interests' of individuals and groups, howeverlarge, are sacrificed in a deliberate, self-conscious manner. Theuse of brute, total and naked force for the achievement of theseobjectives is well known to students of recent political history.But what is not so well known is the fact that any society which

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 93conceives of itself in terms of egocentric interests cannot butlead to the development of an increasingly anarchic situationwhich can be retrieved only by a dictatorship of some sort orother. That this has not yet occurred in many western democra-cies where the view of society as a field of competing interestsis propounded is merely due- to the fact that some- overarchingvalue system beyond the competing interests still obtains inthose societies and that, fortunately, many of them do notpractise what they preach. The situation in the so-called developing countries, how-ever, is radically different in that they seem to take the 'interestarticulation' view of a democratic polity too seriously and thusconsider it obligatory to encourage as much interest articula-tion by as many groups as possible. This, however, leads onlyto a situation of continuously increasing anarchy which is thensought to be stopped by one form of totalitarian control orother. The counterpart of Adam Smith's 'hidden hand', thoughnot explicitly formulated in democratic political theory, hasyet to be postulated to make it function. But as the 'hiddenhand' is provided only by cultural and motivational con-straints, it may not he available at hand to counteract the drivetowards anarchy inherent in the 'interest' view of politics pro-pounded by many political scientists who have recently writtenon the subject. There is, however, a deeper distinction from the realm ofeconomics which, if not noticed, may lead to even greaterdisasters for political thought and consequently for politicalpractice also. Economic theory at least ensures that if the con-ditions of perfect competition were realized, prices wouldstabilize at a point maximally advantageous to everyone con-cerned. It may be true that the existence of quasi-monopolisticinstitutions on the one hand and the differential distribution ofincome on the other perpetually stand in the way of the achieve-ment of conditions of perfect competition in any society what-soever. But at least the theory assures us that if it were to beachieved, maximal satisfaction and utilization of resourceswould be ensured. Unfortunately for political theory, it canensure nothing of the kind. Even if each person were to arti-culate all the interests he has, there is nothing in the theory toshow that they must reach an equilibrium point where maxi-

94 Political Development mum satisfaction will be ensured for all the interests of all the people. It may be urged that the articulation of interests may range from the mere expression of a demand to a sustained and con- certed action for its achievement even at the cost of staking one's life for the fulfilment of the demand. The genuine intensity of the demand could thus be weighed on a graded scale deter- mined by the actual sacrifice one is willing to make for its fulfilment. The sacrifice would thus be the cost that one is willing to incur for the fulfilment of one's interest and the equilibrium point reached when one of the parties to the con- flict of interests decides that it is not in its interest to make any more sacrifices for the fulfilment of its demands. The limiting case would be reached, as in the case of war, when one or both the parties decide to fight to the finish till one or the other is completely subjugated or annihilated. This would be the analogue of the price-theory in economics, where the effective- ness of demand is measured by what one is prepared to pay for it. But to judge the effectiveness of an interest in terms of the 'force' that one is prepared to exercise for its achievement is to revert back to a view of politics propounded by Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic and Hobbes in his Leviathan. There is, of course, no intellectual harm in this provided it is done openly and with full consciousness of all the consequences. The equilibrium point on such a view, it should be clearly under- stood, has nothing to do with the so-called 'maximal fulfilment of diverse interests'. Rather, it is a situation where those who have the utmost power rule, and those who have lost the battle for power have either already lost their lives or preferred to live in subjugation or slavery. 'Interest articulation', then, can hardly serve by itself as an indicator of political development. In different contexts an increase in it either in terms of extent or intensity or both may mean a growth in the political awareness of a people or just an overloading of the political system leading to its breakdown and decay. In fact, as in most cases the demands on the political system would tend to outrun its capacity to meet them, the only likely result would be increasing revelation of the incapacity of the system to meet the demands made upon it, resulting in its replacement by a system which does not permit the freedom of

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 95'interest articulation' by the citizens, or restricts it severely. Itmay be suggested, therefore, that the heart of the problem ofpolitical development should be sought in 'interest aggregation',rather than in 'interest articulation', since whether the interestsare articulated or not the task of a polity is to aggregate thediverse interests to the utmost possible extent. (2) The Criterion as Interest Aggregation To turn from interest articulation to interest aggregation asa criterion of political development is to turn from what isdemanded of a political system to what it actually delivers to itsmembers for whom it is supposed to function. And there canperhaps be little doubt that a political system should ultimatelybe judged by what it does for its citizens. However, if what isdone is seen in terms of 'interests' and that too of those who areable to articulate them most effectively, there would be anin-built distortion in the criterion itself. For the interests ofeven those who are not able to articulate themselves ought tobe of paramount concern to the polity. And, at a still deeperlevel, what should engage the attention of a polity is not somuch the satisfaction of interests as the facilitation of therealization of value or values for its people. The term 'interest aggregation', however, is unfortunate inanother respect. Even if we talk in terms of 'interests', whatis sought to be achieved is not so much an aggregation as areconciliation of diverse and opposing interests. The term 'ag-gregation' is too summative in nature to convey the difficultyand complexity of the task involved. Further, in the specifictechnical sense in which it is used by Almond and Powell, itconnotes only the intermediate stage of aggregation rather thanthe final stage where what is aggregated takes the form ofpositive enactment as law. It is related more to the phase wherepolicy alternatives are formulated rather than to that where afinal choice with respect to policy alternatives is made. Accord-ing to Almond and Powell, 'The function of converting de-mands into general policy alternatives is called interest aggrega-tion.'23 Also, it is made explicitly clear that the term 'interestaggregation' is reserved 'for the more inclusive levels of thecombinatory process-the structuring of major policy alterna-

96 Political Development tives and also distinguish it from the final process of authorita- tive rule making'.24 It is of course conceded that every articulation of interest involves an 'interest aggregation' of some sort, and that com- plete aggregation is made only at the level when an authorita- tive rule is finally formulated. As the authors write, 'interest aggregation can occur at many points in the political system', and that even 'a single individual may take into account a variety of claims and considerations before articulating his own demands' .25 In fact, 'some degree of aggregation is almost inevitably carried out at all levels from individual interest articulation to the final decision-making' .26 But if this is the situation, what is the point of treating it as a separate category, completely dissociated from interest articulation, on the one hand, and rule-making, on the other? The only justification offered is that unless there are some such midway institutions specializing in the task of aggregating diverse and different interests that have been articulated at various levels in the system, the final decision-maker will be overwhelmed by the indefinite multiplicity of interests pressing for his attention and be either completely immobilized from taking any decision or forced into erratic or impulsive decisions. But 'immobilism' or 'impulsive decisions' are not exactly a function of the 'non-aggregation' of interests in a polity because of the absence of specific, differentiated structures devoted to the performance of that task. The first usually results from the fact that the conflicting interests seem so balanced against one another that it is difficult to favour one or the other without disturbing the unity and peace of the polity in a substantial manner. On the other hand, it may also be a result of the psychological inability of the political elite to take difficult and unpleasant decisions which may disturb the status quo in a sub- stantial manner. But whether the reason for 'immobilism' lies in the first or the second or a blend of both, it can hardly be said to be due to the fact that a polity has not evolved dif- ferentiated structures to perform the task of 'interest aggrega- tion'. Similarly, it is difficult to believe that 'impulsive' or 'erratic' decisions have anything to do with the fact that the articulated interests have reached the decision-makers in an 'unaggregated' manner. Rather, more often, they are the

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 97 result of a crisis situation which makes unexpected demands on the decision-makers who also happen to be temperamentally incapable of reacting coolly to a crisis situation. The authors recognize, that, in certain circumstances, 'im- mobilism' may be the only sound policy for the decision- making @lite as the status quo represents the best compromise between warring interests in the situation. They write, 'the possibility must be kept in mind, however, that in systems with high levels of conflict and disagreement over policy direc- tion, the maintenance of the status quo may be as satisfying to as many groups and individuals as any single possible pattern of change.12" But it is not made clear how the creation of dif- ferentiated, interest-aggregating institutions would be of any special help in achieving this. The so-called 'immobilism' in the sense of maintaining the status quo derives not from the presence or absence of these institutions, but from the internal social, economic and cultural structure of the society in which the decision-maker is situated and of which he is also an integral part. The decision-maker, of course, need not be a single person, and, in fact, seldom is. But that would scarcely affect the situa- tion except in making it more complicated, as the plurality of decision-makers may represent a diversity of interests amongst themselves. However, this diversity and plurality of interests does not disappear even after their supposed aggregation by the dif- ferentiated structures evolved by the so-called 'politically more developed' societies. For, according to the authors themselves, interest aggregation is only concerned with 'converting demands into generalpolicy alternatives'.211 But assuming that the alternatives are real alternatives in the sense that the adoption of one leads to consequences which are diametrically opposed to those which would follow from the adoption of the other, it is diffieu t to discover what advantage the decision-maker gets by the crea- tion of differentiated structures for aggregating interests. The aggregated policy alternatives would be so contradictory in nature that the dilemma of the decision-maker faced with the perennial task of reconciling the irreconcilables would, if any- thing, be more aggravated. He would certainly gain a clearer consciousness of the choices involved and the relative costs that each choice entailed in the circumstances concerned. But this

98 Political Development task is in no way dependent on the existence of differentiated aggregating structures. Rather, it is a function of the knowledge of causal interrelationships that obtain in the relevant fields and, in fact, are generally available to the decision-maker whether such differentiated institutions for interest aggregation exist or not. On the other hand, the sharpness in the formulation of policy alternatives which happen to be mutually exclusive and dichotomous in character, would only render the task of the decision-maker more difficult, as he does not have to adopt one of the contradictory alternatives formulated by the dif- ferentiated structures devoted to the task of interest aggregation, but, rather, to evolve a new alternative which maximizes the interest-satisfaction of all concerned. The above view of the decision-maker's function assumes that he himself does not represent any specific interest or interests in the society concerned. For, if he were to do so, he would have to adopt the policy alternative which maximally aggregates the interests he represents, and ignore completely the interests which are conflicting or antagonistic to his own. Many theories of political life tend to argue that such is actually the case, and that the whole discussion of the decision-maker serving some overarching public interest which somehow transcends and reconciles conflicting private and group interests is just a fagade which deceives nobody. The Marxist theory of state is honest enough to propound this view of political life explicitly, but somehow forgets to apply the truth to its own case, thus indirectly justifying the necessiy of the fagade in all cases. Yet, the very fact that such a necessity is felt by all holders of public office is indicative of the fact that the essence of the notion of functioning in a public capacity is always conceived of in such a manner, and only that exercise of the function is considered legitimate which is exercised with such an end in view. But if it is impossible to exercise the function in such a-way then the purpose of the polity is defeated at its foundations, and both liberal and radical solutions are doomed to failure from the very start. The in-built hopelessness of the situation is masked by the fact that theoreticians tend to postulate a freedom for them- selves which they consider impossible for others and which their theory rules out in principle, or a society in which there

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 99are no incompatible interests at all and to which perhaps thenotion of 'incompatible interests' does not apply in principle.Usually the two tend to go together. The theoretician blithelyassumes that not only is he free from all the determinationswhich others are subject to, but that out of a society where itis impossible for any decision-maker to transcend his particularclass interests and to think and act in terms of the interest of thewhole, would emerge another where there being no classes,the decision-makers would think and act only in terms of theinterest of the whole. There is, of course, the further pointwhether in a class society there could he any such thing as 'theinterest of the whole'. But then the paradox would becomedeeper, as what we are asked to believe is the possibility of theemergence of a society where there would not only be noincompatible interests to reconcile, but also no possibility forany such incompatibility to ever arise in future from a societywhere this was impossible in principle. For once, the possibility of competing interests is admitted ina polity, the decision-maker would either have to be given thetask and the capability of reconciling these interests or thepolity would have to continue to subdivide till it reachesautonomous units with homogeneous interests or accept a per-petual alternation between diverse interests or groups whichdominate- each other either by force or fraud or both. Marxists, for example, make an exception in their own caseand think they can transcend the, determination, which nor-mally should be their fate, of working to realize the interestsof the class into which they happen to have been born by a bio-logical accident. Equally, they tend to postulate the existenceof a society in which the-re will be no conflict of interests at all,or, if there is conflict, that there will be no doubt as to whichare the legitimate interests that ought to prevail. The former isthe well-known notion of the classless society towards whichall history moves and which alonejustifies all history, as withoutit, it would be a tale of senseless injustice and irredeemablehorror. The latter is the well-known dictatorship of the pro-letariat which is a necessary instrument for the, realization ofthe former. There is also perhaps the assumption that theproletariat constitutes the majority of the people, and that insome metaphysical sense its interests represent the interests of

100 Political Developmentthe whole. The majority, of course, may range from 51 to 99per cent and to the extent it approximates to the latter, themetaphysical sense also tends to coincide with the empirical.But as in most countries where Marxist revolutions have takenplace, the peasantry formed a major part of the population andas, according to most Marxist thinkers, the peasantry is notonly no part of the proletariat but has interests that conflictwith those of the latter, the interests which the dictatorshippursues in the name of history on behalf of the proletariat tendto be more and more metaphysical in character and thedivergence between the empirical and the metaphysical tendsto widen. On the other hand, the advanced industrial countrieswhere at one time the proletariat really constituted the majorityand in which Marx thought the socialist revolution would takeplace, have shown a disquieting decline in the proportion ofthe proletariat in their post-industrial phases. It is not only thewhite-collar worker who begins to outnumber those engaged inthe industrial field, but also those who work in what has cometo be. called 'the knowledge industry' who begin to outnumberboth .29 The decline in the proportion of persons engaged inagriculture, which was such a marked characteristic of westerncountries in their first phase of industrialization, is followed bya second and a third phase when the proportion of peopleengaged in industrial production first declines relatively tothose engaged in the service industries and then to thoseengaged in the knowledge industries. The dictatorship of theproletariat in these countries, therefore, would represent theactual interests of a minority which only by some metaphysicalsleight of hand could be made out to represent not only theinterests of the whole but of the future also. The importance of the notion of the decision-maker as aperson who tries to reconcile conflicting interests is that if hisfunction is conceived of in this way the 'interest aggregation'performed by the so-called intermediate structures of Almondand Powell, instead of helping him, would make his task evenmore difficult. For, according to them, the task of the interestaggregating structures is not to reconcile divergent interestsbut to aggregate 'the articulated interests into major policyalternatives' .30 Now, though the authors have not clearly spelledout what they mean by 'policy alternatives', it may reasonably

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 101 be assumed that the alternatives so formulated are exclusive in the sense that if one of the policy alternatives for implementa- tion is accepted one necessarily excludes the satisfaction of all those interests which are presumably aggregated in the other policy alternative. Not only this, the alternatives so formulated are presumably exhaustive in character. If so, the decision- maker is left in an impossible position where he can hardly exercise his function, for he can only choose out of the policy alternatives which aggregate opposing interests into sharp, clear-cut dichotomies and, in doing so, become the instrument for the realization of one set of interests against others. The close relation of the interest-aggregation function to the struc- ture of political parties in Almond's presentation strengthens this interpretation even more, as the so-called 'policy alterna- tives' can only be formulated by different parties which presumably represent opposed and conflicting interests. It is true that bureaucratic structures are also supposed to perform the function of interest aggregation and, presumably, they would be concerned with what we have called the recon- ciliation of diverse interests rather than their formulation in sharply opposed and exclusive alternatives, which political parties are supposed to do. But then it is difficult to see why bureaucracy should formulate alternative policy proposals except in the sense that there may be alternative ways of reconciling the interests. Yet, even if it be conceded that it is tenable to speak of alternatives in such a context, it is clear that the bureaucracy itself would have to work out the cost-benefit ratios of the different strategies of reconciliation, and re- commend the strategy which does so in the best possible manner. It is, of course, true that the bureaucracy, like political parties, might have its own particular interests to foster' But, in that case, it would not be performing the function specific to itself. On the other hand, the very raison d'@tre of political parties is supposed to be the articulation, propagation and fulfilment of someparticular interests against others. In fact, the unawareness of the radical distinction between the sort of interest aggrega- tion that is demanded from bureaucracy and that.which is supposed to be performed by political parties is perhaps the central weakness of the authors' discussion regarding this issue.

102 Political Development But the moment such a distinction is made, one is bound to ask what is gained by the sort of interest aggregation which political parties are required to perform in the Almond-Powell model? The authors are aware of the dangers which a divided, frag- mented polity faces if its members articulate their diverse interests in irreconcilable terms. But they forget that the function they ascribe, or rather prescribe, for political parties does just that. Their plea, of course, is that the bureaucracy cannot exercise. its function effectively unless there are other agencies which perform the same function in an autonomous, independent fashion. They contend that 'in order for the bureaucracy to aggregate effectively, a system with a strong and effective decision-making center outside of the bureaucracy itself is generally necessary. Without such a center the bureaucracy may not he able to maintain its autonomy and coherence.131 But, first, this refers only to the independence and autonomy of the decision-making centres from those that perform the interest-aggregating function. And, secondly, it says noth- ing about the necessity of a plurality of interest-aggregat- ing institutions functioning independently of each other. Even if such a necessity be admitted for the reason that sep- arate agencies working independently of each other might arrive at solutions which a single agency working on its own may not possibly envisage, it by no means follows that such a function tan only be discharged most effectively by political parties, as the authors seem to think. Nor does it follow that it will be facilitated if some institutions aggregate interests not in the sense of reconciliation of conflicting interests but in the sense of formulation of policies devoted to the achievement of one set of interests against others. For, this is usually what political parties do and also what they are s 1upposed to do in the model set for them by Almond and Powell. It may be noted in passing that a political party does not and cannot sugge 1st policy alternatives, as the authors seem to think. Rather, each political party can only suggest one policy alternative which is such as to maximize, if followed, the interests it represents. The other alternatives can only be formulated by other political parties or by the bureaucracy or other institutions concerned with the task. The alternatives so formulated are supposed to

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 103 he considered by the decision-making authority, which may choose any one out of them or formulate a new one on its own. The relation of the decision-making authority to the various agencies which formulate the policy proposals for its considera- tion is, however, not the same. The policy alternative proposed by the political party which happens also to be the ruling party is in a totally different position than all the other alterna- tives proposed by other institutions. It occupies a pre-eminent position in the sense tha 't the ruling wing of a political party is supposed to implement the policies formulated by the party, and if it deviates from thein, it does so only marginally. Thus, if a political party is conceived of as the representative of only a certain group of interests, it is almost inevitable that its ruling wing does nothing else but cater to those interests. On the other hand, if a political party is conceived of as a specific viewpoint for the reconciliation of conflicting interests or as a particular manner of reconciling these interests, it becomes the bounden duty of the ruling wing to take note of all the alterna- tive proposals for reconciliation and try to adopt the one which ' in its judgement, has the possibilities of achieving it to the maximum extent. It is a well-known fact that whenever a political party comes to power, its ruling wing feels constraints and obligations which it had not even suspected earlier, and of which the non-ruling wing generally remains unaware. This has often created ten- sions between the two wings, specially in cases where the party comes to power for the first time and, even more so, when the party conceives of itself in ideological terms. Perhaps we could distinguish between parties that conceive of themselves as the representative of some particular interests only, and those that do not conceive of themselves in such a manner. The particular interests may he those of a class or caste or race Or region or religion or linguistic group. But in all such and similar cases, the political parties ought to be regarded as performing only the function of interest articulation and not of interest aggrega- tion, except in the trivial sense in which the articulation of any interest already involves some sort of aggregation or other. It is only when a political party conceives of itself;is representing not this or that interest but rather the interest of the whole that it may he said to be perforn-iing the function of interest aggrega-104 Political Developmenttion primarily. However, it is difficult for any political party toperform this function with great effectiveness unless it comesto power, and even then it is only its ruling wing which ap-prehends the problems and difficulties of reconciliation in theirtotality. Political parties, thus, do not seem to be such efficientinstruments of interest aggregation as Almond and Powell seemto think. Nor is it clear, as they seem to imply, that a politicalparty's interest-aggregating function frees the decision-makerin carrying out his task more effectively. Rather, it should beseen as a constraint on the decision-maker, as a continuouspressure on him to subordinate interest aggregation in terms ofthe polity and society as a whole, for which he feels responsible,to the interests of the political party which he represents andwhich seldom, if ever, coincide with the interests of the totality.The authors are, of course, aware of the problem of fragmenta-tion in aggregation patterns, but they do not quite see that theway they conceive the role of political parties in the function ofinterest aggregation, cannot but lead to the augmentation of

such a situation. And, though it may he accepted that 'theemergence of fragmented policy alternatives in the aggregationprocess is "caused" by basic cultural and economic features ofthe society, it,,tan be alleviated or exacerbated by the way inwhich mediating interest aggregation is performed"32 it isdifficult to believe that political parties are the institutions parexcellence for achieving such alleviation, or that they invariablyor predominantly do so. In fact, there is an inverse relation between interest articula-tion and interest aggregation in the sense that the task ofaggregation becomes increasingly difficult as the number ofarticulated interests increases. But as increase in interest arti-culation is itself seen as a sign of political development, it isobvious that if aggregative processes do not keep pace with it,the polity would become increasingly fragmented, which wouldbe a sign not of political development but of political decay.And, as articulation is always easier to achieve than aggrega-tion, it is bound to run ahead of the latter and make its taskincreasingly difficult, if not impossible. Such an inverse relation-ship between the criteria offered by the authors for political.development is not confined merely to interest articulation and

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 105interest aggregation. Rather, as we shall see in section (8), itis a feature of other criteria also. Besides the so-called structures of interest aggregation,Almond and Powell regard the style of interest aggregation asequally important for indicating whether a polity may beregarded as politically developed or not. By style, the authorsrefer to 'the way in which the structure performs the function.the general operating rules it manifests'.33 They distinguishbetween 'three ditterent styles of interest aggregation, cor-responding roughly to increasingly secularized political sub-cultures of the interest aggregation structures'.34 These stylesare characterized as 'pragmatic bargaining, absolute-valueoriented, and traditionalistie'.35 The third. that is the tradi-tionalistic style, is presumably supposed to characterize all pastsocieties, while the first two are supposed to differentiate thetotalitarian regimes of the fascist and communist varieties fromthe democratic. At the heart of the pragmatic-bargaining style issupposed to be 'the accommodation of diverse interests', andCompromise and the atmosphere of the market place aresupposed to dominate the process of interest aggregation'.36 Onthe other hand,.in the absolute-value oriented style of interestaggregation, 'a rigid framework is imposed upon the expressionand aggregation of all group interests'.37 Also, 'such a styleoften results in the systematic exclusion of the demands andinterests of major groups in the population'.311 Thus it is not onlythat the articulation of interests is rigidly controlled in theabsolute-value oriented style of interest aggregation, but that,though the interests pursued are supposed to represent the realor true interests of all, in fact they are only the interests con-ceived of by a minority in the name of the totality, even whenmost of the actual groups constituting the population rejectthe formulation. The. distinction between the 'apparent' and the 'real' interestsis, thus, at the heart of the absolute-value oriented style of interestaggregation, it being assumed that the so-called 'real' interestsare unknown to all except the privileged few, or rather theprivileged one, who alone may know what they are. But, then,there seems little point in calling it interest aggregation, as itis not diverse interests which are aggregated in this style;instead, the very notion of diversity of interests is denied and

106 Political Development relegated to the realm of the 'apparent' rather than the 'real'. It belongs, in Plato's terminology, to the realm of opinion rather than knowledge. But in this sense it would be wrong to say that the so-called traditional societies of the past have not been characterized by this style of interest aggregation. Most theo- cratic states, particularly those belonging to the judaic tradi- tion, have always thought of themselves as defenders of the Faith and in possession of Truth, as against the false knowledge of the heretics and infidels. In this respect, there is little to choosf-vetween these states of the past and the fascist and com- munist states of today. The objection may be raised that the ideological posture of a society only affects the rhetoric used and, perhaps to a lesser extent, the style adopted for purposes of interest aggregation rather than the fact that there remain diverse and conflicting interests demanding such aggregation. That such interests are deemed as 'apparent' rather than 'real' does not affect the fact that they have either to be extirpated completely or placated to some extent. As it is usually not possible to achieve the former totally, the latter has to he attempted even when not approved or liked. Not all the heretics can be killed, or all the profit- or power-seekers eliminated. And if this cannot be done, then these persistent and conflicting interests will have to be defused in some manner or other. The actual practice of openly ideo- logical r6gimes, whether of the religious or the secular variety, seems to confirm this. Most religious @@gimes have to come to terms with the existence of heretic minorities or even of heretic majorities within their own midst. A classic case of the latter was Islamic rule in India where a religious ruling minority had to come to terms with a ruled majority belonging to a different religion. The Mughal Empire sought to solve the problem by inducting first the Rajput nobility and later the antagonistic Marathas into their administrative system. Later, the British Empire adopted the same policy, though in a more openly secular framework than that of the Mughals. The secular dictatorships of Hitler and Mussolini, specially in their imperial phase, did not last long enough for this truth to he perceived. But the Soviet variant of the pattern has shown, specially in its relations with East European countries, an evolution which may he regarded as analogous.

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 107 Yet, even if it is conceded that the task of interest aggregation remains to a great extent the same under ideologies of different persuasions, it may be accepted that they can make a significant difference at some stages in the development of a polity. This will be specially true of the early stages when ideological passions are high, the search for ideological purity absolute and the urge for implementation of the ideal imperative. But even at other times, the Mullahs and the Pandits, or, to use more sophisticated terminology, the ideologues of the party, have to be placated, for they and their rhetoric provide legitimacy to the 6lite in power. In fact, it may be hazarded as a hypothesis that, in the later stages of a polity' the strength of the ideo- logues would be a function of the weakness of the ruling i61ite and the difficulties it may be facing at home or abroad. Thus, as the absolute-value oriented style of interest aggrega- tion is found in large parts of human history, the attempt to distinguish it from the traditionalistic style does not seem very happy. Further, Almond and Powell's definition of the tradi- tionalistic style is such that it will be found in most politics, except at the moments of'their revolutionary beginnings. 'Traditionalistic styles of aggregation', write the authors, 'rely upon the patterns of the past in suggesting policy alternatives for the future.'39 But this is not an unusual phenomenon at all, and the policies of all the politics most of the time may be characterized in some such terms. It is surprising to find authors who have written so much about'political socialization' treating as 'traditionalistic' a reliance on patterns of the past even for suggesting policy alternatives for the future. It may be true, as Toynbee has pointed out, that this is the bane of all politics and the fundamental cause of their decline and decay. The idolization of an ephemeral self or technique or institution may be the cause, as Toynbee contends, of the fact that societies, nations and individuals tend to fall in love with that which once was successful in meeting a challenge or over- coming a difficulty in the past. But this is only another name for the learning process through which we assimilate the present into the past; if sometimes the assimilation is unwarranted be- cause the present happens to be sharply dissimilar from the past, the action based on the assimilation might prove disastrous for the actor concerned. But this is a risk inherent in the situation,

108 Political Development and unless the actor is sensitive to both the similarities and the differences in the situation, he is unlikely to respond cre- atively to the changing situation. This is as true of the field of knowledge, as that of action. Significant breakthroughs in the former are as much the result of getting away from the accepted paradigms of explanation as the revolutionary breakaway from the traditional patterns of response in the case of the latter. But neither knowledge nor action will be possible, if new paradigms are set up each day and new revolutions proclaimed each hour. Continuity is at the heart of civilization and consists in nothing else except the reliance on patterns of the past for acting in the present so that some determinate, desirable future may be realized. As for the pragmatic-bargaining style, it not only assumes an actual diversity of interests, but also of their social legitimacy. To the extent that actual diversity of interests may be said to characterize all societies, such a style of interest aggregation may also be expected to be found there on almost a priori grounds. However, as pointed out in our discussion of the absolute-value oriented style of interest aggregation, unless this actual diversity is provided an ideological legitimacy in the political system, there will be a continuous tension and strain between what the ideology demands and what the actual exigencies dictate in the situation. The Hindu world-view legitimizes such a plurality and diversity at the empirico- religious level, while the liberal-democratic view seeks to do the same at the sociopolitical level. In a certain sense, the legitim- ization of interest articulation already entails the legitin-tization of the plurality and diversity of interests. And once the plural- ity and diversity of interests is accepted as legitimate, the pragmatic-bargaining style of aggregating these interests will also be accepted and adopted openly. But accepting the legitimacy of plural and diverse interests may also lead to the increasing fragmentation of a polity, making the task of integra- tion more and more difficult. Fragmentation, in fact, is the third parameter in terms of which the discussion about interest aggregation has been carried on by Almond and Powell. But the context in which they consider the problem of fragmentation relates primarily to patterns of interest aggregation. The focus of attention is on

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 109 whether the structures performing the interest-aggregation function do it in such a way as to reduce the fragmentation or sharpen it even further. That a certain amount of fragmenta- tion exists in the polity is assumed; the only relevant question in this context is supposed to be whether the specialized and differentiated structures designed to aggregate these interests do so to lessen the antagonisms and the differences amongst the various -interests, or to increase them to breaking point. But if the task of the differentiated structures is to aggregate the various interests, it is difficult to see why they should do it in such a manner as to aggravate the divisions and cleavages amongst the various interest groups. Perhaps the clue to this seeming anomaly lies in the fact that the interest-aggregating structures are supposed to convert demands into poli@y alterna- tives which, because they are conceived of as mutually exclusive in character, sharpen and intensify the implicit differences and oppositions between the interests of the various groups. Further, hs these policy alternatives are supposed to be formulated primarily by political parties opposed to each other, the likeli- hood of their formulating the policies in such a manner as to be sharply opposed to each other is perhaps greater than it would otherwise have been. On the other hand, it should also not be forgotten that the parties have to seek the widest electoral support to come into power and thus have to formulate their policies in such a way as to aggregate the interests of the largest number of groups as far as possible. This perhaps is the reason why in most countries where democratic parties function, they tend, to approximate to each other at least in their verbal pronouncements over a period of time. On the whole, the aggregating function is perhaps better performed by the bureaucracy than political parties, even though this is contrary to what the authors think. 1 It may, therefore, be safely said that it would only be in extraordinary circumstances that aggregating structures would help increase the fragmentation of a polity. On the other hand, the emphasis on interest articulation can certainly lead to a fragmentation of the polity, as each interest so articulated would clamour for its satisfaction at the expense of others. Not only this, the very fact of thinking in terms of interests tends to fragment a polity. It may, of course, be contended that all L.-B. S. National Acadeiny of Administration, Mussoorie A@C Ace. NO .............. Dath ................ . ............ ~........

1 10 Political Development politics are in fact fragmented and that the articulation merely brings this fact out into the open. But there can be little doubt that the fact of articulation itself makes the interests far sharper and more defined than they would otherwise have been. Also, the fact of articulation makes one far more identified with the interest than one would otherwise have been. All dictator- ships know this so well that they do not allow free articulation of interests, except sometimes as a ruse to tempt the differences to come into the open so that their proponents may be elim- inated from the body politic. The classic case of such a strategy was Mao's call in China 'to let a hundred flowers bloom, to let a thousand thoughts contend', resulting in the rolling of heads of all those, who were innocent enough to believe him. Thus, if fragmentation has to be avoided on the ground that it is a negative indicator of political development, one would have to throttle not only all unlicensed articulation of interests but also all thinking in terms of 'interests'. And this is what all totalitarian systems attempt to do. Yet, it is difficult to believe that they would be regarded as paradigmatic examples of political development by anybody, including Almond and Powell themselves. The authors are, of course, aware of the difficulties created by interest articulation for modernization and political devel- opment. As Almond and Powell point out, 'clearly the tendency of social and economic modernization to expand communica- tion levels, to increase inclinations toward participation, to widen the gap between rich and poor (at least in the short run in many cases), and generally to increase the number of autonomous demands arising from the socie@y, places growing stress upon the aggregation structures.'40 The, stresses are relieved by many modernizing systems through the creation of 'a controlled form of participation and a hierarchical and unified aggregation'.41 But how can this authoritarian solution be characterized as 'development' when it seeks to negate the very features sup- posed to constitute the core of political development? There is little consolation in being told that 'even in cases of "authori- tarian" solutions, the divisions and conflict often reappear in new form within the ruling party or the elite itself'.42 Factions or divisions in such a situation do not represent the interests of those outside the system who constitute the majority, but only

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 111 of the various sectors of bureaucracy and the military which alone have, access to the decision-makers in case they happen to be different from them. Interest aggregation, then, as a criterion of political develop- ment seems to be full of so many holes as to be hardly capable of holding any water, at least in the form in which the authors have presented it in their work. According to them, the existence of differentiated structures dedicated to the task of interest aggregation is a sign of political development, provided the whole task is performed in a pragmatic-bargaining style and with a view to alleviating and bridging the differences that obtain between diverse and conflicting interests of various groups and classes constituting the polity. The aggregation structures, it should be remembered, must not only he dif- ferentiated from the major interest. articulation structures, but also from the central decision-makingx, structures. The love of differentiation and the market-place is writ large on such a contention, but it is difficult to see how the so-called pragmatic- bargaining style of interest aggregation becomes relevant to an institution which is specifically differentiated to perform only this task. In case it is really differentiated, it cannot enter into a dialogue- or a process of give-and-take with other interest groups' for it has no interests of its own and thus can only try to reconcile the diverse and conflicting interests of others to the best of its ability. Also, as it has been made mandatory for such an institution to propose policy alternatives for the consideration of decision-makers, it can devise different valuational criteria in terms of which the alternative reconciliations could possibly be attempted. The public debate could perhaps then be focussed on the justiflability of the criteria themselves in terms of which the reconciliation ought to be attempted. Almond and Powell have not only felt no necessity to for- mulate any such criteria, but they appear to be 'Completely unaware of the problem itself. Further, they do not seem to have noted the contradiction in saying that 'some degree of aggrega- tion is almost inevitably carried out at all levels from individual interest articulation to the final decision-making'43 and the demand that 'aggregation structures must be differentiated from the central decision-making structures' and that 'they must also be differentiated from the major interest articulation

112 Political Development structures'.44 Also, that if this demand for differentiation is made essential for considering a polity developed, then at least the presence of political parties cannot be regarded as such, for they not only are, 'major structures for performing the function of interest aggregation', but also play an important role 'as institutional interest articulators'.4.1 Further, while pragmatic-bargaining style may possibly prevail within a politi- cal party, it can do so only because it also performs the role of interest articulation. Otherwise, there would be little meaning in talking about pragmatic-bargaining between different in- terest groups, as in a developed polity they are supposed to articulate only their own interests and not enter into any bargaining with each other in order to place their aggregated demand before decision-makers. It may be suggested that this is just the task which the differentiated interest aggregation structures should undertake. In other words, they should help the various interest groups to come together and enter into a meaningful dialogue so that they could bridge their differences and reach an agreed solution. But then there would be no poli@y alternatives for them to present to the decision-makers, only the agreed decision which would be presented by the parties themselves without the intermediacy of the differentiated aggregation structures. In fact, within this perspective, these structures would become increasingly redundant as the interest groups would begin to enter into direct negotiations with each other and thus begin performing the function of interest ag- gregation themselves. The specific criteria of interest aggregation offered by the authors are thus of little help in understanding the notion of political development. Besides the difliculties we have already pointed out, there is the added difficulty that they do not seem capable of quantitative measurement. For purposes of com- parison, therefore, they can hardly be of much use. But if they cannot do this job, they are irrelevant to any discussion of political development, as the comparison between different politics and of the same polity at different times is the very purpose for which the concept was formulated. It may he added that the concept of interest aggregation gains credence as a Prima facie criterion of political development because of its generalized sense of reconciliation of diverse and conflicting

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 113 interests, which is one, of the primary tasks of any polity. But it is not clear whether the specific technical sense in which Almond and Powell use the term achieves this end necessarily, or even in a pre-eminent manner. In fact, they themselves fluctuate between the technical and the general use of the, term. In the technical sense, for example, such a statement as 'some degree of aggregation is almost inevitably carried out at all levels from individual interest articulation to the final decision- making',41 is meaningless, for neither the individual nor the final decision-maker 'convert demands into general policy alternatives'47 in terms of which the function of interest ag- gregation is defined at the very beginning of the discussion. (3) The Criterion as Rule-Making The policy alternatives proposed by the differentiated struc- tures of interest aggregation have ultimately to be placed before the decision-maker or decision-makers, who have to make the final decision. The choice may be made between the alternatives proposed or some further alternative that may be formulated and opted for by the decision-makers. But whatever the choice, it has ultimately to issue in an authoritative pronouncement embodying the final decision in a rule which gives the verdict on the diverse and conflicting interests clamouring for satisfac- tion. It may thus be regarded as the crucial place in which the criterion of political development may be found. And, in fact, it does occupy such a place in the so-called conversion-functions of Almond's list. After the interests have been articulated and aggregated, the laws have to be formulated which try to satisfy the interests to the extent it is feasible and desirable to do so. The rule-making function, then. may be regarded as the politi- cal function par excellence and those who are after the holy grail of political development presumably hope to find it there. But assuming that we can find it there, it would be relevant to ask where exactly we shall seek to find it. Shall it be in the number of rules made or in their contents or in their relation- ship to the interests that have been articulated and aggregated? One looks in vain in Almond and Powell for an answer to this question. Rather, their interest centres only on whether or not differentiated rule-making structures have emerged in

114 Political Development the political system, and whether or not 'the legitimacy of a process whereby new rules are made by secular political institutions'48 is acknowledged. Besides these, perhaps, the authors' only other,focus is on whether there has been a 'shift from the traditional to constitutional restraints on political actions'.49 Their emphasis is thus primarily on distinguishing between traditional and modern political systems, assuming as a matter of course that what is modern is bound to he 'more developed' also. But, as we have already pointed out a number of times, a differentiated structure does not ensure anything by virtue of its 'differentiation', except perhaps the clear-cut loca- tion of responsibility for the functions performed or not per- formed. As for 'the legitimacy of a process whereby new rules are made by secular political institutions', the contrast between the sacred immobilism of traditional societies and the secular dynamism of modern ones is perhaps too overdrawn. The myth of keeping the revealed rules intact by a process of continuous reinterpretation in the light of changing needs imposed by a changing environment, is paralleled by the continuous amend- ments to the constitutions of modern states, resulting in changes affecting the very fundamentals of the constitutions under the camouflage of keeping their sacred constitutionality intact. Constitutions, in fact, perform the same function as the revealed rules of ancient times and are treated in the same way. They are not as 'secular' as is usually made out by writers on political theory. Perhaps, the very concept of a 'constitution' is un- secular. How can something unchangingserve as a standard for processes and situations which are essentially changing in character? Even the distinction between those parts of a con- stitution which cannot be changed and those which can, along with the due processes of changing them, is not unknown to traditional societies with their revealed rules that they are supposed to follow. The, distinction between Sruti and Snkrti in Hinduism and that between Sunna and Sharia in Islam are only the most conspicuous examples of this. The obsession with the contrast between tradition and mod- ernity appears to have blinded many political scientists to the fact that traditional societies were never as unchanging as is usually made out, or that modern societies are not as changing

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 115 as many have unquestioningly assumed them to be. The so- called substitution of traditional restraints on political action by constitutional ones is doubly spurious for, as everyone- knows, all law is given content by a process of continuous interpretation on the part of the judiciary and is subject to subversion by political pressures of the most diverse kinds which can only be resisted, if at all, by the traditions of the polity that have become so ingrained in all the various segments of the political 6lite that they are restrained from violating the constraints, not from any outside authority, but from within. This is usually called 'political culture' in recent writings on political science, but, in fact, it is merely another name for tradition which is anathema to the protagonists of political modernization. Basi- cally, all constraints are rooted either in the internalized pro- cesses of socialization, which is merely another name for tradition, or in mere- brute and naked fear of violence, which is a denial of all culture and civilization. When the former are absent, constitutional restraints are of little avail as the history of most constitutional governments in the Third World so graphically shows. In such situations, anyone who can mobilize the organs of violence may nullify the constitutional con- straints with such case that one wonders if they were ever there at all. The differentiation of institutions devoted to the task of law-making and the replacement of traditional restraints on political action by constitutional ones could, then, hardly be regarded as criteria of political development. In fact, Almond and Powell themselves appear doubtful whether such dif- ferentiated, clear-cut structures can be located. Their very reason for preferring the use of the term 'rule-making' for 'legislation' relates to the fact that 'the term "legislation" seems to connote some specialized structure and explicit process, whereas in many political systems the rule-making function is a diffuse process, difficult to untangle and specify.'50 Lest it be thought that such a diffuseness is characteristic of only traditional politi- cal systems, the authors warn that 'in most political systems, but particularly in modern democratic ones, the performance of rule-making, like that of articulation and aggregation, will be dispersed and delegated.'." According to them, not only this but the whole problem of identifying the rule-making structures

116 Political Developmentin political systems is 'one of specifying the whole set of agenciesand institutions involved in the process, determining the kind ofthings they do, the way they do them, and how they interact toproduce general ruies.',12 But if this is the situation not onlywith respect to rule-making but also regarding interest articula-tion and aggregation, what happens to the contention that'political development has been defined as the increased dif-ferentiation and specialization of political structures and theincreased secularization of political CUltUrel ?53 Perhaps, likepoliticians, political scientists are not expected to be consistent 'or perhaps their left Viand forgets what their right hand haswritten. In any case, the two statements read together wouldmake the realization of 'political development' almost im-possible in principle. This would be true not only inrespect of 'the differentiation and specialization of politicalstructures', but also of the 'secularization of political culture'. It is debatable whether the concept of culture can be under-stood in purely secular terms, if culture is taken to mean notonly the style and pattern of behaviour in any particulardomain, but also the values one tries to realize and actualizetherein. The ideals ofjustice, equality and freedom even in thesociopolitical realm can hardly be understood in purely posi-tivistic and behaviouristic terms. But even if the possibility isadmitted at the purely theoretical level, it is difficult to see howany actual empirical society could be characterized as such.The whole mythology of constitutions, courts and legislatures,with their sacred oaths and solemn rituals, rnilitates againstthis secularization. The non-secular character of all this ishidden from the political scientist because of the language heuses to describe the phenomenon. The deeper reason, however,lies in the parochial culture-centredness of the western psychewhich equates sacredness, with theocentricity and thus treatsall thought which does not accept the existence and authorityof God as secular in character. The emergence of differentiated rule-making structures, thelegitimation of rule-making by secular structures and con-stitutional restraints on political action, thus, are not of muchhelp as criteria of political development. Can the thinking interms of quantity or content be of more help in the matter? Anincrease in the amount of rule-making can be taken as an index

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 117of political development only if rule-making per se is regardedas a criterion of political development. Some people, of course,might treat it as such, particularly as traditional politics arenot supposed to make any rules and modern politics perhapsdo nothing else. But an increase in the quantity of rule-makingmay be taken to indicate that the society is facing increasingproblems which it is trying to solve through legislation. Yet,if this is the interpretation, a relative decline in rule-makingafter such an increase would alone indicate that it has beensuccessful in solving the problems for which it was undertaken.On the other hand, it may he urged that the increasing com-plexity of societies demands increasing legislation for theirregulation and that the latter always lags behind the former. Itcan even be urged that the rules themselves may give rise tonew and more complex problems whose solutions require theenactment of fresh rules, and that this cycle may go on adinfinitum. There is, thus, the possibility of a completely im-manent necessity for a continuous increase in the rule-makingfunction without influence from any external factor. Yet, whatever the reasons behind the quantitative inter-pretation of rules as an indicator of political development, itwill hardly be disputed that it is the easiest to fulfil and that,in fact, most so-called underdeveloped countries would rankquite high on that count. On the other hand, if we choose totake the content of the rules into account and base our criterionof political development on that, we would open the wholeissue of criteria once again. For, unless we decide what ends therule-making function is to subserve or achieve, it would befutile to look into the contents of those rules when judging thepolitical development of the polity concerned. The question ofends, however, is seldom directly raised in most discussions ofpolitical development. It is assumed that if there is the widestpossible participation in the political process and institutionalmechanisms for the articulation of as many interests as pos-sible, it would somehow be ensured that the rules made by thedecision-making authorities would satisfy the largest interestsof the greatest number of citizens of the polity. The deeper as-sumption, perhaps, is that there can be no a priori determinationof ends which the rules ought to fulfil. Rather, each person isthe best judge of his or her own interests, and the task of the 9

118 Political Development political authorities is only to ensure their reconciliation and satisfaction to the greatest extent possible. However, even in such a situation the authorities cannot escape the responsibi- lity of ascribing differential weightage to the diverse interests that have been articulated and brought to their attention by those who have tried to aggregate them. All interests cannot be given equal weightage, letting only the number of persons who share an interest count in the final calculation. Perhaps the notion of the 'greatest good of the greatest number' does just this. But even there one has to decide whether the interests of the underprivileged, even if they be in a minority, should or should not be given more weightage than others. The dis- abilities resulting in deprivation could arise either from natural or social factors, but in either case the dilemma of choice would remain the same. The only difference would perhaps be in a feeling of guilt arising from a sense of responsibility in the case of the latter which will be absent in the former. Still, as man's capacity to modify and improve upon the resources of nature increases, the distinction tends to get increasingly blurred. On the other hand, social constraints may be felt to be more difficult to overcome as they are not only man's own creation but are internalized within his being to such an extent that he begins to define himself in those terms. To fight against them is to fight against oneself, and that is not only a difficult thing to undertake but almost impossible to succeed in. It is, thus, the relation of rules to interest articulation and aggregation that may be said to provide the criterion by which we may judge whether the content of the rules that are for- mulated by the decision-making authority or authorities con- note political development or otherwise. The amount of interests satisfied and the amount of differences reconciled in proportion to those that have been articulated and aggregated could be the measure of political development of a polity. It is not, of course, very clear whether the proportion should be calculated in terms of the interests articulated or in terms of the interests aggregated by the differentiated structures which are entrusted with the performance of that task. Almond and Powell themselves have not made it clear whether, in their view, the decision-making authorities are supposed to take into consideration only those interests which are presented to them

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 119 by the aggregating structures, or whether they want them to be free to take into account even those that might have been left out completely by the aggregating institutions for one reason or another. In the former case, the proportion would have to be calculated on the basis of the aggregated interests alone, while in the latter, the aggregated interests might even be completely ignored and the proportion calculated only on the basis of the articulated interests. As the authors fear that unless there are intermediate aggregating structures, the decision-makers will be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of demands and thus be rendered helpless to construct effective and consistent policy, 5 4 it may he taken that they would opt for the alternative that only the aggregated interests should engage the attention of the decision-maker. But in that case one would also have to develop a measure of the relationship between the interests articulated and the interests aggregated, for it would be naive to assume that the aggregating structures would have taken into account the largest possible number of articulated interests and recon- ciled them in the most efficient manner possible. For, if it were really so, one wonders what would remain for the final decision- making authority to do except perhaps to look after its own vested interests which it might have considered impolitic to articulate publicly. But if those occupying the decision-making position can have a vested interest of their own, so can those who are given the task of interest aggregation. Besides this, they occupy a strategic situation where they may accentuate or underplay any interest or group of interests in such a way as to brin them to the attention of the decision-maker or to keep 1 9 them away from it. It would become imperative, therefore, for the decision-making authorities to keep a critical watch on the aggregating authorities and to judge their performance in rela- tion to the interests that have been articulated. But if they have to be aware of the articulated interests, there seems no reason why they should not directly take them into account in their rule- making function and let it therefore bejudged in relation to that. Perhaps the only reasons why they may try to avoid doing this may lie in their desire to have all the possible alterna- tive ways of aggregating the articulated interests spelt out for them along with their respective costs and benefits so that they may be able to make some sort of rational choice between

120 Political Development them. But in that case it is difficult to see how political parties and the usual type of bureaucratic structures could perform the task of aggregation, as the authors appear to think. Perhaps, the government would have to establish independent, autono- mous structures specifically entrusted with the task of aggregat-. ing the articulated interests in as many diverse ways as possible. But even then the problem of unarticulated interests would remain, and there seems little reason to justify the ignoring of an interest on the ground that it has not been articulated. The capacity to articulate is itself a function of many factors which may not be available to large masses of people in a society. In most underdeveloped societies illiteracy and poverty combine to render a vast majority of people inarticulate. It would be an act of utter irresponsibility on the part of decision-makers in these societies, therefore, to pay attention only to those interests that have been articulated and to ignore the rest. If they are to take into account the unarticulated interests, they would have first to face the problem of how to locate them. An articulated interest may at least be presumed to be the interest of those who have articulated it, but the same can hardly be said of interests that have not even been articulated They are ascribed to people in the conviction that in case they were able to articulate their interests, they would do so in that manner. The problem of unarticulated interests which are ascribed to people by the decision-making authority raises not only the question of the correctness of such an ascription and the possible weightage that it should be given in relation to the interests that have been articulated, but also the whole issue of what may be called the apparent vs. real interests. If decision-makers can decide about these interests, this can only be because they have some criteria for judging the matter. But if some criteria are available for deciding about the real interests of the people, there seems little reason for not applying them in those cases where some group or groups have articulated their own interests. The criteria claim a universality and objectivity which makes it irrelevant whether people have articulated their interests or not, and makes equally irrelevant the content of what they have articulated, in case they have done so. However. if this be adn-dtted, the whole attempt at articula- tion and aggregation of interests would be an exercise in futility,

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 121and it would be meaningless to judge of the contents of the rulesthat have been made in the context of the interests that havebeen articulated or aggregated. Rather, the rules would haveto be judged in the light of criteria on the basis of which theneeds of the people are determined. It would, then, be theextent to which the ideal structure of needs, as determined bythe criteria, is embodied in the rules made by the decision-makers that would determine how far a polity can be consideredpolitically developed or not. The extent of embodiment wouldbe an index of political development and the dispute, if any,would relate only to the criteria on the basis of which the realinterests of the people are calculated and determined. Even hereit is possible to argue that any a priori determination of interestsis not necessary, as the type of interests that rule-making canfulfil may belong only to groups and not to any particularindividual, and hence are capable of extrapolation to analogousgroups which have not been able to articulate their interestsfor some reason or other. Along with this, a persistent attemptcould be undertaken to provide opportunities for articulationto all those who have been deprived of them, and to elicittheir opinion on those which have been ascribed to them, noton any a priori grounds, but on the ground of their presumedsimilarity to groups which have articulated their interests. The rules, it should be remembered, are not made once andfor all; nor, for that matter, are the interests so articulated.There is a continuous interaction between the articulated andaggregated interests, on the one hand, and the rules that aremade to satisfy them, on the other. The interests themselvesmay change o-ver*a period of time or the rules made to satisfy aparticular set of interests at one time may result in the creationof new problems which demand rectification by new rules. Itwould he difficult, therefore, in such a situation to judgewhether the contents of a particular set of rules are designed tosatisfy a new set of interests, which have emerged because of achange in the situation, or to meet problems created by thepromulgation of rules in the past, or because of an inadequacyin the past rules revealed by the way they have been found towork in practice. The disentanglin - of these three factors is necessary for both 9theoretical and practical purposes, as the concept of political

122 Political Develo .pment development is essentially comparative in character and thus requires for its application the comparability of the present situation with the past in relevant respects. In case, therefore, the interests which are sought to be satisfied by rule-enactment in the present have themselves arisen because of changed cir- cumstances, the rule-content cannot be relevantly compared with the rules in the past to determine whether any develop- ment has occurred in the political field or not. All the rules, for example. that have had to be enacted because of the introduc- tion of the automobile and the aeroplane can hardly bear comparison with the laws, or their absence, relating to vehicles in the past. Similarly, if the laws enacted merely try to rectify the problems created by the laws made in the past, they cannot be treated as a sign of political development in the same way as those that try to fulfil the same interests in a more comprehen- sive and better manner. In fact, the problems created by the enactment of a law should be placed on the debit side of the evaluation of that law. However, as this can only be known after the enacted law has functioned for some time, the evaluation of all rules in terms of their content would have an in-built error difficult to compute at the time of their promulgation or even soon after. The comparative assessment of political development in terms of rule-making seems, thus, a most hazardous undertak- ing unlikely to achieve definite results in any meaningful sense of the term. If it is the number of rules enacted that are taken as a measure of the political development of a country, it would be the easiest thing for a polity to score on this count as there is nothing easier than the enactment of rules by any authority empowered to make them. On the other hand, if content is to be taken into account, the criteria in terms of which the judgement about the content has to be made have to be spelt out andjustified. In case the criteria are treated as trans- temporal in character, in terms of which each polity at any time of its existence can be measured and compared with every other, the essential time-bound-character of rules which are formulated in specific situations to meet particular problems would be lost sight of. On the other hand, if they are judged in respect of the articulated and aggregated interests of a parti- cular people, there will not only be all the difficulties we have

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 123mentioned earlier, but also those relating to a comparativeassessment of political development between different politicsand between different stages of the same polity. The difficulties in the latter case emanate from the fact thatthe amount and diversity of articulated interests would hardlybe the same in any two cases, thus vitiating the comparison atits very foundations. In fact, wherever the relationship com-puted is a ratio between two quantities, the larger the de-nominator, the larger the numerator has also to be. But, interms of ratios, the relationship may remain the same, eventhough the two quantities may increase enormously, and thushardly show any development. Further, if political moderniza-tion entails an increase in interest articulation, as is usuallythought by most thinkers, it would put an increasingly greaterstrain on the rule-making function and, in_ most cases, it canbe said with fair confidence that it is likely to lag behind. Butif this is true, then a decline in political development would bealmost in-built into the criteria of political modernization, aconsequence that would scarcely be welcome to those who havethought and written on the subject. A deeper objection to taking rule-making as an index ofpolitical development consists in the contention that the exactcontent of the rules cannot be determined without reference tothe way the rules have been given a concrete interpretation bythe courts. As courts are the final adjudicators with respectto what the,law means, it is meaningless to judge them withoutreference to it. Cardozo"5 argued the point forcefully a longtime back. But as judicial interpretation never ends, we would,on this view, he left with nothing but provisional interpretationsof the rules for purposes of comparative evaluation. However,as a detailed discussion of rule-adjudication as a criterion ofpolitical development is to be undertaken in section (5) , asalso the relationship between the different conversion-functionsin section (8), it would be best to discuss the point in thosecontexts. Another, and perhaps even more fundamental objection totaking rule-making too seriously as a criterion of political devel-opment, relates to the fact that rules by themselves do not indi-cate anything except perhaps the intentions of the decision-maker. It can be taken seriously only if they are not merely

124 Political Developmentenacted and placed on the statute book, but also implementedand enforced in actual practice,. This, however, leads directlyto the discussion of rule-application as a criterion of politicaldevelopment, and hence we will discuss it in the next section. (4) The Critedon as Rule-Application There can be little doubt that unless the rules enacted by thedecision-making authorities are applied and actually obeyedand observed, they remain mere ritual gestures on the part ofthe ruling @lite, proclaiming at best their intentions to do some-thing. But as 'to rule' means 'to be able to enforce one's will',the non-implementation of a rule also pr?claims, to a certain ex-tent, the ineffectiveness ofthe rulers to rule. The rules, of course,may be enacted merely to proclaim the intention of the ruleror even to deceive people into thinking that something isintended to be done, but in most cases it may be presumed thatit is not so and that the authorities really mean to fulfil whatthey have enacted. Yet even if it be conceded that rule-application is at the heartof the matter, it is still not quite clear how to find the extent towhich rules have been effective in fulfilling their purpose, forthis is the meaning of rule-application. But if this is the mean-ing, then it is not merely the rules whose effective applicationis to be judged, but rather the purpose which their enactmentwas designed to achieve. As the rules have been made in thecontext of interest articulation and interest aggregation, it isobvious that the purposes they are intended to fulfil relate tothe satisfaction primarily of those articulated and aggregatedinterests and, perhaps, secondarily, of those which have re-mained unarticulated for some reason or other, but deservesatisfaction in the judgement of the authorities who have totake a decision in the matter. However, in such a situation itis not the individual rule which would have to be judged in thecontext of the interests that it is supposed to fulfil, but ratherthe totality of rules in relation to the totality of interests. Therules, then, should not be taken in an isolated, atomic manner,but rather as constituting an interrelated whole which in itstotality tries to realize the interrelated totality of interestswhich is judged to be both feasible and worth realizing. This,

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 125 it should be obvious, applies equally to rule-making and rule- application. With rule adjudication, the presupposition is brought into the open, as the courts in exercising their judicial function have to treat the whole set of laws as constituting an organic whole possessing a coherent structure. Each seeming incoherence is smoothed out by a clever and subtle interpreta- tion, for the presupposition always is that the existing body of laws can never be incoherent. We need not go further into details regarding rule-adjudica- tion here as we propose to devote section (5) to its consideration later in this chapter. But as far as rule-making and rule-applica- tion are concerned, the issues raised by the proposal that it is the totality of rules that should be taken into account and not the individual rules alone, have to be discussed here. The first and foremost of the issues raised by this perspective relates to the time-span which should form the unit for consideration of the totality of rules enacted within that period. The problem arises because rules are continuously enacted by the decision- making authorities, and any delimitation in such a situation is bound to appear arbitrary, unless some criteria are given which may reasonably be justified. The situation gets additionally complicated by the fact that, as the totality is supposed to be organic in character, any addition to it is bound to change its character. This, however, would arise primarily in relation to the rules as they are enacted by the decision-making authority. As far as the issue of rule-application is concerned, it is further complicated by the fact that a certain time-interval would have to be posited between rule-enactment and rule-application so that the latter's effectiveness could he judged. However, as all the rules are not made simultaneously, the time-interval re- quired for judging the efficacy of rule-application cannot but vary for different rules that have been enacted at different times. The problem can perhaps be more clearly stated in the following manner. As the rules are enacted at different times, the time-interval after which they are to be judged in terms of the efficacy of their application cannot be the same for all of them, unless they are treated either atomistically or divided into units determined by the time of their enactment. Both the alternatives have difficulties of their own. The first not only

126 Political Development gives up the notion of organic totality, but also flies in the face of the fact that many laws tend to form clusters and that a law is enacted, not in a vacuum, but in the context of other laws on the same subject. The second alternative would make the laws under the unit a complete jumble of disparate laws, but in that case the choice of the unit in terms of the time when the laws have been enacted would have only pragmatic justification in its favour. The unit of time could perhaps be- a particular session of the legislature and the time-interval for evaluation could perhaps be the period during which fresh elections are held to decide who shall be the decision-makers in a polity. But this would confine the criterion only to those politics which have an electoral system and hold periodic elections to decide who shall constitute their ruling 6lite for a limited period. Perhaps one could have different time-intervals for different politics depending on the nature of their political systems. Not merely this, one could also take into account the level of the development of the communication system to decide on the probable time-interval for judging the effectiveness of the implementation of any enacted law or sets of laws. It is obvious that it would be unfair to have the same time-interval for societies at different levels of communication systems. At a still more sophisticated level, one could distinguish between the contents of enacted laws and place them in dif- ferent categories so that the time-interval may be allowed to vary with relevance to the probable time that one may regard as necessary for the purposes embodied in the different contents to be fulfilled. There obviously are ends which, due to their very nature, take a longer time to fulfil than others. Anything that tries to make a change in the sociocultural habits of a people, for example, may be expected to take a long time to he even moderately effective. The same may safely be hazarded for any change that is supposed to affect the totality of the population, or even a large majority of it. The difficulties in the process of effective implementation in the first case are derived from the nature of the changes that are sought to be made, while in the case of the latter they derive, primarily from the numbers that are supposed to be affected by the change. There is also a third category which relates to what has come to be called 'the vested interests' of the ruling 6lite of a country.

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 127 These 'vested interests' do not relate so much to the socio- cultural behavioural patterns rooted in the historic past of a people, as to the economic and power structure of a society wlkere particular classes, individuals or groups of people enjoy certain privileged positions which they try to defend at all costs against attempts to oust them. Rules tending to adversely affect their position are usually rendered ineffective by various means at the disposal of these power groups themselves. The nullification of these rules in the process of their implementa- tion is derived, therefore, not from the deep-rooted psycho- cultural habits of a people or because of the largeness of the numbers involved, as in the- first two cases, but because of the structural position of the rule-makers themselves. It may appear strange that rule-makers should frustrate the, implementation of those very rules which they themselves have made. For, one might well ask, if they did not want the rules to be implemented, why should they have enacted them in the first place? Unless we- assume some masochistic perversity on their part, there would seem little reason to believe that they would indulge in such a fruitless exercise. But such a doubt, however seemingly legitimate, rests on assumptions which themselves are extremely dubitable. First, it is assumed 'that the ruling class is unified in terms of its interests, and that, hence, there can be no discrepancy of interests between those who enact the laws and those who try to frustrate their effective implementation. Secondly, it is assumed that the ruling elite is static in its composition and structure. The third assumption may be said to relate to the genuineness of the motives of the rule-making authorities. It is naively believed that rules are always made to be implemented. All three assumptions are, in fact, highly questionable. The ruling class is always divided within itself, and the rules are frequently enacted to harm the interests of other sections of the ruling class which, then, try to frustrate their actual implemen- tation by all the overt and covert means at their disposal. On the other hand, as new claimants are always arising to enter the ruling class through factors over which there is little control, there is always an attempt at accommodation and compromise by taking the edge off their resentment and providing limited entry at some level in the hierarchical structure of the ruling

128 Political Development strata. Many laws can be understood in this light. However, as the ruling @lite is always reluctant to part with power as far as possible, it tries to deceive the clamouring claimants with the illusion that something is being done while, in fact, it does not really intend to do anything in the matter. Perhaps most of the socioeconomic legislation which seeks to effect any serious redistribution of power and resources tends to be a compromise between these two approaches. The first attempt usually is to create the illusion of giving with the understanding that if the illusion does not succeed in deluding, some minimal concessions may actually he given. Even this is usually sought to be done at the expense of that section of the power 6lite which is opposed to those who actually occupy the seats of power. The problems created by a differentiated consideration of the contents of rules for purposes of evaluating the effectiveness of their application are, thus, enormous. It is, therefore, surprising to find an almost complete absence of any discussion concerning these issues in the writings of most thinkers who have addressed themselves to the problem of political development. Even Almond and Powell who have introduced the notion of 'conversion-functions' of which rule-application is a part, and who have devoted a whole section to its discussion in Chapter VI of Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach, show hardly any awareness of the issues involved. They seem to be primarily concerned with the differentiation of rule-application structures and a delineation of their major types, particularly in the context of a bureaucracy as discussed by Weber and Fainsod in their works. The focus of their attention, therefore, is not on the content of rules made and how the diversity in content may set problems for judging the effectiveness of rule-application as required by the search for criteria of political development. The reason for this lies in the assumption that the differentia- tion of rule-application structures would enhance the perform- atory capabilities of the political system. According to them 'the presence of differentiated and well'-developed structures for rule application greatly expands the capability of a political system to manipulate its environment'.," This, of course, is merely a particular application of the generalized contention that the differentiation of structures and functions leads inevitably to enhanced capability and

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 129 development, and has already been discussed in detail earlier. The sinister tones of the phrase 'to manipulate its environment' are perhaps unconscious, though shades of the biological theory of evolution as popularly understood lie too clearly to be entirely neglected. As the manipulative view of environment is writ large on the predominantly technological understanding of modern science, its acceptance by political science need not occasion any surprise. But what should cause some concern is the fact that political thought in countries which claim to be devoted to the cause of political liberties is so fascinated by considerations of efficiency and power. However, as we have already discussed in detail the criterion in terms of 'capabi- lities', we need not discuss the matter once again. Still, the role that bureaucracy is supposed to play in the enhancement of 'capabilities' and the modernization of political systems needs some discussion. But before we do this, we shall pay some attention to other parameters which are also regarded as relevant to the consideration of rule-application as a criterion of political development. The differentiated structures created to discharge the func- tion of rule-application may do so with varying effectiveness, and in significantly different styles. As Almond and Powell point out, 'Needless to say, not all the differentiated rule- application structures which can be found in primitive and modern political systems operate with the same style and level Of effeCtiVeneSS'57; 'they may differ in complexity, in hierar- chical structure, in degree of autonomy, and in impartiality of rule enforcement'.rl" But though the authors have mentioned these aspects in which the differentiated structures devoted to the task of rule-application may differ, they have neither dis- cussed them in detail nor indicated how they are to be evalu- ated in the context of political development. Nothing, for example, is said about the different styles in which the dif- ferentiated rule-application structures may operate, and which, if any, may be treated as indicators of political de- velopment. Presumably the authors did not want to repeat what they had already said about styles in the context of their discussion about interest articulation and interest aggregation. But even the enumeration of styles in these two cases is not the same, and it is not clear which we are

130 Political Development supposed to transpose to the case of rule-making structures. In the case of interest articulation, the differences in style are articulated in terms of the Parsonian pattern-variables, while in the case of interest aggregation they are articulated primarily in terms of the pragmatic-absolute dichotomy. Both have already been discussed at length in the sections relating to interest articulation and interest aggregation respectively. But whatever the difficulties found in those contexts, the problem in relation to rule-application is, which of the two is to be considered relevant in this context? Should we say, for example, following the interest articulation model, that the performance of the rule-application function 'may be manifest or latent, specific or diffuse, general or particular, instrumental or affec- tive in style'?511 Or should we follow the interest aggrega- tion model, and say that the three styles in which the rule- application function may be performed are 'pragmatic bargain- ing, absolute-value oriented, and traditionalistic'?60 But the two classifications are so far apart that it is not clear which should be chosen in the context of rule-application, and on what grounds. The 'traditionalistic' style, of course, may be said to be overlapping' as the pattern-variable classification itself is supposed to he made in terms of tradition and modernity. But it is difficult to understand what exactly could be meant by 'traditionalism' in the context of rule-application. Further, there seems little reason to think that differences in style would be confined only to the classificatory types elaborated by the authors in the context of interest articulation and interest aggregation. However, as the authors themselves have said little in the matter, it is difficult to judge its relevance as a criterion in the context of our discussion on political development. On the other hand, even though Almond and Powell have not said much about the other differences in terms of com- plexity, hierarchical structure, degree of autonomy and impar- tiality of rule-enforcement, it is easy to guess how they would treat them as indicators of political development. Perhaps the more complex, the more hierarchical, the more autonomous, the more impartial a differentiated structure devoted to rule- application is, the more politically developed it is likely to he considered by the authors. But even here the situation is not clear. One is not quite sure if complexity and hierarchy are to

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 131 be regarded as positively correlated to political development. Perhaps the more complex a structure is the more difficult it is for it to discharge its functions. Also, if too pronounced a hierarchy is considered incompatible with democratic values, it may not be palatable to those who consider Homo Hierar- chicus61 to he a characteristic of decadent Asian, or rather, specifically Hindu, civilization. Not only this, an elaborate hierarchy can interfere with the efficient functioning of any institution, as is well known in India where almost all functions are subdivided and correlated to a hierarchical ranking in terms of the status of those who perform those functions. The subdivision can be carried on almost indefinitely, as any task can be divided in such a manner that each part is performed by different persons, making each dependent on the other. The so-called division'of labour, when linked to status considera- tions on the one hand and to employment considerations on the other, may lead to increasingly inefficient performance instead of what was so glowingly ascribed to it by Adam Smith. Complexity and hierarchy, thus, cannot be treated without reservations as positive indicators of political development. As for the autonomy and impartiality of rule-enforcement, they are perhaps stronger candidates for being treated as positive indicators. Yet even in their case, there seem to be some limita- tions. Autonomy, for example, cannot be treated as unaccoun- tability and is at least primafacie incompatible with the demand for impartiality of rule-enforcement. For if impartiality of rule- enforcement is itself to be enforced, there has to be a curtailment of the autonomy of the differentiated structures entrusted with the task of rule-application. In fact, the more differentiated and autonomous the rule-application structures become, the more do they develop vested interests of their own. The issue is discussed by Almond and Powell in the context of bureaucracy, but they have not related it to the issues of autonomy or impartiality of rule-enforcement, nor, for that matter, to those of hierarchy and complexity. Bureaucracy, in fact, is a generalized name for all dif- ferentiated structures performing the rule-application function. The importance of bureaucracy as an indication both of modernization and political development is well known to students of the social sciences since Max Weber brought it to

132 Political Develo ,pment their attention. His linking of bureaucratic structures with formal-rational authority, as distinguished from traditional and charisniatic authority, made it the pivotal point in all thought about modernization which is equated with rationality on the one hand and impersonal, rule-deterniined behaviour, on the other. We need not discuss in detail the adequacy of Weber's conception of bureaucracy or even of the later attempts of, say, Simon62 and Parsons63 in this regard. The, important point in the context of our discussion is not how bureaucracy is to be conceived or characterized, or even whether Weber's emphasis on formal rationality was misplaced as it 'led him to overesti- mate the efficiency of formal rationality and to underestimate the extent to which patrimonial features can help to overcome bureaucratic pathologies'.114 What is of greater significance is the fact that this differentiated structure which is given the task of rule-application begins to have interests of its own and to use its power for its own ends. As Almond and Powell argue, 'bureaucracies tend to monopolize outputs', as 'only bureaucrats enforce laws, policies, or decisions'."rl But if such is the situation, then it is difficult to see how the differentiation of structure has really helped the situation. Rather, it has created an additional problem of seeing that the newly created differentiated struc- ture does not begin to subvert the purposes for which it has been created. The authors appear to consider this aspect of the problem to be so important that they are even prepared to assert that 'political development subsequent to the Age of Absolutism in Western Europe may be viewed in part as a process of growth of agencies intended to direct, control, or limit central bureaucracy'.66 And further that, 'the art of modern rulership consists not only in the'prudent search for appropriate goals and policies, but also in learning how to interact with this massive and complex set of instrumentalities, and in knowing how and when to press it and coerce it, how and when to flatter it and reward it, how to teach it, and how to learn from it.167 Yet, if this is the situation, one may legitimately wonder who is the master and who the servant in the situation, or even whether it is correct to say that it is a differentiated structure devoted to the task of rule-application. In fact, if we remember that 'in addition to having this monopoly of rule-enforcement,

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 133 bureaucracies are t , ypically of great importance in the processes of rule-making""' and that 'the decisions made by political 6lites, whether they be executives or legislators, are also based in considerable part on the kind of information which they are able to get from administrative agencies',"9 then we begin to understand why 'political scientists quail before the task of generalizing about the importance of bureaucracy',"' which 'is a technical-instrumental monster'."" The authors do not seem to have noticed the contradiction between the so-called 'technical-instrumental' nature of bureaucracy and its sup- posedly essential role not merely in rule-making, but also in interest articulation as 'interest groups, political parties, and the public are dependent on information transmitted by ad- ministrative officials'.72 If the role of bureaucracy is crucial at the stage of both interest articulation and rule-making, it is difficult to see how the institution of bureaucracy is dif- ferentiated with respect to the performance of its function which is supposed to be the reason for considering it an index of political deve 'lopment. It may be suggested that we should distinguish between the primary and secondary functions of any institution, and that if we do so we would discover that the primary function of bureaucracy is still rule-application, while all the other fund- tions happen to be merely secondary. Also, the tendency of any differentiated institution to develop vested interests of its own and even to usurp.functions not belonging to itself, is too generalized to be considered a specific peculiarity of bureau- cracy alone. Yet, even if all this be admitted it does not help us at all in knowing whether a particular polity is developed or not. Are we supposed to accept the fact that the development of bureaucracy per se is a sign of political development? If this were so, there would seem little point in the authors saying that 'the art of modern rulership consists ... in knowing how and when topress it and coerce it, how and when to flatter it and reward it', 73 and that 'political development ... may be viewed in part as a process of growth of agencies intended to direct, control, or Limit central bureaucracy'."14 This is so obviously an obstructionist view of bureaucracy that one wonders how, within the perspective, it could ever come to be regarded as constituting development per se. Rather, it is apprehended as 10

134 Political Development something that naturally tends to get out of hand, to develop purposes of its own, to thwart and obstruct what it is asked to do-something in the nature of a necessary evil which one wishes one could do without, but which cannot be eliminated because of the way the world is constituted. Perhaps the criteria in terms of which bureaucracy may be viewed as an indicator of political development may be found in Fainsod's typology regarding bureaucracies, which Almond and Powell have discussed at sonic length in their book. According to them, 'Fainsod's classification is based upon dif- ferent relationship patterns between bureaucracies and the political agencies. He suggests five patterns: (1) representative bureaucracies; (2) party-State bureaucracies; (3) military- dominated bureaucracies; (4) ruler-dominated bureaucracies; and (5) ruling bureaucracies.'75 The first type is characteristic of a political system 'in which the ultimate political authority is determined by a competitive political process',76 while the second 'is characteristic of totalitarian r6gimes and other one-party-dominated political systems'.77 The second type is 'characterized by the superimposition of a political bureaucracy upon a functionally differentiated and technically competent governmental bureaucracy'. '18 The third type 'describes systems in which one component of the bureaucracy-members of the officer corps-takes control over the civilian bureaucracy'.711 The fourth type coincides with Eisenstadt's' 'bureaucratic empires'."" The reference is to classical. empires which were maintained by autocratic rulers through the instrument of a bureaucracy. The fifth and final category is one 'in which the bureaucracy itself provides the ruling element in the political ,system'.$' The difference between this and the military- dominated bureaucracy is that here a 'civil bureaucratic clique possesses the authority', while in the former it is the military group which dominates the scene. Fainsod's scheme is primarily classificatory and one may only surmise its relationship to political development. It is obvious that the last three types can hardly be considered to be positive indicators of political development. The ruling bureau- cracies and military-dorainated bureaucracies destroy the differentiated role of bureaucracy altogether, while the ruler- dominated bureaucracies may be ruled out as royalty seems to

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 135be out of favour with contemporary thinkers on political devel-opment. Out of the two remaining claimants, it is obvious thatrepresentative bureaucracies would be considered more lik 1elycandidates than party-state bureaucracies, as the former allowa greater competitiveness in the political process, thus permit-ting the conflicting interests to come into the open. However,this is basically the, perspective of interest articulation, andintrinsically it cannot he regarded as a criterion of politicaldevelopment arising immanently from the field of bureaucracyitself. In fact, as a differentiated structure devoted to theperformance of the rule-application function, it is not clear whyparty-state bureaucracies may not be considered as moreefficient, specially as the superimposition of a political bureau-cracy an the so-called technical bureaucracy may be taken toensure not only that it functions effectively but also that it doesnot develop any illegitimate vested interests of its own. Thenecessity of some such control of governmental bureaucracies isadmitted by Almond and Powell, and they even concede that'there are similar tendencies in democratic SySteMSI.82 Theypoint out, for example, that, 'in recent decades in the develop-ment of the American political system, it has been found thatthe only way in which the executive and legislative branchescan exercise relatively effective control over the bureaucracy isthrough the development of their own specialized bureau-cracies'.83 But once the necessity of political control of thebureaucracy is accepted, it is difficult to set any limits to itunless some reasons are given which prescribe when andwhy those limits are to be drawn. The development of a poli-tical bureaucracy to control other sectors of the bureaucracy isanalogous to niilitary-dominated bureaucracies on the one handand ruling bureaucracies on the other. In all three, a particularsector of the bureaucracy controls the others, and bureaucracyas a whole tends to monopolize all the political functions. Onthe other hand, it is difficult to see why the ruler-dominatedbureaucracies should be considered less politically developedthan representative bureaucracies, unless one wants to bringthe criterion of representation into the picture. Also, if thecriterion of competitive representativeness is given up, therewould be little to differentiate between ruler-dominatedbureaucracies and party-dorninated bureaucracies, as all

136 Political Development totalitarian parties are ruled by a single person whether he be called a comrade or Fiihrer. Nor can the claim to represent the real interests of the people be considered the sole privilege of totalitarian dictators, as the same claim is made by rulers of the traditional type aIso. Nor, for that matter, can the mode of succession be taken as a relevant differentiating factor, as the struggle for succession may and, in fact, did occur in the case of traditional rulers, just as modern totalitarianisms are not immune from attempts at hereditary succession, specially in their Asian setting. Fainsod's typology of various kinds of bureaucracies is, thus, of little help in finding the criteria of political development. Basically, there seems to have been little discussion about this aspect of the matter. What appears to have engaged the atten- tion of Almond and Powell is the necessity of a bureaucracy for any political development whatsoever. But this only makes it a necessary condition in the technical sense that, without it, no political development impossible. However, as is well known, a necessary condition is not a sufficient condition and hence its presence cannot be taken as an indicator of political develop- ment. It is merely a precondition which, by itself, cannot ensure anything one way or the other. And, in any case, as bureau- cracy is only a generalized name for all rule-application struc- tures, the issues that we have raised earlier with respect to rule-application as a criterion of political development still remain relevant. After a rule has been made, it may be said that the relevant thing is to determine whether it has actually been applied in practice or not. In other words, the central question is whether the rule or rules so formulated are obeyed or not, and in case they are not obeyed, what is done in the matter. However, as everybody knows, this is not the task of the rule-application structures. Rather, it is the task of those who adjudicate and impose sanctions in case the rules are not obeyed and exemplified in conduct. The clue to political development thus may be found not in rule-making or rule-application, but rather in rule-adjudication which may be taken simultaneously to determine what the rule specifically means and also whether it has been observed in a particular case or not.

The Criterion as Conversion Functions137 (5) The Criterion as Rule-Adjudication As a rule which is enacted has to be applied in order to servethe function of rule-making, so also is it necessary to judge whe-ther the rule has been correctly applied or not, whether it hasbeen applied at all orjust ignored or even violated in actual prac-tice. The adjudicative function thus may be regarded as themost important and central in any consideration of rules whichhave to be observed in order that they may presumably fulfil thepurpose or purposes for which they were enacted. In a formalsense, what the rule really prescribes can only he decided bythe adjudicating authority. But if the issue is not brought beforethe adjudicating authority, it is usually presumed that the waythose entrusted with the task of rule-application are interpretingthem in practice is the way in which the adjudicating authori-ties would uphold them also. However, once the issue is broughtbefore the adjudicating authority and the interpretation dis-puted, the presumption is broken and it is clear that the rulemeans what thejudges hold it to mean. On the other hand, judges can only pronounce a judgment;,they cannot carry it out or ensure that it is carried out. Intimes of political crisis, it is well known that the judiciarytends to lose its independence and becomes increasingly aninstrument of those who wield actual power. Yet, once thecrisis has passed, one has to revert again to the restitution ofthe adjudicating mechanisms and ensure that judgments enjoyboth independence and effectiveness to some extent. The independence and effectiveness of the adjudicatingstructures in a polity, thus, may be taken as a criterion ofpolitical development. The differentiation of such structuresand the respect, autonomy and citectivity that they are grantedwould thus be an indicator of the extent to which a society maybe regarded as governed by law rather than by brute and nakedforce. The taming of force is a perennial task of all civil society,and this is perhaps best achieved by developing a rule of lawwhich defines what is to count as a legitimate exercise of powerand what as its blatant abuse. The notion of legitimacy isclosely allied or perhaps even derived from the notion of 'lawful'and thus shows the central importance of the adjudicatingfunction in a civil polity.

138 Political Development But, however much we may accept the importance and cen- trality of the adjudicating function, it is difficult to see how it can be treated as an indicator of political development. Shall we say that, if there are differentiated structures devoted to the task of rule-adjudication, it may be taken as a sign of the polity being developed in the positive sense of the word? But this may be deduced from the generalized criterion of development as differentiation of structures and functions which we have already discussed at length elsewhere. Or, shall we look into the form of its functioning or the contents of its decisions to judge whether it is developed or not? The form of its functioning is, in a sense, determined by the law of the land along with what has come to be called the civic or political culture of a society. A judgment on the contents of judicial decisions, on the other hand, would raise the whole question of values in terms of which development has to be understood or defined. It is perhaps advisable to turn away from these formal and material criteria and concentrate on the sheer quantity and volume of cases brought before the courts and adjudicated by them within a given period of time. An increase in the number of cases brought before the judiciary could then be taken as an index of political development. All the sophistication which has been developed in connection with the measurement of quantitative indices in other fields could be transferred and applied to this domain also. We could thus devise methods to find out per capita litigation rates for different countries and judge their c 'omparative political development in these terms. It is, of course, not clear from the literature in the field whether an increase or decrease in the litigation rates would be taken as a sign of political development. Lucian Pye, for example,; asserts that 'by 1900 one Bengali out of every seventy-four was engaged in some form of litigation'. and that 'in Java after the Western impact it appears that the rate of litigation not only@ kept pace with, but indeed exceeded, the rate of population growth.'84 Similarly, 'in Rangoon before World War 11, interest in the working of law took on a sporting quality. Asian business houses customarily set aside each year surplus funds that were invested in energetic searches for profitable law- suits."15

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 139 Now, neither India nor Indonesia or Burma are usually con-sidered by writers on political development to be politicallydeveloped. Hence it is unlikely that an increase in litigationrates is being regarded by Lucian Pye as an indicator of positivepolitical development. But if increasing recourse to legaladjudication through differentiated formal structures createdfor that very purpose is not treated as a sign of development, itcan only be because an increase in conflict of interests is treatedas a counter-indicator of development. But if that be the situa-tion, it would be difficult to hold any increase in interest arti-culation or interest aggregation as indicating political devel-opment also. For, in most cases, interests happen to conflict andthat is why they have to be aggregated or adjudicated. The onlydifference between adjudication and aggregation in this respectis that, while the former tries to reconcile diverse interests tothe maximum possible extent, the latter tries to determine therightness or wrongness of the conflicting claims and pronounceson their legitimacy or illegitimacy in terms of the prevailinglegal rights in the society to which the conflicting parties appeal.Also, an increasing recourse to rule-adjudication may be takenas a sign of increasing awareness on the part of the people oftheir rights and of a willingness on their part to settle conflictsthrough formal-legal procedures rather than resort to violence.At a deeper level it may even be taken to indicate a faith in thesystem rather than alienation from it and, if so, it would haveto be taken a's a positive indicator of development. The ambivalence with regard to all the indices of politicaldevelopment and the double standards employed in theirapplication is perhaps nowhere more evident than in LucianPye's remarks about the quality and patterns of lawsuits inBurma. To quote in full, he writes. 'Asian business housescustomarily set aside each year surplus funds that were investedin energetic searches for profitable lawsuits. Young solicitorswere employed to rack their brains and dream up ingenioussuits, and older rogues with scheming minds would, for acustomary commission, assist in spotting likely targets for suchsuits.""' Now, it is difficult to believe that Pye does not knowthat such a situation obtains in the United States, specially inthe fields of medicine and insurance. It is well known thatclaims for damages under the law of torts have been carried to

140 Political Development such an extreme as to jeopardize the healthy functioning of many professions in western countries. Yet, in their case it is interpreted as an indication of the individual's consciousness of his rights and thus a positive indicator of political develop- ment. The absence of cases under the law of torts, on the other hand, in a country such as India is usually taken as a counter- indicator of civic development, for it is interpreted to mean lack of consciousness on the part of the citizens of their rights against others. But when a different phenomenon is observed in the case of Burma, Pye, instead of being happy with the situation, prefers to lapse into a satirical vein and suggest that there is something radically wrong with Asian peoples who cannot work western institutions as they were meant to be worked. In fact, the contention becomes explicit when Pye writes about the fallacious assumptions which lie behind the western approach to law, and whose fallaciousness became explicit only when transplanted to Asian soil. According to him, the underlying assumption of the Westernized and codified legal system was that all possible problems could be classified according to categories, that the examination of the data would reveal which category was appropriate to the particular case or issue, and that, once category and data were so clarified, a standardized process of reasoning and interpretation would bring anyone versed in the ways of the law to the proper judgment. The fallacies in these Western assumptions about the process of adjudication were readily manifest once codified legal systems were introduced into Asian and African societies."' But if the assumptions are fallacious, it is difficult to see why they should not be fallacious in western countries also. If it is an illusion 'that all possible categories of problems could be initially defined to prevent the need for any expostfacto judg- ments, and that the data or facts could "speak for themselves" in the sense that once brought to light,they would somehow automatically inform all under what category of the law they should be properly classified',$" then it is difficult to believe that it would not vitiate every action based on such an illusion. One wonders what illusions Pye entertains about the legal system as it operates in western countries. Surely, neither in science nor in law do facts 'speak for themselves', nor is it true that any set of facts could be categorized in only one way. If that were so,

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 141 the legal profession would have ceased to be attractive and lucrative long ago. It is because there is no unique category of law under which any human action has inevitably to be considered that legal disputes arise and that, even after all the debate and discussion has occurred and the evidence recorded, no one knows what the judge's decision in the case will be. The deeper source of the trouble, however, seems to be that the issue of political development is treated primarily as a problem of non-western countries or even of countries other than the United States,of America. There appears to be an implicit a priori assumption underlying the writings of most authors on political development that as far as western coun- tries are concerned there is no problem of political development. Or, in case there is, it pertains only to such countries as Italy or France or Spain, that is, those countries of western Europe which have not yet achieved the maturity of the U.K. or the U.S.A. As the U.K. in any case has lostits economic supremacy, the mantle of economic and political maturity has fallen on the United States, and as most writers on political development happen to belong to that country it is perhaps natural for them to look for issues surrounding the problem of political develop- ment in countries other than their own. But the best way to understand a problem in the social or human sphere is to discover an analogue in one's own experience, as that alone can supply the clue to that inner understanding without which external dissimilarities may lead one to posit a difference where there may be none, or perhaps even a difference of a totally different kind. However, the situation is even more intriguing. Not only is there no dearth of intellectuals in the United States who are hypercritical of their own country, but also the normal norms of scientific investigation demand that anyone proposing a criterion for anything should treat it as a culture-invariant, that is, as an indicator of the same phenomenon wherever it be found, whether in one culture or another. A culture, of course, may be treated as an organic whole but in that case it would perhaps be impossible to compare different cultures in terms of isolated elements with regard to which they may be com- pared andjudged. The only way this could be done would be te compare the functions which the elements perform in different

142 Political Development cultures, but this assumes that in terms of function most cultures would be the same or at least similar in essential respects. Most writers on political development tend to assume this, and hence even if they subscribe to the organic totalistic view of society or culture, there is no reason why they should fail to see the same phenomena in their own country which they nd in countries they deem to be politically undeveloped. Perhaps the difference may relate to the weightage given to a particular factor in the total assessment of a polity. But, if so, the problem of weightage has to be brought into the open and it has to be shown how the indicators of a negative kind are cancelled by the presence of other positive factors. Or, if it be maintained that the very negativity of the factors is affected by the contexts in which they occur, and that it is meaningless to talk of positive and negative indicators in isolation, then it is incumbent on those who argue this way to specify the contexts in which an indicator would be interpreted as positive or nega- tive in nature. Nothing of the kind has been done by any of these thinkers. In fact, they are as far off from the organic theory of society as anybody can be. Yet, even if they were to he organic in their view of society-and functionalism of a sort can perhaps lead in that direction-, they would have to face the equally baffling problem of how to compare two societies conceived as organic wholes except by positing a concept of some ideal society which transcends them both and in terms of which they may be judged. Any comparative judgment regarding different legal struc- tures leads straight into the baffling problem of legal positivism. If we agree with the legal positivists that there is a radical dif- ference between 'law as it is' and 'law as it ought to be', then it is obvious that two existing legal structures cannot be signi- ficantly compared as qua existing they have both to be conceded the status of laws. It would then be only in the external context of moral considerations that the two legal structures could be judged. On the other hand, if we accept Fuller's concept of the so-called 'inner morality of law', we could perhaps judge between two existing legal structures with respect to the extent to which they have realized this 'inner morality' which is immanent within the notion of a 'legal system' itself. The classic controversy on this issue between H. L. A. Hart and

The Criterion as Conv@rsion Functions 143 Lon,, L. Fuller is too well known to be repeated here.119 What may, however, be pointed out is that the issue is at least as old as Plato and relates, at least at the philosophical level, to all comparisons between any two objects or sets of objects, rather than to the specific sphere of law alone. Every entity in order to be that entity must possess the properties that entitle it to be considered that entity. Thus, in a sense, hardly any entity could be compared with any other of its own class, provided it has been correctly classified in terms of the essential properties on the basis of which it is supposed to belong to that class. In other words, the comparison may only be done in terms of accidental or adventitious qualities, and never in terms of essential qualities. On the other hand, if even the essential qualities are supposed to be embodied more or less, as Plato seems to hold, then it would follow that no object could be correctly classified as none could exemplify or embody the ideal completely. Not only this, a more difficult problem would relate to the apprehension of the ideal in terms of which the particular exemplifications are to bejudged. Unless some special faculty of rational intuition be postulated or one accepts the Platonic notion of remembering, one would have only the concrete embodiments to intuit the ideal, and in this one would always be on hazardous ground, as not only is there no certainty that the concretely encountered instances would point unmistakably to one ideal alone, but also because they would always form an infinitely small part of what will be, encountered in the future. The recourse to the well-known law of large numbers in the field of statistical theory would perhaps be of little avail; it is not only questionable on philosophical grounds, but a significant difference may also be presumed between the apprehension of an ideal through its concrete exemplifications and the apprehension of a law, even if it be conceived in a statistical manner. On the other hand, even if we re-fuse to accept the Platonic assimilation of the natural world to that in which values or ideals may be said to inhere in the very apprehension of reality, law by its very nature would seem to belong to the latter category. Yet, even if this be admitted and the claim of Fuller to the necessary existence of some 'inner morality of law' be conceded, there remains the problem of the relation of the so-

144 Political Development -5 called 'inner morality of law' to its 'outer morality'. Fuller conceded that 'in the life of a - moralities of law reciprocally influence one another; a deterio- ration of the one will almost inevitably produce a deteriora- tion in the other'.911 But the problem is not so much of a causal influence, as whether the one can possibly be judged in terms of the other. Can, for example, the inner morality of law he judged at the bar of morality that is external to it? Once this is conceded, Hart's distinction between 'law as it is' and 'law as it ought to be' would be reinstated irrespective of the fact whether law may be said to have an 'internal morality' of its own or not. But the distinction is meaningful only if the 'law as it ought to be' is allowed to shape and influence the 'law as it is'. This would be as true of Fuller's 'internal morality of law' as of Hart's 'morality' which is supposed to be wholly 'other' than law, for even Fuller's 'inner morality of law' is not completely realized by every legal system that is known by that name. But this itself, as is well known, is the subject of one of the most fundamental disputes in the philosophy of law. The Hart- Devlin controversy on the enforcement of morals is as famous as the Hart-Fuller controversy on the separation of law and morals."' It has been contended by Hart, amongst others, that it is not the task of law to enforce public morality. The point was made in the context of a debate which arose out of what has come to be called 'Shaw's case' and Lord Devlin's Mac- cabean lecture, entitled The Enforcement of Morals. The judges in Shaw's case had observed that 'the courts should function as the custos morum or the general censor and guardian of the public manners',112, and Lord Devlin argued in his famous lecture that 'the suppression of vice is as much the law's business as the suppression of subversive activities'. 93 The issue, however, is a far wider one than the immediate contexts in which it arose. It relates to the whole issue of law and morality on the one hand, and to the function of law, on the other. If it is not the task of law to enforce morals, is its function? Hart has, of course, distinguished between positive and critical morality on the one hand and private and critical morality on the other, and has tried argue that it is not the task of the law to enforce private

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 145 morality, even of the positive kind, that is, that which obtains in society at any particular moment of time. But the question is not whether there is any realm of private morality which law should never enforce. The question rather is what role should critical morality play with respect to positive morality, both of the private and the public kind on the one hand, and positive law on the other. Once it is admitted that critical morality has a role to play and that the demand for a change in positive law on the basis of its moral evaluation is justified, it follows that the moral critic by virtue of the fact that he desires the laws to be changed concedes that the enforcement of morals is at least one of the important functions of law, even if besides it there be many others. The separation between 'law as it is' and 'law as it should be' would lose all meaning if 'law as it should be' is not allowed to influence positive law at all. Similarly, Fuller's notion of 'inner morality of law' would become infructuous if it has no relation to either positive or critical morality. Res- ponsiveness to both positive and critical morality is the essence of a law that is living and alive. Responsiveness, of course, may and ought to be creative in character. Also, in a sense, it is inescapable, for whether the judge wishes it or not he has to interpret and apply the law to situations for which it was never intended. It is intrinsic to the very nature of law that it can never, in principle, anticipate all the situations to which and in which it may have to be applied. Hart has felicitously called this the area of 'penumbral deci- sions', and though he disputes that this leads to what has come to be called, following Cardozo 114, 'judicial legislation', still there can be little doubt that the distinction between 'clear cases' and 'penumbras decisions' is, at best, a tenuous one. To suggest that'thejudges are only "drawing out" of the rule what, if it is properly understood, is "latent" within it', 115 is obviously to stretch the notion of what is 'latent' a little too far. On the other hand, as Fuller has shown, a judicial interpretation even in the so-called clear cases cannot be made unless the judge asks himself the question, 'What can this rule be for? What evil does it seek to avert? What good is it intended to promotc?,911 Yet, even if we accept Fuller's point, it would not follow that the distinction between 'law as it is' and 'law as it ought to be' would cease to operate, for our notions of good and evil them-

146 Politkal Developmentselves may change. And though, following Hart, one may try toprovide continuity between the old and the new notion, it mayonly be a fiction postulated to provide the- illusion that thingshave not changed much. Conversely, after a revolution, onemay emphasize the, break and the novelty, even when not muchmight have changed. This is not exactly the place to pursue either the Hart-Fullercontroversy or the Hart-Devlin controversy any further.97 Ouronly contention is that the criterion of rule-adjudication for theascertainment of political development must first sort out someof these problems before it can even stake its claim as a relevantidea in the field. The controversy regarding the Nazi legalsystem illustrates this pre-eminently. But the same could besaid of most dictatorships which make a mockery of the so-called 'inner morality of law'. Fuller seems to have assumedtoo easily that 'Coherence and goodness have more affinity thancoherence and evil'."8 It would have been difficult for himperhaps to say this had he not confined his attention to un-successful tyrannies like that of the Nazis, but also included thelasting and successful tyrannies such as those of the Soviet orChinese dictatorships. He might then perhaps have acceptedthe possibility that 'evil aims may have as much coherence andinner logic as good ones'. 99 It is strange that these issues have hardly received an atten- 1 ytion in the literature on political development. One can onlyconclude that rule-adjudication has been included in the listonly to accommodate the traditional tripartite division ofpolitical structures and functions into the legislative, executiveand judiciary. Basically the interest of thinkers on politicaldevelopment had shifted long back from giving much weightto formal-legal considerations in comparisons between differentpolitics. This perhaps was a result of the fact that formal-legalstructures had begun increasingly to be viewed as instrumentsfor the achievements of social ends or as the product of socialforces which lay behind them. Both the Marxist and thestructural-functional approaches tended to strengthen this wayof looking at legal reality, and those who regarded law in anyother light except as masking the real interests and forcesbehind the fagade presented by the legal structure came to beconsidered innocent fools, if not as agents of reactionary

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 147forces. The concepts of civil and political liberty around whichmuch liberal political thought of the previou!? era revolved fellinto disuse and thus the problem of creating legal structureswhich would foster and safeguard them tended to be completelyforgotten. In fact, the concept of political liberty has ceased tobe in the centre of political thought, and thus the problem ofproviding legal safeguards for its preservation and growth hasalso tended to fall into the background. But, whatever be the reasons for the neglect of the criteriain terms of which different legal structures may be comparedand adjudged, it is clear that unless this preliminary exerciseis done, there is no point in looking for the criteria of politicaldevelopment in this domain. Not only this, we should be ableto offer justification for the criteria chosen and, at a deeperlevel, be able to answer the question why political development is identified with legal development or whether anydistinction between them has also to be accepted. Perhaps thelatter may be accepted as a necessary condition of the former,assuming of course that the notion of legal development is freefrom the difficulties we have been countering in connectionwith that of political development. Under the circumstances, it is difficult to believe that therecourse to rule-adjudication would be of any substantial helpin solving difficulties clustering around the concept of politicaldevelopment. Law, in any case, has ramifications far beyondthe sphere of what may be considered the domain of thepolitical. It concerns itself with almost all aspects of society andeconomy, including even those which may be regarded aspredominantly personal and private. Positive law would thenhave to be treated, specially in the way as it is actually operated,as an indicator of the positive morality of a society which, if itis to be judged, may only be done by an appeal to some idealmorality which would have to be justified on other grounds. Onthe other hand, it has to be remembered that even the sphereof positive morality is far, far wider than that of positive law,and that it would hardly be desirable if the two were to coincideor even if the distance between the two were to lessen to anysignificant extent in any society or polity' The concept ofsociety is far more deeply related to that of culture, and culture,as everybody knows, is far wider than law. The clue to political

148 Political Developmentdevelopment then may he sought not in positive law or even inthe actual proce@s of rule-adjudication as found in a particularsociety, but rather in the civil or political culture in which allthe political processes are embedded and which may be said togive them meaning or significance. To turn to a discussion of political or civic culture as anindicator of political development is to leave the so-called'conversion-functions' behind and to move on into a differentdomain. Yet, our detailed discussion of each of the conversion-functions has revealed their inadequacy for providing satis-factory criteria for political development. It may, however,still be objected'that in discussing each of them separately inan isolated manner we have done violence to the, whole spirit ofthe discussion on political development. For, it may be saidthat it was never the intention of the proponents to offer themin such an isolated manner for consideration as a criterion ofpolitical development. Rather, they should be treated in theircomplex interrelationship which alone could serve in a unifiedmanner as an indicator of political development. The objection need not be dismissed lightly by saying that ifeach criterion offered has been found to be inadequate singly,it is highly unlikely that the same criteria when considered insome sort of interactive unity would reveal a positive adequacyinstead of a compounding of their inadequacies into a whole,which would be even more inadequate in character. G. E.Moore in his Principia Ethica has warned us that the value of acomplex whole need not be a sum of the values of its parts,and as the notion of 'adequacy' is perhaps a valuational notionwe should be well advised to take the objection seriously andfind out whether the inadequacies get compounded or cancelledwhen the criteria are considered not in their isolation buttogetherness. But before embarking on this examination itwould be well if we briefly consider the claims of political cul-ture, political communication and the System Maintenance andAdaptation Functions as indicators of political development. (6) Political Culture as an Indicator of Development The concept of political culture is obviously borrowed fromanthropological studies on the one hand, and the study of

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 149 civilizations on the other. The anthropologists have tended to view culture as the structure of meanings in terms of which the actual observed behaviour of the people of an alien society is interpreted in such a way as to accord with those people's interpretation of their own actions. The student of civilizations, on the other hand, cannot observe the behaviour of people as they have long ceased to exist. The only things he, has to work upon are the remnants of what has been left behind and survived the accidents of time. These he has to interpret and, through them, to intuit the meanings, ideals and values in terms of which they gave sense and significance to their lives in their brief mortal sojourn on this earth. The term 'political culture' has perhaps more aflinity with the first orientation than with the second. But even there it has more of a valua- tional orientation in the sense that thinkers who undertake this approach are not interested in interpreting the behaviour of the participants in the political process in those terms which make it meaningful to them but rather as it facilitates or obstructs the realization of what they regard as 'political devel- opment'. Thus, in a sense, political scientists who think in terms of 'political culture' are interested in the phenomenon neither as anthropologists nor as students of civilizations, but rather as those who are interested primarily in the study of comparative cultures. As the evolutionary perspective gradually slides into the developmental perspective, cultural relativism and pluralism give way to the notion of cultural development conceived mostly in what may be called an 'ethnocentric' or Cculture-centrie' manner. This 'culture-centricism', however, has itself given way to a thought which treats the whole of culture in an instrumental manner. Since Marx termed the whole of culture a 'super- structure', and Weber propounded the thesis of the protestant ethic in the rise of capitalism, culture has come to be regarded as an instrument for the realization of ends other than its own. It has been treated both as a fagade that hides reality from the consciousness of observers and participants alike, as well as that which makes reality tolerable or liveable for man. Seen either as a lubricating oil for the creakingjoints of the social machine or as a compensatory dream which makes the oppressive re- F@ression of social reality bearable or as a beautiful mask which 11

150 Political Development hides hideous reality, it is always treated in relation to some- thing other than itself, and an instrument therco£ The talk of Cpolitic,al culture' is no different, and it is primarily seen in terms of Political development'. Following Webedan studies on the one. hand, and the failure of many new nations of Asia and Africa to make good in the economic domain on the other, the question began to be asked whether the traditional cultures of these societies stood in the way of their econonuc develop- ment. M many of these new nations failed not only in the economic field but also in the, political in the sense th@it.they achieved neither stability nor growth, the same questions began to be raised with respect to the political domain also. But once something is seen instrumentally, it cannot serve as a criterion of.that in relation to which it is treated as an instrument, except in the indirect sense that its presence or absence would also be treated as an, indicator of the presence or absence of the other. But, even for this, it is necessary that independent criteria be first available for determining whether the so-called effect@ or rather that which is supposed to be hieved by some other instrumentality, is itself developed or not. The talk of political culture, therefore, is no substitute for the task of determining viable criteria of development with respect to the political domain. It may, of course, be argued that as culture usually the pattern of interactive behaviour in any parti and the values that are implicit therein and gst different;p 4,1@cen the ruling being intuited through its continuous and prolo@ @-Ation would arise as tion, a discussion of culture with respect to anbe considered more domain is about the domain itself. Viewed in. this i@, 0 would be little difference between political cultu c a single uniform politi realm which is designated as 'political'. Political de fundamental distinction thus, would become identical with the development ; kb' of the rulers or power holders and that of culture itself. The discussion would, however, then 4 r.' it is obvious that the relation of political nature of cultural development in general and of cal development, howsoever conceived, would pertains to the realm of political culture in particul ceived in a far more complex and differentiated other hand, there would be the elated question er, if the so-called masses themselves do not have two are.related and how developments in the one fiel homogeneous political culture of their own, as is very likely or obstruct developments in the other. be the case, there would be little point in making the broad The notion of 'cultural development', however, is itself otomous division between the culture of the rulers and the problematic, and stands in need of at least as much analysis as ruled. Perhaps even the political culture of the ruling 6lite may

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 151 that of 'political development'. It has been contended that no matter how political development is conceived of or what particular aspect of it is emphasized, the prevalent political culture of a society cannot but be relevant to it, as it would facilitate or obstruct the realization of political development in that sense in the society concerned. As Lucian Pye has written, gclearly no matter what particular aspect is emphasized political development strikes at the roots of people's beliefs and senti- ments about politics, and hence the proceq. ,\development must be profoundly affected by the cb - t_\the -politi cal culture of a society."00 This is modernity syndrome transposed if we forget the gratuitous concept of political de,,, roots of people's b,' people's beliefs such a nat,- cal dc:, '@l-tb >" 1 ' 0. g'il 4@ j@:,,, , @e,,o, , e~@r-

152 Political Development not be as homogeneous as Pye seems to think, and the relevant distinction may lie between those who share a homogeneous political culture, whether they belong to the ruling elite or not, and those who do not, or rather those who share a different culture. The problem, in fact, is further compounded as political culture itself is a sub-system of culture in general. Or, if it be objected that there is no such thing as culture in general but rather cultures as differentiated with respect to particular domains, the problem may be reformulated and articulated in terms of the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the culture obtaining in the political domain with those obtaining in other domains. Sidney Verba has suggested that 'the distinction between political culture and the more general cultural system of a society is an analytical one."02But if the distinction were to be merely analytical, it would be difficult to postulate the possibility of heterogeneity between different segments or sub- systems of a culture. Verba is of the opinion that 'the basic belief and value patterns of a culture-those general values that have no reference to specific political objects-usually play a major role in the structuring of political culture'."')3 But if this is so, the notion of an independent political culture would become meaningless and, in any case, whether it is so or not, is to he established empirically for every case and not assumed a priori. Otherwise, the relationship that would have to be investigated would be that between culture and political devel- opment, and not between political culture and political devel- opment. The distinctiveness of political culture has been emphasized by Lucian Pye and he has suggested that there are 'four specific values which ... are apparently related to fundamental issues that arise in the developmental process' .104 These, according to him, relate to the dichotomies of trust-distrust, hierarchy- equality, liberty-coercion, and the level of loyalty and com- mitments relating to the primary political identifications of a people. It is obvious that attitudes of trust, equality, liberty and a generalized level of non-parochial identification would he conducive to a polity of a certain kind which may be called 'developed', if these are the values that are taken to characterize er constitute political development. But even amongst these, the

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 153 liberty-coercion dimension is distinctive in the sense that very few people would like themselves to he coerced, though they may not mind if others are coerced for the achievement of certain ends. In fact, the attitudes towards the desirability or undesirability of coercion may be expected to vary significantly between the rulers and the ruled. Yet, the amount of actual coercion would be an indication of the gulf between the values of the rulers and the people, and of the extent of the people's resistance to the imposition of values by the rulers. @ The other dimensions in terms of which the value-dicho- toniies have been spelled out seem even far less clear-cut than the coercion-liberty dimension. Trust-distrust, for example, depends primarily on the performance of political rulers, and if they not only have values which are different from those over whom they rule but also dissimulate in their articulation and profess those which they do not even mean to realize, then it is inevitable that the masses would have a feeling of distrust towards all those who rule them. After all, the history of the behaviour of the ruling @lite down the ages is not such as to inspire trust in those who have been ruled. The betrayal of trust is such a constant feature of human history that it would be amazing if trusting confidence were still to be found amongst people. But even supposing such an innocence is found amongst a people, would it be really helpful to political development, as Verba seems to think? Or, would it not be playing into the hands of the ruling 6lite and making their task of political decep- tion easier ? The trusting populace is the dream of every ruler, so that he may take them like docile sheep wherever he wants to lead them. Would not a discriminatingly critical populace he better than one that blindly trusts in its rulers? The same may be said of the hierarchy-equality and the extent and level-of-commitment dimensions of the value- dichotomies pertaining to political culture. The relations of power being essentially asymmetrical, it is difficult to see how equality can ever characterize a political or even an administra- tive system. But even if it were to be so characterized, it is not easy to see how or why it should give better results than a hierarchical structure. It should be remembered in this con- nection that the openness of access to various positions in the structure is a different issue from the egalitarian or hierarchical

154 Political Development nature of the structure itself. As for the extent and depth of commitment in terms of identification, it is not easy to see the advantages of national identifications for political development, rather than the so-called regional identifications on the one hand, and the global identifications on the other. If equality and participation are the directions which political develop- rnent should take, then it is obvious that the political units of which one is a member should not be too large. If human beings are not to be divided into antagonistic and warring groups, it is obvious that too much identification with the nation-state would only lead to a condition of permanent belligerency where each is preparing to fight the other. @ The four values in terms of which Pye articulates political culture do not thus seem to be related in any determinate, unique way to the so-called processes of political development even at the first level of analysis. Verba, on the other hand, focuses 'on those basic political values that represent the most general beliefs about the ends of political activity, about the nature of the political process. and about the place of the individual within it'."05 Besides the fourfold values emphasized by Lucian Pye, Verba suggests that there are 'important political beliefs about how the polity operates-not what it is, but what it does',"06 'in particular it is the expectations the members of a system have as to the output of the government- what they believe it will and ought to do for and to them-that are relevant here'.107But, as in the case of Pye's list, Verba's delimitation of the contents of those beliefs which may be relevant for political development does not help in telling us what particular types of belief would help or hinder the pro- cess. Also, there seems to be an implicit assumption that the beliefs are an independent variable in the situation. But this usually is not the case. The beliefs in most cases are themselves the result of the past political experience of a people, can only be changed by a change in the political practice of the ruling 6lite itself. It is, of course, true that the political elite themselves may arouse expectancies which they may not ' be able to fulfil. One.may think of some sort of a dialectic between the political apathy and political over-involvement of the masses with the political elite playing an arousing and dampen- ing role in the process.

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 155 Yet, however interesting such speculations may be, the' do y not answer the basic question as to how political culture can provide a criterion or criteria of political development. In fact, if political cultures are different, and the term 'culture' in- cludes the values that are considered worth realizing by the culture, it would follow that each political culture would have its own ideas or. rather@ ideal of political development. The multiplicity of cultures is, in fact, merely another name for the multiplicity of ideal ways in-whicii societiesconceive of them- selves, and if political culture is merely an aspect of culture in general, then it is@ obvious that the diversity of political cultures would be merely another 'name for the diversity of political ideals. The idea of a plurality of political ideals, however, seems anathema to political thinkers, so much so that' they hardly dare give it a place in their scheme of thought about political development. And this remains true even when they use the notion of Culture, which in its anthropological context in@ evitably,implies plurality @nd multiplicity. Basically,- the .em@ phasis in most such literature'seems to be on those aspects of culture which are conducive to secularization and ditterentia@ tion which themselves are treated as criteria of development in general. As Almond and Powell write, 'we have,suggested,that there is, in general an association between structural 'dif- ferentiation, cultural secularization, and an expansion of the capabilities of the political system. These associated attributes are involved in the develo S .pment of political system , although of course, such development is neither inevitable nor irrever- sible."("' 'Differentiation' and 'capabilities' have already been discussed at length as criteria of political development. As for secularization, it appears to be too conveniently identi- fied with a pragmatic-bargaining attitude prevalent primarily in the U 'S.A. and secondarily in England than with what it strictly means, that is, the denial of any transcendent or other-. worldly dimension or allowing it to have any say in man"s spatio-temporal affairs. In@the second sense, almost all modern politics may be regarded as secular, while in the former sense perhaps only the U 'S.A.. and perhaps U.K. would be regarded as secular. Perhaps even in earlier times the states were not so non-secular as they are now usually supposed to have been.

156 Political Development Religions in the past appear to have provided the same function as the ideologies of today. In other words, they prescribed the verbal rhetoric in terms of which the states justified their policies and with whose values they had to come to terms at least to some minimal extent. - The classification of political cultures 'according to the com- bination of parochials, subjects, and participants"09 can he of little help as the distinction between these in terms of the level of awareness about, and participation in, politics relates to the criterion as participation, which we have already examined at length, and does not add anything new to the discussion. The, detour to a discussion of political culture thus does not seem to raise any new issues with respect to the problem of political development. The same may be expected to be true of political socialization and political communica- tion which are also associated with the, discussion on political development. Yet, before discussing the conversion-functions in their totality as criteria for political development, we might tarry awhile and consider the possible help, if any, which political socialization and political communication may offer in a discussion on political development. (7) Political Socialization and Political Communication as Indicators of Political Development The term 'socialization' refers to the whole range of processes through which a newborn baby gradually grows into a full- grown adult member of his society. The process depends on a subtle use of approval and disapproval, of reward and punish- ment and is based on the involuntary impulse to imitate which is found in all living beings. The imitation extends to patterns of behaviour, ways of feeling, building of attitudes, organization of perception, norms of action, etc. It is, in a sense, a 'com- munication' from one generation to the next of its specific ways of living in all realms, including those pertaining to knowing, feeling or willing. The specificity of the so-called 'socialization' process with respect to the political realm is no differnet from the way it obtains with respect to other domains. The formal and informal agencies such as the family, the school, the peer group, the mass media, along with the actual experience of the

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 157 individual of those sectors of the political system with which he comes into contact, sha c both his perception of the political system and his attitude towards it. Under the circumstances, it is obvious that one would need a prior decision with respect to the question 'what does political development consist in?' in order to be able to determine what forms of socialization may be considered conducive to it. In a sense, the issue would become relevant only when the prevalent political system in a society is judged to be 'undeveloped' or 'underdeveloped'. The reason for this is that all 'socialization' basically tends to be conservative in character, as it is con- cerned with conserving through replication and perpetuation what has been achieved in the past. There may, of course, be a form of 'socialization' which tends to institutionalize innovation and experimentation, but even in such situations there is bound to be a heavy emphasis, though unstated and unacknowledged, on'the perpetuation of a stable background in the presence of which innovation and experimentation is permitted and en- couraged. The choice with respect to forms of 'socialization' is very limited, particularly as the most fundamental agency of social- ization, the family, is not particularly amenable to voluntary control. On the other hand, it does not play a very significant role in 'political socialization', though it does inculcate attitudes which may help or hinder values which are regarded as desirable for the political system. The school, the mass media and the formal and informal peer groups, specially those con" cerned with politics, may and do play a more active role in the shaping of those explicitly political attitudes which are regarded as desirable by the e'lites in charge of the political system. Yet in both cases what is desirable for the political system has to be first determined. The resort to the notion of 'political socialization' is thus of little help in throwing any independent light on the idea of political development or in providing any criterion for it. The continuity-discontinuity criterion or the homogeneity-heterogeneity criterion may be offered as indica- tors of political development, but even then it would be difficult to determine Which is to he taken as indicating development. For discontinuity clan be taken care of by the usual mechanism of role-differentiation which provides for different norms to be

158 Political Development 3 practised in different situations and heterogeneity welcomed by seeing it as providing that healthy tension which is the har- binger of beneficial change. Similarly.. if it be contended that non-hierarchical, non-authoritarian practices of socialization in the famil would be conducive to a participate ' democratic y ry- way of functioning of the polity, then it would not only prejudge participatory-democratic functioning as a criterion of political development but also entail that citizens reared in such a way would be unfit to work in all those organizations which cannot but be organized on the principle of hierarchical-authoritarian control, such as the army, etc. If it be argued, on the other hand, that the experience with respect to the, armies of demo- cratic politics from the Athenian republic to those of the Allies in the Second World War is a sufficient refutation of the con- tention, then it has to be accepted also that the whole thesis regarding socialization has to be rejected or at least drastically revised. The claim of 'political communication' to provide a signi- ficant indicator of political development is perhaps even more untenable than that of 'political socialization'. And this for the simple reason that.it is only an instrument for the realization of functions which may be distinctly political, but which need not necessarily be so. As a generalized instrumentality, it is presupposed by all activity and thus may be regarded as a necessary condition of political development, as of any other. Unless, therefore, some specific forms of communication are regarded as themselves political in character, there would not be much meaning in searching for the criterion of political development in the field of communication. It may be con- tended that the larger the network of communication and the more efficiently it functions, the greater the likelihood of the political system covering a larger area and being more efficiently organized in the sense of being responsive to the people whose needs it could then more easily decipher. But, first, it is not clear why the size of a polity should be taken as a sign of its development and, secondly, the so-called efficiency in communication may result as much in increase of effective tyranny as in responsiveness to the needs and wishes of the people. . 1 It may be suggested, however, that certain types of com- 1 1 1 1~

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 159 munication structures can facilitate or obstruct certain types of political development and, if so, they could serve as indirect indicators of the possibility of finding a particular type of political development in a society. Almond and Powell have distinguished five types of such structures. They are: '(1) in@- formal face-to-face contacts, which spring up more or less independently of other social structures; (2) traditional social structures, such as family or religious-group relationships; (3) political "output" structures, such as legislatures and bureaucracies; (4) political "input'@ structures, including trade unions and similar interest groups, and political parties. and (5) mass media.'no The list seems to consist of disparate items, some quite heterogeneous in nature. Most refer to structures whose primary task is other than communication per se, though obviously no function can be exercised without involving com- munication as well. The structures primarily concerned with communication are those of the mass media and the crucial question with respect to them is whether they are autonomous or not. And in case they are formally autonomous, do they enjoy substantive autonomy not only with respect to political interests, but economic interests as well ? The specifically political structures involved in the com- munication-function mentioned by the authors relate to puliti.@ cal 'input-output' structures which we have already discussed. There seems little point in discussing them once again in the context of communication. The idea, however, that develop- ments or changes in political communication in one area tend to influence or affect political functioning in other areas is interesting, but unless we have a clear idea as to the type of changes that we can regard as 'developmental', little would be gained in terms of the elucidation of the notion of 'political development'. The authors have written that 'the performance of political communication in a system may lead to changes in the performance of other political functions, or may limit and inhibit the development of certain types and levels,of system capability."". The statement, however, is not only too general to be of much help but also tends to suggest that it is in terms of their'effect on a political system's capabilities that the changes in the communication system ought to be assessed. But as we have already seen in our detailed discussion on capabil-

160 Political Developmentities as the criterion of political development, it can hardlyprovide the pivotal point in terms of which political com-munication can function as a safe indicator of political develop-ment. It may be urged that, depending on one's own pre-ferences with respect to the notion of capabilities, one couldtreat the extent and efficiency of political communication as @tpositive or negative indicator of the same. But indirect indica-tors are only required where direct indicators are not available,and this certainly is not the case with any of the criteria ofpolitical development that have been offered, including that ofcapabilities. In fact, political communication suffers from thesame defect as many other criteria discussed earlier in that onecan have too much or too little of it, implying thereby that itis not itself an indication of political development but functionsas such only in some particular context and relationship. Thisis to suggest that the criteria cannot be understood in isolationbut only in interrelationship, and this is what we propose todiscuss next. (8) The Criteria in Interrelationship Any such complex phenomenon as political development isunlikely to be understood in terms of a single variable alone. Itmay he contended, therefore, that our attempt to consider eachof the criteria that have been offered singly as constitutingpolitical development has been doomed to failure from the verystart and we should not he surprised if our detailed examinationhas failed to find any of them fully satisfactory. It is time, there-fore, to examine the criteria in their interrelationship and findif such an approach proves more helpful. In a sense, theapproach through interrelationships has not remained com-pletely unexamined as the notion of 'capabilities' may bedeemed to be primarily interrelational in character. In fact,the whole notion of input-output ratios mediated by conversion-functions is interrelational in character and has been examinedand discussed in that perspective. Still, a focussed discussion onpolitical development in terms of an explicit relationship betweenthe different variables discussed in the literature is not assuperfluous as it may appear at first sight. For, even if there bean element of repetition in the points made, the shift in the~~

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 161 focus may result in some new insights regarding the problem. The criteria we have discussed uptil now in great detail relate to those of (1) participation, (2) differentiation and (3) capabilities. The latter has been discussed in terms of the relation between input and output functions as explicated by Almond and Powell in their classic formulation on the subject. Besides these, we have also discussed in great detail each of the conversion-functions, such as (1) Interest articula- tion, (2) Interest aggregation, (3) Rule-making, (4) Rule- application, and (5) Rule-adjudication. Political communica- tion is also sometimes treated as a part of conversion-functions, but we have discussed it separately along with political social- ization. The relationship between participation, differentiation and capabilities has seldom been directly discussed in the literature. There is a generalized assumption that differentia- tion per se leads to an increase in capability, and that participa- tion leads to greater system-responsiveness which may be taken as an indicator of its increased capabilities. There is, however, a slight difference in the assumptions, in that the latter tends to be made primarily by those who have some sort of commitment to democracy as a political value, while the former is unreservedly accepted by almost everyone who has written on the subject. In fact, there are thinkers like Hunting- ton who consider participation an adverse indicator, specially in the case of developing politics. As the concept of political order or political stability is more central to his thought than that of political development, he assesses the value of political participation in terms of its effect on political stability or order. An increase in political participation makes increasing demands on the political system which it finds increasingly difficult to fulfil, thus leading to political decay rather than political devel- opment. In his own words, 'as political participation increases, the complexity, autonomy, adaptability, and coherence of the society's political institutions must also increase if political stability is to be maintained."'? But it is obvious that it is far easier for political participation to increase than for political institutions to increase in autonomy, adaptability and co- herence, thus making it increasingly impossible to maintain political order in face of increasing political participation. As Huntington argues, 'the stability of any given polity depends

162 Political Development upon the relationship between the level of political participa- tion and the level of political institutionalization.1113 And Apolitical stability, as we have argued, depends upon the ratio of institutionalization to participation.1114 By 'political institu- tionalization', Huntington means 'limitations on the resources that may be employed in politics, the procedures through which power may be acquired, and the attitudes that power wielders may hold'."5 But as such restraints are difficult to establish with a sudden increase in participation, the likelihood of the emergence of what he calls 'practorian' societies is greater in most developing societies than those he calls 'civic'. We are not interested here in discussing Huntington's posi- tion in detail, but it may be pointed out that he uses the term participation' in a somewhat unclear sense. For all 'participa- tion' does not necessarily imply making increasing demands on the system, or making them in such a way as to lead to a break- down of the system. Once a polity has opted for adult franchise and free and fair elections, it has provided the sufficient condi- tions for 'political participation'. This, however, by no means entails that there would be such an overloading of demands on the system that it is more likely than not to result in its break- down. Such an eventuality is more likely to occur if 'participa- tilon' takes the form of 'populism'. The situation might get further aggravated if 'participation' is conceived of in terms, of 'interest articulation'. It may, of course, be argued that even in a situation where 'populism' does not obtain, the mere com- petition between parties for the support of the electorate would tend to their making tall promises which would drive the polity to disorder and ruin. But this assumes that those who are elected try to fulfil all the promises made during elections or that the electorate takes all the promises that are made seriously, or that it even remembers the promises that the ruling party made at the last election. In normal circumstances it is the overall performance of the party in power that is judged by the elec- torate and not the detailed, specific promises made at the last election. On the other hand, it might equally be contended that a too successful institutionalization may hamper development instead of fostering it, for the simple reason that it may purchase stability and order at the price of growth and change. Theg@

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 163 institution of caste in Hindu society is a classic example of such a situation. It has become so successful as a principle of social ordering that all attempts at radical innovation based on its denial have been doomed to failure in Indian society. In fact, even non-Hindus in the Indian subcontinent have had to subn.iit to this ordering principle in their soci structure, even though it was at variance with the basic tenets of their religion. Islarnic and Christian communities in India have found it difficult not to come under the influence of this ordering principle in their social structuring. A successful institutional- ization, then, can he as inimical to development as the lack of it, depending on the situation and the,context we are talking about. The relation between 'institutionalization' and 'participa- tion' may, of course, be seen in a more dialectical manner so that it is the tension between the two that provides the condi- tion for development to occur. The dialectical view, of course, may take many forms, depending upon the conception one has of the basic forces whose antagonism and interplay is supposed to determine the system. The Marxian version of the dialectical approach is too well known to be, discussed here. However, amongst non-Marxist political thinkers, Fred Riggs may be singled out for his dialectical view of political development. In his well-known article 'The Dialectics of Developmental Con- flict',"6 he sees political development as a dynamic resultant of the dialectical conflict between differentiation and integration on the one hand, and between capacity and equality on the other. His notion of 'capacity', however, is different from that which is conveyed by the term Ccapabilities' in Almond and Powell's system, though perhaps by stretching the sense, it might be made to coincide with it to a greater extent than may appear primafacie to be the case. For Riggs, the notion of 'capacity' is primarily related to the desire of the rulers to preserve their power and perhaps increase and enhance it as well. In Pact, the 'capacity-equality dichotomy'for Riggs is merely a consequence of the 'dlite-mass dichotomy' which itself is a result of the fact that power is not only asymmetrical in character, but also that, by definition, 6lites cannot but be few in number and that many of those who are not amongst the @lites would like to join and be counted as such. As Riggs points out, 'the !bite are defined as

164 Political Development those who exercise power, the mass as those over whom power is exercised'. and that the so-called pressures 'manifest them- selves through government, in the desire of rulers to preserve their power and in the demand of the ruled to be heard and considered . . . the typical rationalization for preserving power by ruling @lites takes the form of capacity, and the demands of the ruled are expressed as a quest for more equali@y.""' It is obvious that Riggs has not expressed himself clearly, for there does not seem any intrinsic conflict between the demand of the ruled 'to be heard and considered' and the desire of the rulers 'to preserve their power'. The conflict would become inevitable only if those who are ruled want themselves to become the rulers or share in their power. The situation is insoluble in principle if it is conceived in terms of the dichotomy of 6lite and mass, as Riggs has done; for, by definition, the elite cannot but be in a minority, and that too a microscopic minority in most cases. The impasse is sought to be bridged by Riggs through what he calls 'differentiation', as he argues that 'this conceptualiza- tion ... postulates a narrowing of the zone of conflict (acute tensions) as the degree of "differentiation" rises-at least beyond some developmental threshold'."" The term 'dif- ferentiation' includes in itself three concepts for which, accord- ing to Riggs, we need different terms for purposes of clarity. They are 'role specialization within a system, effective co- ordination of roles, and the two combined'.ng As everyone who is familiar with Riggs's thought can guess, we are safely on our way to a fused-prismatic-diffracted trichotomy in terms of which the process of development is to be understood. But it is not clear at all how 'differentiation' solves the dilemma of '61ite-mass dichotomy' with which Riggs started his analysis. Riggs has many interesting things to say regarding the identi- fication of the. relationship between 'the structure, the goals of equality and capacity, typical forms of conflict, and degrees of ,diffraction',12( but it is difficult to see how this relates to the other, and politically more fundamental, dichotomy between mass and 6lite, understood in terms of the ruled and the ruler respectively. It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish between the dialectic imposed by the fact of differential distribution of political power~

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 165 amongst the members of a polity and the dialectic created by 'differentiation', meaning thereby the increasing specialization of roles within a system and the demand for some sort of integration between them so that the system may work effi- ciently and harmoniously to some extent and not break asunder. We need not pursue our discussion of Riggs' twofold dialectic any further, particularly as we will have occasion to revert to it later in our concluding discussion on the concept of development and its relevance for different domains of human endeavour. However, it may he pointed out in passing that the basic weakness of the first dialectic relating to mass and @lite is the assumption that political @lites are the only 6lites, and that political power is the only power. Unfortunately for Riggs' model, this does not happen to he the case, and though he has theoretically conceded the possibility that power, presumably political, may itself be the consequence of the possession of other valued conditions,121 he has failed to draw the con- sequences-,pf such an admission. The deeper problem, however, relates not only to the relations between different forms and types of power, but of their relative autonomy and indepen- dence as well. Otherwise, one would see all values as instru- mental to the value one holds as primary and fundamental. The history of sociopolitical thought is replete with such examples, and one may choose the value one happens to like or the form of power that in one's opinion happens to possess causal primacy over all the others. The dialectical notion of political development is not entirely absent from Huntington's thought either. Only, in his case the dialectic is more between the conflicting claims of rural and urban centres in the process of development. The crucial factors in the drama of political development, according to him, are the twin conditions of what he calls 'rural majority and urban growth'. The countryside continues to be traditional while the city becomes the centre of modernizing activity.Thus develops what he calls the gap between the political attitudes and behaviour of the cities and those of the countryside. The city, however, remains constant in its function. The variable factor in his analysis is provided only by the countryside on whose behaviour depends whether there would be stability or 12

166 Political Develo .pment revolution. As Huntington says, 'the role of the city is constant: it is the permanent source of revolution'.122 However, though the role of the countryside is crucial for political modernization, which, for Huntington, is identical with political development, the source for political mobilization and differential behaviour may be said to rest primarily with the urban political 6lite, whether they belong to the ruling group or to the opposition. 'The basic political competition', Huntington argues, 'becomes the competition between the government and the urban re- volutionary intelligentsia for the support of the peasantry. If the peasantry acquiesces in and identifies with the existing system, it furnishes that system with a stable foundation. If it actively opposes the system, it becomes the carrier of revolu- tion.1123 The relationship between urban and rural areas is supposed to show four phases according to Huntington's system. In the first phase, the countryside dominates the city socially, eco- nomically and politically. Both, however, enjoy stability, each at its own level. In the second phase, urban groups develop strength and begin to challenge the rural 6lite, thus bringing, instability into the system. In the third phase, the urban groups overthrow the ruling rural 6lite. @ The fourth phase consists of the induction of the rural masses into politics, which itself can occur in four ways depending on whether the sponsors of the 'Green uprising' are (i) nationalist intellectuals,,or (ii) a section of the urban @lite trying to overwhelm the more narrowly based political opponents, or (iii) a rurallyorio-nted militaryjunta, or (iv) a clique of revolutionary urban intellectuals.'124 We are not interested here in discussing in detail the ade- quacy of Huntington's dialectical model of political develop- ment. It should, however, be pointed out that the very terms of the dialectic confine the theory to primarily agrarian societies which'are being urbanized under the impact of industrializa- tion. The unquestioned assumptions of the theory, thus, are twofold. First, it uncritically assumes that the process of modernization necessarily involves a continuous decrease in the proportion of the rural sector, both in terms of the manpower engaged in it and its relative share in the national income. And, seconaly, there seems to be an unconscious assumption that once the problem of rural-urban dichotomy is solved by the

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 167 swallowing up of the rural sector, political development would finally have been achieved, as there would be no further significant problems for the polity to solve. Both the assumptions are naive in the extreme. The first, though buttressed by large incontrovertible data from the history of industrialization uptil now, runs against the increds- ing evidence that the pattern of economic development of large agrarian countries such as India or China cannot take the form followed by industrialized countries in the past. Not only this, the increasing evidence indicates that the large-scale, capital-intensive, centralized pattern of industrialization based on the use of non-ren@wable resources is ultimately suicidal in nature. In plain terms, it is alleged that there are just not enough resources to sustain a per capita world consumption at the level which now obtains in the U.S.A. The question obviously is not whether or not such a possibility is attainable in the near future, but whether, given the resource estimates of the earth, it is logically conceivable as a problem in simple arithmetic to think that it could ever be achieved at all. There is, of course, the on-going debate whether the notion of a finite resource base has any meaning at all and whether we need confine ourselves to the resources available on earth alone to satisfy the future needs of mankind '1125 But whatever side is taken in the debate, one cannot uncritically assume today, as one could perhaps ten or twenty years ago, that there was only one road to economic betterment exemplified by the history of western nations' including that ofjapan. Whatever one may think of the first assumption, the second is even more fundamental and more questionable. There seems no reason to believe that problems of political governance cease or that political good is completely realized the moment the rural-urban dialectic ceases to operate because of the practical abolition of the rural sector in the economy and society. The development of industrial and post-industrial societies does not lessen the tasks of political management or make the political antagonism between different classes and groups disappear, as is known to all the political leaders of these societies. It is therefore surprising to find Huntington writing as if the problem of political development were pri- marily a problem of underdeveloped countries alone, and has

168 Political Development little to do with the so-called 'developed' societies. He may, of course, plead in his defence that he is only concerned with the problem of political order in changing societies and not devel- ,x)ping a generalized theory of political processes which would be applicable to all societies at all levels of their development. But this would be to assume that the so-called 'developed' societies have stopped changing or that there is no problem of political order in them. This, however, is to be blind to the social and political facts of these countries. Huntington's book was published in 1968 and thus, presumably, was written in the late sixties. Yet it shows little awareness of all the social and political turmoil prevalent in the U.S.A. during that period. At the social plane, the period 1958-68 had seen a hundred per cent increase in the crime rate. The comparisons with other nations were even more alarming.1211 The Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Vio- lence gives not only these staggering figures, but breathes an atmosphere of hopelessness regarding the situation and wonders if anything could really be done in the matter. The report. for example, states, 'In the last 25 years our country has been deluged with significant Presidential and national fact-finding commissions, starting with President Truman's Commission to secure these Rights in 1947.... Thus the problems of poverty, racism and crime have been emphasized and re-emphasized, studied and re-studied, probed and re-probed.' And, 'Surveying the landscape littered with the unimplemented recommenda- tions of so many previous commissions, 1 am compelled to propose a national moratorium on any additional temporary study commissions to probe causes of racism, or poverty. or crime, or urban crisis. The rational response to the work of the great commissions of recent years is not the appointment of still more commissions to study the same problems-but rather the prompt implementation of their many valuable recom- mendations.11127 But even the possible hope of any such action was remote from the minds of many persons who appeared before the Commission. The Commission itself concluded its Report with the following statement of Kenneth B. Clark which may be taken as typifying the mood of the Commission: 'I must again in candour say to you members of this commission- it is a kind of Alice in Wonderland-with the same moving

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 169 picture reshown over and over again, the same analysis, the same recommendations, the same inaction.11128 The political situation also was equally bad during this period. This was the time when student protests on the cam- puses against the Vict-Nam war increased both in intensity and violence. Starting from the Berkeley campus of the Uni- versity of California in 1959, they continued unabated and spread to almost all the major campuses in the United States. The desertions from the U.S. Army reached grave proportions, and thousands of young men turned their draft cards over to federal officials and announced publicly that they would not serve. The facts are too well known to he either repeated or docu- mented here. What is surprising is that Huntington seems completely unaware of them or of their relevance to what he is writing on political order or political development in changing societies. And he is not alone in this respect. Rather, every writer on political development seems to be guilty of the same amnesia. One has reluctantly to agree with Hirschmann when he writes: 'I believe that the countries of the Third World have become fair game for the model-builders and paradigrn- molders to an intolerable degree."29 And, that 'Having been proved wrong by the unfolding events in almost every instance, the law-makers then migrated to warmer climes, that is, to the less developed countries."30 The dialectical -model of political development, whether in the classical version of Marx, or in that of Riggs or Huntington, sees it primarily as a dynamic relationship between two vari- ables alone. The moment, however, we conceive of development as a resultant of more than two variables, the relationship would have to be conceived in a more complex manner. One would have to specify in detail the specific interactive linkages between the particular values of the variables as well as the positive and the negative feedback loops connecting them. Basically, nothing of the sort has been attempted so far.1131 As most thinkers in this field have tended to offer multiple criteria, it is imperative that this aspect should not have been left unattended to. Further, as the relationship between the criteria that have been offered has generally been viewed inversely, it was even more incumbent on the authors to indicate the rela-

170 Political Development tive weightage of the values involved if a viablejudgnient about political development were to be regarded as feasible,. Lucian Pye, for example, has remarked that 'historically the tendency has usually been that there are acute tensions between the demands for equality, the requirements for capacity, and the processes of greater differentiatioil. Pressure for greater equality can challenge the capacity of the system, and differentiation can reduce equality by stressing the importance of quality and specialized knowledge."32 But if there are such acute tensions between equality, capacity and differentiation, each of which is regarded, severally and jointly, as the criterion of political development, then it is necessary that the problem of propor- tions and priorities between them be faced and settled. Yet Lucian Pye has done nothing of the kind. One is given no indication as to how much weightage is to be given to each.and what exactly is to be the plus-minus equation between such incompatible criteria. The same can be said of many of the 'conversion-functions' which also display an inverse relation- ship, between them. Take, for example, 'interest articulation'. and "Interest aggregation'. It is obvious that the more we have of the former, the more difficult it would be to achieve the latter. Any increase in the quantity and diversity of interests would make it increasingly difficult to achieve.'aggregation' in the sense of 'reconciliation' of divergent interests. Sirffilarly, if we take 'rule-making, 'rule-application', and 'rffle-adjudication' together into consideration, we see that an increase in the quantity and complexity of the first leads to increasing difficulties at the level of both 'rule-application' and 'rule-adjudication'. The more the rules enacted, the more difficult it becomes to see that they are properly observed and that the conflicts between them are expeditiously adjudicated. In fact, the possible conflicts between rules, both actual and imagined, may be expected to increase in a geometrical ratio, making it almost impossible for the ad udicating function to be reasonably exercised by finite human beings. In a sense, such a situation is already being approached in many countries where cases demanding adjudication lie for years without proper attention on the part of adjudicating authorities. It may be suggested that if the relationship is of such an inverse character, the best course to ensure efficient 'rule-

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 171 application' or 'rule-adjudication' would he to go slow on 'rule- making'. It would then be in the direction of reduction and simplification of rules that political development will be sought rather than otherwise. But, however seemingly sensible this may appear in the case of 'rule-making', it may not even appear to be so in the case of 'interest articulation'. It will be difficult for anyone to argue that,it is best for 'interest articulation' to he lessened so that difficulties may not arise in the way of 'interest aggregation'. Perhaps, the difficulty may be met by thinking of a moving equilibrium between the quantities on the inverse side of the relationship in such a way that the opportunities for an increase in 'interest articulation', or in 'rule-making' are only provided when there is a chance of their being 'aggregated', or 'applied' and 'adjudicated'. Theoretically, the idea may seem logically impeccable even if it be conceded that in practice it is almost impossible to realize. But besides the issue of empirical unrealizability there is the ethical problem of the desirability of doing so. just as it is ethically unacceptable that the opportunities for 'interest articulation' be reduced only because the polity is not able to aggregate the interests articulated, so also it may appear ethic- ally unacceptable that an increase in such opportunities be withheld just because the polity is not able to increase its capacity to aggregate them. There may perhaps be an asym- metry in the two situations, as a restriction of opportunities which already exist may seem morally more reprehensible than a failure to provide more opportunities for expression of 'interest articulation'. The difficulties, however, may be regarded as confined not merely to the empirical and the moral levels, but to extend to the theoretical dimension also. The equilibrium ratio, whether moving or not, is expected to be unity if it is to count as indicating political development. But in such a situation there can hardly be any development, for the indicator would always stand at unity, provided the situation is satisfactory. The difficulty may be avoided by treating unity as an ideal limit which is never actualized in practice because of the empirical limitations inherent in the situation. and treating development as a movement towards it. Any two ratios at different moments of time would then be compared in terms of their approxima-

172 Political Development tiori to the ideal ratio given by unity and judged as political decline- or development according to whether it is farther from or nearer it. One may also think of the logical possibility that 'interest aggregation' may exceed 'interest articulation' and that 'rule-application' and 'rule-ad udication' may exceed 'rule-making'. Such a situation may be described as 'over- development', in case there are no intrinsic incom,patibilities'iin the concepts of such a nature that any ratio indicating more than unity is ruled out by the very nature of the concepts con- cerned. A primafacie analysis does appear to suggest this in the case of 'interest aggregation' and 'interest articulation', for it seems meaningless to talk about aggregating interests which have not been articulated by any group or class of persons. The only way out of the difficulty would perhaps be to formulate the concept of 'anticipated interest' which, then, could allow being aggregated even in the absence of any explicit articulation. But, in that case, the problem would arise whether the so-called 'anticipated interest' coincides with the interest of the person or groups if they were to articulate their interests. The notion of 'anticipated interest' has, in fact, occurred in the classical literature of political science under the guise of what is called great interests', The distinction between 'real' and 'apparent' interests, however, undercuts the notion of 'articulated interests' as it implies that people are not the best judges of what they really want. It is only the @lite which knows what is best for everybody. And, in most cases, the @lite is supposed to be the political 6ite only. The history of this notion is well known from Plato onwards, and has been helpful to dictators of all hues injustifying their authority which, according to them, has always been exercised for the achievement of the public good. Whatever the difficulties with respect to the possibility of 'interest aggregation' exceeding 'interest articulation', there seem hardly any regarding the possibility of 'rule-adjudication' exceeding 'rule-making', as the possible disputes that may arise with respect to the rules made is always larger than the rules themselves. Even here, however, both the number and the wording of the rules would have a direct relationship with the number of disputes that may arise requiring adjudication. The larger the number of rules, the greater the possibility of the

The Criterion as Conversion Functions 173disputes arising with respect to them. On the other hand, thewording of the rules may be such as either to encourage ordiscourage disputes about them, depending on the ambiguityinherent in the formulation itself. But even when the rules areformulated in as clear and precise a manner as possible, whatHart has called 'the open texture of law' would ensure thenecessity of adjudication, as no law, in principle, can anticipateor provide for all the complex situations that may actuallyarise in life. There is, therefore,-always a likelihood of rule-adjudication cases being larger than the rules that are made,though it cannot be denied that the larger the number of rulesthat are enacted, the more will be the occasions that wouldarise requiring adjudication with respect to them. We may conclude, therefore, that the interrelationshipbetween the criteria has hardly been the subject of any seriousconsideration or discussion by the authors who have offeredthem. Even the awareness that the relation between criteriamay be antagonistic in character has hardly resulted in anyattempt at answering the question as to how, in such a situation,we could possibly determine whether any such thing as politicaldevelopment has actually occurred or not. Whenever, for ex-ample, a plurality of criteria are offered in any field, the firstquestion that has to be raised is whether they are to be treatedas independent of one another or not. Yet, even this preliminaryquestion has not been raised in the literature in any focalmanner, for it is obvious that in case they are not to be treatedas independent, then not only has it to be specified which ofthe criteria offered are independent and which are not, butit also has to he explained why, if some are not independent,they have to be included in the list at all. Further, in casemore than one criteria is offered and each held as independent,it is incumbent on the thinker who is proposing the criteria toindicate what weightage has to be given to the various criteriain order to reach a total assessment of the situation. For, unlesssome such summation is done, no judgement will be achievedregarding the polity as to whether development has occurred ornot. Yet, this problem of weightage has hardly been touchedupon in the literature on the subject. It could perhaps be con-tended that no fixed weightage can be given to the criteria, asit varies with varying situations. There are situations when

174 . Political Development participation' may be given a greater weight as an indicator of 'political development', while in some other set of circumstances it is 'capabilities' that may have to be given greater weight' But then, one has to indicate the sort of circumstances which made a difference to the weightage to be given to a. particular criterion and the reason or reasons why it has to be so. Yet there is little in the literature that is helpful towards answering such questions, or which even indicates the awareness that they have to be answered if the quest for the criteria of 'political development' is to have any meaning at all. The search for the understanding of 'political development' in terms of the interrelationships between the criteria seems to have ended as much in a blind alley as the search for the indi- vidual criteria in earlier chapters. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with the whole enterprise if none of the criteria offered, either singly or in interrelationship, can with- stand a sustained exarm'nation of their adequacy. Perhaps some- thing is radically wrong with the notion of 'development' itself or with the notion as applied to the field of 'politics'. In the former case, the troubles will lie- at the very root and make the whole enterprise untenable in any domain whatsoever. On the other hand, if difficulties arise from the domain of the 'political', it would indicate limitations for the applicability of the concept and suggest its irrelevance for all domains which shared the characteristics of the realm of the 'political'. We will try to explore this issue in the next chapter.

NOTES 1. Almond and Powell, Comparative Politics, p. 73 2. Ibid." p. 73. 3. Ibid., p. 74. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. Italics author's. @6. Ibid., p. 75. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., p. 76. 9. Ibid., p. 77. 10. Ibid., p. 76. 11. Ibid., p. 81. Italics author's.

The Criterion as Conversion Functions175 12. Ibid., p. 81. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., p. 82. 15. Ibid., p. 80. 16. Ibid., p. 167 17. Ibid., p. 82. 18. Ibid., P. 86. 19. Ibid., p. 87. 20. Suzanne and Lloyd Rudolph, The Modetni@y of Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967). 21. Almond and Powell, p. 89. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., p. 98. Italics mine. 24. Ibid., p. 99. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., p. 100. Italics mine. 27. Ibid., p. 105 ' 28. Ibid., p. 98. Italics mine. 29. Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Sock@y (New Delhi: Arnold Heine- inann, 1974). 30. Almond and Powell, p. 100. Italics mine. 31. Ibid'., p. 101. 32. Ibid., p. 1 1 1. - 33. Ibid., p. 108. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid., p. 109. Italics mine. 38. Ibid. Italics mine. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid., p. 112. Italics mine. 41. Ibid., p. 113. .42. Ibid., p. 114. 43. Ibid., p. 1 10. 44. Ibid., p. 107. 45. Ibid., p. 114. 46. Ibid., p. 100. 47. Ibid., p. 98. 48. Ibid., p. 134. 49. Ibid., p. 136. 50. Ibid., p. 132. Italics mine. 51. Ibid., p. 138. Italics mine. 52. Ibid., p. 140. Italics mine. 53. Ibid., p. 105. 54. Ibid. 55. Benjamin N. Cardozo, The ivature of Me Judidal Process (New Haven: Yale University Press, 192 1). 56. Ibid., p. 142.

176 Political Development 57. Ibid., pp. 143-4. 58. Ibid., p. 144. 59. Ibid., p. 86. 60. Ibid., p. 108. 61. Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchinu (London: Weiderfeld & Nicholson Ltd., 1970). 62. Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behaviour (New York: Maemillan, 1957). 63. Talcott Panons, Structure and Process in Modern Societies (Glencoe, Illinois.. Free Press, 1960). 64. Lloyd 1. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Modern and Traditional Administration Reexamined: A Revisionist Interpretation of Weber on Bureaucracy. International Political Science Association IX World Congress, 31 Aug. 1973. Mirneographed copy, p. 46. 65. Almond and Powell, p. 153. Italics mine. 66. Ibid., p. 156. 67. Ibid., p. 158. 68. Ibid., p. 154. 69. Ibid., p. 155. 70. Ibid., p. 153. 71. Ibid., p. 157. 72. Ibid., p. 155. 73. Ibid., p. 158. Italics mine. 74. Ibid., p. 156. Italics mine. 75. Ibid., p. 149. 76. Ibid. I Wics mine. 77. Merle Fainsod, quoted in Almond and PowcH, P. 150 78. Almond and Powell, p. 150. 79. Ibid., p. 151. 80. Ibid., p. 152. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid., p. 150. 83. Ibid., p. 151. 84. Lucian Pye, Aspects of Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.), P. 118. 85. Ibid. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid., p. 121. 88. Ibid. 89. Harvard Law Review, vol. 7 1, no. 4, Feb. 1958. 90. Lon L. Fuller, 'Positivism and Fidelity to Law. A Reply to Professor Hart', Harvard Law Review, vol. 7 1, no. 4, Feb. 1958, p. 644. 91. H. L. A. Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), and Patrick Devlin, The Enforcemmt of Morals (Oxford University Press, 1965). 92. Hart, p. 1 1. 93. Ibid., p. 16. 94. Benjamin N. Cardozo, 7-he ivature of the _7udicial Process (New Haven . Yale University Press, 1964). 95. Hart, p. 61 1. 96. Fuller, p. 664. 97. For Hart-Fuller controversy, see also Hart, The Concept of Law (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), and Fuller, T7te Morality of Law (New Haven. Yale University Press, 1964).

98. Fuller, P. 635. 99. Fuller, P. 635. 100. Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba (eds.), Political Culture and Political Develop- ment (Prinecton. Prinecton University Pren, 1969), p. 13. 101. Ibid., p. 15. 102. Ibid., p. 521. Italics mine. ,103. Ibid. 104. Ibid., p. 22. 105. Sidney Verba, p. 527. 106. Ibid., p. 537. Italics author's. 107. Ibid. 108. Almond and Powell, p. 62. Italics author's. 109. Ibid., p. 53. 110. Ibid., p. 167. Ill. Ibid., p. 172. 112. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order In Changing Societies (New Haven - Yale University Press, 1968), p. 79. 113. Ibid., p. 79. 114. Ibid. 115. Ibid., p. 83. 116. Fred W. Riggs, 'The Dialectics of Developmental Conflict', Comparative. Political Studies, 1 (July 1968). 117. Ibid., pp. 202-3. 118. Ibid., p. 205 1 19. Ibid., p. 206 120. Ibid., p. 208 121. Fred W. Riggs, 'Power plays a critical role in relation to all such values, as a possible consequence of, and as a possible means for securing, the valued conditions', ibid., p. 203. 122. Ibid., p. 292. 123. Ibid., p. 293. 124. Lester M. Salmon, 'Comparative History and the Theory of Modernization', World Politics, vol. XXIII, no. 1 (Oct. 1970), pp. 83-103. Contains a good summary and discussion of the views of Black, Huntington and Moore. 125. Donella H. Meadows, Denis L. Meadows, jorgen Randers and Williain W. Behrens Ill, The Limits to Growth (New York. Universe Books, 1972). Also see Mesarovicetal., Mankindat the TumingPoint (New York.. E. P. Dutton and Reader's Digest Press, 1974). See the debate in Forum (University of Houston), vol. XIII, nos. 1 and 2, 1975. Also Hernian Kahn, Williain Brown and Loon Martel, The ivext 200 k'ears (New York.. William Morrow & Co., 1976). 126. The Final Report of the National Committee on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (Bantam, U.S.A., 1970). The comparative figures for 1966 inThe Criterion as Conversion Functions177

178 . Political Development respect of some other countries as given in the report per 100,000 of the population are: 1. Australia 1.5 2. Canada 1.3 3. England & Wales 0.7 4. Finland 2.3 5. Austria 1.1 6. Hungary 1.9 As against these the crime rate in U.S.A. per 100,000 of population happened to be 3.0 in 1966.127. Ibid., p. 99.128. Ibid., pp. 99-100.129. Albert 0. Hirschmann,'The Search for Paradigms as a Hindrance to Under- standing', World Politics, April 1970, p. 335.130. Ibid.131. An interesting attempt in this regard is that of Ronald D. Brunner and Gary D. Brewer, Organised Coinplexi@y (The Free Press, 197 1). But it tends to accept the rural-urban paradigm of Huntington as the only framework of analysis relevant for the study of political phenomena.132. Pye, p. 147.

179

5

The Concept of Development In the detailed examination that we have undertaken, thefailure of the criteria, both individually and in interrelation-ship, suggests that there might he something wrong either withthe notion of 'development' itself or the field ofpolities to whichit may not be relevantly applicable. The feeling of failure, itmight be added, is not confined just to us. After more than adecade-and-a-half of discussion by the best brains in politicalscience we find Charles Tilly asking in the latest volume of thePrinecton series on the subject, 'Are these difficulties sur-mountable?'and answering, 'For my part, 1 do not think thedifficulties are surmountable." But if the difficulties are notsurmountable, it can only be so because in principle it isimpossible to do so. But if it is impossible in principle, then thewhole enterprise is doomed to failure from the very start, andit is no wonder that we have not been able to bind any surefooting amongst any of the criteria 'that have been offered bymany thinkers. Yet even so, it is incumbent on someone whoargues for the impossibility to show from where the impossibi-lity arises. And as we have observed earlier, the impossibilitymay arise from two very different sources, the one relating tothe concept of development itself, the other relating to thenature of political reality, to which the concept of developmentmay not be applicable. But whatever the alternative source from which the im-possibility may be said to arise, the primary task would requirean analysis of the concept of development without which neitherthe first nor the second alternative would make any sense. Theconcept of development, thus, may be said to be crucial to thewhole enterprise and unless we are clear about it, we would notbe able to know the cause of our failure in finding a viablecriterion of 'political development'.NT

180 Political Development 'Development', it would be agreed, is essentially an evalua- tive concept. In most contexts, its use expresses a positive evaluation, and thus, unless otherwise stated, it should he interpreted as such. Also, it is comparative in character. To talk of development is to compare two stages of the same entity at diff@rent moments of time or to compare two different entities in respect of some characteristic which is regarded not only as common to both but also as characterizing them in the same essential manner. Besides t@ese, it may also be said that the notion of 'development', to be relevantly applicable, must also contain the possibility of indefinite extension in the sense that there should, in principle, be no last term beyond which it is not possible of being conceived any further. In other words, there should be no terniinus to 'development', in the sense that the very possibility of all further development be impossible in principle. Besides this, what is perhaps even more necessary is that there should be some unambiguous way of adding the positive indicators and subtracting the negative so that it may be clear whether development has actually occurred or not. For this, it is necessary that some common measure be possible in terms of which the various indicators may he compared and evaluated. This, however, itself requires as a logical prerequisite that there be a clarity about the value or values that are immanent to the domain, and in terms of which the question of development or decay is said to arise. In case there is only a single value which defines the realm, the situation may not give rise to any specific difficulty. But in case there is more than one value inherent to the domain, they may not be necessarily harmonious in them- selves, or the means for their realization may be such as to be antagonistic in character in the sense that the very adoption of the means for the realization of one value makes it difficult to adopt the means for the realization of the other value, or even works directly against its realization. The issues with respect to'the identity of the unit or units which are being compared have been pointed out by Tilly in his remarks on the formation of nation-states in Western Europe in the book referred to above. Most writers on development choose as their units of comparison the contemporary nation- states as they exist at present. But, as is well known, most of the

The Concept of Development 181 present nation-states did not exist in the past or had different boundaries from their present ones. The history of nineteenth- century Europe is well known in this regard and the effect of the two World Wars on the political map of the world is too familiar to he repeated here. As Tilly remarks, 'the choice of contemporary states as units for the long-run comparison of "political development" causes grave difficulties'.2 He takes Germany as a typical example, whose frontiers have been fluid since, say, 1550 to 1950. But if the fact of changing frontiers over periods of time is taken seriously, then Tilly suggests that 'such a literature seems unlikely to yield statements about the condi- tions under which a given political structure will disintegrate, stagnate, combine with others, or transform itself into a variety which has never been seen before'.3 Tilly's remarks have been made in the context of political development, but it is obvious that as 'development' is a com- parative term, the problem of the constancy of the unit of com- parison would arise with respect to its application to any field whatsoever. And that where the unit is primarily defined in spatial or geographical terms which are liable to change over a period of time, the difficulties of making a comparative judgement may he remedied, if at all, by taking into account or making allowances for this factor. Some may go even so far as to treat territorial expansion as a sign of development in realms where it is relevant, and its contraction as a sign of degeneration or decay. The imperial expansions of states in the past through diplomacy, conquest or matrimony were always treated as times of growth and glory by historians of various persuasions. There have, of course, been exceptions like Marx or Toynbee who, in their different ways, have refused to accept the age of expansions as a sign of development. Rather, they see it as a sign of inherent weakness at the centre which tries to mask its failures by aggrandizement abroad. Yet, whether territorial expansion is treated as a sign of development or not, it is obvious that the notion will be relevant only in those cases to which spatial categories apply and where they are regarded as the essence of the matter. Many realms with respect to which questions of development arise may have nothing to do with questions of space, and even when they must have a location, it is not taken to define their identity. 13

182 Political Development The problem of identity in relation to the unity of units with reference to which comparison is made has been extensively discussed by Toynbee and Sorokin. Toynbee has.raised the issue in relation to the study of history and Sorokin in relation to his study of social and cultural dynamics. Toynbee finds his unit of comparison in what he calls a 'civilization' which has both a spatio-temporal spread and an identity of style in its various cultural manifestations which attempted to embody a distinctive vision of values, rooted generally in the successful response of a society to some supreme challenge ,,vhich meets with such notable success that it seeks to repeat it again and again, even when it ceases to be adequate and leads to break- down and disintegration. Toynbee has wavered in his conception of the criterion of unity in terms of which one civilization may be distinguished and demarcated from another for purposes of comparison. On the one hand, he tries to find them in those empirical 'cut-off points' where that which is responsible for the birth of a civilization is simultaneously the cause of the death of some other civilization. The relation, lie calls, 'apparentation-alnd- affiliation'. And, its clearest example he finds in Christianity, which simultaneously lies at the root of modern western civiliza- tion and is one of the most important causes of the break-up of the Greco-Roman civilization of earlier times. Christianity, however, is not only the cause of the death of one civilization, and the birth of another, but also one of the higher religions which give meaning and significance not, only to human life and history but to the world of temporality itself. In this sense, the unity provided by Toynbee would have to be conceived in terms of meaning, significance or value whose basic' exempli- fications are found in the higher religions. However, neither the relation of 'apparentation-and-affilia- tion' nor the valuational vision embodied in the higher religions can provide that 'cut-off' point in all cases for the simple reaso 1n that according to Toynbee himself, there are civilizations which are not 'apparented' or 'affiliated' or both to any other civiliza- tion and that 'higher religions' are not found in all civilizations. One will, therefore, have to go beyond the specificities singled out and emphasized by, Toynbee and seek the demar@atine principle of unity in some other causal-fanctional or valuational

The Concept of Development 183 principle in the case of those civilizations where the specificities mentioned by him do not obtain. Sorokin, in fact, has enum- crated the principles in terms of which different forms of unities may be treated either as given or constructed. Besides the unities provided by such natural demareators as space and time which provide, so to say, only external unities, there are. according to Sorokin, unities provided by causal-functional and logico-mcaningful factors. The latter are obviously more internal and intrinsic, as the principles providing them are more integral to the objects concerned. The causal-function'al unities are relative. to the scientific knowledge of a period, while the- logico-mcaningful unities may be regarded as relative to the value-apprehension of an observer. The objectivity, therefore, An their case' is relative to the shared knowledge of a period or @the shared value-apprehension of a people. However, the s as we approach individual works ophy which are regarded by Sorokin les of logico-mcanin-eful unities, or relatively segregated, quantitatively measurable, indefinitely repeatable, individual causal sequences which are well known in so many areas of science. The functional unities,in the same way, are more clearly and unambiguously exhibited in indivi- dual organisms which may be taken as their paradigmatic examples. But the moment we move to larger and larger units, the so-called unities become increasingly problematic and relative in character. The unities of whole civilizations as apprehended by a Toynbee, a Spengler or a Sorokin have been the subject of great controversy, as is well known to students of the subject.4 However, it would hardly be denied that the criteria for unity have to be specified first so that relevant conipargtive judgement about development could be possible. After all, the first question is: what is it to which the characteristic of 'devel- opment' is being predicated or applied? Similarly, though 'development' is not just 'change', it presupposes it in an essential manner. 'To develop' is 'to have changed', though 'to change' does not necessarily mean 'to have developed'. Hence, it is equally necessary that we determine not only that to which 'change' is being ascribed but also the respect in which it is supposed to have changed. 1 have discussed at length in my

184 Political Development earlier work, Considerations Towards a Theo7 of Social Change,,5 many theoretical and conceptual issues relating to 'unity' and 'change', and hence need not repeat theni here. Suffice, it to say that, whatever be the criterion adopted for demarcation of the units for purposes of comparison, they should not only be explicitly indicated, but also held constant for the duration of the discourse. The requirement may appear elementary and even a prerequisite for intellectual integrity and honesty, but even a cursory glance at the literature reveals that it is conspicuous by its absence. The complaint of Charles Tilly quoted earlier makes sense only in such a background. He writes, 'the Europe of 1500 included sonic five hundred more or less independent political units, the Europe of 1900 about twenty-five. The Gernian State did not exist in 1500, or even 1800."' If such is the situation, there can be little surprise that 'the choice of contemporary states as units for the long run comparison of "political development" causes grave difficulties.'7 This is, of course, an understatement, or rather a polite way of saying that the whole exercise does not make any selise, as the units chosen for comparison cannot be compared in principle. What is even worse, however, is the persistent attempt to compare. the performance of the newly emergent states of Asia and Africa with those of western countries, not with what they did at comparative stages of their emergence and growth but as they are now in contemporary times. Further, the growth- performance of the newly emergent nations is usually treated as a purely autonomous function of their ruling 6lites, and not as a complex resultant of their past colonial history combined with the realities of the power situation in the international world around them. The exception to this are, of course, the so-called leftist thinkers who derive their inspiration from Lenin's extension of Marxist thought to cover the imperialist phase in the development of capitalism. They are quick to point out that the political and economic development of the new nations is both hampered and distorted by the inter- national structures of domination and exploitation built by the advanced capitalist countries of the world. But they. con- veniently forget the fact that the nation-states of eastern Europe are as much, if not more, under the thraldom of Soviet domina- tion as the so-called direct or indirect client-states of the

The Conce .pt of Development 185 western superpowers. As Tilly specifically states in answer to the question he himself raises, 'what, then, do we have to learn from the literature of dependency and exploitation? First, the recognition that the nature of the international structure of power, and the relations of particular countries to that struc- iure, account for a major part of the form, change, and varia- tion of the national economic lives of poor countries; there is no obvious reason why that should be less true of political Besides the problems relating to the unity of the units being compared, there is the deeper problem relating to the units themselves. In case the comparison is merely quantitative, few problems arise. But the moment questions of quality arise, difficulties begin to' pile up. The usual way out. is to correlate quality to that which can be quantitatively measured, and thus to avoid the dilemma of making direct qualitative judge- ments and justifying them. But where such a quantitative cor- relation is not possible for some reason or other, one is reduced to making comparisons based on long familiarity with the field, the training of taste under those who have cultivated judgement in the matter and developing a sensitive openness to that which may emerge with creative novelty in the domain. The history of art criticism is a standing example of this situa- tion where all attempts to do away with the direct qualitative judgement of the connoisseur have failed. The notion of 'development', however, does not merely involve a comparative judgement in terms of quality, but also what might be called a direction of growth. Interpreted in terms of quality, this can only mean approximation towards an ideal which is more and more visible in its successive embodi- ments. The ideal, of course, is itself apprehended only through ,its concrete embodiments and is, so to say, a construct out of them. Yet, as it is never exhausted by its concrete embodi- ments, it is difficult to understand it completely in terms of the notion of 'logical. construction', unless logical constructions themselves begin to be seen as acquiring independence from those examples out of which they have been constructed. The dilemma whether to conceive of that which has been ap@- prel-iended through, or abstracted from, experience, as indepen- dent of or unexhausted by it, is ia,ell known to students of

186 Political Development philosophy since the days of Plato and Aristotle. The dilemma was solved by Plato through formulating his famous theory of remembrance which asserted that experience was merely the occasion of reminding one of that of which one was already aware in the past, when one was presumed to be directly aware of the world of Ideas themselves. Such a way out is obviously closed to the scientific student of phenomena, though he may perhaps get some leeway by using the Kantlan notion of a transcendental presupposition, or of Weber's notion of an Ideal Type, or even the generalized idea of a heuristic device to use it effectively for his own purposes. The problem, however, gets a little more complicated by the fact that we do not merely talk of the growth of a style, but of its exhaustion also. It has repeatedly been asserted, specially by historians of art and literature, that any particular style, say, the renaissance, the baroque or the rococo emerges, grows and reaches its maturity after which there is only repetition, stagnation and decay. A master is supposed to exhaust the potentialities of a language or the medium in at least one dimension of its development, and after that there are only the epigoni or the epigoni of the epigoni, till a new master arises and blazes the trail in a fresh direction, when the same story repeats itself once again. The@ idea has been extended to the field of civilizations and cultures, and it has been contended thatjust as there is a genesis and growth of civilization, so also there is a decline and decay which can hardly'be arrested for the simple reason that they have exhausted their potentialities by actualizing what they were ca pable of actualizing in the course of their history. Spengler's name is most associated with this view, but no one who has reflected on the history of any people has been able to escape the impression that creative heights are achieved in only very brief periods and that too in certain select directions. After that, there seem to be only the valleys, stretching out in space and time, where men remember and repeat that which was achieved for once and all by the old masters. The history of creativity in cultures and civilizations, thus, shows a double facet. On the one hand, it reveals the exhaustion. of possibilities in a particular direction after Ns@hich there is only repetition, perhaps refinement, but no further gros@,th or devel-

The Concept of Development 187 oprnent. On the other hand, there seem breakthroughs in new directions which achieve a different kind of perfection or ex- cellence than the one achieved before. This may be achieved in the same culture when there is an awareness of past achieve- nient and of the break with it, or in a different culture at a different place or time where no such awareness may exist, or, even where it exists, there is no feeling of break with it as it does not form part of the consciousness of the tradition within which one works. The concepts of growth and development, thus, appear to find their natural application in the case of the former, though they tend to be extended to apply to the latter also. Only, the extension always appears forced and seems to demand a justification which seldom is forthcoming and, even when forthcoming, appears to be rarely satisfactory. The history of art provides a classic example of such dilemmas. One may, for example, reasonably maintain that the Parthenon is the cul- mination of Greek architecture and its greatest achievement, but how should it be judged in relation to the masterpieces of renaissance architecture which were built with a feeling of self-conscious continuity with the Greek past, however mistaken it might have been? This remains a difficult and debated question. The comparison of Greek or renaissance master- pieces with those that are known as Gothic raises problems of even a more perplexing kind. The two seem so different in form, spirit and composition that one wonders if anything is gained by the comparison, except the awareness of a difference in achieved excellence or greatness. But, whatever the diffi- culties, they still belong to a tradition whose historic continuity with each other can be documented and traced. On the other hand, any attempt at comparison with the masterpieces- of a historically different tradition, say, that of India or China, would create even greater difficulties. How shall we determine which is greater or more developed, and in terms of what? The simultaneous awareness of the achievements of different times and cultures seems simultaneously to challenge one to compare and also frustrate the attempt to do so. The same situation obtains in the realm of religion also. How shall t one compare , he great religions, each of which claims both absoluteness and finality, es@en in terms of history? Who

188 - Political Developme@it shall determine which is better or more developed, and on what grounds? The attempt at intercultural comparison leads to the search for transcultural criteria in terms of which a con,- parative evaluation may be made. But to talk of transcultural criteria is to talk of universal standards in terms of which not only may everything be judged, but which may also be treated as an ideal which everything is trying to approximate and realize to some extent or other. The radical difference in the case of historical religions in this respect is that they make the. claim that the ideal has already been completely and finally realized and that every religion before and after it can be judged in terms of it. Yet, the very fact that the dream of an oecumenical religion acceptable to all has vanished from the minds of the most optimistic votaries of any religion has resulted in a situation where, however deeply one might be convinced of the superiority of one's own religion, one cannot but be aware that others think differently and that one has to live with these differences. The situation is found in the field of art also, though not perhaps to the same extent. There are persons who think that the art they are familiar with is the only art worthy of being called by that name, and that the art of all other civilizations and cultures should be judged in terms of it. Greek and re- naissance art were put on that pedestal by western art critics at one ti,.,ne, though the parochialness of that view has long been exposed by now. Yet, this exposure has been brought about by that very encounter with the arts of diverse cultures and civilizations which, in the first instance, had resulted in the almost total rejection of everything alien as 'barbaric', 'un- civilized', "underdeveloped'. The first impulse at. rejection gradually gave way to the feeling of 'alternative validity', and still later to a search for those universal excellences of form which are the creators of real aesthetic value, apart from the specific content which may be said to vary from one civilization to another. The practitioners of art, on the other hand, have perhaps always been less parochial than the so-called connoisseurs and critics. They have always tended to incorporate from an alien tradition what they thought could successfully be blended with their, own. There may appear here a certain'difference

The Concept of Development 189 with the religious practitioner who usually tends to be more Drthodox and dogmatic in his preferences. All religions have had the notions of 'heresy' and 'heretics, but it will be difficult to find their counterpart amongst practitioners of art, where creative novelty has always been prized over dull repetition. Still, the encounter between different religions, specially those that are regarded as 'major' or 'great', has not been without influence because of the awareness of each on the part of the others. The mutual interaction in India between Islam and Hinduism on the one hand, and Hinduism and Christianity on the other, may be seen as examples of the truth of this assertion. The emergence of e notion of Christian Sanyasa in such Jesuit Fathers in southern India as Father Mochanin and Le Saux, as well as the various reforniist movements in Hinduism under the influence of Christianity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, starting with Ram Mohun Roy, are all evidence of such interaction. Earlier, the interaction between Islam and Hinduism in India had given rise to many sects in both the religions which were frankly syncretistic in character. Similar examples could easily be found from encounters between other religions also. Yet, though examples can be found of mutual modification and influence in the field of religion, tl-iey certainly seem less numerous than in other fields such as art or philosophy or science. And this may perhaps be because the deepest identification of man uptil now in history has been with his religion rather than with anything else. However it be, it is clear that the concept of developn-ient does not seem to be equally relevant to all domaiiis in which it may be sought to be applied. The cases of art and religion we have already examined to some extent. They may. however, be regarded as relating to realms of feeling and emotion where ultimately everything may be considered a matter of taste. But the situation in philosophy, which at leastprimafacie is supposed to be the rational cognitive enterprise par excellence, seems no different. If one were, to ask oneself the question whether there has been any development in philosophy or not, one would be hard put to answer it either way. Whitchead's well-known remark about all philosophy being footnotes to Plato epitomizes this feeling. Similar is the feeling expressed by the equally well- knowledge that in philosophy one is either a Platonist or an

190 Political Development Aristotelian. Yet, there is also the repeated spectacle of 1 philosopher starting de novo on foundations which appear to him not only firmer and surer,' but unassailable in principle. Also, there have been recent. claims for showing the 'nonsensical' character of most previous philosophy as the cognitive claims it made were unverifiable in principle. On the other hand, there are even more recent claims of the inalienability of metaphysics and a revival of interest in on 'tology. But, however different these claims and counter-claims may b.e, they all add up to the same thing. And that is the denial' of cumulative growth or development in philosophical knowledge. The repeated search for absolute beginnings shows this as clearly as anything could. Also, how could one take seriously the claims to growth and development in a subject whose practitioners seriously state the literally 'nonsensical' character of almost all its achievement in the past? .Philosophical knowledge, then, seems to share with art and religion the dubious distinction of being resistant to the facile application of the notion of development to its domain. The answer to the simple question, 'what is the status of a past achievement in the face of the present one?', may be taken as a rough indication of the applicability ofthe notion of 'develop- ment' relevantly to a domain. But philosophy is a domain where, like art or religion, the latter does not necessarily sup- plant the former. A Plato or a Kant remains as relevant to philosophical thought as a Russell or a Wittgenstein. True, no problem in philosophy remains the same after the shock administered by a great thinker, but the latter never replaces the former. The contrast with natural sciences in this context is revealing in the extreme. A student of physics is not only not bothered about the physics of Aristotle or even that of Newton today, but he knows that he shall not gain anything worthwhile with respect to the knowledge of physical phenomena by any such knowledge. A philosopher, on the other -hand, could never say such a thing. The history of philosophy is not an accidental adjunct to the teaching or understanding of philosophy. Rather, it is central to it, as was so well understood by Hegel and per- haps, in d sense, by Aristotle also. The tradition of developing philosophical thought by the method of writing commentaries on an older text in India evinces perhaps the same situation.

The Concept of DeveloPment 191 The contrast between philosophy and the natural sciences in respect of the development of knowledge is too glaring to be missed by anybody. In fact, it has led many to doubt if philo- sophy could legitimately be regarded as an instance of know- ledge at all. But what about the social sciences? A nagging doubt seems to haunt the social sciences that however much they try to be 'scientific', they do not become 'sciences' at all. There seems to be no feeling of cumulative growth of know- ledge, which is a feature of the natural sciences. There are, of course, radical differences between the various social sciences in this regard. Economies, demography and linguistics appear to be closer to 'the ideal of achieving some sort of cumulative growth of knowledge in their fields. But, whatever the indivi- dual differences in this regard between the different social sciences, there seems little doubt that they are regarded as belonging to the cognitive domain or as a part of the cognitive enterprise of man. There is a peculiarity regarding the application of the, notion of 'development' to these fields which, unless clearly under- stood,, may give rise to ambiguities and perplexities that are difficult to resolve. The concept of 'development' in many fields may be applied either to phenomena belonging to the field itself or to the knowledge about the phenomena or both. One may, for example, legitimately talk about economic de-vel- opment, meaning thereby the rise in national or per capita income, or more egalitarian distribution of income or any other criterion or set of criteria that one may choose to adopt. On the other hand, one may equally w@ll talk of developments in the-field of economic theory or in the methods of collecting economic data or in that of their interpretation. The two, however, are independent of each other and refer to different domains which should not be confused with each other. There can, in fact, be advances in economic theory along with sub- stantial retardation in economic development, judged by any of the criteria that are usually adopted for measuring the, phenomenon. A similar situation obtains in almost all the social sciences and disciplines relating to the humanities, as the phenomena they study have themselves a qualitative aspect because of vhich it is impossible _not to apply to. them the adjectives

192 Political bevelopment 'better' and 'worse'. Such a situation, on the other hand, does not obtain with respect to the phenomena studied in the natural sciences. There does not seem any sense in applying the terms.'developed', 'undeveloped's or 'underdeveloped' to the sort of phenomena studied in, say, physics or chemistry or astronomy. The situation may seem a little ambiguous within the realm of phenomena studied by the life sciences. Can the concept of 'development" be relevantly applied to the emergence of new species, or the adjectives 'better' and 'worse'. to what we find happening in the field of phenomena pertaining to life? The emergence of life may be regarded as valuable in that it provides both the precondition for the application of the value-judgment and the actual application of its occasion as well. Still, without the emergence of reflective self-consciousness in man, the phenomena of life would only provide the potentiality fo@ such occurrence, and not its actuality. And, in case the potentiality itself is taken into account, the whole set of physical and chem- ical preconditions necessary. for the emergence of life would have to be treated as events to which the idea of 'development' would be regarded as relevantly applicable. Man, in that case, would become the measure of all things, and the process leading to him, whether at the physical, chen-dcal or biological level, would be treated as 'developmental'. Within humanity, one could then choose one's own religion 'or culture or nation as providing the measuring rod in terms of which historical devel- opment could be traced and others placed at a suitable location on the line of development depending on their relative distance from that which has been taken as therneasure of development. The ethnocentric and parochial character of the latter exer- cise is known to most thinkers, and we have already seen its untenability in the realm of art, religion and philosophy in our earlier discussion of them. In the earlier discussion on evolu- tion, we made the same point that the distinction between 'more developed' and 'less developed' is difficult to draw amongst different species except in terms of survival which, excluding those that have become extinct, each species manages to achieve. The question whether any notion of 'development' can escape the charge of parochialism or ethnocentrism is too difficult to be decided with finality here. But what can be said with reasonable certainty is, (1) that.the notion of 'develop-

The Concept of Development 193 inent' is only derivatively applicable, if at all, to the, realm of the inorganic; (2) that within the realm of 'living beings', the application of the notion is primarily projective, in the sense that it is the qualities regarded as desirable amongst human beings or for the achievement of their purposes which are projected on to the animal world in considering. them 'developed' or not; (3) that while the concepts of 'growth' and 'development' arise naturally in the context of human life in all its myriad manifestations, it does not apply with equal relevance to all the fields which emerge because of human interaction and creativity. In fact, if there are to be any struc- tural parameters of the human condition, then it may be regarded as axiomatic that there are some constraints in the situation in respect of which any use of the notion of develop- ment makes no sense. But if it is so, then it becomes imperative that such areas be clearly demarcated so that the range of expectancy in relation to them may not go beyond bounds and feed on impossible illusions. Even for sheer ontological equality, it is necessary that in some respects at least not only all individuals, but all societies be the same or rather find them- selves in the same situation. The privilege of being the latter should not confer advantages in all domains; just as for those whose philosophy of history makes them see it as a continuous decline from some golden past, it should not be seen as con- ferring disadvantages only on those who, through no fault of their own, happen to live in a later period. To put it in other words, the sheer passage of time should not be treated in such a way as to confer uniform advantages or disadvantages on all domains of human effort and endeavour. Robert Nisbet has discussed some of these issues in great detail and exposes the difficulties inherent in the notion of change when 'it is made subject to the fundamental concepts- of developmentalism'. 9 In the last chapter entitled 'Reflections on a Metaphor', he suggests that 'the usefulness of the metaphor of'growth is determined by the cognitive distance of the object to which the metaphor is applied. The larger, the more general, abstract, and distant in experience the object of our interest, the greater the utility of the metaphor. Conversely, the smaller, more concrete, finite, and empirical our object, the less the metaphor's utility."0'The relevance and utility of the metaphor~

194 Political Development of growth are in dire-et proportion to the cognitive distance of the subject to which the metaphor is applied.... The less the cognitive distance, the less the relevance and utility of the metaphor. In other words, the more concrete, empirical, and behavioural our subject matter, the less the applicability to it of the theory of development and its several conceptual elements."' And, as reality is that which is concrete and empirical, the concepts of growth and development cannot be applied to it. In case the attempt is made'to apply them under the mistaken impression that they are so applicable, as many social scientists have attempted to do, it can only lead to disaster. Basically, it is a metaphor derived from organic pro- cesses which, if taken seriously and applied to the social realm, would lead to a distorted understanding of their nature. It would be what he has called the abuse of i metaphor, for basically it is irrelevant to the phenomena to which it is being applied,12 In fact, even in the realm of the organic, the meta- phor can only be relevantly applied to the individual and not to the species, though Nisbet does not seem quite clear about it. However, Nisbet has accepted the uses of the metaphor. He has no doubt that it is applicable to processes in the abstract, specially when they are supposed to cover a vast, large field which is distant from the concerns of our immediate interests. One wonders how Nisbet conceives of th c relation between the abstract and the concrete in the field of knowledge. It is obvious that he cannot bifurcate the two in such a manner as to have absolutely no relation with each other. The purpose of the abstract formulation is to illuminate the concrete, just as the use of the concrete is to test the ad@'quacy or validity of the abstract formulation. If the metaphor is irrelevant to'concrete phenomena, it is equally irrelevant to the abstract formulation; and if it is held to be relevantly applicable to the latter, then it cannot be entirely irrelevant to the former. The issue is important, for Nisbet seems to be assuming that the concrete can be understood without the help of the abstract, which is contrary to the history of understanding in any field. Further, he seems to have a strange notion of the abstract, in that he thinks that any entity that is too large to be apprehended by some immediate intuition ether sensuous or ,@ @vh otherwise, can- not be regarded as concrete or empirical in character. While

The Concept of Development 195 discussing Lynn Thorndike's History of Civilization, Nisbet points out that 'we are dealing with an abstract entity given body by attributes drawn from a score of civilizations- technology, arts, agriculture, writing, philosophy, fine arts, etc. and the historically concrete civilizations are used only as periodic incarnations, as it were, of the single entity, civiliza- tion. We are not studying, not really, despite appearances, the Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, Romans,' and other peoples. We are studying Civilization in its successive and fleeting resting places in Egypt, Greece, China and elsewhere.".' One may be led from this to assume that Nisbet would at least grant historical concreteness to such civilizations as the Egyptian, the Greek, the Roman or the Chinese. But, basically, he seems averse to such an acceptance; though, to be more accurate, it n-iight be said that he fluctuates in his attitude and at least positively rejects it in the sense in which an metaphor of y ' growth or decline could be,relevantly predicated of it. He says 'we should feel lost, most of us, without the accustomed civiliza- tion-one of Spengler's eight, one of Toynbee's twenty-one civilizations-that came into being (genesis), that matured to fullness (development orgrowth), that in time suffered decay through forces endemic in Roman polity and culture, and then withered and perished, fit consequence for Rome's never having cured itself of the diseases to which it fell heir in middle age."4 The irony is obvious, but perhaps it is even more ironic that the same Nisbet, who waxes so eloquent about the abuses and irrelevance in the application of the metaphors of growth and decay to the study of societies, himself succumbs to it in his book Twilight of Authori@y. The adverse judgment on Spengler, Toynbee and others for their gross misuse of metaphor is almost reversed. It is strange to find the author asking, 'Has the West, in each of its nations, reached by now the condition prophesied by these and other n-tinds of the past?' and answer- ing, 'There is much reason to believe so, and it would require a totally closed mind to be insensitive to the increase at the present time in forebodings of the future.".' He feels it enlighten- ing to compare the present age with what 'Sir Gilbert.Murray found in another of history's twilight ages, the age of social disintegration and militarism that followed the Peloponnesian wars in ancient Greece and the consequent breakdown of the

196 Political Development Athe&ian Polis'.16 The 'repudiation of the political state and of the wlhc)le Pattern of thinking that has been associated with the state for more than two centuries' on the part of modern youth is supposed to have an illuminating parallel in Greece where ,the , breakdown of the Ale-xendrian Empire ... was associated with the eruption of numerous otherworldly, often frankly irrationalist, faithsl.17 The inevitability of the use of the meta- phors of.growtl-i, development and decay in a comparative conte@l.t seenis thus as transparent here as it could possibly be. Nisbef, for all his fulminations against the comparative method and tihe abuse of the metaphor in the writings of Rostow,l" Levy,@9 Smelser,2(1 and Parsons,21 himself appears to succumb to the same temptations, albeit half a decade later. . HO,@vevcr, the deeper point made by Nisbet in his earlier book is the contention that unless some sort of an immanent telos i@ Posited for societies or civilizations, the so-called notions of g'ro'@ th and development or of decline and decay cannot be applied to them. And it is his firm conviction that any impartial look @at the evidence which history provides does not sub- stanti@Lte any such contention. On the contrary, history, ac- cordidg to hirn, supports just the opposite conclusion. Change is, generally, the result of an external intrusion, something which cannot but be treated as 'accidental' from the internal viewpoint Of the system concerned. According to him: 'change is, ho@vever@ not "natural," not normal, much less ubiquitous and c(nstant. FiXity iS.122 'If we were Newtonians we could say with lgewton that "every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change thatstate by forces impressed upon it".'2" Change is, of course, not to be confused with 'mere motion, activity, move- ment, interaction'.24 'These, beyond any doubt, are constant and ubiqu@tOus.-13ut none of them, as a moment's thought tells us, is synonymous with change.125 Any change which can be con- sidere(i Of notable significance, 'is intermittent rather than continuous niutational, even explosive, rather than the simple accun@ulatioil of internal variational And, such a significant change 'is overwhelmingly the result of non-developmental factors; that is to say, factors inseparable from external events and intMSi@nS'.27 Basically, the notion of change in the context of the theories

The Concept of Development 197 of development involves the related concepts of immanence, 'Continuity. directionality, necessity, and uniforrnitarianism without which it could hardly be stated, far less developed in any detail. But history as an account of concrete events fixedly anchored in specific space and time does not provide any evidence, according to Nisbet, of the meaningful applicability of such concepts. As he argues, 'the language of history ad- mittedly is not to be converted into the language of develop- mentalism with its hoary concepts and premises of immanence, continuity, directionality, necessity, and uniformitarianism.'28 And this is so,. for 'there is no historical evidence that macro-changes in time are the cumulative results ofsmall-scale, linear micro-changes.'29 The dilemma posed by Nisbet seems too forced to be accepted unreservedly. That the concepts of growth and development cannot be relevantly applied to any field whatsoever, seems an over-reaction to the unabashed claims of its unrestricted application. True, there seems little justification for the un- limited application of the notions of immanence, continuity, directionality, necessity and uniforrnitarianism which go to form what may be called 'the development syndrome'. But to argue that the application of the constellation of these concepts is impossible in principle would be to argue that they are self- contradictory in nature, for without that it is difficult to see how the contention could possibly he maintained. Yet, there is nothing logically self-contradictory about them. At least Nisbet has not shown that it is so. But even on the historical plane, his argument does not appear to be as well-grounded as h c thinks. It is not true to say that over short periods of concrete historical time, we do not apprehend mutual interaction which is primarily internal to the system. The development in philoso- phical thought f@om Thales to Aristotle in -a -ncient Greece 'or from Kant to Hegel in Germany may be given as one example of this. Developments in science from Galileo onwards, or in distinct domains of art in, say, the renaissance or nineteenth- century France could be treated as other examples. And, even if one were not to accept these as correct examples of growth or development, one could find others in these or other domains, for surely no one believes that all- human creations are of the same Borders or that they have no relation@ to each other. Simildrly, it is e-qually wrong for Nisbet to think that 'the 14

198 Political Development larger, the more general, abstract, and distant in experience the object of our interest,. the greater the utility of 'the meta- phor,.30 But as we have shown in some detail, this is not true. In the fields of religion, morality, art and philosophy there is not much impression of growth or development when we apprehend things in the longer, and the larger, perspective. True, even in those short centuries of actual history when growth is. undeniable in a particular field, it does not reveal itself as either immanent or necessary except to.a retrospective glance which may reconstruct the story in terms of those con- cepts. On the other hand, there is a continuity and direction- ality without which no notion of growth or development would be applicable. As for uniforrrfitarianism it is applicable only in the comparative context when it is argued that there are similar stages in the growth or evolution of different societies or cultures. The concepts enumerated by Nisbet have thus to he differentiated, for while some of them may be regarded as intrinsic to the notion of growth and development, others are required only for a particular variety of the theory of history which tries to interpret the diverse, multifarious phenomena from a certain perspective only. Whenever, therefore, we find continuity, and directionality we may talk of growth or development, provided We have a positive attitude towards the direction which the process is taking.* However, even when such a situation obtains, the prediction may take two very different forms. In one, the move- ment is from a negative state to a positive one which itself can be completely realized. In the other form, the positive state functions more as an ideal which may be approximated but never actualized. The classic example- of the former is the movement from disease to health; there are myriad ways of being ill, but there is only one way of being healthy. Also, one cannot be more or less healthy, though one may say loosely that one is more or less ill, implying thereby either the severity

The Concept of Development 199 of the illness concerned or its distance from possible fatal con- sequences for the person concerned. The closest analogy to the situation with respect to health may be found in 'winning', where also one cannot win more or less, as one either wins or fails to win. There is, of course, the radical difference that 'winning' has a finality about it which 'being healthy' does not. A game that has been won can ndver, be lost, but one may lose the health one has gained almost the very next moment. On the other hand, there are ideals which one never seems to actualize, or rather, which can never be actualized but only more or less'approximated, though even to talk of 'approxima- tion' in their case is unwarranted as one knows them chiefly in the negative sense of dissatisfaction with 'what is', rather than positively as apprehension of 'what ought to be'. In their case, the notion of development implies a movement from positive to positive in an unending series where the latter generally seems to embody more of the positive than the earlier. This, of course, need not necessarily be the case as there may be stagna- tion or decline in the sense that either nothing new has been added, and there is only, a repetition of what was achieved earlier, or even a.loss through extraneous processes interfering with the transmission to new generations of what was earlier achieved by the culture. The latter, of course, may interfere with transmission in all domains, for it is a characteristic of all that is culturally acquired that, unless transmitted from one generation to another, it may lapse into complete oblivion incapable of being resuscitated by later generations even if they wish to do so. 1 There is, however, a sharp difference even in this realm of ideals which can never be completely actualized and which thus provides the possibility of indefinite development to man in many fields of his activities in which he engages both indi- vidually and collectively in the course of history. There are 'lms which do not permit of the application of the notion of rea cumulative growth where the latter builds on the earlier and includes it as an integral part of itself. The seeking in many of these realms may be rather to break away from.the past, to get rid of it and to create something new having little relation to what has gone before, or even an express repudiation of it. Art, religion, morality and philosophy are almost paradigmatic * It is not being denied that there are 'non-yaluational' and even 'dis-valua-tional' uses of the term, but they are of little relevance to the issue we are discussing.In the former case, only the Quantitative aspect is being emphasized, while in thelatter, there is a directionality, though in the negative direction. 'Growth in POPU-lation' may be taken as an example of the former, while the 'growth of a tumour'or the, 'progress of a disease' exemplifies the latter.

200 Political Development examples of such realms and we have already discussed them in detail earlier. The poin't here is that in these doma ns what appears later in time does not supplant the one' that was achieved earlier. Rather, the two together reveal the infinite inexhaustibility of the realm, instead of any unilinear growth towards an ideal where the latter may be taken as a closer approximation, for it contains within itself not only the"truth of all that has gone before, but goes beyond it.also. The oh jection may he made that the contrast we are drawing cannot be sustained by a closer examination of the situation. To the historian's eye, the situation is never as discontinuous as we have tried to make it out to be. After all the techniques once discovered or values once apprehended or the solutions once proposed become as much a part of the patrimony of ma;ikind which later generations are necessarily heir to, and which they may use in any way they like. On tl-ic other hand, the so-called incremental, cumulative model of growth where the latter inevitably contains the truth of the earlier and is in this sense the truer, has come in for serious questioning even in the realm of scientific knowledge which was regarded as the paradigmatic example of the continuous, linear, cumulative, developmental model. Kiihn's attack on the models' may be said to have demolished at least the so-called self-evident character of the assumption. However, the debate that has followed Kuhn's ideas shows that while it is true that there are predominant paradigms of explanation at any one period in the history of science, and that scientists are not easily willing to give up their theories even in the-face of facts that seemingly disprove them, the distinction between,'normal' and 'revolutionary' science is not very tenable. Not only is there no such thing as an exclusive paradigm of explanation at any stage in the history of science but even after revolutionary change in the so-called 'paradigms of explanation', the facts which were explained by the former theories are explained by the, newer ones also.3? In other words, the theories still retain commensurate compar- ability, and the earlier never stands alongside the latter as demanding cognitive allegiance, except as a creation of the human mind in which context it becomes more like a work of an as @a 'tool for discovering the. truth about ' ific art th a spec domain, which all cognitive theory purports to be.

The Concept of Development 201 The question, thus, is not of continuity or discontinuity, of sudden revolutionary breaks or of imperceptible incremental growth, but of the status of the earlier achievement after the latter has come into being. Has it to be necessarily superseded or has the earlier to be subsumed under the latter, or can the two stand side by side without involving either of the alterna- tives? There can be little doubt that there are substantial differences in this respect between different realms,. and that the cognitive enterprise in the field of science is the example par excellence of the situation where the latter necessarily claims to supersede.the former and, if accepted, actually does so. We need not labour any further in establishing the contention that the concept of development is not equally applicable to all realms of human seeking, whether cognitive or otherwise. The crucial question which therefore remains to be answered is whether the realm dealt with by the science of politics is of such a nature as to permit the application of the concept of 'development' to itself. And our answer to this question is in the negative,-for the simple reason that the only relevant dis- tinction here is -between 'good government' and 'bad govern- ment', and not 'between' a 'developed polity' and an 'un- developed polity', as many contemporary political scientists seem to think. And though it is difficult to say that there are not 'varieties of goodness' or even 'more or less of goodness', Socrates was perhaps not wrong in the Platonic dialogues when he denied both. Perhaps 'the body politic' is really like 'the body' which has a thousand ways of being ill, but only one way of being healthy. Analogies may deceive, but they may illumine as well. And 1 see no reason why the analogy with individual health need be regarded as'more misleading than illuminating. In fact, in a recent discussion Fred Riggs has taken recourse to the same analogy, though he has chosen to draw different conclusions from it. He observes that 'if,we compare health with development, then we can see that a balance of height and weight is a consideration-even an important considera- tion in determining health'.33 He, of course, explicitly warns.. 'my thinking about the prismatic model and the relation of differentiation to integration, is, not derived from the body metaphor just used, but perhaps the metaphor can appro- priately be employed to show that we are dealing with differentgm @AOi@1

202 Political Development variables, and none of them imply unilinearity or irreversibi- lity.'34 True, but there is a deeper dissimilarity with the metaphor in that the concept of development does not seem applicable to health except in the indirect sense of reducing illness, creating institutional mechanisms for its prevention and cure, and increasing longevity. In this article, Riggs has tried to meet the objections 1 had raised in the course of the debate and attempted to clarify further h is own notion of 'political development'. It may, therefore, not be entirely irrelevant to discuss his final position as stated in this paper. He suggests that the word 'development' in the political context be confined to connote 'an increasing ability to make and carry out collective decisions affecting the environment (not the context)'.35 The crucial concepts i@ the definition are those of 'collective decision', 'environment', and 'context'. As the distinction between 'environment' and 'con- text' is crucial to this new move in the definition of 'political development', we may devote some time to its clari cation. The ecological dimension which the term 'environment' intro- duces in considerations of political decision-making requires that 'both the cultural and the human environment need to be added to the physical environment in order to form an adequate picture of the ecology of politicalladministrative action.'313 But while it is necessary to include 'cultural and human environment in the concept of "environment", it is equall necessary to exclude from its definition all other social ,Y systems with which it interacts,' for they are what is meant by the term 'context'.37 Clarifying the notion of 'context' further by providing specific examples, Riggs observes, 'thus the context of nation-states is the international system. Within India, the context of Rajasthan is other Indian States, and the context ofjaipur is-other Indian cities.'38 But, if taken scriousl' the examples would make nonsense yy of the distinction between 'context' and 'environment' on which Riggs' whole argument rests. If every 'social system' with which one interacts is to be included in the 'context', it is difficult to see how anything except the hare physical en- vironmen't can be excluded from it, for surely it is not the contention of Riggs that there could 'be 'cultural or human environment' which was not anchored in a social system. One

The Concept of Development 203 could also argue@ conversely, that there can hardly be a social system without human or cultural components. But this would be, to accept the contention. that the distinction between 'con- text', and 'environment' on which Riggs' whole argument is built@ is untenable at its very foundations. It could perhaps be saved by treating it as an analytic distinction which applies to all institutions having on one side thefunction of power which they have to exercise vis-b.-vis all other institutions for pur- poses of survival and growth, along with the other aspect which Riggs has called the capacity of 'self-determination'. In his own words,.'My view of development, accordingly, is that it involves a growing understanding of both constraints and resources of the environment. Moreover, and this is often the critical element in development, a society may choose to do things that change its environment so as to reduce the c ement of constraint and increase the element of resources, thereby expanding its own capacity to make decisions that will enlarge the scope of its own sej-determination.'311 And he makes it clear that 'the relation between a system and its context is governed by '.'power", not by levels of development'. 40 It is not, howc.ver, quit6 clear what will be gained by treating the distinction as analytic rather than substantive in character. Power relations are involved everywhere, and they themselves are determined by that capacity of decision-making and self- determination which are considered by Riggs as the distinctive characteristics of the development of a,polity. Riggs seems to have an unstated metaphysical belief that any real increase in the capacity of 'self-determination' or 'effective decision- making' on the part of a polity would not result in its domina- tion over, or aggrandizement and exploitation of other polities. He is, of course, vaguely aware that it may not be so. He almost concedes as much when he writes that 'this is not to say that development and aggrandizement are unrelated to each other. A, developing country may, certainly, choose to enhance its military capabilities and use them to subject and exploit others.' But he salves his conscience by calling such a possibility. a negative' development,." little realizing that it completely undermines the, unbridgeable divide between 'context' and 'environment'pn which he built the whole edifice of his argu- rnent in reply to my criticism. To introduce the .-notions of 1 -11~ g@

204 Political Development 'positive' and 'negative' development and to correlate them with 'environment' and 'context', is to go counter not only to the radical distinction between the latter on which the hard core, of his argument rested, but also to that neutral definition of development with which he started his clarification, when lie wrote: 'I think it is helpful to use the word "development" for a kind of change that can be clearly identified, but which one may approve or disapprove of for vari.ous-reasons-it may combine beneficial with harmful consequences; and it may affect some more favourably than others.'42 And, 'to use the word "development" for a decision-making capability is there- fore to recognize differences in values and goals-it is not to accord any particular output of decision-makii@g (such as economic growth) the honor of serving as a criterion for development'. 43 But if no particular output can be given such honour, why should we call one type of development 'positive' and the other 'negative', or one 'responsible' and the other 'irrespon- sible'? Riggs has made both the distinctions and thus succumbed to the same temptation which he accuses others of succumbing to, that is, to make the concept of 'development' value-loaded rather than value-neutral We have already alluded to the former distinction while discussing his attempt at distinguishing between 'context' and 'environment'. The latter distinction he makes in the,context of whether the collective decisions taken by a society take into account their long-run consequences on the environment or not. As he says, 'not to consider the long-run consequences of the impact on one's environment of the decisions taken by a society is to manifest irresponsible development; to adapt one's policies affecting environmental transformations to the long- term requirements of survival is to engage in responsible devel- opment.'44 One wonders how Riggs would characterize collec- tive decisions taken by a polity Which ignore the consequences on its 'context', whether short-term or long-term, and how he would distinguish between those that ignore only the long-term consequences and take into account only those that are short- term. It would perhaps be still more inconvenient to ask how short is the short-term and how long the long-term for decisions to be characterized as 'responsible' or 'irresponsible'. To raise these questions is not only to reveal the irresponsibly casual

The Concept of Development 205 way in which Riggs has made distinctions, but also to show the utter untenability of his attempt to provide a formal notion of 'political development' which would steer clear of all the pitfalls pointed out in my critique of his earlier formulations. 45 It appears then that the concept of development has not only to be positively value-laden for it to be interesting to thinkers for application to social phenomena, but also that it has to be buttressed by 'premises of immanence, continuity, directionality, necessity, and uniformitarianism',46 which most thinkers find extremely questionable. Besides these, what is perhaps even more important for the application of the concept is the requirement that the specific field of its application be defined by a value which is of such a nature that it can possibly be realized through a process of infinite, additive accretion which can be computed through some common measure in terms of which the concerned value may find its quantitative correlate for measurement. The realm of the political, along with many others, does not seem defined by any such value and hence, as we have shown in detail in all these pages, the concept of 'Political development'. is not a viable concept for the study of political phenomena. The criteria that have been offered uptil now have been shown to be untenable, and there can be little hope of finding any unless it be first established that the value or values sought to be realized in the field of politics are of such a nature as to permit not only asymptotic growth but the devising of a common measure in terms of which that growth may be measured. Till such time as this is established, the search for criteria is bound to be fruitless; and there are reasons to think that, if the arguments advanced in the course of this book have any validity, the situation is irremediable not only as a matter of fact, but in principle. This, hoWdVet. need be no cause for despondency for, as we have shown in this last chapter, the same situation prevails in many other areas which are not only dear to the human heart, but which may even be said to make man more distinctively human.~ A~ 1, l@4A

206 1. Charles Tilly (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton: Prinecton University Press, 1975), pp. 619-20. 2. Ibid., p. 618. 3. Ibid., p. 615. 4. An interesting critique of the repeated attempts to find a common spirit between different works of art is found in Ren@ Wellek's, 'The Parallelism between Literature and the Arts', a'lccture delivered at The English Institute, and printed in W. K. Wimsatt (ed.), Literap Criticis;n-idea and Act (Berkeley.. University of California Press, 1974). 5. Daya Krishna, Considerations Towards a Theory of Social Change (Bombay: Manaktalas, 1965). See specially chapters V & VI, pp.. 103-57. 6. Tilly, p. 15. 7. Ibid.,, p. 618. 8. Ibid., p. 630. 9. Robert A. Nisbet, Social Change and History (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. V-U-. 10. Ibid., p. 241. Italics author's. 11. Ibid., p. 267. 12. Ibid.> pp. 251, 267. 13. Ibid., p. 245. Italics author's.' 14. Ibid., p. 249. 15. Robert Nisbet, Twilight of Authority (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 8. 16. Ibid., p. 9. 17. Ibid., p. 1 1. 18. Nisbet, Social Change and History, pp. 253-6. 19. Ibid., pp. 256-9. 20. Ibid., pp. 259-62. 21. Ibid., pp. 262-6. 22. Ibid., p. 270. Italics author's. 23. Ibid., p. 270. 24. Ibid., p. 27f. 25. Ibid., pp. 271-2. Italics author's. 26. Ibid., pp. 281-2. 27. Ibid., p. 280. Italics mine. 28. Ibid., p. 203. 29. Ibid., p. 288. Italics author's. 30. Ibid., p. 241. 31. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific &volutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). 32. Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge.. Cambridge University Press, 1970). See also, Brian Easlec, Liberation and the Air@u of Science (London. Chatto & Windus, 1973). 33. Fred W. Riggs, 'Further considerations on "Development"-A Comment. on Daya Krishna's comment', A .dministrative Change, vol. 4, no. 1 (July-Dec. 76), p. 8. Also, see the whole. controversy in Adrninistratim Change, vol. 1, no. 2Political Development NOTESn Tize ConPept of Development

207 (Dec. 1973); vol. 11, no. 1 (June 1974); vol. 11, no. 2 and vol. Ill, no. 2. 34. Ibid., p. 8. 35. Ibid., p. 2. 36. Ibid., p. 4. 37. Ibid., p. 6. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid., p. 5. Italics mine. 40@. Ibid., p. 6. 41. Riggs, 'But when it uses its growing capacity in this way, it manifests "nega- tive", not "positive", development', p. 6. 42. Ibid., p. 2. @3. Ibid., p. 3. Italics mine. 44. Ibid., p. 5.. Italics author's. 45. Daya Krishna, 'Shall we be diffracted?@A critical comment. on Fred Rigg@'s "Prismatic Societies and Public Administratior@"', Administrative Change, vol. 11, no. 1 and 'Towards a saner view of "Development" ', vol. 3, no. 2. 46. Robert Nisbet, Social Change and History, p. 303. cl 1g@~1@@7@G~End of Book