Analysis of Schmidt's (2006) Multiple Modernities or Varieties of Modernity?

The growing conceptual attention to multiple modernities though insufficiently theorized and lacking in empirical support gives impetus to theoretical reconciliation between a single structure of modernity and the diversity of its local realizations within the conceptual framework of the varieties of modernity that similar to the institutional analysis of the varieties of capitalism allows for comparative application of the concept of the structure of modernity to comprehensive formulation of the institutional, systemic, and contextual variation (Schmidt 2006: 77). In the 1990s, the emergence of the concept of multiple modernities (Wittrock 2000) has marked a departure from homogenizing assumptions of modernization theory, from normative privileging of Western modernity, and from oversimplification of empirically divergent processes that made it imperative to theorize historical trajectories, sociocultural backrgounds, and distinctive modernities in terms of irreducible institutional multiplicity (Schmidt 2006: 77-78). However, the modernization theory (Huntington 1971) has of necessity developed amid diversity that via its meanings, its degrees, and its patterns has determined how persistent vis-a-vis instutional change, how compatible with local conditions, and how deeply entrenched in societies, cultures, and economies it ultimately is (Schmidt 2006: 78).

Failing to disprove the modernization theory, to offer its alternative defitions, and to defend its claims to validity the conceptualization of multiple modernities (Hefner 1998; Spohn 2003) does not participate in the theoretical discussion of modernity (Weber 1978) that, as opposed to narrow focus on culture and politics, addresses modern society in its totality, processes constitutive of its emergence, and systems participant in its structure (Schmidt 2006: 78). The theory of the structure of modernity (Munch 1984, 1986) responds to the main points of the conceptualization of multiple modernities while suggesting an approach that both addresses its substantive concerns and steers clear of its pitfalls. Modernity conceived of as multiplicity of cultural rather than institutional projects (Eisenstadt 2000a) anchors the associated with it transformations of "the industrial revolution, the urban revolution, the scientific revolution, the political revolution, the educational revolution" (Schmidt 2006: 79) in the rupture with pre-modern epistemic assumptions (Wittrock 2000). The European Enlightenment has laid basis for the modernity including as contingent social order political democracy, secular state, rule of law, individual rights, market economy, civil society, and intellectual freedoms into its structure (Schmidt 2006: 79).

Though modernization is primarily associated with the industrial revolution, ascendancy of bourgeoisie, and continuous development (Kumar 1999), its expansion from the West to the rest of the world is identified with the project of modernity (Bendix 1977: 410; Habermas 1988, 1994; Marx 1936: 13; Parsons 1964) in counterposition to which stands the multiple modernities perspective (Schmidt 2006: 79). The controversial consequences that modernization has in various societies (Giddens 1990) tend to be interpreted by modernization theorists as indicators of convergent development of modern societies whereas the multiple modernities proponents draw attention to how irreducible differences are undimished by modernity (Schmidt 2006: 79-80). The multiple modernities position ranges in its applicability from states to civilizations (Huntington 1996) where diverse social institutions do not allow uniform classification according to a single set of the analytical categories of modernization (Schmidt 2006: 80; Wittrock 2000). However, the validity of culture or religion as criteria of classification into separate modernities (Tabari 2003; Weiss 2003) does not have theoretical or empirical support in so far as the comparison of the structure of the respective modernitieis is concerned (Eisenstadt 2000b) as a consequence of which the structure of modernity tolerant to variations of its particular realizations (Luhmann 1998, 2002) can be more adequate framework for comparative conceptualization of institutional, historical, and structural differences (Schmidt 2006: 80-81).

To the extent that the transition to modernity has radically revolutionary social, economic, and cultural effects (Nisbet 1966) the existence of multiple modernities is irreconsilable with modernization as a process more defined by its ruptures rather than its continuities that, though dependent on the terms of inter-institutional, inter-state, or inter-regional comparison, define modernity as a relative not an absolute condition, as a singular not a multiple event, and as a variable not a constant phenomeon (Schmidt 2006: 81). Since the definition and the magnitude of differences out of which multiple modernities could be constructed are insufficient to invalidate the theorization of the structure of modernity the latter can successfully address its criticisms by accounting for existing differences as variation of the structure common to modern societies (Schmidt 2006: 81). An approach to modernity as a singular phenomenon permits to theoretically select the decisive differences upon which claims to variation can be empirically based. Elaborating upon the varieties of capitalism approach (Hall and Soskice 2001; Streeck and Yamamura 2001; Yamamura and Streeck 2003) the varieties of modernity emphasize shared, institutional, and temporal differences that encompass the structure of modernity (Weber 1984) rather than restrict themselves to any of its systems (Schmidt 2006: 81-82).

The varieties of capitalism put the differences pertaining to cases taken for comparative analysis into structures capturing the typological features pertaining to collective action and its environments to describe each of its ideal types (Schmidt 2006: 82) so that one can classify capitalism into liberal and coordinated or into market, managed, and state-capitalist (Schmidt 2002). Importantly, institutional configurations can serve to form groups of states belonging to the same ideal type of modernity the social systems of which providing indepedent criteria for classification by similarities among welfare states employing different social policy regimes (Esping-Anderson 1990; Jones 1993), influences of Western models of capitalism on Asian welfare states (Holliday 2000; Hort and Kuhnle 2000; McLaughlin 1993), typological distinctiveness of democratic regimes (Kaiser 1997), and different legal systems across national jurisdictions (Rohl 1997) embedded into the varieties of their respective structures of modernity (Schmidt 2006: 82-83). Such comparative analyses can only draw their precision from the "concrete form and functioning" (Schmidt 2006: 83) of the institutions composing the structure of modernity that characterizes different countries as its regional varieties, historical realizations, or common types.

In the case of institution of science, the uniform benchmarks used to evaluate its results, the competition in the publication market, and the universality of scientific principles ensure that the differences among countries or regions are marginal even though the structures of access to professional positions can produce variations dependent on the degree of the structural functional differntiation of the national social structures with the system of science of the United States being more open and that of Germany more closed (Schmidt 2001, 2006: 83). The institutionalized medicine (Lock 2002) likewise does not exhibit significant differerences among modern societies where their respective social structures contribute more to the inter-state differences than the multiple modernities per se (Chirot 2001) that have to be recognized as varieties of implementation of the structure of modernity in historically, socially, and culturally specific institutions (Schmidt 2006: 83-84). Since the modernization of the European Union countries has been unevenly paced across their social systems other regions are also likely to reproduce the structure of modernity while preserving their institutional differences even as value systems, social structures, and possibilities distributions gradually increase their alignment with regionally or globally prevalent practices, principles, and arrangements as democracy (O'Donnell 1993), women rights (Dreze and Sen 1995), and universal suffrage (Phillips 1999) institutionalization processes suggest (Schmidt 2006: 84).

The departure from the multiple modernities perspective allows to take cities and regions rather than nations and civilizations into the focus of theoretical attention that puts subnational economic, political and cultural differences into explanatory context drawing on the structure of modernity having local and urban variations (Heller 1999; Putnam 1993) that position northern Italy, Kerala state of India, city-state of Singapore, region of Taiwan, state of Luxemburg, and city of Berlin vis-a-vis the modernization as more advanced representatives of a wider process of structural functional differentiation (Schmidt 2006: 84-85). Without identifying convergence with homogenization, the process of modernization involves all of the social systems of the structure of modernity as a singular phenomenon (Inglehart 1995; Inglehart and Baker 2000) qualitatively different from the pre-industrial condition that under the influence of implementation of the modern institutions (Meyer et al. 1997) gives way to structural commonalities that despite their local histories exhibit comparable struture of systemic relations (Jepperson 2002; Tu 2000) that define modern societies of mass consumption (Schmidt and Lim 2004), institutionalized individualism (Beck 1986), and post-traditional development (Phillips 1993; Schmidt 2006: 85-86; Senghaas 1998).

The multiple modernities approach does not advance understanding of modernity beyond the historical development towards the modern condition while the modernization theories do not include into their conceptual purview the structural functional analysis of modernity (Schmidt 2006: 86). Over the course of modernization, the variations of the structure of modernity exhibit convergent institutional development towards prevalence of democracy, market economy, and capitalism (Rodrick 2000; Sachs 2000; Schmidt 2006: 86; Wilensky 1975). In the global structure of the international relations the competitive advantage of the early industrial countries has been replaced by that of the late industrial nations led by China (Firebaugh 2003; Qian 2003: 298) in restoring the centrality of the East and Pacific Asia to global capitalism integrated into the international structure of modernity that as the most commonly shared condition (UNDP 2003) imposes the dynamics of structural functional differentiation and increasing autonomy and interpenetration upon the social systems involved in the process of modernization (Bell 2000) that, for instance, in China strengthens legal-rational bureaucratic instiutions, promotes freedoms of thought and speech, bolsters autonomy of scientific, legal, and economic institutions, and provides legal basis for property rights (Schmidt 2006: 86-87).

The implications of the varieties of modernity thesis require further intergation into the theory of the structure of modernity (Munch 1982, 1984, 1986) as the most promising basis for comparative study of cities, nations, and regions. The transition to modernity being the most fundamental driver of social, economic, and cultural change has released the dynamics of interrelationships among the systems of the structure of modernity that has consistently outweighed the pre-modern differences in steering the course of development towards institutional convergence (Schmidt 2006: 87-88). The theorization of the structure of modernity (Munch 1986) provides the framework to conceptualize the varieties of modernity that can accomodate existing differences among cities, nations, and regions, explicate relations among the economic, political, societal, and associational systems, delineate the social structures of societies in their entirety, and account for differentiation, integration, and interpenetration of modern institutions (Luhmann 1997; Munch 1984; Schmidt 2006: 88). The comprehensive comparison of the structures of modernity may aid in forming clusters of cities, countries, and regions based on analytical criteria of examination that within the varieties of modernity perspective takes processes of structural differentiation, systemic interpenetration, and collective agency as its benchmarks for delimitation, classification, and assessment of institutions, systems, and structures.

The varieties of modernity being clusters of societies sharing patterns of institutional configurations and relations represent a reinterpretation of Weber's approach to capitalism have to be put into the context of the structure of modernity theorization (Munch 1982, 1984, 1986). Only by building upon interdisciplinary theoretical developments and attempting to establish conceptual connections among different schools of sociology can the varieties of modernity approach be applied to such subnational entities as cities that have to be seen as representatives of the structures of modernity dependent on the coherent institional patterns clustered into structures where their component systems enter into specific relations explanatory of the economy, culture, and society. The structures of modernity approach adequately addresses the issues raised by both the multiple modernities and varieties of modernity theories since it analytically distinguishes among such systems as cultural, economic, political, legal and the interrelationships among them at the same time as specifying the terms of structural integration that are used to posit systems and conditions of their autonomy and intepenetration (Munch 1982) going beyond either clustering or classification of institutional patterns (Schmidt 2006: 89). The empirical grounding of the application of the theoretical framework of the structure of modernity to cities has to be brought into communcation with urban theories, contemporarty conceptualizations of urban change, and emerging patterns of interpenetration between economy, culture, and other social systems.