Human Development as a General Theory of Social Change : A Multi-Level and Cross-Cultural Perspective

Abstract

'This paper demonstrates that socioeconomic development, cultural modernization, and democratic regime performance constitute a coherent syndrome of social change - a syndrome whose common focus has not properly been specified by standard modernization theory. The authors specify this syndrome as human development, arguing that its three components have a common focus on individual choice. Socioeconomic development broadens individual choice by giving people more resources; cultural modernization gives rise to aspirations that lead people to seek for individual choice; and democracy extends individual choice by codifying legal opportunities. Analysis of data from 80 societies demonstrates: 1. that a universal resource-aspiration-opportunity syndrome is present at the individual, national and supra-national levels across 80 nations and 8 cultural zones; 2. that this Human Development syndrome is endogenously shaped by a causal effect from resources and aspirations on opportunities; 3. that elite integrity or 'good governance' is a strong exogenous determinant of the Human Development syndrome as a whole.' (author's abstract)

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