ABSTRACT
All societies face in due course the challenge of adapting traditional institutions and values to modem functions, and the process normally involves a struggle within each society between traditional and modernizing leaders. The nature of this struggle depends to a very significant degree on the international context of a given society: whether policies of modernization are undertaken relatively early or relatively late as compared with other societies; whether the process of change is essentially domestic, or takes place predominantly under foreign influence; and whether the society has a heritage of territorial and cultural continuity providing a strong sense of identity, or was formed from diverse peoples and territories during the modem era.
