1.1. The Key Concepts: Differentiation and Rationalization

The classical theory of modernization is based on the general evolutionary assumption that modernization is the result of differentiation and rationalization. However, the extent to which these processes are necessary aspects of modernization is an open question. Discussion of modernization must at least ask about the extent to which dedifferentiation and derationalization are also developmental processes that characterize modern societies.^[1] If these counterprocesses can be shown to be part of modernization, then differentiation and rationalization are only two among the many possible results of the evolution of modern society. They then lose the explanatory power that is attributed to them in classical modernization theory.

The real problem is that differentiation and rationalization are not variables explaining modernization, but processes needing explanation. In other words, I propose that differentiation and rationalization are not causes, but effects of modernization. My strategy is to look for the processes producing and reproducing these effects. The theoretical starting point is to look first for the modus operandi, a generative structure of

[1] For recent contributions to the theory of modernization in terms of differentiation see Smelser 1985 and Luhmann 1982; for modernization theory in terms of rationalization see, among others, Habermas 1981 and Schluchter 1981. For the theoretical problems posed by the processes of dedifferentiation and reenchantment see Tiryakian (this volume); pleas for reenchantment are found (among many others) in Berman 1984 and Moscovici 1976.

modernity, and then for the opus operatum, that is, differentiation and rationalization as possible outcomes.^[2]

I start by restating two classical problems of sociological theorizing. The first is the Durkheimian problem of relating the process of social differentiation to the conditions producing it.^[3] How does differentiation come about? What forces underline the process? Durkheim's answer is unsatisfactory: he takes demographic growth and increasing social density as the central causal variables for the progressive dissolution of collective consciousness (and the individualization resulting from it). Thus the key to explaining modernization is ultimately demography, something nonsocial (but as we know, socially produced!).

The second problem is the Weberian problem of relating process of rationalization to the social conditions producing it.^[4] How does rationalization come about? Weber gives a historical answer. He identifies specific social groups as the carriers of the process and then relates these groups to the general social structures, that is, the system of status, class, and power. Thus modernization is explained through the more or less contingent historical emergence of specific social groups. For Weber it is history that ultimately explains modernization.

The alternative theoretical approach to Durkheim and Weber is that of Marx. Marx's theory states that the evolutionary change of society (a change that has been conceptualized by later theorists as differentiation and rationalization) is the product, first, of the contradictions between the forces of production and the social relations of production and, second, of the contradictions between social classes. Ultimately, contradictions are the causes of modernization.^[5]

Within the Marxian theoretical framework social development is a process based on two types of contradictions. The first type is a contradiction between social actors, that is, the conflict between social classes. As long as contradictions are understood as contradictions between social groups, the theory explains the development of society through genuinely social factors. The second type refers to a more abstract concept of

[2] Such a macrosociological focus on the conditions generating society is prominent in French sociology. For two (very different) versions see Touraine 1977 and Bourdieu 1984. I take the distinction between modus operandi and opus operatum from the latter.

[3] Alexander (this volume) describes this Durkheimian problem as being one of relating general models, social processes, and historical analyses of specific strains and tensions. May chapter can be read as an attempt to relate these levels.

[4] For a treatment of the Weberian problem see Schluchter 1979, 1981. Going beyond Weber, Schluchter tries to develop the general model of rationalization, leaving the question of processes and historical analyses more or less aside.

[5] See Godelier 1973 for a systematic discussion of Marx's distinctions between levels of contradiction.

contradiction. In it social structures rather than social actors are seen to contradict each other.^[6] The configuration of social structures is supposed to set into motion the evolution of society. This abstract use of the notion of contradiction has become relatively important in more recent theoretical thinking: contradictions between systems are seen as leading to self-blockading situations and contradictions within systems as generating incompatible functions that the systems fulfill.^[7]

But these functionalist reinterpretations run the danger of an analytical nominalism that is empty of any social theory. I consider communication theory to be a more promising theoretical approach to a reinterpretation of the Marxist approach of explaining social change because it is more adequate to the study of modernization than functionalist and neofunctionalist reinterpretations of Marx. In communication theory the analyst can give a systematic place to the concept of contradiction.^[8] Reformulated in this way, the concept of contradiction becomes the starting point for a more adequate theory of modernization.