Page 17 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government

Notes The developed countries of the world are those which are highly industrialised and politically
modernised in which democratic system has come to stay. In the view of recent writers like
Lucian W. Pye, David E. Apter and S.P. Huntington, these countries have achieved the goal of
political development, while the countries of the ‘third world’ are economically backward and
they are ridden with political instability that enacts the drama of political development and
political decay at different intervals. In the view of A.G. Frank, Samir Amin and Immunuel
Wallerstein, they are at the ‘periphery’ of the modern world system and they cannot be developed
countries on account of their exploitation by the core countries’ as well as by the ‘semi-peripheral’
countries of the world.
D. Rustow and R.E. Ward lay stress on the following characteristics of a developed and modernised
polity:
1. A highly differentiated and functionally specific system of governmental organisation.
2. A high degree of integration within the governmental structure.
3. The prevalence of rational and secular procedures for the making of political decisions.
4. The large volume, wide range and high efficacy of the political and administrative decisions.

A Modern Classification of Governments

Types of Leadership Opportunities for Direction or
Governments Contest Mass
Participation Policy
1. Traditional Closed Negligible Conservative
2. Competitive Open Limited
Conservative/ Oligarachy
Adaptive
3. Military Closed Negligible Conservative/
Reformist
4. Populist/ Closed Moderate Transformative/
Mobilising Adaptive
5. Communist Closed Multiples
Transformative Party State
(Regimented)
6. Liberal Open Multiples Reformist
Democracy (Voluntary)

5. A widespread and effective sense of popular identification with the history, territory and
national identity of the state.
6. Widespread popular interest and achievement in the political system though not necessarily
in the decision-making aspects thereof.
7. The allocation of political roles by achievements rather than by ascriptions, and
8. Judicial and regulatory techniques based upon a predominantly secular and impersonal system
of laws.
S.P. Huntington describes the following characteristics of the modernizing process:
1. It is a revolutionary process. Change from tradition to modernity consequently involves a
radical and total change in the patterns of human life.
2. It is a complex process. It cannot be easily reduced to a single factor or to a single dimension.

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