ABSTRACT
Any society might be analyzed from the point of view of how knowledge-related social functions are distributed and intertwined in its social structure. In very large measure, of course, the process of modernization is precisely a process of rationalization. On the one hand, it is the process of the growth of organizational and institutional arrangements relying on rational procedure and scientifically validated information. On the other hand, it is a process of the development and institutionalization of the knowledge system itself. At least a part of the theoretical discussion concerning modernization has dealt with a kind of geometric problem arguing whether the observable direction of trends supports the hypothesis of the convergence of societies toward a common structural pattern, the maintenance of invariances in certain domains, or even the divergence of paths in others. Alex Inkeles argues that there will be general convergence, albeit at highly different rates in different domains of the social structure.
