Reform, from the Latin ‘reformare’ means to recast or reshape, denotes the overhaul of an existing state or condition with a view to its improvement. Until the eighteenth century the terms reform and revolution were used interchangeably. In the wake of the French Revolution, however, they took on distinct meanings. Reform came to denote substantial change through an orderly and lawful process; revolution described a radical change through violent and illegal means. In modern usage, a reform executed with striking speed and success may be apostrophized as a revolution. This ‘upgrading’ of a lawful process to a ‘revolution’ may be regarded as a figure of speech and serves the purpose of demarcating a historical period.
In the twentieth century further nuances to the concept of reform were introduced through the use of the term ‘protest.’ The word denotes collective action aimed at reform (for example, strikes and sit-ins), which avoids the violence associated with a revolution, yet transgresses normally accepted limits of social behavior. In the late twentieth century scholars noticeably shied away from the use of the term ‘reform,’ favoring instead value neutral descriptions of the process of change. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, reform is an alteration ‘for the better.’ Such normative labeling is now seen as problematic. In academic discourse, therefore, the term reform has been largely replaced by change or shift. Reform remains the term of choice, however, in popular literature and in the propaganda of special-interest groups lobbying for change.
Popular support has always played an important role in successful reforms, but there is a noticeable shift in the nineteenth century in the structures that serve as a means of galvanizing popular support and promoting bonding. Until then collective action to further reform and the intellectual solidarity on which it is predicated were promoted by kinship groups, regional networks, and religious congregations. The goals were specific and parochial, with the action typically arising from particular circumstances and ceasing when the specific objectives had been achieved. From the nineteenth century on, the role of these groups was increasingly taken over by governments, political parties, firms, or unions and involved long-range, sometimes cosmopolitan, goals. Realizing such goals required a permanent organization and planned action and often involved either coercion or reward for the participants.
The civil service created to implement the reforms may be seen as a harbinger of the developments in the nineteenth century, which saw a large number of reforms passed through legal channels and mediated by politicians and political parties. Indeed, ‘reform’ became the watchword of socialist parties and was generally associated with their platform. In the United States, administrative reforms were seen as the result of the Progressive movement in the nineteenth century and associated with the Democratic Party and more specifically with the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the twentieth century. In the USSR the term ‘reform’ was applied to Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to restructure key state institutions and to bring about a fundamental change in social values through glasnost.
In the second half of the twentieth century, however, reform movements began to transcend class and party lines as well as other traditional groupings and increasingly signified personal choice and self-identification (for example, disabled, or black). On a broader level, reformers appealed to the communal good and a global human fellowship (for example, environmental, disarmament, anti conglomerate, and civil rights movements). The move from adherence to a cause determined by incidental membership in a group (class, gender, nationality) to a cause that was personally meaningful and from reform initiated by political parties to nonaligned protest organizers or organizations was accompanied by a shift of authority from ‘without’ to ‘within.’ This shift may be seen as a consequence of two recognized social trends in the twentieth century: the encouragement of individualism and the rejection of reutilization.
Academic Approaches to Reform
Methodology and Conceptualization Reform ideas were traditionally regarded as the bailiwick of political philosophers and intellectual historians. In the twentieth century, however, reform became the object of study of a newly formed discipline: sociology. The shift from philosophy to sociology was accompanied by a shift in focus. Sociologists examining the concept of change were more interested in the origin and dynamics of reform, the conditions that facilitated or impeded change, and strategies of mobilization that brought about reform than in the content of the reform program or the outcome of the movement. They avoided the value judgment inherent in gauging the success of a movement and shied away from stating whether its outcome was the result of a reform movement or a matter of cultural milieu. An example of this development in methodology is the rise and decline of the theory of “modernization,” which was based on the idea of progressive historical change.
Social historians and sociologists first advocated “Modernization” in the 1950s. They regarded the characteristics of the modern society as preferable to traditional societies, equating it with more political freedom, higher income, better health, better education, and the triumph of science and reason over superstition. Western societies were thought to furnish the template for the modern society and expected to become the standard of other societies. The modernizations introduced in Turkey by Kemal Atatürk in the 1920s were seen as the prototype of such a development. By the 1980s, however, the concept of modernization was recognized as problematic and was eventually discredited. Objections were raised against its ethnocentricity, facile optimism, and attempt at leveling cultural differences. Although globalism remains a buzzword today, social and intellectual historians have found it difficult to accept the idea of globally common dynamics and have generally come to favor pluralism over theories emphasizing uniformity. In the context of pluralism, reform is seen as an initiative of special-interest groups, usually antiestablishment, whose goals range from specific concessions to a large- scale overhaul or even a reordering of society.
Sociologists studying reform have drawn up a schema or typology of reform movements: They are often associated with pragmatic goals (as opposed to revolutions, which are informed by radical ideologies). They may be regarded as the second stage of a revolution, with an overtly radical movement ebbing into a reformist movement. Revolutions and/or reforms are generally launched in crisis situations and as the result of political malaise. Conversely, protest movements are less likely to make headway when political, social, and economic conditions are reasonably good and the prevailing powers are therefore able to defuse resentment.
Effective government and moderate prosperity will generate a reluctance to harm vested interests for fear of losing the benefits already enjoyed. Support for a change of the status quo is also less likely when the group in power has been successful in public relations, promoted an image of success through self-congratulatory rhetoric, and created a sense of common interest. Such conditions generally impede a society’s ability to recognize the need for change or develop a desire for it.
(Author is Post Doc Fellow in Political Science and a columnist)
