One, Two, Three, Many Modernizations

For the past decade, U.S. foreign relations scholars have been seeking to historicize development theory and practice, especially postwar modernization theory, as a force in international relations. A minor flood of books and articles have explored modernization theory from the vantage point of intellectual history; the sociology of knowledge; political economy; and adherents, practitioners, and critics in the postcolonial and socialist world. Despite the profusion of scholarship, however, we lack synthetic accounts that advance broad, interpretive arguments about the role of modernization theory and the older development ideas from which it springs in shaping U.S. foreign relations.¹

David Ekbladh aims to provide such a synthesis, arguing that modernization was part of "a broader liberal vision of development" that "emerged and was utilized by the United States to confront threats internationally" over the course of the twentieth century (p. 12). To make his case, he advances three broad claims: that post-1945 ideas about "modernization" have pre-war roots; that many of these ideas emerged from the work in Asia of foundations, voluntary groups, missionaries, advocacy groups, universities, and businesses before being appropriated by the state; and that hydroelectric projects in particular, as exemplified by the Tennessee Valley Authority, became a lodestar for U.S. development policy in the Cold War and after.

America's Mission begins by tracing development's pre-1945 "heritage in international life and in an American self-concept that embraced a mission to serve as an example for the world" (p. 13). Already by the early twentieth century, the ingredients of an American vision of developmentalism had emerged: emphasis on the mastery of technology and nature; the perceived need to tutor others in their proper use; a veneration of expertise; racial and cultural chauvinism; and a predilection for grand schemes of postwar reconstruction or societal transformation, whether in the American South after the Civil War, the Philippines after 1898, China in the early 1900s, or Europe after the first World War. In other words, developmentalism was a variant of progressive internationalism (p. 29). Early initiatives included many of what would become the standard repertoire of postwar development policies: public health initiatives, road-building, public education and technical training; large-scale infrastructure projects; and agricultural-extension programs and capitalization.

Others have made these claims before, notably Emily Rosenberg in Spreading the American Dream (1982). Ekbladh goes further, arguing that the U.S. pioneered a sort of developmental corporatism marked by voluntarism and public-private partnerships, with foundations, missionary societies, and international relief agencies often leading the way, and with colonial and military authorities trailing in their wake (p. 23). The myriad development ideas and practices circulating internationally before the 1930s, however, were largely piecemeal responses to national problems rather than a coherent strategy wedded to state power and resources. The Great Depression and the rise of both fascism and communism helped produce the latter strategy, concentrating the minds of American planners who needed proof that "broadly conceived development based on planning could effectively be implemented in a liberal, democratic society" (p. 48).

One response of the Roosevelt Administration—the Tennessee Valley Authority—combined hydroelectric power, rural electrification, agricultural modernization and education under the guise of a government-sponsored public corporation. The TVA rapidly "became nearly synonymous with liberal development itself," attracting thousands of foreign visitors who marveled at its scope, its impact on the regional environment, and its possible applicability as a model for similar state-led schemes from Iran to Indonesia. Ekbladh traces more thoroughly and effectively than anyone before the symbolic lure of the TVA across the post-1945 landscape. TVA planners, boosters, and contractors—David Lilienthal in particular—continually rear their heads beginning in the 1940s, and continuing through the 1960s and beyond, asserting that adoption of TVA-style regional plans will vault one place or another into democratic modernity.

Surprisingly, however, Ekbladh gives inadequate attention to a key question: Could state-led planning on such a scale truly be...