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Social change is important to study because a full understanding of many topics, such as the success or failure of different political systems, globalization, democratization, development and economic growth, are all rooted in this basic idea of social change.

For example, successful economic growth depends on a number of factors, such as technology and natural and social resources.  However, only some countries can take advantage of technology and their resources.  Thus, a more basic question is to look at what factors can explain why only some countries are so well poised.  In general, successful utilization of resources depends on having a stable and fairly flexible economic and political system, and a social system compatible with growth, for example, having values and customs which are favorable toward capital development and accumulation.  Thus, at the deeper level, the question is why have only some countries developed these kinds of political, economic and social conditions (e.g., stable and flexible systems, values favoring capitalism).  That is, the root question is how to explain the historical development of those societies.  Many other processes can be similarly traced back to the question of explaining historical development of societies.

Overall, change is a highly complex process, involving many factors, such as demography, technology, availability of resources, politics, economics, and the interaction of these factors.   This section includes a brief review of theory and research on change.

A. Theory:

The ways that societies develop and change do not necessarily follow a single pattern. The specific forms of institutions which emerge, and the relations between sociodemographic characteristics and change will not be the same for different societies (Eisenstadt, 1973). For example (Eisenstadt, 1973), for modernization, the material and social position of a people at the initial stages of modernization is an important influence. People who are socially organized in tribal groups will modernize differently than people in caste systems.  Likewise, the process will differ according to the level of economic development. More backwards economies may undergo more stress and discontinuity. Secondly, the temporal sequence of the process will lead to varying patterns of modernization. The western modernization was led by the economic and cultural spheres.  On the other hand, more recently, in Latin American, Asian and African countries, political modernization occurs first.  Further, Eisenstadt (1973) and others (e.g., Bendix, 1984) refers to the importance of individual will, for example, to the actions of the "modernizing elite" (Eisenstadt, 1973, p. 33). That is, those who lead the modernization process will influence the form and content of the modernization process. Different elite groups may choose different policies of social or economic development. Thus, Eisenstadt (1973) writes "the processes of modernization are ... borne or 'pushed' by the charismatic groups or personality" (p. 33). In some cases, an absence of an elite group may also delay or prevent the modernization process. These three factors, the previous level of a society's development, the temporal sequence, and the actions of the modernizing elite, combine in a variety of ways and produce a variety of forms and processes of modernization.

Other factors influencing the change process, which can result in different outcomes, include technology (Chirot, 1994) and geography  (Weber, in Collins, 1986; Nevins and Commager, 1986).

On the other hand, there are systematic features of change.  For example, in Tradition, Change and Modernity (1973) Eisenstadt describes the dynamics of modernization. He first points out that modernization requires the development of a base level of certain factors, including social mobilization, structural differentiation, the development of free resources, specialization and diversity of social organization, and the development of regulative and allocative mechanisms in the economic, political and other institutional spheres. Examples of these regulative and allocative mechanisms include the market system and political parties, in the economic and political spheres, respectively. Eisenstadt (1973) goes on to indicate that achieving a certain level on these factors is necessary for the development of modernity, but is not sufficient alone to guarantee continuation of modernization. In order for a society to continue to modernize, it needs to develop an institutional framework capable of continuous absorption of change. That is, as the society modernizes, new demands arise, new constituencies come to power, and the political, economic, social, and other spheres need to adapt to these changes, and also need to maintain some kind of continuity. So for example, the political system must be able to deal with suffrage or national independence movements and still be able to maintain continuity. Thus, beyond a certain minimal level of social mobilization and structural differentiation required for modernization, in addition there is a need for an institutional framework that can successfully cope with the changes and problems associated with modernization, and that can also maintain a continuous existence for itself.

Thus, change is partly systematic and general and partly specific and particular.  Some aspects of change can be be seen as following a well known pattern, while other aspects depend entirely on specific times or contexts.

B. Research:

Demographic changes:

A main feature of society is it's demographic make up, including, for example, population size, age and race/ethnic breakdown, and urbanization.  We review here some of the major trends in these characteristics.

One of the major features of the 20th century has been a population growth larger than at any other time in history, and the population growth is expected to continue into the next several decades (Gelbard, Haub and Kent, 1999).  In addition, there have also been increases in life expectancy, declines in childbirth and shifts in population distributions (Gelbard et al, 1999).  The causes of population increase are highly complex, and involve many different biological, cultural, economic, geographic,
political, and social factors, such as cultural traditions that encourage girls to marry at a young age (Gelbard et al, 1999).  Decreases in fertility, on the other hand, is associated with, for example, increasing age of marriage and higher education (Gelbard et al, 1999).

Another major change taking place, specifically in the developing countries, involves increasing urbanization, especially in concentrations of populations in the largest cities (Brockerhoff, 2000).  While some cities may manage the growth process well, some of the concerns are about the threat of increasing morbidity and mortality, depletion of nonrenewable natural resources, and increasing urban poverty and inequality, with "consequent weakening of the state, civil unrest, urban-based revolutions, and radical religious fundamentalism" (Brockerhoff, 2000).

Human development:

The UN Human Development reports (UNDP, no date), in their 1990 report, concludes that "developing countries have made significant progress towards human development in the last three decades".  But they also write, "Averages of progress in human development conceal large disparities within developing countries—between urban and rural areas, between men and women, between rich and poor" and "The link between economic growth and human progress is not automatic" (UNDP, 1990).

Economic changes:

Growth trends are described by various writers.  For example, (Hofman, 1998), describes trends in Latin America in the 20th century, and characterises the trends as growth acceleration and then slow-down.  Maddison's (1989, 1991) describes similar patterns for OECD states.  His data includes economic data covering OECD states, including annual data on GDP, the consumer price index and exports; periodic data for employment patterns, productivity and investment; and some similar data for a number of Asian and Latin American countries.  Maddison's (1991) data, for the western states, often begins at 1870.

Easterly, Kremer, Pritchett and Summers (1993) wrote that country's growth rates vary quite a lot over time while country characteristics, such as educational level or political stability, tend to remain stable.  They concluded that either shocks or worldwide technological change are important in determining long run growth, and that country characteristics may determine relative income levels.  They also showed that, for a set of 28 countries, over the very long term, country rank order of GDP per capita stays the same.  That is, countries with relatively lower GDP per capita tended to remain at the lower levels, comparatively, of GDP per capita.

Typical sources of economic development are seen as investment in infrastructure, physical capital and education, including investment in information technology (Pohjola, no date given).  Infrastructure may include the number of telephones, the number of telephone main lines, kilo-watts of electricity-generating capacity, kilometers of total roads, kilometers of paved roads, and kilometers of railway lines (Canning, 1998), of which there may be an optimal mix (Canning and Bennathanm 2000).

One set of papers (CAER II) examines how different variables affect economic growth.  Koropecky (no date given) presents an overview of these papers.  Some of the main points are that, for example, "moderate income inequality sustains economic growth while immoderate income inequality chokes it off", and that "developing countries that have achieved the most rapid gains in income per capita are also those that have recorded the fastest growth in manufactured exports... all of the successful developing-country exporters of manufactures established an export platform ... which, esentially, is an enclave that is at least partially free of the conditions that hold back the rest of the economy (poor trade policies, weak infrastructure, inconsistent rule of law), so that firms there can become more competitive and more fully integrated into the global economy."  This set of papers also examines how growth affects various variables, including climate and population.

In general, economists, such as Abramovitz (1989, 1990), Kendrick (1989), Kuznets (1989), Maddison (1989), Romer (1990) and Robelo (1991) emphasize technology or growth in knowledge as sources of growth, along with social and institutional conditions that allow knowledge to be applied. Thus, slowdown in economic growth is the result of slowdown in technological growth. For example, Kuznets (1989) writes that a source of growth is "a high rate of accumulation of useful knowledge and of technological innovations derived from it" (p. 8).  This knowledge and technology, though, can only be used along with the appropriate conditions, such as financial and legal systems which allow mobilization of savings and investment, and with a stable government, which can deal with social or economic disruptions which may occur during periods of change (Kuznets, 1989; p. 8+).  Thus, the rapid growth of Europe and Japan in the 1950's was due to the relative peace and stability following WW II, which allowed those countries to restructure their organizational systems, so to take advantage of newer technology, to rebuild, and so forth, in other words, to achieve high growth rates.  Once they "caught up", or organized around the newest technology, their rates of growth would naturally slow down.  The slowdown in Europe and Japan is simply the result of those countries catching up to their technological potential (Abramovitz, 1990), rather than to problems in distribution of surplus.

Increases in income inequality in advanced countries is seen as the result of globalization (finacial liberalization rather than trade) and technology, and, in poor countires,  as the result of these two factors as well as social norms, labor market institutions (e.g., unions, minimum wages) (Singh and Dhumale, 2000).

Gwartney and Lawson (2000) show how country's levels of economic freedom have changed over time.  Many countries do increase their freedom, but some also decline.   Gwartney and Lawson (2000) also show that economic freedom is related to factors such as per capita income and life expectancy.

Political changes:

Giddens (2000) defines democracy as "a system involving effective competition between political parties for positions of power.  In a democracy, there are regular and fair elections, in which all members of the population may take part. These rights of democratic participation go along with civil liberties - freedom of expression and discussion, together with the freedom to form and join political groups or associations."  Giddens (2000) goes on to write that the past few decades has seen a good deal of growth of democracy.  Many people have studied this 'democratization' phenomena (e.g., Gurr, Jaggers and Moore, 1990; Jaggers and Gurr, 1995; Freedom House, 2000; O'Loughlin, Ward, Lofdohl, Cohen, Brown, Reilly, Gleditsch and Shin, 1997).  For example, Jaggers and Gurr (1995) describe global and regional trends in democracy and show that states in the Middle East and Africa are much behind states in other regions in the transition to democracy, and that, as autocratic elites attempt to resist pressures to liberalize, the results are unconsolidated, or 'incoherent', polities.  O'Loughlin et al (1997) use Polity data to describe temporal and spatial aspects of diffusion of  democracy.  They point out that there are geographic and temporal clustering of autocracy and democracy and that democratization is subject to reversal.  They also indicate that there is not necessarily a single form of diffusion of democracy, and that external conditions are important.  For example, some situations such as economic crises may affect a group of related countries all at the same time.

In research related to democratization, The Freedom House (2000) described changes in political freedom over time, based on political rights and civil liberties.  Many countries in their data show fair stability over time.  A few, such as Bhutan, Antigua & Barbuda, and The Gambia show changes toward less freedom, and a few others, for example Bolivia, Romania and Uruguay show large improvements.

Gurr, Marshall and Khosla (2000) describe trends in armed conflicts and self determination movements.  They report three main findings (all in the report highlights).  First, there has been a large increase in societal wars (e.g., internal wars) from the 1950's to the early 1990's, but "The number and magnitude of armed conflicts within and among states have lessened since the early 1990s by nearly half."  Second, "Conflicts over self-determination are being settled with ever greater frequency, usually when ethnic groups gain greater autonomy and power-sharing within existing states."  Finally, "Democratic governments now outnumber autocratic governments two to one and continue to be more successful than autocracies in resolving violent societal conflicts."  However, Gurr, Marshall and Kholsa (2000) go on to warn that these three positive trends are limited and can potentially be reversed by three problems (in highlights).  First, "Virulent armed conflicts persist in parts of Eurasia and Africa and have the potential for metathesis into neighboring states."  Second, "New and transitional democracies everywhere are at risk for reverting to autocracy."  Finally, "Lack of economic development undermines democratic institutions and breeds violent conflict."

Guillén (2001) provides an excellent overview of current research on globalization.  Globalization, or “the rapid increase in cross-border economic, social, technological and cultural exchange” (p.2.) is becoming increasingly discussed in social science literature.  In his review, Guillén starts by indicating that globalization is “far from a uniform, irreversible, and inexorable trend. Rather, globalization is a fragmented, incomplete, discontinuous, contingent, and in many ways contradictory and puzzling process” (p.6.)  Some indicators seem to be clear evidence of globalization.  For example, “Foreign direct (excluding portfolio) investment as a percentage of GDP is 2.5 times greater today than twenty years ago” (p.6).  Similarly, international tourism has more than doubled and international calling has nearly doubled.  On the other hand, stock of international migrants has been nearly stable.  There has also been an increase in the number of independent nation states and there are currently many ethnic groups who are aiming toward national independence.  That is, national individualization is still a strong process.  In addition, foreign investment and trade are concentrated in Western Europe, North America and Japan.  Further, while inward direct foreign investment has increased, it is still only 14% of total world GDP.  Finally, regarding whether there is convergence among states and organizations, Guillén writes “globalization does not seem to compel governments, firms, and individuals to converge in their patterns of behavior” (p. 15).  For example, “firms pursue different modes of economic action and adopt different organizational forms depending on the institutional and social structures of their home countries even as globalization increases” (p. 13).   Similarly, government policy making and interactions with other economies remains diversified among states, rather than becoming more convergent.  Guillén writes that research, overall, seems to argue that globalization is occurring, and he refers to social and political writers who present pursuasive cases, although he doesn't describe the cases. Guillén also points  out several issues such as the world AIDS epidemic and global warming, that show how important it is, at least in some areas, to use global perspectives in addressing problems.
 

Social changes:

There appears to be little multinational research about changes in society that is available over the web.  One study  (Ehrlich, Franzese and Inglehart, 1999) examines change in social values over a short time interval.  Social values was an indicator of where a society was located on a survival-self expression continuum, varying from mainly focusing on survival issues to having their survival secure enough that they could focus on self expression.  They found, basically, that social change, or movement toward self expressive citizen-values, along with economic development and movements toward democracy, is part of a larger process, "namely the modernization process” (Ehrlich, Franzese and Inglehart, 1999; p.11).  One other study (Smith and Jarkko, 1998) examines national pride among 23 countries, and as part of the study examined change in national pride over time.  They found that "National pride is greatest in stable, established, developed democracies.  Pride is lowest in ex-Socialist states, countries riven by ethnic conflict, and nations with war guilt." (Smith and Jarkko, 1998; summary section).  In addition, rankings of national pride are very stable over time.

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last updated 12/16/01