Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-5wvtr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-22T13:09:28.491Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Political Modernization: America vs. Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Samuel P. Huntington
Affiliation:
International Affairs at Harvard
Get access

Extract

Political modernization involves, let us assume, three things. First, it involves the rationalization of authority: the replacement of a large number of traditional, religious, familial, and ethnic political authorities by a single, secular, national political authority. This change implies that government is the product of man, not of nature or of God, and that a well-ordered society must have a determinate human source of final authority, obedience to whose positive law takes precedence over other obligations. Rationalization of authority means assertion of the external sovereignty of the nation-state against transnational influences and of the internal sovereignty of the national government against local and regional powers. It means national integration and the centralization or accumulation of power in recognized national law-making institutions. Secondly, political modernization involves the differentiation of new political functions and the development of specialized structures to perform those functions. Areas of peculiar competence—legal, military, administrative, scientific—become separated from the political realm, and autonomous, specialized, but subordinate, organs arise to discharge those tasks. Administrative hierarchies become more elaborate, more complex, more disciplined. Office and power are distributed more by achievement and less by ascription. Thirdly, political modernization involves increased participation in politics by social groups throughout society and the development of new political institutions—such as political parties and interest associations—to organize this participation. Broadened participation in politics may increase control of the people by the government, as in totalitarian states, or it may increase control of the government by the people, as in some democratic ones. But in all modern states the citizens become directly involved in and affected by governmental affairs. Rationalized authority, differentiated structure, and mass participation thus distinguish modern polities from antecedent polities.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For the sake of clarity, let me make clear the geographical scope I give these terms. With appropriate apologies to Latin Americans and Canadians, I feel compelled by the demands of brevity to use the term “America” to refer to the thirteen colonies that subsequently became the United States of America. By “Europe” I mean Great Britain and the Continent. By “the Continent” I refer to France, the Low Countries, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and the Holv Roman Empire.

2 The Seventeenth Century (New York 1961), 91.Google Scholar

3 Friedrich, Carl J., The Age of the Baroque: 1610–1660 (New York 1952), 215–16.Google Scholar

4 Rowse, A. L., The England of Elizabeth (New York 1951), 262.Google Scholar

5 Chrimes, S. B., English Constitutional History, 2nd ed. (London 1953), 121–23.Google Scholar See also Holdsworth, W. S., A History of English Law, 3rd ed. (London 1945), IV, 209ff.Google Scholar

6 Notestein, Wallace, The English People on the Eve of Colonization: 1603–1630 (New York 1954), xiv.Google Scholar See also Corwin, Edward S., The “Higher Law” Background of American Constitutional Law (Ithaca 1955), 74.Google Scholar

7 Mcllwain, Charles Howard, The High Court of Parliament and Its Supremacy (New Haven 1910), 386.Google Scholar

8 Pollard, A. F., Factors in American History (New York 1925), 39.Google Scholar See also Mcllwain, , The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation (Ithaca 1958)Google Scholar; and Adams, Randolph G., Political Ideas of the American Revolution, 3rd ed. (New York 1958).Google Scholar

9 Mcllwain, High Court, 388.

10 The Rise and Growth of American Politics (New York 1900), 5.Google Scholar See also Bryce, James, The American Commonwealth (London 1891), II, 658.Google Scholar

11 See the distinction between modernization and political development in Huntington, , “Political Development and Political Decay,” World Politics, XVII (April 1965), 386430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Corwin, 27.

13 Mcllwain, High Court, 51ff., 65.

14 Figgis, John Neville, The Divine Right of Kings (Cambridge 1922), 230.Google Scholar See also Morris, Christopher, Political Thought in England: Tyndale to Hooker (London 1953), 1.Google Scholar

15 Holdsworth, 208.

16 Chrimes, 122–23. See also Black, J. B., The Reign of Elizabeth 1558–1603, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1959), 206.Google Scholar

17 Figgis, , “Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century,” The Cambridge Modern History (Cambridge 1904), III, 748Google Scholar; Allen, J. W., A History oj Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (New York 1960), 262.Google Scholar

18 Figgis, Divine Right, 237.

19 Ibid., 258. See Allen, 386; Mcllwain, , ed., The Political Works of James I (Cambridge, Mass., 1918).Google Scholar

20 Pietro A. Canonhiero, quoted in Friedrich, 15–16.

21 Clark, 83.

22 Palmer, R. R., The Age of the Democratic Revolution (Princeton 1959), 1Google Scholar, 461: “In 1787 demands were heard for revival of Provincial Estates in various parts of the country. It was a long-delayed reaction against Richelieu and Louis XIV, a demand to make France a constitutional monarchy, not on the English model, but on the model of a France that had long since passed away.”

23 See Clark's summary of constitutional trends, 86–87. See also Carsten, F. L., Princes and Parliaments in Germany (Oxford 1959), 436–37Google Scholar; and Holdsworth, 168–72.

24 “The Trew Law of Free Monarchies,” in Mcllwain, ed., Political Worlds, 62.

25 Figgis, Divine Right, 232.

26 Mcllwain, High Court, 93–96.

27 Corwin, 89.

28 Sabine, George H., A History of Political Theory, rev. ed. (New York 1950), 455.Google Scholar

29 Pp. 31–33. For a perceptive discussion of the implications that this rejection of sovereignty has for the way in which the political system has adapted to the most modern of problems, see Price, Don K., The Scientific Estate (Cambridge, Mass., 1965)Google Scholar, passim, but esp. 45–46, 58, 75–78, 165–67.

30 Beer, Samuel H., “The Representation of Interests in British Government: Historical Background,” American Political Science Review, LI (September 1957), 614.Google Scholar

31 Thompson, Faith, A Short History of Parliament: 1295–1642 (Minneapolis 1953), 59.Google Scholar

32 P. 306. Cf. Pollard, , The Evolution of Parliament, 2nd ed., rev. (London 1926), 159Google Scholar, who argues that the nationalizing changes began in the late Tudor years.

33 Beer, 614–15.

34 Horwill, Herbert W., The Usages of the American Constitution (London 1925), 169.Google Scholar

35 Klain, Maurice, “A New Look at the Constituencies: The Need for a Recount and a Reappraisal,” American Political Science Review, XLIX (December 1955)Google Scholar, passim, but esp. 1111–13. In 1619 the London Company aped English practice when it summoned to the first Virginia House of Burgesses “two Burgesses from each Plantation freely … elected by the inhabitants thereof.”

36 Horwill, 169–70.

37 See, e.g., the comments of one American newspaperman covering the 1964 general election: “British members of Parliament aren't oriented toward their constituencies. They don't even have to live in them. … Constituencies tend to be regarded as political factories to provide fodder for the national consensus in London. An American Congressman may get 1,500 to 2,000 letters a week from people who elect him. A British MP usually gets no more than 10” (MacLeish, Roderick, New York Herald Tribune, October 11, 1964).Google Scholar

38 Mcllwain, High Court, xi.

39 Pollard, Evolution of Parliament, 257.

40 Neustadt, Richard E., Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (New York 1960), 33.Google Scholar

41 P. 169.

42 SirBlackstone, William, Commentaries on the haws of England, ed. Cooley, Thomas M. (Chicago 1876), I, 90.Google Scholar

43 See Gough, J. W., Fundamental Law in English Constitutional History (Oxford 1955). 27.Google Scholar

44 Mcllwain, High Court, ix, 385–86.

45 Holdsworth, 174, 184–85, 188–89.

46 See Neale, J. E., The Elizabethan House of Commons (London 1949), 290–95Google Scholar; Rowse, 307; Thompson, 169–73; Matthews, Donald R., The Social Background of Political Decision-Makers (New York 1954), 2831Google Scholar; Ross, J. F. S., Elections and Electors (London 1955), 444Google Scholar; Guttsman, W. L., The British Political Elite (New York 1963), 82Google Scholar, 90, 105; Butler, D. E. and Rose, Richard, The British General Election of 1959 (London 1960), 127.Google Scholar

47 Bagehot, Walter, The English Constitution (London 1949), 34.Google Scholar See also Sutton, Francis X., “Representation and the Nature of Political Systems,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 11 (October 1959), 7Google Scholar: “… the kind of distinction Bagehot made when he talked of the ‘dignified’ and ‘efficient’ parts of the English constitution is observed clearly in many states. … The discrimination of functions here rests, of course, on an analytical distinction relevant in any political system. It is that between symbolic representation and executive control.”

48 Jefferson, Thomas, Letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787, Writings (Washington 1903–05), VI, 389–90Google Scholar; Ford, 293. For an elegant—and eloquent—essay on the President as king, see Brogan, D. W., “The Presidency,” Encounter (January 1964), 37.Google Scholar I am in debt to Richard E. Neustadt for insights into the nature of the American monarchy and into the similarities between White House politics and palace politics. See also Pollard, Factors in American History, 72–73: “… down to this day the Executive in the United States is far more monarchical and monarchy far more personal than in the United Kingdom. ‘He’ is a single person there, but ‘it’ is a composite entity in Great Britain.“

49 Wright, Benjamin F., “The Origins of the Separation of Powers in America,” Economics, XIII (May 1933), 169ff.Google Scholar

50 Neale, , Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments (New York 1958), 1, 16–17.Google Scholar

51 Ibid., 235, 287, 387–88, 412–13; Campion, G. F. M., An Introduction to the Procedure of the House of Commons (London 1929), 199Google Scholar; McCown, Ada C., The Congressional Conference Committee (New York 1927), 2337.Google Scholar

52 Rowse, 307.

53 Neale, House of Commons, 381 and passim; Holdsworth, 177; Campion, 11, 52–54.

54 P. 294.

55 Neale, House of Commons, 411.

56 Rowse, 294–95.

57 Neale, House of Commons, 410–12, and Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, passim. Until the eighteenth century, Privy Councillors, of course, functioned as advisers to the King much as cabinet members now do to the President. Perhaps reflecting both this similarity and the later drastic change that took place in the British cabinet is the fact that in the United States the executive leadership is still called “the Administration,” as it was in eighteenth-century Britain, while in Britain itself, it is now termed “the Government.”

58 See, in general, Huntington, , The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, Mass., 1957)Google Scholar, passim.

59 Hexter, J. H., Reappraisals in History (Evanston 1962), 147Google Scholar; and Clark, 84. On the fundamental changes in European military practice, see Michael Roberts, The Military Revolution: 1560–1660 (Belfast n.d.).

60 Vagts, Alfred, A History of Militarism, rev. ed. (New York 1959), 92.Google Scholar See generally Morton, Louis, “The Origins of American Military Policy,” Military Affairs, XXII (Summer 1958), 7582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 Clark, 98; Wright, Quincy, A Study of War (Chicago 1942), 1Google Scholar, 235–40. See also Clark, , War and Society in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge 1958)Google Scholar, passim.

62 Seventeenth Century, 99, 101–2. See also Wright, 256: “… it would appear that the political order of Europe changed most radically and rapidly in the seventeenth and twentieth centuries when war reached greatest intensity. The seventeenth century witnessed the supersession of feudalism and the Holy Roman Empire by the secular sovereign states of Europe. The twentieth century appears to be witnessing the supersession of the secular sovereign states by something else. Exactly what cannot yet be said.”

63 McIIwain, High Court, 336; Rowse, 223ff.

64 Friedrich, 20–21; Sabine, 372–73.

65 Chrimes, 138.

66 Hartz, Louis, The Founding of New Societies (New York 1964), 3Google Scholar, 4, 6, 23. Hartz's theory of fragmentation furnishes an excellent general framework for the analysis of the atrophy of settlement colonies, while his concept of the American liberal consensus in large part explains the preservation of Tudor political institutions.

67 Hartz, , The Liberal Tradition in America (New York 1955), 910Google Scholar, 45–46, 85–86, 133–34, 281–82.

68 Ibid., 43.

69 Williams, , American Society, 2nd ed., rev. (New York 1961), 571Google Scholar; Ginzberg, Eli and Reilley, Ewing W., Effecting Change in Large Organizations (New York 1957), 1819.Google Scholar

70 Kling, Merle, “Toward a Theory of Power and Political Instability in Latin America,” Western Political Quarterly, IX (March 1956), 2131.Google Scholar

71 Toynbee, Arnold J., “If We Are To Be the Wave of the Future,” New York Times Magazine, November 13, 1960, 123.Google Scholar

72 See Lipset, Seymour Martin, The First New Nation (New York 1963)Google Scholar, Part I; Freeman, J. Leiper, “The Colonial Stage of Development: The American Case,” unpubl. paper, Comparative Administration Group, 1963, 4.Google Scholar

73 See Geertz, Clifford, ed., Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa (New York 1963).Google Scholar

74 P. 434; Friedrich, 20–25.

75 Palmer, passim, but esp. 323–407. Of the Belgian revolution of 1787 against Joseph II, Palmer writes (p. 347), “The issue was clear. It was between social change and constitutional liberty. Reform would come at the cost of arbitrary government overriding the articulate will and historic institutions of the country. Or liberty would be preserved at the cost of perpetuating archaic systems of privilege, property, special rights, class structure, ecclesiastical participation in the state. It was a revolution against the innovations of a modernizing government—in a sense, a revolution against the Enlightenment. It was not in this respect untypical of the time.”

Compare this with Apter's, David conclusion that in contemporary Africa “the degree of autocracy which emerges after independence is in virtual proportion to the degree of antagonism the government shows to tradition” (The Political Kingdom in Uganda [Princeton 1961], 476).Google Scholar

76 See Wallerstein, Immanuel, Africa: The Politics of Independence (New York 1961), 159–63Google Scholar; and Schachter, Ruth (Morgenthau), “Single-Party Systems in West Africa,” American Political Science Review, LV (June 1961), 294307CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for the case for the liberal and democratic potential of single-party states. For more realistic evaluations, see Kilson, Martin L., “Authoritarian and Single-Party Tendencies in African Politics,” World Politics, XV (January 1963), 262–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Zolberg, Aristide, “The African Mass-Party State in Perspective,” unpubl. paper prepared for Annual Meeting, APSA, September 1964.Google Scholar

77 See Lloyd I. and Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber, “The Political Role of India's Caste Associations,” Pacific Affairs, XXXIII (March 1960), 522CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rudolph, Lloyd I., “The Modernity of Tradition: The Democratic Incarnation of Caste in India,” American Political Science Review, LIX (December 1965), 975–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hudson, Michael C., “Pluralism, Power, and Democracy in Lebanon,” unpubl. paper prepared for Annual Meeting, APSA, September 1964.Google Scholar

78 Seventeenth Century, 83, 90–91.

79 Beloff, Max, The Age of Absolutism: 1660–1815 (London 1954), 168–69.Google Scholar

80 See, e.g., Graubard, Stephen, ed., A New Europe? (Boston 1964)Google Scholar; Hoffmann, Stanley, “Europe's Identity Crisis: Between the Past and America,” Daedalus, XCIII (Fall 1964), 1249Google Scholar, 1252–53. On the role of the courts see Cole, Taylor, “Three Constitutional Courts: A Comparison,” American Political Science Review, LIII (December 1959), 963–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dietze, Gottfried, “America and Europe—Decline and Emergence of Judicial Review,” Virginia Law Review, XLIV (December 1958), 1233–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar