This document discusses 12 different views of political development: 1) Conceptualizing it in terms of economic growth and facilitating economic growth. 2) Linking it to industrialization and emulating the political systems of industrialized nations. 3) Equating it with political modernization and westernization. 4) Defining it as the organization of political life around a nation-state with nationalism. 5) Viewing it as institution-building and developing citizenship. 6) Associating it with increasing mass participation and mobilization. 7) Synonymizing it with building democracy. 8) Considering it the ability to maintain stability and facilitate orderly change. 9

1. Narrated by
MahrukhChaudry
Roll # 456

2.  this view of political development seeks to
conceptualize it in term of economic growth. Political
development is regarded as “that state of the polity
which might facilitate economic growth”.
 Critique :
 In most underdeveloped countries people clearly are
concerned with far more than just material
development, they are anxious about political
development quite independent of effect on the rate of
economic growth.

3.  This view of development is based on the assumption that industrial
life produces a more or less common and generic type of political life
which any society can seek to approximate whether it is in fact
industrialized or not. Industrial societies set certain standards of
political behavior and performance that constitute the state of political
development.
 This, view, as such, holds that political development involves; certain
patterns of presumably “rational” and “responsible” governmental
behavior; an avoidance of reckless action; some sense of limitations on
politics; an appreciation of the values of orderly administrative and
legal procedures, an acknowledgement that politics is rightly a
mechanism for solving problems and not an end in itself, a stress on
welfare programs, and finally an acceptance of some form of mass
participation.

4.  political development is idealised politics of industrial societies and
that political development is synonymous with political
modernization.
 Just as to consider that advanced nations are pace-setters for
others, likewise modernization is the pace-setter for political
development.

 T his is again a parochial view of political advancement which cannot
be operationalized because almost all political institutions of the world
bear the persuasion of western institutions thus it becomes difficult on
he basis of this view, to classify political system on the basis of the
nature and levels of their political development.

5.  This view holds that political development consists of
the organization of political life and the performance
of political functions in accordance with the standards
expected of a modern nation-state.
 The test of political development is, first, the
establishment of a particular set of public institutions
that constitute the necessary infrastructure of nationstate, and secondly, the controlled expression in
political life of the phenomenon of nationalism.
Political Development, in this view is: “The politics of
nationalism within the context of state institutions”, or
that “political development is nation-building.”

6.  The fifth view of political development, as discussed
by Lucian Pye, is the view which interprets political
development as process of institution-building and
citizenship development.
 No one can deny that political development involves
legal and administrative development; however, it is
hard to connect the former with the latter.

7.  This view links political development with political
awakening of the people. The bigger the mass
mobilisation and participation in politics, the greater
is the degree of political development of the political
system.
 Critique : This is yet again a slender view of political
development because it can lead to the acceptance of a
political system characterized by many
demonstrations, mass responses to elite
manipulation, populist movements, etc., as a
politically developed system.

8.  This view places political development as synonymous
with the establishment of democratic institutions and
practices. Building of democracy is the process of
political development. According to this
view, development has meaning only in terms of the
strengthening of some set of values. “It, thus, presents
an ideological and value-laden view of political
development. Development is fundamentally different
from democracy and that the very attempt to
introduce democracy can be a positive liability to
development”.

9.  This view seeks to define political development in terms of
the ability of the political system to remain stable and
possess the capacity for purposeful and orderly change.
 A political system which can refrain from becoming a
helpless victim of social and economic forces and which on
the other hand regulates the process of social change by
making it purposeful and orderly, is a politically developed
system.
 However, a major weakness of this approach is its failure to
define the level of stability and capacity for orderly change
that may be regarded as the standard for analysing political
development.

10.  This view links political development with the capabilities
of a political system, i.e., the ability of the political system
to mobilise the resources, exercise power and to use the
resources to the fullest advantage. Coleman, Powell and
Talcott Parsons have analysed political development in
terms of these variables.
 The view involves the concept that political system can be
evaluated in terms of the level or degree of absolute power
which the system is able to mobilise. “It is a useful premise;
however, it cannot be regarded as the standard for
measuring political development. It fails to take into
account the fact that some political systems deliberately
avoid full mobilisation of resources and exercise of power.”

11.  This view of political development holds that all forms of
development are related. Development is much the same as
modernisation and it takes place within a historical context
in which influences from outside the society impinge on
the processes of social change just as changes in different
aspects of a society-the economy, the polity and the social
order-all impinge on one another.
 This approach has been advocated by Max F. Millikan and
Donald L.M. Blackmer. They advocate that political
development is some how intimately associated with other
aspects of social and economic change. This view merits
attention, but it again fails to identify what really is the
nature of political development which comes as part of the
all-embracing process of social change

12.  Besides these ten different approaches to the
conceptualisation of political development, there are other
possible interpretations. As Lucian Pye holds, it can be
taken to mean commonly a sense of national self-respect
and dignity in international affairs or the view that political
development should refer to a post-nationalism era when
nation-state will no longer be the basic unit of political life.
 All these views of political development highlight fully the
difficulty in offering a definition of this concept. The way
out lies in analysing the common characteristics of political
development on the basis of all these views. This task has
been successfully undertaken by Lucian Pye.