Preliminary communication
A CLOSED CIRCLE OF MODERNIZATION?: FROM TOMAŠIĆ TO HUNTINGTON
Vjeran Katunarić
; Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb
Abstract
Setting aside the questionable anthropogeographic theoretical
outsets and consideration of differences between the highlands-
-authoritarian and lowlands-peacemaking models, the author of
the article concentrates on Tomašlč's character analysis of the
ruling elites of Balkan societies and his understanding of the
relations of internal and external factors in preserving these elites.
Due to the latter, Tomašić's views can live up to contemporary
theories and research of determinants of political modernization.
According to Tomašić, the Balkan regime of force has managed
to survive due to involvement of super-powers in local conflicts.
Thus, in 1946 the regime placed its only hope in a complete
turnabout of the external factor - in the possibility of a global
process of disarmament and economic development. This
rhymes with the fact that after 1945, democracy was established
or renewed only by exerting strong external pressure (e.g.
American pressure in Germany and Japan). Therefore, the central
problem of theories and policies of development was how to
induce change from without. What emerged is the farreaching
conclusion that democracy is more a result of difusion than
internal development. The evident feebleness of the current
American and western interest for non-western countries, on the
one hand, and the strictness of necessary internal conditions for
the development of democracy, as defined by Huntington, on the
other hand, it seems, lead to a definite closing of the circle of
modernization within western borders thus leaving non-western
countries to their own fate.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
33097
URI
Publication date:
1.11.1993.
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