Multiple Modernities in an Age of Globalization

Author(s): S. N. Eisenstadt
Source: Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 24, No. 2,
(Spring, 1999), pp. 283-295
Published by: Canadian Journal of Sociology
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Note on Society/Note soci6te

Multiple Modernitiesin an Age of Globalization
S.N. Eisenstadt

I
Recent events and developments, especially the continual processes of globalization and the downfall of the Soviet regime, have indeed sharpenedthe
problem of the natureof the modern,contemporaryworld. Indeed, as we are
approachingthe end of the twentiethcentury,new visions or understandings
of modernityare emerging throughoutthe world, be it in the West where the
first cultural program of modernity developed, or among Asian, Latin
American and African societies. All these developments call out to a farreachingreappraisalof the classical visions of modernityand modernization.
Two majorinterpretationsof these events on the contemporaryscene have
emerged, one promulgatedby FrancisFukuyama(1992) announcingthe "end
of history"- the homogenizationof the liberalworld-viewandpredominance
of market economy, a perspective very close to the earlier theories of the
convergenceof industrialsocieties. The opposite view has been put forthmost
notably by Samuel P. Huntington(1992). While not denying the growing
technological convergence in many parts of the world, this perspective
emphasizes that the processes of globalizationbring us not to one relatively
homogeneous world but rather to a "clash of civilizations" in which the
Westerncivilization is comparedoften in hostile termswith othercivilizations
-especially the Muslim and Confucianones.
While, needless to say, both these scholars point out to some very importantaspects of the contemporaryworld, yet to this authorthey both seem
to be incorrect.In my view, what we witness in the contemporaryworld is the
CanadianJournalof Sociology/Cahierscanadiensde sociologie 24(2) 1999

283

284 Canadian
Journalof Sociology
development- certainlynot alwayspeacefulandindeedoftenconfrontational
- of multiplemodernities.Such a view necessitatesa far-reachingappraisal
of the classical visions of modernityand modernization(cp. Eisenstadt,1996,
1973).
Such a reappraisalshouldbe based on severalconsiderations.It should be
based, first of all, on the recognitionthat the expansionof modernityhas to
be viewed as the crystallizationof a new type of civilization,not unlike the
expansion of GreatReligions, or the great Imperialexpansionsof the past.
Because, however, the expansion of this civilization almost always and
continuallycombinedeconomic, political, and ideological aspects and forces
to a much longer extent, its impact on the societies to which it spreadwas
much more intense than in most historicalcases.
This expansion indeed spawned a rather new and practically unique
tendency in the history of mankindin the form of the developmentof universal, worldwideinstitutionaland symbolic frameworksand systems. This
new civilization that emergedfirst in Europelater expandedthroughoutthe
world,creatinga series of internationalframeworksor systems,each basedon
some of the basic premisesof this civilizationand each rooted in one of its
basic institutionaldimensions.Severaleconomic,political,ideological,almost
worldwide systems - all of them multi-centredand heterogeneous emerged,each generatingits own dynamics,its continualchange in constant
relationsto the others.The interrelationsamongthem have never been static
or unchanging,andthe dynamicsof these internationalframeworksor settings
have given rise to continuouschangesin these societies. Justas the expansion
of all historical civilization, modernity undermined the symbolic and
institutionalpremises of the societies incorporatedinto it, opening up new
options and possibilities. As a result of this, a great variety of modern or
modernizingsocieties, sharingmanycommoncharacteristicsbut also evincing
great differences among themselves, developed out of these responses and
continualinteractions.
The "original"modernityas it developed in the West, combined several
two closely interconnecteddimensions.The first of these was the structural,
organizationaldimension- the developmentof the many specific aspects of
modernsocial structure,such as growing structuraldifferentiation,urbanization, industrialization,
growingcommunicationsandthe like, which have been
identifiedand analyzedin the first studiesof modernizationafterthe Second
World War. The second dimensioncan be designatedas institutional,which
is characterizedby the developmentof the new institutionalformations,the
modernnation-state,moder nationalcollectivities,new andcapitalist-political
economies, and a distinctculturalprogramthat is closely relatedto specific
modes of structuringmajorarenasof social life.
The "classicaltheories"of modernization,suchas the classicalsociological
analysesof Marx,Durkheimand,to a largeextenteven Weber(see Kamenka,

Noteon Society 285

1983; Weber, 1968a, 1968b; Durkheim, 1973), have implicitly or explicitly
conflated these differentdimensionsof modernity;these approachesassumed
thateven if these dimensionsare analyticallydistinct,they do historicallyfuse
and become basically inseparable.Moreover,most of the classics of sociology
as well as the studies of modernizationof the 1940s and 1950s have assumed,
even if only implicitly, that the basic institutionalconstellationswhich came
togetherin Europeanmodernity,and the culturalprogramof modernityas it
developed in the West will "naturally"be taken over in all modernizing
societies. The studies of modernization and of convergence of modern
societies have indeed assumed that this project of modernity with its
hegemonic and homogenizingtendencies will continue in the West, and with
the expansionof modernity,prevailthroughoutthe world. Implicitin all these
approaches was the assumption that the modes of institutionalintegration
attendanton the development of such relatively autonomous,differentiated
institutionalspheres will be, on the whole, similar in all modern societies.
But the reality that emerged proved to be radically different. The actual
developments indicated in all or most societies that the various institutional
arenas- the economic, the political and that of family - continuallyexhibit
relatively autonomous dimensions that come together in different ways in
different societies and in differentperiods of their development.Indeed, the
developments in the contemporaryera did not bear out this assumption of
"convergence"and have emphasizedthe great diversity of modern societies,
even of societies similar in terms of economic development, like the major
industrialcapitalistsocieties in Europe,the U.S. and Japan.Sombart's([1906]
1976) old question:Why is there no socialism in the U.S.? formulatedin the
first decades of this century attests to the first, even if still only implicit,
recognition of this fact. Far-reachingvariabilitydeveloped even within the
West within Europe,and above all between Europe and the Americas (U.S.,
Latin America, or ratherLatin Americas) (cf. Goldthorpe,1971; Eisenstadt,
1973, 1977.
The same was even more true with respect to the relation between the
cultural and structuraldimensions of modernity. A very strong, even if
implicit, assumptionof the studies of modernizationnamely that the cultural
dimensions or aspects of modernization are inherently and necessarily
interwoven with the structuralones, became highly questionable.While the
different dimensions of the original Westernproject have indeed constituted
the crucial starting and continual reference points for the processes that
developed among differentsocieties throughoutthe world, the developments
in these societies have gone far beyond the homogenizing and hegemonic
dimensions of the original culturalprogramof modernity.
Modernityhas indeed spreadto most of the world, but did not give rise to
a single civilization, or to one institutionalpattern,but to the developmentof
several modern civilizations, or at least civilizational patterns, i.e. of

Journalof Sociology
286 Canadian
civilizations which share common characteristics,but which yet tend to
develop different even if cognate ideological and institutionaldynamics.
Moreover,far-reachingchanges which go beyond their originalpremises of
modernityhave been taking place also in Westernsocieties.

II
The civilization of modernityas it developedfirst in the West was, from its
very beginning,beset by internalantinomiesand contradictions,giving rise to
continuous critical discourse which focused on the relations, tensions and
contradictionsbetween its premises and between such premises and the
institutional development of modern societies. The importance of these
tensions was fully understood in the classical sociological literature of
Tocqueville,Marx,Weberor Durkheimand was latertakenup in the thirties,
above all in the Frankfurtschool under the umbrella term of so-called
"critical"sociology that focused mainly on the problemsof fascism but then
became neglected in post-Second World War studies of modernization.It
came again later to the forefrontto constitutea continualcomponentof the
analysis of modernity(cp. Eisenstadt,1998).
The tensions that developed within the basic premises of the theoretical
programmeof the analysis of modernitywere: (1) between totalizing and
morediversifiedconceptionsof reasonandits place in humanlife andsociety,
and of the constructionof nature,humansociety and its history;(2) between
reflexivity and active constructionof natureand society; (3) those between
different evaluations of major dimensions of human experience; and (4)
between control and autonomy.
In the political arena, these tensions coalesced with those between a
constructivistapproachwhich views politics as the process of reconstruction
of society and especially of democraticpolitics - active self-constructionof
society as against a view which accepts society in its concretecomposition;
between liberty and equality,between the autonomyof civil society and the
charismatizationof statepower;betweenthe civil andthe utopiancomponents
of the cultural and political programof modernity;between freedom and
emancipationin the name of some, often utopian, social vision; above all
between Jacobinand more pluralisticorientationsor approachesto the social
and political order;and between the closely relatedtension between, to use
Bruce Ackerman'sformulation,"normal"and "revolutionary"
politics.
These varioustensions in the politicalprogramof modernitywere closely
related to those between the differentmodes of legitimationof modernregimes, especially but not only of constitutionaland democraticpolities namelybetween,on the one hand,procedurallegitimationin termsof civil adherenceto rules of the game and on the otherhandin different"substantive"

Note on Society 287

terms; and a very strong tendency to promulgateother modes or bases of
legitimation,above all, to use EdwardShils' terminology,variousprimordial,
"sacred"- religious or secular-ideological- components(cp. Shils, 1975).
It was aroundthese tensions that there developed the critical discourse of
modernity. The most radical "external"criticism of modernity denied the
possibility of the grounding of any social order, of morality, in the basic
premises of the cultural program of modernity especially in autonomy of
individuals and supremacyof reason; it denied that these premises could be
seen as grounded in any transcendentalvision; it denied also the closely
related claims that these premises and the institutional development of
modernitycould be seen as the epitome of humancreativity.Such criticisms
claimed that these premises and institutionaldevelopments denied human
creativity and gave rise to flatteningof humanexperience and to the erosion
of moral order;of the moral - and transcendental- bases of society, and
to the alienation of man from nature and from society. The more internal
criticisms of this program,which could often overlap or become interwoven
with the "external"ones, evaluatedthe institutionaldevelopment of moder
societies from the point of view of the premises of the culturaland political
programs of modernity as well as from the point of view of the basic
antinomiesand contradictionsinherentin this program.Of special importance
here was the multifaceted,continual and continually changing confrontation
of the claims of the programto enhance freedom and autonomy with the
strong tendency to control; and the continual dislocation of various social
sectors that developed with the crystallization of modern institutional
formations.
III
All these antinomies and tensions developed from the very beginning of the
institutionalizationof modernregimes in Europe.The continualprevalenceof
these antinomies and contradictionshad also - as the classics of sociology
were fully aware of, but as was to no small extent forgotten or neglected in
the studies of modernization- far-reachinginstitutionalimplications, and
were closely interwovenwith differentpatternsof institutionalconstellations
and dynamicsthatdeveloped in differentmoder societies. With the expansion
of moder civilizations beyond the West, in some ways already beyond
Europeto the Americas,and with the dynamicsof the continuallydeveloping
international frameworks or settings, several new crucial elements have
become central in the constitutionof modern societies.
Of special importancein this context was the relative place of the nonWestern societies. Various international(economic, political, ideological)
systems differed greatly from that of the Western ones. It was not only that

288 Canadian
Journalof Sociology
it was Westernsocieties which were the "originators"
of this new civilization.
and
above
all
was
the
that
fact
the
Beyond this,
expansionof these systems,
insofar
as
it took place through colonializationand imperialist
especially
expansion- gave to the Westerninstitutionsthe hegemonic place in these
systems. But it was in the natureof these internationalsystems that they
generateda dynamicswhich gave rise both to political and ideological challenges to existing hegemonies, as well as to continualshifts in the loci of
hegemonywithinEurope,fromEuropeto the UnitedStates,thenalso to Japan
and East Asia.
But it were not only the economic, military-politicaland ideological
expansionof the civilizationof modernityfromthe West throughoutthe world
that was importantin this process. Of no lesser - possibly even of greater
importance,was the fact that this expansion has given rise to continual
confrontationbetween the cultural and institutionalpremises of Western
modernity,with those of othercivilizations- those of otherAxial civilizations, as well as non-Axial ones, the most importantof which has been, of
course,Japan.Trulyenoughmanyof the basicpremisesandsymbolsof Western modernityas well as its institutions- representative,legal and administrativehave become indeed seemingly acceptedwithin these civilizationsbut at the same time far-reachingtransformationshave takenplace and new
challenges and problemshave arisen.
The attractionof these themes - and of some of these institutions,for
many groupswithin these civilizations- lay in the fact thattheirappropriation permittedmany groupsin non-Europeannations- especially elites and
intellectualsto participateactively in the new modern(i.e. initially Western)
universaltradition,togetherwith the selective rejectionof manyof its aspects
of these themes
as well as Westerncontroland hegemony.The appropriation
of
made it possible for these elites and broaderstrata many non-European
societies to incorporatesome of the universalisticelementsof modernityin the
constructionof their new collective identities,withoutnecessarilygiving up
eitherspecific componentsof theirtraditionalidentities,often also couchedin
universalistic,especially religious termswhich differedfrom those that were
predominantin the West or their negative attitudetowardsthe West.
The attractionof these themesof politicaldiscourseto manysectorsin the
non-WesternEuropeancountrieswas also intensified by the fact that their
appropriationin these countriesentailedthe transpositionto the international
scene of the struggle between hierarchyand equality. Although initially
couchedin Europeanterms,it could find resonancesin the politicaltraditions
of many of these societies.
Such transpositionof these themes from the WesternEuropeanto Central
and EasternEuropeand to non-Europeansettingswas reinforcedby the combination, in many of the programspromulgatedby these groups, of orientations of protestwith institution-buildingand center-formation.

Noteon Society 289

Such transposition was generated not only by the higher hierarchical
standing,actualhegemony of the Westerncountriesin these new international
settings, but also by the fact that the non-Westerncivilizations were put in an
inferiorposition in the evaluationof societies which was promulgatedby the
seemingly universalisticpremisesof the new moderncivilizations.Thusvarious
groupsandelites in CentralandEasternEuropeandin Asian andAfricansocieties were able to referto boththe traditionof protestandthe traditionof centerformationin these societies, and to cope with problemsof reconstructingtheir
own centersandtraditionsin termsof the new setting.Fromthis perspectivethe
most importantaspect of the expansion of these themes beyond Western
Europe and of their appropriationby different groups in the non Western
Europeansocieties may be seen in the fact that it allowed for the possibility
to rebel against the institutionalrealities of the new modern civilization in
terms of its own symbols and premises (cf. Eisenstadt, 1998).
IV
The appropriationof differentthemes and institutionalpatternsof the original
Westernmoder civilization in non-WesternEuropeansocieties did not entail
their acceptance in their original form. Rather, it entailed the continuous
selection, reinterpretationand reformulationof such themes, giving rise to a
steady crystallizationof new culturaland politicalprogramsof modernity,and
the developmentand reconstructionof new institutionalpatterns.The cultural
programsthat have repeatedlydeveloped in these societies entailed different
interpretationsand far-reachingreformulationsof the initial culturalprogram
of modernity, its basic conceptions and premises; they entailed, different
emphases on different componentsof this program,on its different tensions
and antinomies and the concomitant crystallizationof distinct institutional
patterns. They entailed the continual constructionof symbols of collective
identities;theirconceptionsof themselvesandof theirparts;andtheirnegative
or positive attitudesto modernityin general and to the West in particular.
These oppositions between the different culturalprogramsof modernity
were not purely "cultural"or academic. They were closely related to some
basic problems inherent in the political and institutional programs of
modernity. Thus, in the political realm, they were closely related to the
tension between the utopian and the civil componentsin the constructionof
modern politics; between "revolutionary"and "normal"politics, or between
the general will and the will of all; between civil society and the state,
between individual and collectivity. These distinct cultural programs of
modernity entailed also different conceptions of authority and of its
accountability, different modes of protest and of political activity, of
questioningof the basic premises of the modernorderand differentmodes of
institutionalformations.

290 Canadian
Journalof Sociology
In close relationto the crystallizationof the distinctculturalprogramsof
modernitythere has been taking place in differentmodernsocieties a continualprocess of crystallizationof novel institutionalpatternsand of different
modes of criticaldiscourse,which focused on interrelationsand tensions between institutionalarenas,and betweenthem and the premisesof the cultural
and political programsof modernityand their continualreinterpretations.
My reflectionsaboutthe multipleprogramsof modernitydo not of course
negate the obvious fact that in many central aspects of their institutional
structure- be it in occupationaland industrialstructure,in the structureof
educationor of cities - in politicalstructuresvery strongconvergenceshave
developed in different moder societies. These convergences have indeed
generatedcommonproblemsbutthe modes of coping with these problems,i.e.
the institutionaldynamics attendanton the developmentof these problems
differed greatlybetween these civilizations.
But it is not only within the societies of Asia or Latin America that
developmentstook place which went beyond the initial model of Western
society. At the same time in Western societies themselves there have
developednew discourseswhich have greatlytransformedthe initialmodel of
modernity and which have underminedthe original vision of moder and
industrialsociety with its hegemonic and homogenizing vision. There has
emerged a growing tendency to distinguishbetween Zweckrationalitatand
Wertrationalitit,and to recognize a greatmultiplicityof Wertrationalitaten.
Cognitive rationality- especially as epitomized in the extreme forms of
scientism- has certainlybecome dethronedfrom its hegemonicposition, as
has also been the idea of the "conquest"or masteryof the environmentwhetherof society or of nature.
V
The differentculturalprogramsand institutionalpatternsof modernitywere
not shaped by what has been sometimes presented in earlier studies of
modernizationas naturalevolutionarypotentialitiesof these societies; or, as
in the earlier criticisms thereof, the naturalunfolding of their respective
traditions;norby theirplacementin the new internationalsettings.Ratherthey
were shaped by the continuousinteractionamong several factors. In most
general terms they were shaped by the historical experience of individual
societies in civilizational processes; and by the mode of impingementof
modernity on them and of their incorporationinto the modern political
economic and ideological internationalframeworks.
The emerging cultural programs were shaped by several frequently
changing factors. First, they were shaped by basic premises of cosmic and
social order, the basic "cosmologies"that were prevalentin these societies

Noteon Society 291

throughout their histories. Second, they were influenced by the existing
patternsof institutionalformationthathad developedwithinthese civilizations
in the course of their historical experience, especially as a result of their
encounter with other societies or civilizations. Third, was the meeting and
continual interaction between these processes, and the new cultural and
political programof modernity;the premisesand modes of social and political
discoursethatwere prevalentin the differentsocieties and civilizations as they
were incorporated into the new international systems and the continual
interactionof these societies with these processes. Of special importancewere
the internalantinomiesand tensions or contradictionsin the basic culturaland
above all in the political programof modernity,as it developed initially in the
West - and even in the West in a great variety of ways, and as it became
transformedwith its expansion - and with the internalchanges in Western
societies. The fourthset of influences were the dynamicsand internaltensions
and contradictionsthat developed in conjunction with the structural-demographiceconomic and political changes attendanton the institutionalizationof
modern institutional frameworks; with the expansion of modernity, and
between these processes and the basic premises of the culturaland political
stipulationsof modernity.
It was the persistentinteractionbetween these factors and processes that
generated the dynamic changes in the culturalprogramsdeveloping in different societies, and their continual reinterpretations,as well as the major
components of their institutionalformations,namely the constitution of the
boundariesof their respective collectivities and the componentsof collective
consciousness and identity - of what has been designatedas nationalismor
ethnicity.Differentconfigurationsof civil society andpublic spheres,and, last
but not least, different modes of new moder political economies began to
emerge in these societies.
The major actors in such processes of reinterpretionand of formation of
new institutional patterns were various political activists, intellectuals, in
conjunction above all with distinctive social movements. Such activists,
intellectuals and leaders of movements which have been developing in all
these societies promulgated and reinterpreted the major symbols and
componentsof the culturalprogramsof modernity,and addressedthemselves
to the antinomiesand contradictionswithin these programsand between them
and institutionalrealities.
In all modern societies, such movements arose in relationto the problems
thatdeveloped attendantto the institutionalizationof modernpolitical regimes
and their democratization,of moder collectivities, and the expansion of
capitalism and new economic and class formations,especially in relation to
the contradictionswhich emerged between the premises of the political and
culturalprogramof modernityand these institutionaldevelopments,with the

292 Canadian
Journalof Sociology
continuousstruggleof othersocial groupsand forces for access to the center.
It is above all these movements which promulgatedthe antinomies and
tensions inherent in the cultural and political programsof modernity and
which attemptedto interweavethem with the reconstructionof centers, collectivities and institutionalformations.
Whateverthe historicallyspecific detailsof theseagendas,they highlighted
the continuouschallengeof thecontradictionbetweenencompassing,totalistic,
potentiallytotalitarianovertonesbasedeitheron collective, national,religious
and/or Jacobin visions, and the contrasting commitments to pluralistic
premises.None of the modernpluralisticconstitutionalregimeshas been able
to do entirely away - or possibly expect to do away - with either the
Jacobincomponent,especiallywith its utopiandimension,with the orientation
to some primordialcomponentsof collective identity, or with the claims for
the centralityof religion in the constructionof collective identities or in the
legitimizationof the political order.The ubiquityof this challenge has also
highlightedthe possibility of crises and breakdownsas inherentin the very
natureof modernity(see Eisenstadt1998; Goldthorpe,1971).

VI
Thus within all moder societies one observes a continuousdevelopmentof
novel critical discourses and reinterpretationsof different dimensions of
modernity- and in all of them the emergenceof differentculturalagendas.
All in all, these developments attest to the growing diversificationof the
visions and understandingof modernity,of the basic culturalagendas of the
elites of different societies - far beyond the homogenic and hegemonic
visions of modernitythat were prevalentin the fifties. While the common
starting point of many of societal developments was indeed the cultural
programof modernity as it was constitutedin the West, the more recent
transformationsgave rise to a multiplicityof culturalsocial formationswhich
go far beyond the alleged homogenizing and hegemonizingaspects of this
originalversion.Thusmany,if not all of the componentsof the initial cultural
vision of modernityhave been challengedin the last decade or so.
These challenges claimed that the moder era has basically ended, giving
rise to the post-moder one, and were in their turn counter-challengedby
those, like JiirgenHabermas(1987), who claimedthatthe variouspost-moder
developments basically constitute either a repetition, in a new form, of
criticismsof modernitywhich existed from the very beginning,or represents
yet anothermanifestationof the continualunfoldingof modernity.Indeed, it
can be argued that the very tendency or potential to such radical reinterpretations constitutes an inherent component of the civilization or
civilizations of modernity.

Note on Society 293

This is even true,thoughin a very paradoxicalmannerof the most extreme
anti-moder movements that developed in the contemporaryperiod, namely
communal-religious,especially the fundamentalistones. Their basic structure
or phenomenologyof their vision and action is in many crucial and seemingly
perplexing ways a moder one, just as has been the case with the totalitarian
movements of the twenties and thirties, and these movements bear within
themselves the seeds of very intensive and virulent revolutionarysectarian
utopianJacobinism,seeds which can, underappropriatecircumstances,come
to full-blown fruition.
Whateverthe ultimate verdict about these developments,there can be no
doubt that they all entailed the unfolding of the civilizations of modernity,
even if many of these movements and trends entail a radical transformation
of some of the initial premises of Western modernity and above all of the
modes of structurationof social activities and institutional arenas that
characterizedthe first "bourgeois"(and paradoxicallyalso the later Communist) moder societies.
VII
Thus, while the spread or expansion of modernity has indeed taken place
throughoutmost of the world, it did not give rise to merely one civilization,
one patternof ideological and institutionalresponse, but to at least several
basic variants- and to continual refractingthereof. In order to understand
these different patterns, it is necessary to take into account the pattern of
historical experience of these civilizations.
The importanceof the historicalexperience of the various civilizations in
shaping the concrete contoursof the modernsocieties which developed in the
historical spaces of these civilizations does not mean, as Samual Huntington
(1996) seems to imply in his influential The Clash of Civilizationsthat these
processes give rise to several closed civilizations which basically constitutea
continuation of the historical ones. It is not only the case, as Huntington
correctlyindicates,thatmodernizationdoes not automaticallyimply Westernization; what is more importantis that in the contemporaryworld we are able
to observe a crystallizationof continuallyinteractingmoderncivilizations in
which even the inclusive particularistictendenciesare constructedin typically
modernways, therebyattemptingto appropriatemodernityon theirown terms,
and articulate - in different historical settings - the antinomies and
contradictions of modernity. Within all societies we note continuously
developed critical questions and reinterpretationsof different dimensions of
modernity- andin all of themone is able to observedifferentculturalagendas.
All this atteststo the growing diversificationof the visions and understanding
of modernity, of the basic cultural agendas of different sectors of modern

294 CanadianJournalof Sociology

societies - far beyond the homogenic and hegemonic vision of modernity

once imaginedin the 1950s. The fundamentalist- and the new communalnational - movements constitutebut one of the new developmentsin the
unfoldingof the potentialitiesand antinomiesof modernity.It is possible that
these developmentmay indeed give rise also to highly chargedconfrontation
stances - especially with the West - but these stances are promulgatedin
continually changing modern idioms and they may entail a continual
transformationof these indicationsand of the culturalprogramsof modernity.
While such diversityhas certainlyunderminedthe once existing hegemonies, the same diversity was closely connected- perhapsparadoxically
with the developmentof new multiplecommonreferencepoints andnetworks
- with a globalizationof culturalnetworksand channelsof communication
far beyond what existed before. At the same time the variouscomponentsof
modernlife and culturewere refractedand reconstructedin ways which went
beyond the confines of any institutionalboundaries,especially those of the
nation-state- giving rise to the multiple patternof globalization,and of
culturaldiversificationas examined by such scholars as Arjun Appendurai
(1996), Ulf Hannerz(1996), and RolandRobertson(1992). It is the combination of the growing diversityin the continuousreinterpretation
of modernity
andthe developmentof multipleglobaltrendsandmutualreferencepointsthat
is characteristicof the contemporaryworld.

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1.
Title: Multiple Modernities in an Age of Globalization
Author(s): S. N. Eisenstadt
Source: Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Spring,
1999), pp. 283-295
Publisher(s): Canadian Journal of Sociology
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3341732
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