Marx, Weber, and development sociology: Beyond the impasse

World Derelupmenr.

Vol.

16, No. 6. pp. 683494.

1988.

0305-750rv8s $3.(H) + O.(w~ 0 1988 Pergamon Press plc

Printed in Great Britain.

Marx, Weber, and Development Beyond the Impasse

Sociology:

PETER VANDERGEEST and FREDERICK H. BUT-l-EL* Cornell University, Ithaca, New York Summary.

- This paper follows from David Booth’s (1985) article in World Development in which he identifies underlying metatheoretical problems in Marxist-influenced development sociology which have led fo the current impasse in the field. These problems include a commitment to demonstrating the “necessity” of economic and social patterns. system teleology, and functionalism. We suggest that the impasse in development sociology can be overcome through the incorporation of the LVeberian tradition. It is important, however, thnf the version of Weber which is to be appropriated in a restructuring of development theory is not the orthodox tradition. which has the same metatheoretical problems as those of Marxist-influenced development sociology. We argue that the literature in political sociology referred to as the “neo-Weberian” (and sometimes as the “left-Weberian”) tradition - which includes a diversity of work by Karl Polanyi, Barrington Moore and, more recently. Charles Tilly, Anthony Giddens. John Gaventa. Claus Offe. Pierre Bourdieu. Paul Willis and others - is particularly relevant to the impasse in development sociology. These theorists overcome the problems of reifying “ideal types” and formal theorizing by using theory in dialogue with empirical evidence. Finally. we suggest that sociological development theory has lagged in incorporating the Weberian tradition because of a perceived lack of praxis in this approach. We argue instead that the neo-Weberian approach. because it deals with power relations in the context of class, the state, cultural interpretation. and so on, can lead to realistic strategies for the empowerment of the less powerful.

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of the new agenda of development by suggesting how Weberian theory may be incorporated in a critical fashion. Weberian scholarship has a long history in sociology. Yet that which has passed under the rubric of Weberian sociology has often suffered the same metatheoretical problems as those described by Booth for the Marxist tradition. This is particularly true of the orthodox Parsonian (e.g., Parsons, 1937) version of Weber appropriated by modernization theory, which Marxist-inspired development theory sought to replace, and which has remained the major alternative to neoMarxist development sociology to the present. A good case can be made, however, that this version of Weber reflected some fundamental misunderstandings of Weberian theory and method,

INTRODUCTION

In a recent article in World Development, David Booth (1985) described the nature and underlying causes of what he referred to as the current impasse in Marxist-influenced development sociology. According to Booth, key problems include the commitment to demonstrating the “necessity” of economic and social patterns and a type of system teleology which is inherent in much of the literature (Booth, 1985, pp. 773, 774).’ He did not, however. suggest how this impasse may be resolved, noting only that new lines of theoretical inquiry will emerge from the encounter between crisis and suffering in the world and intellectual creativity. We believe that new agendas do not simply “emerge,” but are actively created in a political and intellectual environment. It is likely that the new development sociology will follow recent trends in political sociology and incorporate aspects of the Weberian tradition. Our intention in this paper is to influence the creation

*The authors would’like to thank Susan A. Mann, William Canak, Victor Nee, and especially the anonymous reviewers for World Developmenl for their

helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. 683

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both on account of its idealist ontology and, as shown below, its reification of ideal types. There is. however, a longstanding critical Weberian-influenced tradition which does creatively confront metatheoretical issues crucial to development sociology’s impasse in the 1980s. This tradition includes, for example, the work of George Lukacs, Karl Polanyi, Barrington Moore, and E. P. Thompson - several of whom are often considered to be “Marxists” but who, nonetheless, adopt postures central to what we refer to below as “neo-Weberianism.” Yet although these writers have generated considerable attention in the discipline of sociology, until recently their substantive influence has been limited. This is particularly true in development sociology. In this paper we will try to interpret the nature and causes of this neglect, and endeavor to show how the recent work in this tradition by scholars such as Claus Offe, Pierre Bourdieu, Charles Tilly, Anthony Giddens, Steven Lukes, John Gaventa, Paul Willis, and James Scott might be fruitfully incorporated into development sociology. We begin by summarizing Booth’s criticism of Marxist-influenced development sociology. We will then show how metatheoretical postures in neo-Weberian scholarship may be fruitfully incorporated into development theory. We conclude by discussing some of the implications of the judicious incorporation of Weber on the theoretical level for development theory and by discussing possible reasons why the influence of the Weberian tradition in development sociology has been limited.

2. DEVELOPMENT SOCIOLOGY: STATE OF THE ART According to Booth, the dependency literature has been subjected to what ought to be a fatallydamaging critique. Its major premise is frequently tautological. That is, underdevelopment is both defined as and ascribed to a lack of selfsustaining industrial growth. Where tautology is avoided by setting up processes such as social marginality or marginalization, deteriorating income distribution, and authoritarian politics as the phenomena to be explained, evidence linking these to factors of dependence is weak. The alternative Warrenite classical Marxism, albeit with a major modification of the Leninist perspective on imperialism is similarly unsatisfactory. Warren’s (1980) model of international capitalism as invariably growthinducing is unilinear, obscures variation in Third World development trajectories, and generally

ignores state policy in favor of an economistic unfolding model of capitalist development. Laclau (1971). Banaji (1977). and other authors’ positions in the “modes of production” debate have likewise failed to offer a middle ground: When they apply the orthodox Marxist method of uncovering the “laws of motion” of a mode of production and accounting for how these laws arise from the relations and forces of production, they essentially revert to one or the other polar positions of Frank or Warren (Booth. 19S5, pp. 769770). In particular, the peasant studies literature adopted too uncritically the functionalist logic of Laclau. For example, the hypothesis that smallscale enterprise subsidizes the capitalist sector through unequal exchange is logically insufficient to explain the persistence of so-called pre- or non-capitalist relations. The focus on relatively unfruitful themes such as these has diverted attention from other important areas of research. For example. Booth notes that the sociology of class is relatively undeveloped with respect to the less developed countries. In the analysis of public policy determination sociologists have failed to take up the challenge offered by a number of exploratoryhypotheses such as “urban bias” advanced by some development economists. (Booth seems to be referring to Lipton, 1977.) We would add that neo-Marxist development sociology has generally not progressed beyond overly general, largely functionalist applications of neo-hlarsist theories of the state (e.g., de Janvry. 1951). Finally, the neo-Marxist sociology of development has never exerted more than a modest influence on the formulation and implementation of development policy (Booth, 198.5, p. 777). Underlying these problems. writes Booth, are two major metatheoretical problems inherent in Marxist theory. First, at a higher level of abstraction, is the tendency to show that what happens is in a sense not only explicable but necessary (and, we would add, according to some set of objective laws). Theory of this sort consists of fitting particular cases into a pre-given model of society. Thus, “Warren is wrong, because it is not in fact possible to grasp everything that is of interest and importance in the contemporary experience of the less developed countries by deduction from the dynamics and differential impact of the capitalist mode of production” (Booth. 1985, p. 773). And with respect to dependency theory: “picking off and lumping together reprehensible features of different types and stages of capitalist growth is not far removed, metatheoretically speaking, from the Warrenite or classical-Xlarxist procedure of lumping together various characteristics of different national economies and conceiving

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them as aspects of some ‘law’ or other of the unfolding of capitalism” (Booth, 1985, p. 771). And, finally, with respect to the modes of production literature: ‘*Reality has shown itself too rich to be captured by the simple terms of a concept of relations of production with corresponding ‘laws of motion,’ and relations of production with wholly noncorresponding laws of motion are a theoretical nonsense” (Booth, 1985, p. 771). Second. at a lower level of abstraction. Marxist-influenced development theory has displayed a type of system teleology or functionalism which is inherent in the classical Marxist tradition. Referring to Giddens (1981) and Hindess and Hirst (1977). Booth agrees that major propositions of historical materialism are best understood as functional, rather than simply causal, statements (Booth, 1985, p. 775). Thus. the “dependency movement” as a whole can be said to have been a response to the challenge to uncover or explain the changing nature of the functional contribution of the institutions of less developed countries to some wider system. A similar interpretation may be applied to the desire to prove the functional necessity of patterns of small-scale enterprise, “pre-capitalist” relations of production, and so on. According to Booth (1985, p. 775). “because of the way the insidious though false scientific pretensions of functionalism influence the importance attached to different sorts of questions, it is what accounts for the repetitive, noncumulative character of the literature, and its failure to explore systematically some of the more urgent kinds of empirical issues.” The irony is that although neo-Marxist development sociology emerged as a critique of modernization theory, these problems are the same as those of the modernization theory of writers such as Hoselitz (1960) and Eisenstadt (1973). As in neo-Marxism, modernization theory consisted of elaborating models of society, illuminating the relevant parameters, and determining where particular less-developed countries “stood” with regard to the model. Thus, modernization theorists continue to engage in trying to isolate and measure parameters of countries with respect to a distance in a certain direction. In the 1960s these parameters were closely associated with Parsons’ pattern variables.’ Attention later turned to modernization as progressive “rationalization,” the inculcation of a meansends orientation.’ In modernization theory, especially Rostow’s (1960) version, evolution took place at the level of the nation-state; every country was following in the wake of the United States along a predetermined series of stages. The neo-Marxist critique in its early dependency form simply

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changed the evolutionary unit of analysis to the world system, and reassigned Third World countries to a new role in the grand evolutionary drama it was now condemned to a pattern of peripheral or semiperipheral capitalist development. Later Marxist theorizing, which developed from dissatisfaction with dependency approaches. shifted the unit of analysis back to the social formation or nation-state. Dependency theory was attacked for being a mere inversion of modernization theory and for being excessively stagnationist and circulationist (see, for example. Bernstein, 1979). But the “modes of production” (e.g., Taylor, 1979) and Warrenite (Warren. 1980) responses to dependency theory essentially substituted monocausal explanations of Third World development - the articulation of precapitalist and capitalist modes of production. which blocks capitalist development, and imwhich induces industrial-capitalist perialism, development, respectively for dependency theory’s monocausal formulation that the penetration of capitalism into the periphery leads to underdevelopment. We can now see that each of the major strands of development theory since the 1950s - nonMarxist and neo-Marxist alike - has been based on a particular formulation of why First World and Third World development processes are dissimilar (i.e., on rival versions of an underlying. though often only implicit, traditional-modern continuum) and on why peripheral countries are structurally similar. Where variability or heterogeneity in Third World formations has been recognized and emphasized, it tends to be conceptualized in continuum or stage terms (i.e., from traditional-peripheral to moderncore). Why, then, did Marxist-influenced development theory not move beyond the underlying problems that have plagued modernization theory? The answer, as Booth suggests, lies in a form of theorizing (functionalist logics) common to much of the social sciences, Marxist or otherwise. This was, in turn, the cause of the more substantive problems in neo-Marxist development sociology. These problems include the unsophisticated instrumentalist (and, we might add, structuralist) analyses of the state, a lack of attention to the political sphere more generally, a lack of attention to the complexities of power and class relations, and a lack of attention to cultural influences and change. We also believe that the historic problematic of otherwise disparate neoMarxist theories an emphasis on broadly generalizable features of Third World formations -has led to a lack of attention to understanding

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3. METATHEORY: WEBERIAN APPROACHES Any interpretation that begins with and remains confined to a formal model will, in the end, be teleological - that is, self-determining. In other words, a formal theory contains within itself all outcomes. The problem with neoMarxist development theorists is that they have done exactly this. Weberian sociology has the potential for confronting these problems. Weber labeled a construct of formal theory an “ideal type” and noted with respect to the Marxist writings of his time that: All specifically Marxian “laws” and developmental constructs - insofar as they are theoretically sound - are ideal types. The eminent. indeed unique. heuristic significance of these ideal types when they are used for the assessment of reality is known to everyone who has ever employed Marxian concepts and hypotheses. Similarly, their perniciousness. as soon as they are thought of as empirically valid or as real (i.e., truly metaphysical) “effective forces.” “tendencies,” etc., is likewise known to those who have used them (quoted in Hamilton. 19S-t. p. 124).

Whatever criticisms may be applied to Weber’s concept of the ideal type and how the concept has subsequently been employed (see below). the idea does bring into relief how social theorists tend to reify concepts and to posit them as explanatory. Marx built his formal model of capitalism from a particular case, that of England in the 19th century, in accordance with the standards of the scientific method of his time. But as Polanyi (1944) made clear, the West during the 19th century was perhaps as close to the classical model of free market liberalism as it ever has been. The English state during this time was particularly weak, while social life was as governed by the economic as it ever has been. Not surprisingly, Marx’s model included little role for the state or culture. The economic was determining - at least until the revolution, at which point the political would again intercede in social life. The history of the Marxist tradition subsequent to Marx could be described as a tension between the unwavering application of reified Marxist models, and the incorporation of various correctives which we refer to here as “neo-Weberian.” Two examples of the incorporation of such “neo-Weberian” insights in the Marxist tradition are the works of Charles Tilly and E. P. Thompson. Tilly (1984) argues that one cannot

argue from a general set of propositions; rather, general statements need to be fashioned from grounded historical work. Thompson as Trimberger (1981, p. 227) has stressed - suggests that theoretical ideas should be used in dialogue with the evidence to interpret particular historical processes. As such, both ground their work in important neo-Weberian premises historical-comparative specificity and interpretative understanding, respectively. We should again emphasize that the point is not to make a claim regarding the “true” Weber and “true” Marx, nor is it to definitively label various theorists as “vulgar” or “true” Marxists or Weberians. We do suggest, however, that some provisional labeling of approaches is useful for delineating arguments we are making regarding the current impasse in development sociology. By proposing that there is a “neoWeberian” approach, we intend to invoke certain ideas whose classical origins can be traced to Weber (among others), and which we believe are important for the development sociology of the 1980s. There are, to be sure, elements in the writings of Weber which justify the later formalistic interpretation of his work by Anglo-Weberian scholars such as Parsons.’ A considerable excursus on this point is necessary in order to demonstrate that there are two Weberian sociologies, one of which has the greatest promise for revitalizing development sociology. Weber (1978. p. 6) defined sociology as the study of subjects with the methods of objective rationality. With regard to the subject matter: “it is convenient to treat all irrational, affectually determined elements of behavior as factors of deviation from a conceptually pure type of rational action . . . the construction of a purely rational course of action . . serves the sociologist as a type (ideal type) which has the merit of clear understandability and lack of ambiguity” (Weber, 1978, p. 6). In other words, with regard to methodology, Weber defines science - including sociology - by its means; it is rationalistic, value-free, and formal. As with the latter-day modernization theorists, Weber seems to set up implicit relations of superiority and inferiority between the “objective” and “subjective.” For example, “[blureaucracy develops the more perfectly, the more it is ‘dehumanized,’ the more completely it succeeds in eliminating from official business love, hatred, and all personal irrational, and emotional elements which escape calculation” (Weber, 197s. p. 975). Again like the latter-day modernization theorists, Weber suggests that there is a progressive “disenchantment” or rationalization in the

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modern world. The advent of capitalism and modernity implies the erosion in all spheres of life of elements of the “subjective,” or the irrational. to be replaced with science. Weber’s definition of the modern “formalrational” bureaucracy is analogous to his definition of science (including sociology): It is an organization of means, an instrument in the hands of the politician. who defines the ends to which bureaucracies are directed. “It is not possible,” he writes, “to define a political organization, including the state, in terms of the end to which its action is devoted” (Weber. 1978, p. 54). This is especially the case for bureaucratic states, which, as the most efficient form of organization, are becoming more and more important. Weber does not produce a theory of the ends of bureaucracies, as he is similarly unable to produce a theory of the ends of science in the essay “Science as a Vocation” (Weber. 1946). He falls back on elevating the means (of domination) itself to constitute the end - completing the circle of the iron cage and defining the problem taken up by Horkheimer and Adorn0 (1972). At the risk of being repetitive, we repeat here a central assertion of this paper, namely, that in dealing with the current impasse in development sociology, Weber’s definitions of (social) science, bureaucracy, and other social institutions should be seen as one-sided ideal types which are useful for “understanding” reality, but which in no way actually represent reality in all its complexity (Antonio, 1985, p. 22). The case can be made that in his empirical studies, Weber did not try to suggest that any of these models actually existed as such. Recent work in what we call the neo-Weberian tradition,’ for example, has emphasized the “non-formal” aspects of contemporary bureaucracies. For example, Giddens (1981, pp. 202-205) draws on a variety of research to question the usefulness of Weber’s conception of bureaucracy, suggesting that the increased interdependency and the type of social space engendered by bureaucratization generates the possibility for an increase in strategic power by subordinates. Offe (1985) suggests that in the case of the modern welfare state, the demands made on state bureaucracies lead bureaucracies to act according to several different and contradictory logics, including a logic aimed at generating consent and cooperation with state programs from clients. The point is that when social institutions are studied in their context, rather than in the abstract, ideal-type models such as Weber’s formalrational bureaucracy are best taken as heuristic aids which may or may not be useful for understanding some aspect of the institution. With

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such an approach, the question of the determination of the ends of administrative action is resolved into a problem addressed through contextual and historical analysis. In the same vein, the concept of “value-free science’* does not hold when we look, for example. at the particular empirical problems which confront social scientists, their sources of funding, the socioeconomic origins of the individual practitioners. and other real political influences on scientists and the institutions in which they work (Busch and Lacy, 1983).7 The problem with much of the orthodox Anglo-Weberian tradition in sociology is like much of that of the Marxist and neo-Marxist tradition; they both followed what Habermas has called the “official version” of Weber (Habermas, 1984, p. 281). These Weberians have tended to limit their analyses to “ideal type” models or “formal configurations.“8 They failed to contextualize or theorize from the empirical. Rather, the empirical world was forced into gregiven (so-called) Weberian (formal) models. In other words, the orthodox Weberian tradition has accepted the common interpretation of what constitutes the practice of “science” for the social sciences - namely, the building of deductive models which proceed from a series of axioms, through definitions and propositions, to explain and predict social phenomena.“’ This yields the familiar style of “verificational” or deductive theory common in the discipline of sociology, as well as in the sociology of development, both modernization and neo-Marxist. Finally, deductive approaches to sociology have also tended to be functionalist - which Weber never was.

4. THEORY:

THE NEO-WEBERIAN APPROACH

We argue that there are alternative traditions of theorizing, and that it is possible to avoid the teleological assumptions of neo-Marxist development sociology without lapsing into empiricism. More than this, the discussion in the previous section suggests that an “unofficial version” of Weber can be merged with the neo-Marxist tradition without sacrificing the major breakthroughs of the neo-Marxist tradition. This is accomplished by reconceptualizing formal models as “ideal types.” Theoretical models are clearly recognized to be subjective or interpretative, and may be used to “understand,” but not “explain,” an empirical case. Categories and concepts in the orthodox Weberian tradition might be incorporated in the same way. The key to the neo-Weberian approach is that

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theory is built not simply. from pre-given models, but also through empirical work. For a given case, theory is not used to “predict,” but is employed in dialogue with evidence and observation to construct an analytic account and analysis of what is and what might be possible. The strength of an ‘*ideal-type” theoretical proposition may be evaluated by testing its applicability and usefulness when brought to bear in attempts CO“understand” a variety of historical cases. As should be clear from the debates of the past decades, the applicability of a competing model cannot be “tested” and resolved empirically once and for all. However, the usefulness of a model for understanding particular cases and problems can be evaluated by standards which are not purely objective, but may be (and generally are) discursively established (Pitkin, 1972, pp. 231-240). That is, such standards are established through a social or group process of debate and dialogue about the usefulness of particular approaches. While it is unlikely that complete consensus can be reached on such standards, and while it is important to recognize “subjective” or interpretive aspects to any set of standards, we also claim that standards set in this way are never purely arbitrary. In identifying verificational sociology with the application of reified “ideal type” models, we do not intend to dismiss quantitative methods as such. Consistent with our discussion of the alternative tradition, we suggest that such methods be used not to demonstrate the reality of a particular model of development (or underdevelopment), but as an aid in “understanding” variation. That is, a mathematical relation should be seen as only the first step in building an interpretation, not as an actual representation of reality. In the context of development sociology, such methods could be fruitfully used in understanding variation through comparative historical studies. In the remainder of this section, we make a number of comments about some substantive concerns that seem to us important to a neoWeberian development sociology. The issues we raise are not meant to be comprehensive, and the intention is in no way to eliminate as illegitimate research agendas which are not mentioned. On the contrary, we would hope that a neoWeberian approach would open up the research agenda of development sociology to include concerns previously disparaged as illegitimate in other traditions. What follows are suggestions as to just some of the directions such an agenda might take. Realizing that Marx built his model from a particular case, with a particular version of what

constituted social science. a neo-Weberian approach to development sociology suggests that some of the old “materialist” tenets of the Marxist tradition be discarded once and for all for example, the base-superstructure metaphor. Similarly. while traditional “Weberian” concerns might obviously be incorporated into a neoWeberian approach to development sociology, ideas such as that of the progressive disenchantment of society should be replaced by a comparative analysis of trends toward various types of “rationalization” and “derationalization” (formalization and deformalization, and so on) in various spheres. These trends, in turn, should in no way be considered “prime movers” in and of themselves. but rather the outcome of more concrete processes such as “historically specific changes in the organization of reduction and coercion” (Tilly. 19S4. p. SO). if The conception of power can be broadened to include power as derived through the control of the means of violence and what Giddens (1981, 1984) calls authoritative resources. This is an addition to the analysis of power as derived though economic advantage (e.g., the mobilization of social labor and the means of production, the “veto power” of “business confidence” over state policy when investment decisions are privately controlled), which predominates in most Marxist approaches. Giddens makes two further comments on power worth noting: First. “all forms of dependence offer some resources whereby those who are subordinate can influence the activities of their superiors” (Giddens, 19S4, p. 16). Second, power should not be seen only in its purely coercive sense as inimical to freedom, but also at “the heart of both domination and power lies the transformation capacity of human action, the origin of all that is liberating and productive in social life as well as all that is repressive and destructive” (Giddens, 1981, pp. 50.51). Two points are worth emphasizing. First, power in particular cases needs to be conceptualized in terms of how class, gender, ethnicity, and other sectional relations are experienced by the historical actors themselves - for example, as affected by Lukes’ (1974) third face of power. This avoids the imputation of power and interests by theorists from the point of view of theory alone. Second, power, aside from rare cases such as the total institutions of Foucault and Goffman, is never absolute. The relatively powerless always have some resources, or some strategic location from which they can influence or actively shape social processes. The task of a new sociology of development is to study relations of mutual dependence and access to resources as culturally defined, so as to know what is possible

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in a given situation. In this context, it is also important to gain more understanding of the origins and sources of variation in power relations. James Scott’s (1985) study of how power relations have changed in a Malaysian village may be cited as an example of a contribution to this agenda. Marxist-influenced development sociology has been especially weak in building an understanding of the Third World state and its constitutive organizations - a lack which is particularly disturbing when we consider the overarching role played by the state in most of the post-colonial Third World. There has been little attention to what Burawoy calls the “politics of production” and to the relations between struggles within and struggles outside of the state (Burawoy, 1985, pp. ‘212-213). On one hand, neo-Marxists have tended to take an instrumentalist view of the state as serving the interests of one fraction or another of the ruling classes. Alternatively, the “relative autonomy” approach derived from Poulantzas - especially the more-often-read early Poulantzas (1973) - boils down to an even more formal and abstract instrumentalism, now in the service of the abstract capitalist mode of production rather than a particular class. On the other hand, the orthodox Weberian approach in which the state is conceptualized in terms of structural models needs to be broadened to include subjectivity and agency. In contrast to the orthodox Weberian approach emphasizing progressive rationalization, we would draw attention again to modifications of Weber’s theory of modern bureaucracies by Offe (1985) and others. Offe identifies three divergent and contradictory “rationalities” which orient bureaucratic action in welfare-state societies: first, the traditional Weberian rationality tied to legal rules; second, that of functional effectiveness; and third, that which arises out of the need to ensure the active cooperation of clients. Willis (1977, pp. 176177), in his study of the educational system in England, similarly finds it useful to separate out three levels of institutions: the official, the pragmatic, and the cultural. The official level refers to the formal account the institution has of itself. At the pragmatic level, agents and functionaries of particular institutions appropriate official or theoretical rationales for their own purposes purposes of control and direction, and of their day-to-day survival within the institution. The third level constitutes cultural forms of adaptation by the institution’s clients to the practical exigencies and processes of the institution as they interact with the clients’ class experience. These dimensions represent “ideal types”

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which need not be adopted as such in development sociology. But we note that in contrast to these approaches in the neo-Weberian literature, each of the variants of current neo-Marxist development sociology represents a non-functionalist and non-instrumentalist approach to an understanding of the structure and practice of Third World states and their bureaucracies. A second modification of Weber’s theory of bureaucracy is suggested by the observation that the larger an organization, the more scope there is for alienation and resistance by officials at the lower levels. The point is made theoretically by Giddens, while Burawoy’s (1985) studies of the labor process could constitute an important initial approach to this dimension of state organizations. An advantage of the study of power and the state as suggested here is that it opens up a view in which these are seen as “enabling” as well as coercive. Polanyi was one of the first in the neoWeberian tradition to draw attention to the enabling aspects of the state. According to him, the market forces can only be limited, and ultimately subordinated to social goals, through the agency of a state. We may compare Polanyi’s view with the tendency to see the state as always oppressive by most Marxist-influenced development theorists who take a more-or-less veiled instrumentalist view of the state. The incorporation of culture into a neoWeberian approach implies understanding how social groups such as classes, ethnic groups, or genders view and act on their world.” Willis (1981) emphasizes the active production of culture by people. He notes that only some aspects of cultural production contribute to the minimum conditions necessary for social reproduction. That is, culture cannot be reduced to an ideology which is functional to maintaining relations of domination. E. P. Thompson, in The ~Cfaking of rhe Englislz Working Class (1963). similarly argues that the production of a culture (or consciousness) is a creative process which borrows from and reshapes cultural resources inherited from the past. In general, we can say that people tend to invoke and interpret past norms, meanings, and so on, so as to use them in working out stategies in ongoing struggles over the definition of appropriate morals and meaning as well as over allocation of material resources. In the modernization school of development sociology. culture has been viewed as “patterned behavior” and was advanced as an explanatory principle in and of itself. For example. Rogers (1969) and Foster (1967) claimed that a specifically-peasant, static culture was the major obstacle to agricultural development in the Third

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World. In the neo-Marxist sociology of development the concept of culture has been merged which in turn was seen as a with ideology. product of underlying economic configurations. We suggest that a neo-Weberian approach be adopted in which culture is conceptualized as the socially-established framework of meaning which orients social action. This conception of culture suggests that development sociologists must take into account why people do as they do in terms of the subjective meaning attached to what they do, rather than simply explain all action by appealing to economic or other formal laws and models of society. This type of understanding is more likely to lead to informed development than one based on the characterization of culture in terms of formal models.

5. WHY NOT MORE

INFLUENTIAL’?

This paper suggests that the neo-Weberian literature, much of it currently confined to political sociology, is particularly relevant to development sociology given the current state of the latter field.i3 Yet the discussion leaves begging a final question: that is, why is it that there have not been more scholars arguing for the incorporation of the Weberian tradition into development sociology, and why have Weberianinfluenced theoretical postures not been more utilized in development sociology? Surprisingly, despite the seeming overlap in subject matter, writers such as Polanyi, Moore, and Tilly. who are enormously influential in political and comparative-historical sociology, are not cited and drawn upon nearly as much as one might expect in the literature in development sociology. Moreover, in political sociology and social anthropology the critique of historical materialism as well as neo-Weberian concerns have been current since at least the early 1980s (for example in anthropology, see Ortner, 1984). With only a few exceptions (such as Teodor Shanin) development sociology has not produced scholars of the stature of Barrington Moore taking a neo-Weberian approach. Why is it that the field of development sociology has been so slow to respond to the critique of historical materialism, and so lacking in scholarship in the Weberian tradition? This reluctance, we would add, is most certainly at the bottom of the impasse in development theory described by Booth. It is possible to posit that the reluctance to incorporate Weber can be traced to the origins of the neo-Marxist dependency critique as a response to Weberian-influenced (but largely

Durkheimianand Parsons-rooted) modernization theory. Many Marxist-influenced development sociologists might still interpret Weber as overly idealistic and therefore opposed to the materialistic interpretation of history. Another explanation might be the influence m development sociology of a general tendency toward teleological, verificational, and functionalist approaches in social theory. The less generalizable interpretive approaches which the neoWeberian approach entails have a low level of legitimacy as science in comparison with model building and verificational studies. Yet these explanations would also hold for other disciplines and other subfields in sociology. The answer must therefore lie in something unique to development theory. We suggest for the sake of argument that this something is the clash between the nature of development theory and the past nature of Weberian scholarship. On the one hand, development theory has always implied a praxis of sorts. That is, “development theory” aims at achieving two things: first, an explanation or understanding of the so-called development process and, second, identification of a program of intervention in the process. At a minimum. development theory includes as an agenda the identification of means for improving the material well-being of the people of the developing countries. Development as “modernization” was initiated during the Cold War of the 1950s and was intended to stave off the socialist threat and the influence of the Soviet camp among the newly-independent nations of the Third World by offering improved material well-being. The neo-Marxist alternative was formulated as a critique of the politics of modernization, and took the stance that “development” could only occur through a social transformation toward socialism. Unfortunately. because its political agenda was derived from theory rather than practice, the neo-Marxist critique has begun to appear more and more irrelevant, and less and less connected to practice. On the other hand, the Weberian tradition, especially; its neo-Weberian branch as we have depicted it here, has generally been characterized as not incorporating praxis. This would seem to derive in part from the very scholarly and esoteric nature of much of the tradition (for example. that of the Frankfurt school), and in part from the orthodox interpretation of Weber’s claim that “science” should be value-free. While the Marxist tradition leads inexorably to a clear political agenda - even if teleological and often unrealizable - the Weberian tradition seems to be limited to understanding without an explicit agenda or a politics.

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But recent work in the neo-Weberian tradition indicates that this lack of agenda need not always be the case. To begin with, Weber’s claim that “science” should be value-free should not necessarily be taken to imply that scientists should be unconcerned with the political implications of their work. As argued above, Weber arrived at his idea that science should be value-free by defining science in ideal-type terms by its means and decontextualizing the practice of science from its social and historical location. Weber himself was very much involved in the political debates of his time, and was active in influencing policy on Prussian agriculture following his work in this area (Tribe, 1983). Even granting the prior point regarding the breakdown of the concept of value-free social science, it is likely that many nevertheless see the neo-Weberian tradition as too abstract, scholarly, and esoteric to be relevant to development sociology. Yet this also need not be, as anyone who is familiar with the work of John Gaventa (1980) and the Highlander Center must agree. When empirical study deals with power relations in the contexts of class, the state, cultural interpretation, and so on, the work quickly leads to strategies for the empowerment of the less powerful - strategies which emerge from the the case itself, not from the dictates of teleogical theory. It is worth noting that the question of ‘*obstacles” to development is rendered irrelevant or at best problematic and Eurocentric from a neo-Weberian perspective.” This is so on a macro scale because the idea of obstacles implies, in turn, the idea of a natural (i.e., evolutionary) historical course of development, modeled on that which has occurred in the West. On a more micro scale, the question of obstacles remains a difficult one, because although one might formulate strategies to “remove” obstacles to a desired goal, it is in the end impossible to predict all the consequences of any action. There is no natural course of change, during which course obstacles need to or should be removed, and the social world is complex and contradictory, so that any action will have complex, contradictory, and unforeseen consequences. More importantly, in the development field we are dealing with subjects, people whose behavior we cannot fully understand (or whose reasons for acting as they do we cannot fully understand), much less predict and engineer. This does not necessarily lead to despair the agenda we propose as compatible with the neo-Weberian approach is one of empowerment. This is in contrast to the more orthodox (modernization and neo-Marxist) agenda of prediction and control,

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social engineering and the vanguard parties, and the like. The Participation Program at UNRISD is an example of development work which takes this approach in the developing world (see, for example, Turton. 1987); the work at the Highlander Center is an example of such an approach in the United States. There exists a plurality of other locally-oriented development organizations which, often drawing on the writings of Paolo Friere, are working from empowerment and participatory perspectives. We suggest that agendas of this sort could be very much informed by analyses of the type presented by Scott (1985) and by analyses of variation in power relations. Owing to the perception of the Weberian tradition as lacking in praxis, development theory has been somewhat insulated from theoretical developments in related fields such as political sociology. Through this paper, we have attempted to demonstrate how this literature is relevant to development, never more so than now in the context of the current impasse. Rather than throwing out praxis, a critical incorporation of Weber implies a praxis in the real sense of the word - as used by E. P. Thompson - that of a dialogue between theory and practice, leading to both improved theory and effective practice.

6. CONCLUSION The problems

with Marxism in development the theoretical and metatheoretical. The incorporation of orthodox Weberian sociology can deal with the theoretical by suggesting additional sets of concepts to bring into the analysis - specifically those related to analysis of the state and its constitutive organizations, the political sphere more generally, and culture as expressed in values-orienting action. But more importantly, neo-Weberian scholarship addresses explicitly the distinction and relations between the formal and the substantive, or the objective and subjective, in social science inquiry. Incorporation of the neo-Weberian tradition will force attention to the role of ontology in the sociology of development. Incorporation of Weberian theory without explicit attention to neo-Weberian metatheory will fail to resolve the current impasse in development theory. Despite the palpable relevance of neoWeberian theory and metatheory to a revitalized sociology of development, we want to emphasize a point made several times in the preceding that our arguments for a neo-Weberian thrust should not be construed as a plea for rejecting neoMarxist development sociology in its entirety. Indeed, the accomplishments of the past 15 years sociology occur at two levels,

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of neo-Marxist development sociology are many: a repertoire of important concepts, a vibrant ongoing research program in peasant studies and agrarian structure (see, for example. Deere, 1987). major breakthroughs in the analysis of international migration and the informal sector, and some notable work on peripheral class structures and class formation. These advances, which Booth (1985) acknowledges, need not and should not be sacrificed in embracing neo-Weberianism.‘5 As we noted earlier, neoWeberianism is relevant, first and foremost, as a metatheoretical mooring for redressing the tendencies toward functionalism, system teleology, and so on, identified so persuasively by Booth. As well, many of the concepts of neoWeberianism strike us as being highly promising for development studies. But it should be kept in mind that the essence of contemporary neoWeberianism is a judicious blending of a Weberian ontology and metatheory (based principally on Weber’s sociology of domination and comparative sociology of development) with concepts and insights from the Marxist tradition. We would call attention to the “Weber-Marx dialogue” - a rekindling of attention to the commonalities between Marxist and Weberian scholarship which has recently become a minor growth industry in Anglo sociology (see, for example, Antonio and Glassman, 1985) and which has demonstrated the broad applicability of the general theoretical thrust we have advocated here. Also, many of the most prominent neo-Weberians (e.g., E. P. Thompson, K. Offe) are conventionally seen as being “Marxists.” Some (quite possibly, Teodor Shanin, as an example) would no doubt feel uncomfortable with the neo-Weberian label (because of the voluntarist-idealist overtones of orthodox Anglo Weberianism) even though they have been highly critical of the teleology of classical Marxism and

strongly advocate the incorporation of subjectivity and agency within a revitalized neo-Marxist sociology. The precise labeling is unimportant. What is crucial is recognition of the theoretical and metatheoretical shortcomings of most neoMarxist development sociology and the need for a non-teleological alternative. Likewise, Weberian sociology has weaknesses - for example, the tendency of the methodology of the ideal-type to lead to a static bias which Marx-Weber debate (Wiley. 1987; Arrighi and Hopkins. 1987) and dialogue (Antonio and Glassman, 1985) have high promise for resolving. A further concomitant of embracing a neoWeberian approach to development sociology, in our view. would be a shift in the problematic underlying development studies. The traditional problematic, running through a long line of “official-Weberian,” Durkheimian, and Parsonianinfluenced modernization theory to neoMarxist development theories of the past two decades, has been to determine why Third World countries as a whole tend to develop as they do (in particular, why they have become underdeveloped). That is, the implicit problematic has been to identify the generalizable features of the development process that tend to cause Third World countries to be fundamentally alike. We would argue, however, that the apparent and growing heterogeneity of Third World formations suggests the need to address a very different problematic: to account for the forces that have led to dramatic variations in peripheral formations and to explain why these formations have become so different. This new problematic, we believe. is highly consistent with Weber’s methodological approach in General Economic History (Weber, 1981). The Agrariatl Sociology of Ancienr Civilizations (Weber, 1976), and his comparative sociology of religion (e.g., Parts III and IV in Weber, 1946).

NOTES 1. Shanin (1983), in Late Man Road, suggests that the “late Marx”

and the Russian was aware of the

dilemma.-2. Parsons’ pattern variables were derived from Weber’s ideal-type descriptions of action orientations. These pattern variables and Parsons’ theory of change as disturbed functional equilibria were deconstructed and reconstituted into a traditional-modern continuum by Hoselitz (1960). See Taylor (1979) for a summary and critique.

3.

See the volume, Essu_vs on Economic DevelopHonor of Bert F. Hoselitz

menu and Cultural Change in

(Nash. 1977). in which many of the major writers in the modernization tradition set up a new post-critique agenda. Wilbert Moore especially recommends the new orientation. Hamilton (1984) quotes from page 103 of Weber’s 4. (1919) Methodology. Yet the Anglo tradition in Weberian scholarship 5. has by and large not adopted these Weberian premises. Rather, Parsons and others, for examole. have ignored the methodological injunction of thh ideal tyie and have formalized Weber’s concepts into what is arguably

a reified model of society.

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6. This is a broad term used. for example, by Craib (198-t. p. 59) to distinguish the contemporary Weberians who accept much of the content of the Marxist tradition from the Weberians of the Parsonian structural-functionalist era. 7. It might be claimed that when Weber did empirical work, such as his analysis of the rise of capitalism in General Economic Hisrory (Weber, 1981) late in his life, he did contextualize the state (see Collins, 1986, Chap. 2). As an example, in a striking anticipation of some aspects of world systems theory, Weber (1981, p. 337) writes in General Economic History that during the early period of capitalism, The separate states had to compete for mobile capital, which dictated to them the conditions under which it would assist them to power. Out of this alliance of the state with capital, dictated by necessity, arose the national citizen class, the bourgeoisie in the modern sense of the word. Hence it is the closed national state which afforded to capitalism its chance for development - and as long as the national state does not give place to a world empire, capitalism will endure. 8.

See, for example,

Hamilton

(1984) on Eisenstadt.

9. See, for example, Collins’ (1986, Chap. 2) discussion of mindless applications of the “Weber thesis” from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1958). 10. See especially Homans’ (1967) The Nature of the Social Sciences. In a less strong position. Blalock’s (1969) Theory Construction accepts the basic premise of The Discovery of Grounded' Theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) for generating initial orooositions through empirical wo;k before-moving dn io model construction. Homans has been particularly influential among graduates of Harvard - for example, scholars such as Skocpol. 11. Tilly (1984, p. 50) in a parallel fashion enjoins us to discard the Durkheimian notion of progressive differentiation in favor of processes of both concentration and differentiation, and to subordinate the analysis of these abstractly-specified processes to historically-

specific changes coercion.

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and

12. Notions of “culture” in recent social theory are converging on a semiotic definition. Geertz (1973, p. 12). for example, writes that “culture consists of socially established structures of meaning in terms of which people do things.” With regard to past debates on what constitutes culture, Geertz notes that the question as to whether culture is patterned behavior or a frame of mind loses its importance if human behavior is seen as symbolic action (1973, p. 10). The convergence in conceptualizing culture is described by Raymond Williams (1981). According to him, the convergence “sees culture as the signifying system through which necessarily (though among other means) a social order is communicated, reproduced, experienced, and explored” (1981, p. 13). Bourdieu’s (1977) idea of “habitus” is an example of recent work in the area and has been influential in recent work by James Scott (1985), Carol Smith (1984). Howard Newby (1977), Paul Willis (1981), and others. Habitus is a system of durable, transposable dispositions which mediates between structures and the practices of individuals. It is not an explanation (or “independent variable”) in and of itself, but is produced in interaction with the social environment during a person’s formative period. 13. Giddens makes the question of power central to theory, and deals with power in his “structuration” most of his series of books on the subject. See, for example, Chap. 2 in Giddens’ (1981) A Conremporary Critique of Historical Materialism. 14. See Collins’ (1986) comments about U’eber being a “world systems theorist.” his conceptualization of the state being rooted in geopolitics, and his chapters on the family and gender. 15. For those who are unfamiliar with Booth’s (1985) article and his previous work (e.g., Booth. 1975). it should be stressed that he was among the early practitioners of neo-Marxist development theory. Thus, his critique of neo-Marxist development theory should not be construed as having come from alien quarters, but rather from a person who had been a sympathetic practitioner for some time.

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