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‘Won't you tell me, where have all the good times gone’? On the advantages and disadvantages of modernization theory for history

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13642520600648350

1470-1154

Chris Lorenz,

Central European national history

Abstract The German brand of 'history of society'—Gesellschaftsgeschichte—has been known from its beginning in the 1970s for its application of sociological and politological modernization theories to (German) history. Modernization theory was presented by Hans-Ulrich Wehler in particular as the way to transform 'traditional' German history, that is: national political history, centred on a few 'great men', into an integrated and comparative history of German society, that is: encompassing societal structures outside politics. The catastrophic German politics between 1914 and 1945—Germany's 'special path', alias its Sonderweg—was interpreted in terms of a 'delayed modernization' of its political structures. Simultaneously, social scientific theories and methods, capable of explaining societal structures and processes, were presented to German historians as promising alternatives for 'traditional' methods of emphatic understanding of individual persons. In the 1970s and early 1980s German historians of society gained dominance in Germany by applying both modernization theories and social science methods to German history. From the 1980s onwards, however, they were increasingly criticized by proponents of the 'cultural turn' for not incorporating culture in the history of society, for reducing politics to society, and for reducing individuals to structures. This article not only argues that this criticism was basically correct but—more importantly—argues that the problems associated with the history of society are the consequence of conceptual inversion. What historians of society basically did was invert the 'traditional' positions they criticized (on the model of Marx's inversion of Hegel). As a result, the problems pertaining to the positions criticized were not resolved but only turned on their head. The 'traditional' focus on individuals was inverted into a 'modern' focus on structures, the 'traditional' focus on culture was inverted into a 'modern' focus on structures, and 'traditional' emphatic understanding was inverted into 'modern' causal explanation. It is argued that in order to escape from the conceptual trap of inversion new theoretical labour by historians of society will be necessary. Keywords: Modernization TheoryGerman HistoriographyBielefeld SchoolHistory of SocietyConceptual InversionHolocaust Notes [1] For the international context see Iggers (1975 Iggers, G. 1975. New Directions in European historiography, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. [Google Scholar] 1997 Iggers, G. 1997. Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge, Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, published by University Press of New England. [Google Scholar]). [2] Wehler seemed already to be announcing his life's work: a German history of society. [3] See Leviathan. Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft 24, no. 1 (1996): 9: 'That modernization theory today is without any serious alternative does not mean by a long way though, that it is "right" and confirmed by the recent past. It could also mean that the discipline does not have much to offer in this area. Furthermore, the lack of convincing alternatives could also quite simply be a sign that the time for grand theories is over.' [4] For the counter-arguments see Ther (2003 Ther, P. 2003. 'Beyond the Nation: The Relational Basis of a Comparative History of Germany and Europe'. Central European History, 36(no. 1): 45–73. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). [5] Welskopp (1999 Welskopp, T. 1999. "'Westbindung auf dem "Sonderweg". Die deutsche Sozialgeschichte vom Appendix der Wirtschaftsgeschichte zur historischen Sozialwissenschaft'". In Geschichtsdiskurs. Globale Konflikte, Erinnerungsarbeit und Neuorientierungen seit 1945, Edited by: Küttler, W., Rüsen, J. and Schulin, E. 191–238. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch. [Google Scholar], p. 210 ff.). Similar arguments are also to be found in Mergel (1997 Mergel, T. and Welskopp, T., eds. 1997. Geschichte Zwischen Kultur und Gesellschaft. Beiträge zur Theorie-Debatte, Munich: C.H. Beck. [Google Scholar]). [6] From a sociological point of view the combination of structural functionalism and Marxism came rather unexpectedly, since most of the 'Left' criticized Parsons's structural functionalism as completely unhistorical and conservative and as a theoretical glorification of USA society. See the influential criticism of Parsons by Gouldner (1971 Gouldner, A. 1971. The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology, London: Heinemann. [Google Scholar]). [7] This does not apply only to Thomas Welskopp's analyses. [8] Bourdieu's sociology of science, with its denial of the existence of any 'neutral' and 'objective' epistemological arbiters and criteria, is very similar to Foucault's Power/Knowledge theory with its notion of variable 'regimes of truth' and its emphasis on the structural similarity between political and epistemological struggles. Although Wehler has hailed Bourdieu as a new Weber, this similarity between his intellectual ally and his worst intellectual enemy has escaped his attention. See Foucault (1980 Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 109–133. New York: Pantheon Books. [Google Scholar], pp. 109 – 133) and Rouse (2005 Rouse, J. 2005. "'Power/Knowledge'". In The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Edited by: Gutting, G. 108–120. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]). [9] Because of the (GDR-) German–(FRG-) German antagonism, Marxism in the FRG never gained academic acceptation while it held a monopoly position in the GDR. This was a 'peculiarity' of West Germany in comparison with, for example, France, the UK and Italy where academic versions of Marxism gained some academic legitimacy. Marxism in the FRG was influential though for some time in the late 1960s and early '70s, albeit in 'hidden' forms. [10] To what extent this perception was adequate is another matter. The famous 'Thomas theorem' quite simply holds true: 'What is perceived as real, is real in its consequences.' [11] Kocka, following Koselleck, contrasts the terms 'event' and 'structure' and gives them the following definition: 'Under the term event is to be understood a connection of occurrences which can be experienced by contemporaries as a unit of meaning within a framework of chronological succession of before and after and in this respect can also be "narrated" by historians in categories of chronological succession.' Structures on the other hand are 'connections (not necessarily revealing themselves as units of meaning) or givennesses (of events, decisions, actions, persons), which with regard to their temporality do not merge with the strict succession of perceptible events and point beyond the sphere of temporal experience of contemporaries; which therefore cannot be narrated if the integration in a categorical context of a before and after is constitutive for "narration"; which are super-individual and cannot be reduced to individual persons and rarely to exactly definable groups; which antecede events in other ways than in a chronological framework.' The arguments as to why history of society proceeds in a 'non-narrative' manner are presented here. [12] In "What is the 'History of Society'?" (Wehler 1990 Wehler, H. U. 1990. 'What is the "History of Society"?'. Storia della Storiographia, 18: 5–20. [Google Scholar], p. 8), Wehler defined the 'methodological principle' of 'structural history' as 'the attempt to bring historical structures which determine traditions and options and define the restrictive conditions for individual and collective action to bear against the history of events'. One can easily sense in this opinion an echo of Marxism. [13] This view goes back to Theodor Schieder, with whom Wehler did his Ph.D. See Schieder (1962 Schieder, T. 1962. 'Strukturen und Persönlichkeiten in der Geschichte'. Historische Zeitschrift, 195: 265–296. [Google Scholar]). [14] For the variety of meanings of the notion of 'narration', see Lorenz (2001 Lorenz, C. 2001. "'History, Forms of Representation and Functions'". In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Edited by: Smelser, N. and Baltus, P. 6835–6842. New York: Elsevier. [Google Scholar]). [15] Kocka addressed the question of why the German state at the end of the First World War did not act as the 'Gesamtkapitalist' in the interest of the capitalist class, as Marxism held. This 'deviation' was (part of) the explanandum. [16] 'The specific person oriented approach of conventional political history reproduced itself in the mirror-image of an extremely structuralist, personless history of systems, which put its money less on a theoretical interaction of categories than on their mutual separation' (Welskopp 1999 Welskopp, T. 1999. "'Westbindung auf dem "Sonderweg". Die deutsche Sozialgeschichte vom Appendix der Wirtschaftsgeschichte zur historischen Sozialwissenschaft'". In Geschichtsdiskurs. Globale Konflikte, Erinnerungsarbeit und Neuorientierungen seit 1945, Edited by: Küttler, W., Rüsen, J. and Schulin, E. 191–238. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch. [Google Scholar], p. 199). [17] In this respect there exists an important difference between Wehler and Kocka, as in Kocka's Bürgertum project in the 1980s the (bourgeois) culture already occupied a central place. The practice of the history of society had changed but not yet its theory. [18] It is also striking that in German history of society, as in historicism, an a priori antithesis was assumed between causality and intentionality. Philosophical theories that view both as compatible were never considered. For 'compatible' views see Davidson (1980 Davidson, D. 1980. Essays on Actions and Events, 3–19. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 63 – 81, 261 – 275 [Google Scholar], pp. 3 – 19, 63 – 81, 261 – 275); Searle (1983 Searle, J. 1983. Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind, Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 94). [19] To all appearances the idea that the theoretical developments in the humanities can be analysed as 'paradigm changes' was also restricted to the specific historical context of the 1960s and 1970s. Kuhn's theory functioned as the philosophical legitimization of those who diagnosed a 'crisis' at the time and who were 'revolutionizing' the humanities—with some success. See for a recent critique of the paradigm view: Raphael (2003 Raphael, L. 2003. Geschichtswissenschaft im Zeitalter der Extreme. Theorien, Methoden, Tendenzen von 1900 bis zur Gegenwart, Munich: C.H. Beck. [Google Scholar]). [20] For the special path debate see Kocka (1999 Kocka, J. 1999. 'Asymmetrical Historical Comparison: The Case of the German Sonderweg'. History and Theory, 38(no. 1): 40–51. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]); Eley (1997); Berger (1997 Berger, S. 1997. The Search for Normality: National Identity and Historical Consciousness in Germany Since 1800, Providence, RI: Berghahn Books. [Google Scholar]). [21] For the Bürgertum project see Kocka and Frevert (1988 Kocka, J. and Frevert, U., eds. 1988. Bürgertum im 19. Jahrhunde: Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich, Munich: DTV. [Google Scholar]). [22] This contrast between democratic and non-democratic politics, however, gets fundamentally more complicated when the colonial experience is taken into account because the Enlightenment view of modern Western history usually excludes the genocidal practices of democratic Western states in their colonies. [23] This line of criticism was drawn up by G. Schafer (see Schafer 1990 Schafer, G. 1990. Modernisierung der Vergangenheit. Geschichtswissenschaft in der Industriegesellschaft, Hamburg: Fechner. [Google Scholar]).