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Kimmel 1987
Kimmel 1987
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REVIEWS 481
sanguine about world-systems analysis, its civilian economic aid and to military projects,
definitions, unit of analysis, and the like will including counterinsurgency. The roles of the
find that those very strengths provide them with Social Science Research Council and the
a clear target. For critics of world-system CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom
theory, Bornschier and Chase-Dunn's book is receive some attention, while that of organiza-
likely to confirm their prejudice. Marxist tions like the Council on Foreign Relations does
political economists, I believe, will find con- not. Reports and publications dealing with
firmed their suspicions about the functionalist "militarymodernizers," anticipatingand prevent-
and underlying logical positivist stance of this ing revolutions (Project Camelot), and imple-
perspective. I cannot recall a recent book where menting AID programs are reviewed carefully; a
I marked up the margins with more protest over reader's patience is tried.
what I regarded as loose logic, shifting or The most original and interesting sections
especially vague definitions, difficult interpre- criticize Political Development directly, via its
tations of history, and convenient disclaimers. origins in and its connections to conservative
The reason is obvious: where I see classes and trends in social thought and political science
capital accumulation and class struggle, the generally. Here Gendzier demonstrates the
authors see hierarchies, systems of power, and carryover from "mass society" interpretationsof
social mobility. Nevertheless, I will insist that industrial countries (where liberals rejected
my graduate students read this book. The them) to the Third World, where the "disease of
research problem is important, the review of the transition" lurked in every anomic corner.
findings is valuable, and it does provide an And in her lucid rereading of the staples of the
excellent example of model building and tradition (Lerner, Shils, Almond, Huntington),
hypothesis testing within the world-system she shows the unmistakable imprint of the elitist
paradigm. revision of democratic theory prevalent in
postwar social science, a revision in which
nonparticipation became a good thing. Along
Managing Political Change: Social Scientists with this depoliticization of development poli-
and the Third World, by IRENEL. GENDZIER. tics came a casting about for psychological and
Boulder & London: Westview Press, 1985. 238 cultural explanations, our century's version, it
pp. $42.50 cloth. $15.95 paper. seems to me, of Social Darwinism.
Gendzier teaches Middle Eastern history and
WALTERL. GOLDFRANK political science at Boston University, across the
University of California, Santa Cruz river from MIT and Harvard, where many of the
constitutive texts were created in the 1950s and
Twenty years ago students of social change 1960s. But it would be wrong to attribute her
faced the dreary task of plowing through page critical dissection of Political Development to
after page of jargon-ridden articles, chapters, ressentiment. Rereading the snippets she cites in
and books about political development in the her controlled, dispassionate text, one is con-
"new" (Asia and Africa) or not-so-new (Latin fronted anew with the abstracted tendentious-
America) nations. Supported by the great ness of these apologists for empire whose
foundations and the burgeoning bureaucracies current disciples call Somocista thugs "freedom
who used these writings to justify their meddling fighters" and liken them to the founding fathers
and manipulation, liberal anticommunists sought of the first new nation. Yeah, that's it, that's the
formulae to reconcile the ravages of capitalist ticket.
development with the ideal of democratic
participation that supposedly distinguishes us
from the Evil Empire. Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and
For most sociologists, the modernization Historical Studies, edited by JACKA. GOLD-
paradigm and the political development litera- STONE. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace
ture it spawned have long been laid to rest, Jovanovich, 1986. 343 pp. $13.95 paper.
however much we might argue about how best
to replace it. But as Irene Gendzier reminds us, MICHAEL S. KIMMEL
it remains the dominant discourse in the media SUNY, Stony Brook
and in policy-making circles; thus the utility of
her exhuming them for one last autopsy. The problem of revolution has always been
Gendzier's examination of the discourse of central to sociology. Nineteenth- and early twen-
political development is one part sociology of tieth-century masters saw revolutions as the
knowledge, one part internal critique. The fulfillment of more prolonged processes of
former highlights the role of academic consult- social change (viz. Tocqueville's relative depri-
ants in congressional testimony and executive vation, Marx's class struggle, and Weber's
branchpolicy making, with due attention both to rationalization and administrative centraliza-
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482 REVIEWS
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REVIEWS 483
health care, or nutrition, Latin American she details the ever-changingbalanceof forces
revolutions "gave rise to more egalitarian as the planters pursued strategies of labor
societiesthanthey displaced"(p. 306). What's control ranging from a coercive indenture
more, she uses a world-economyapproachto systemto a residentlaborreserveon the margins
explain the constraints on a new regime's of the plantationestates. Attemptingto fashion
capacity to institute even more sweeping their own strategiesof survivalin this violent
reforms. context were the Javanese, who originatedas
Granted,theseareas muchmoralquestionsas "contractcoolies" within an enclave of Dutch
they are empiricalquestions, and that Revolu- colonialandplanterauthorityin Sumatra,where
tions raises such issues is testamentto Gold- the local populationwas underMalayauthority.
stone's editorialachievement.Even thoughone Female "coolies" were used to attract,pacify,
must look elsewhere for the theoretical(and and regulate the male labor force, and this
political) controversies that often fuel the manipulationof sexuality as a componentof
empiricalstudies of revolution, this text pro- labor control itself became an object of
vides the mostcomprehensiveintroductionto an contentionleadingtowarda familypolicy. Thus
excitingandgrowingsubdisciplineof sociology. Stoler'snarrativeemphasizesthatany elemental
class structuringof the conflictconstituted,and
was mediated by, ethnic, racial, and gender
Capitalism and Confrontation in Sumatra's relations.
Plantation Belt, 1870-1979, by ANN LAURA In this lies the strengthof the study. For
New Haven: Yale University Press,
STOLER. Stoleris not simplyassertingthatclass relations
1985. 244 pp. $22.50 cloth. are infused with other socioculturalrelations.
She is also carefullydocumenting(withprimary
PHILIPMCMICHAEL sources from all sides) the constructionof a
University of Georgia laborforce as a complexprocessof household-
and community-formation within the coercive
The penetration of capitalism into Third context of an industrygearedto world market
Worldsettings(or any setting)does not occurin forces. Her ability to locate the shifts in social
a culturalvacuum.Its incorporationof peoples relationson the ground as part and parcel of
into commoditymarketsis markedby simulta- worldcapitalisteconomyis exemplary.
neous forms of accommodationand resistance Two themesstandout fromthis study. There
which structurethose marketsand theircultural is, in the first place, the subtlety of Stoler's
impact. Stoler does an admirable job of treatmentof the ultimate hegemony of the
demonstratingthe "ethnographic"history of planters despite the tactical successes of the
capitalismin NorthSumatrain these terms.The laborforce (whichreacheda crescendoof union
theoretical"history"of capitalmayhave certain and squattermilitancyin the 1940s and early
law-like tendenciesgeneratingnew social cate- '50s). This hegemonywas exercisedthroughthe
gories and conflicts, but its empiricalhistory social fact of commoditizationand its accom-
depends precisely on the relative force and panying imperatives,which shaped the labor
ingenuityover time of its real live categorical community'sinternalrelationsand its relations
actors. In this case, planter capital and its to theestatesas a laborreserve.Here,in a superb
variouspoliticaland militaryallies (as adminis- ethnography(superbbecause it is historically
trationschangedhands)confrontedlocal Javan- and comparativelyinformedand well written)
ese communitiesimportedas plantationlabor. Stoler analyzes a particularlabor community,
SpanningDutch colonialism,Japaneseoccupa- SimpangLima. She shows how recentshifts in
tion, andIndonesiannationalistperiods,Stoler's the plantationeconomy (from rubberto palm
account shows how the elemental struggle oil, and towardthe employmentof temporary
between these forces over the conditions of labor) have generated new labor and land
plantationlabor (and its reproduction)shaped markets, new mercantile classes, and hence
both the political economy of the plantation mushroomingcommoditymarketsthat encom-
system and the structure of the Javanese pass SimpangLima. In this context of shifting
communities. opportunitiesit has becomeless of a community
The narrativeaddressesthe issue, centralto of laboron the marginsof the estates, andmore
analysisof plantationsystems,of the makingof of a "ruralward,feedingthe demandsof North
a labor force that combines both peasantand Sumatra'sestate and regionallabormarketand
proletarianfeatures. Eschewing functionalist 'harboring'those workersbetweentheir forays
accountsthat would concludethat gardenplots into it" (p. 195).
stabilizeand cheapena plantationlabor force, Second and related, to the extent that these
Stoleropts for a historicalaccountemphasizing underemployedlaborersdepend,via the house-
"peasantization"as an active defense against hold, on pooled wages ratherthan subsistence
the depredationsof proletarianization. That is, agriculture,this is a "modeof consumptionnot
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