Updating social theory: Redefinition of modernization

Abstract

The article considered a critical appraisal of tiie modernization theory in its mono-paradigm frames and offers a heterodox conceptual meaning of modernization. Obviously, the varieties of methodological approaches to that important theoretical topic would have to be much more comprehensive than contemporary interpretations of linear pattern mainsfream theories propose. Rethinking the conceptual foundations of the existing interpretation of the very concept is the model of adaptive modernization. Protecting its own matrix core, the system carries out partial correction of specific parameters, in which there is a lag, to increase their own vitality. Constructive changes are infra-systemic and occur within the existing order, without desfroying its foundations, main institutional structures, and preserve the generic sociocultural genotype Modemization, as reception of foreign cultural innovations (technical and technological) with their appropriate adaptation to the endogenous conditions, is an adequate adaptive response of a social system to extemal risks or exogenous origin impact.