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Political Development and Political Decay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Samuel P. Huntington
Samuel P. Huntington
Affiliation:
International Affairs at Harvard
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Among the laws that rule human societies,” de Tocqueville said, “there is one which seems to be more precise and clear than all others. If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.”1 In much of the world today, equality of political participation is growing much more rapidly than is the “art of associating together.” The rates of mobilization and participation are high; the rates of organization and institutionalization are low. De Tocqueville's precondition for civilized society is in danger, if it is not already undermined. In these societies, the conflict between mobilization and institutionalization is the crux of politics. Yet in the fast-growing literature on the politics of the developing areas, political institutionalization usually receives scant treatment. Writers on political development emphasize the processes of modernization and the closely related phenomena of social mobilization and increasing political participation. A balanced view of the politics of contemporary Asia, Africa, and Latin America requires more attention to the “art of associating together” and the growth of political institutions. For this purpose, it is useful to distinguish political development from modernization and to identify political development with the institutionalization of political organizations and procedures. Rapid increases in mobilization and participation, the principal political aspects of modernization, undermine political institutions. Rapid modernization, in brief, produces not political development, but political decay.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , April 1965 , pp. 386 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1965

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References

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17 The concept of institutionalization has, of course, been used by other writers concerned with political development—most notably, S. N. Eisenstadt. His definition, however, differs significantly from my approach here. See, in particular, his “Initial Institutional Patterns of Political Modernisation,” Civilisations, XII (No. 4, 1962), 461–72, and XIII (No. 1, 1963), 15–26; “Institutionalization and Change,” American Sociological Review, XXIX (April 1964), 235–47; “Social Change, Differentiation and Evolution,” ibid., XXIX (June 1964), 375–86.

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