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Political Science and Latin American Studies: Patterns and Asymmetries of Research and Publication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

John D. Martz
John D. Martz*
Affiliation:
The Pennsylvania State University
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“Scholars and intellectuals, like human beings in other walks of life, need to interpret and come to grips with the crises plaguing the contemporary global political and social system. Indeed, their obligation to do so may be a particularly special and important one.” This credo might properly be etched on the minds of all those who study the politics of Latin America. Scholarship is not restricted to an academic preserve in which the principal, even sole commitment must be the intellectual task at hand. Rather, the study of Latin American politics requires a heightened sense of self-consciousness, which is linked in turn to the parameters and strictures of the several professional disciplines involved.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , 1990 , pp. 67 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

The author extends special thanks for the thoughtful comments of several anonymous referees. He is also indebted to the advice and suggestions of the LAR editors. In addition, it is important to acknowledge the research assistance of Debra Joy Sobrepeña in compiling the publications data.

References

Notes

1. Gustavo Lagos and Horacio H. Godoy, Revolution of Being: A Latin American View of the Future (New York: Free Press, 1977), xiii.

2. Merle Kling, “The State of Research on Latin America: Political Science,” in Social Science Research on Latin America, edited by Charles Wagley (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 168.

3. Kalman H. Silvert, “American Academic Ethics and Social Research Abroad: The Lesson of Project Camelot,” in The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot: Studies in the Relationship between Social Science and Practical Politics, edited by Irving Louis Horowitz (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1967), 98.

4. John D. Martz, “Political Science and Latin American Studies: A Discipline in Search of a Region,” LAR 6, no. 1 (Spring 1971):71-99.

5. Arturo Valenzuela, “Political Science and the Study of Latin America,” paper presented at the meetings of the Latin American Studies Association, Albuquerque, N.M., 18–20 Apr. 1985.

6. For a fuller discussion, see James A. Bill, “Area Studies and Theory-Building in Comparative Politics: A Stocktaking,” P.S. 18, no. 3 (Fall 1985):811.

7. In addition to Kling and Martz, see Federico G. Gil, “Latin American Studies and Political Science: A Historical Sketch,” LASA Forum 16, no. 2 (Summer 1985):8-12; Irving Leonard, “A Survey of Personnel and Activities in Latin American Aspects of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Twenty Universities of the United States,” Notes on Latin American Studies, no. 1 (April 1943); and Charles Wagley, Area Research and Training: A Conference Report on the Study of World Areas, SSRC Pamphlet no. 6 (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1948).

8. Rosendo A. Gómez, The Study of Latin American Politics in University Programs in the United States (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1967), 11.

9. Ibid., 3.

10. The 1963 data was taken from Albert Somit and Joseph Tannenhaus, American Political Science: A Profile of a Discipline (New York: Atherton Press, 1963). The data for 1976 came from Walter B. Roettger, “The Discipline: What's Right, What's Wrong, and Who Cares?,” paper presented at the American Political Science Association, New York, Sept. 1978. Also see the comments of Michael W. Giles and Gerald C. Wright, Jr., “Political Scientists' Evaluations of Sixty-Three Journals,” PS. 8, no. 2 (Summer 1975):254-56.

11. Other journals ranked among the top ten, which would not ordinarily be expected to present many articles dealing with Latin America, included Public Administration Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Public Opinion Quarterly.

12. An excellent piece, however, that is oriented more toward quantitative theoretical issues is Edward N. Muller and Mitchell A. Seligson, “Inequality and Insurgency,” American Political Science Review 81, no. 2 (June 1987):425-53.

13. John D. Martz, “Editorial Comment,” LAR 11, no. 2 (1976):5.

14. Martz, “Editorial Comment,” LAR 13, no. 2 (1978):3.

15. Martz, “Editorial Comment,” LAR 14, no. 3 (1979):3.

16. Gilbert W. Merkx, “Editor's Foreword,” LAR 21, no. 3 (1986):5.

17. Merkx, “Editor's Foreword,” LAR 22, no. 3 (1987):4-5.

18. Ralph Braibanti, “Comparative Political Analytics Reconsidered,” Journal of Politics 30, no. 1 (Feb. 1968):25-66.

19. Valenzuela, “Political Science and the Study of Latin America.”

20. New Directions in Comparative Politics, edited by Howard J. Wiarda (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1985).

21. Promise of Development: Theories of Change in Latin America, edited by Peter F. Klaren and Thomas J. Bossert (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1986).

22. Klaren and Bossert chose excerpts from historian John Johnson's Political Change in Latin America: The Emergence of the Middle Sectors (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958); and from French sociologist Jacques Lambert's general textbook, Latin America: Social Structures and Political Institutions (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. The Lipset selection was his major contribution to Elites in Latin America, edited by Lipset and Aldo Solari (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967). Silvert's work, “The Politics of Social and Economic Change,” first appeared in Sociological Review Monographs 11 (1967): 47–58. This journal was published by Latin American Sociological Studies, University of Keele, and was edited by Paul Halmos.

23. Charles W. Anderson, Politics and Economic Change in Latin America: The Governing of Restless Nations (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1967).

24. George I. Blanksten, “The Politics of Latin America,” in The Politics of the Developing Areas, edited by Gabriel A. Almond and James S. Coleman (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960), 455–532. Also see Blanksten's “Political Groups in Latin America,” American Political Science Review 53, no. 1 (March 1959):106-27.

25. Martin C. Needier, Political Development in Latin America: Instability, Violence, and Evolutionary Change (New York: Random House, 1968). Also see Needier, “Political Development and Military Intervention in Latin America,” American Political Science Review 60, no. 3 (Sept. 1966):616-26; also his “Political Development and Socio-economic Development: The Case of Latin America,” American Political Science Review 62, no. 3 (Sept. 1968):889-98.

26. Robert Scott's work did not appear in a number of the SSRC series volumes. But his “Mexico: The Established Revolution” appeared in Political Culture and Political Development, edited by Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), 330–96; see also Scott, “Political Parties and Policy-Making in Latin America,” in Political Parties and Political Development, edited by Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966), 331–69.

27. André Gunder Frank, Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution: Essays on the Development of Underdevelopment and the Immediate Enemy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969); Celso Furtado, Economic Development of Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970); and Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America, translated by Marjory Mattingly Urquidi (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979).

28. Theotônio dos Santos, “The Structure of Dependence,” American Economic Review 60, no. 2 (May 1970):231-36.

29. Ronald H. Chilcote, “A Question of Dependency,” LAR 13, no. 2 (1978):55-68; Richard R. Fagen, “Studying Latin American Politics: Some Implications of a Dependencia Approach,” LAR 12, no. 2 (1977):3-26; and Tulio Halperin Donghi, “‘Dependency Theory’ and Latin American Historiography,” LAR 17, no. 1 (1982): 115–30.

30. C. Richard Bath and Dilmus D. James, “Dependency Analysis of Latin America,” LAR 11, no. 3 (1976):3-54; and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, “The Consumption of Dependency Theory in the United States,” LAR 12, no. 3 (1977):7-24.

31. See Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America, edited by James M. Malloy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977); The New Corporatism: Social-Political Structures in the Iberian World, edited by Fredrick B. Pike and Thomas Stritch (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974); and Politics and Social Change in Latin America: The Distinct Tradition, edited by Howard J. Wiarda (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1974). It should be noted that the Pike and Stritch piece appeared a year earlier in the Review of Politics. For the record, from 1980 through 1987, the Review of Politics published a total of 149 articles, of which 22 (14.8 percent) would qualify as comparative politics, and a grand total of 4 (2.7 percent) dealt with Latin American themes.

32. For example, note Howard J. Wiarda, “Toward a Framework for the Study of Political Change in the Iberic-Latin Tradition: The Corporative Model,” World Politics 25, no. 1 (Jan. 1973):206-35; Wiarda, “Corporatism and Development in the Iberic-Latin World: Persistent Strains and New Variations,” Review of Politics 36 (1974):3-33; and Wiarda, “The Corporative Origins of the Iberian and Latin American Labor Relations Systems,” Studies in Comparative International Development 13 (1976):3-37.

33. Guillermo A. O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1973).

34. O'Donnell, “Reflections on the Patterns of Change in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State,” LAR 13, no. 1 (1978):3-38; “Tensions in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State and the Question of Democracy,” in The New Authoritarianism in Latin America, edited by David Collier (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), 285–319; and O'Donnell, 1966-1973, El estado burocrático autoritario: triunfos, derrotas y crisis (Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano, 1982).

35. Karen L. Remmer, “Exclusionary Democracy,” Studies in Comparative International Development 20, no. 4 (Winter 1985-86):64-85; also Remmer, “Redemocratization and the Impact of Authoritarian Rule in Latin America,” Comparative Politics 17, no. 3 (Apr. 1985): 253–76.

36. Karen L. Remmer and Gilbert W. Merkx, “Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Revisited,” LAR 17, no. 2 (1982):3-40; and O'Donnell, “Reply to Remmer and Merkx,” LAR 17, no. 2 (1982):41-50.

37. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy, edited by Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); Authoritarians and Democrats: Regime Transition in Latin America, edited by James M. Malloy and Mitchell A. Seligson (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987); and Comparing New Democracies: Transition and Consolidation in Mediterranean Europe and the Southern Cone, edited by Enrique A. Baloyra (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987).

38. Martin C. Needier, “Political Development and Socioeconomic Development: The Case of Latin America,” American Political Science Review 62, no. 3 (Sept. 1986):889-98; Ernest A. Duff and John F. McCamant, “Measuring Social and Political Requirements for System Stability in Latin America,” American Political Science Review 62, no. 4 (Dec. 1968):1125-44; and Russell H. Fitzgibbon and Kenneth F. Johnson, “Measurement of Latin American Political Change,” American Political Science Review 60, no. 3 (Sept. 1961):515-27.

39. Robert L. Ayres, “Development Policy and the Possibility of a ‘Livable’ Future for Latin America,” American Political Science Review 69, no. 2 (June 1975):507-26; also Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, “Inducements versus Constraints: Disaggregating ‘Corporatism,‘” American Political Science Review 73, no. 4 (Dec. 1979):967-87.

40. A multivariate causal model that examined agricultural land distribution and sought broad theoretical significance for comparativists (the isolated piece was not centrally concerned with Latin America) was Muller and Seligson's “Inequality and Insurgency,” in American Political Science Review.

41. See Russell H. Fitzgibbon, “Measuring Democratic Change in Latin America,” Journal of Politics 29, no. 1 (Feb. 1967):129-67; Peter Ranis, “A Two-Dimensional Typology of Latin American Political Parties,” Journal of Politics 30, no. 3 (Aug. 1968):798-833; and John D. Martz, “The Place of Latin America in the Study of Comparative Politics,” Journal of Politics 28, no. 1 (Feb. 1966):57-81.

42. Charles L. Davis, “Political Regimes and the Socioeconomic Resource Model of Political Mobilization: Some Venezuelan and Mexican Data,” Journal of Politics 45, no. 2 (May 1983):422-49.

43. Albert O. Hirschman, “The Search for Paradigms as a Hindrance to Understanding,” World Politics 32, no. 3 (Apr. 1970):329-44; James L. Payne and Oliver H. Woshinsky, “Incentives for Political Participation,” World Politics 24, no. 4 (July 1972):518-47; and Howard J. Wiarda, “Toward a Framework for the Study of Political Change in the Iberic-Latin Tradition: The Corporative Model,” World Politics 25, no. 2 (Jan. 1973):206-36.

44. Susan Kaufman Purcell and John F. H. Purcell, “State and Society in Mexico: Must a Stabler Polity Be Institutionalized?,” World Politics 32, no. 2 (Jan. 1980): 194–228; Steven E. Sanderson, “Presidential Succession and Political Rationality in Mexico,” World Politics 35, no. 3 (Apr. 1983):315-35; and Cynthia McClintock, “Why Peasants Rebel: The Case of Peru's Sendero Luminoso,” World Politics 37, no. 1 (Oct. 1984):48-85.

45. David J. Myers and Robert E. O'Connor, “The Undecided Respondent in Mandatory Voting Settings: A Venezuelan Exploration,” Western Political Quarterly 36, no. 3 (Sept. 1983):420-33.

46. Robert H. Dix, “Why Revolutions Succeed and Fail,” Polity 16, no. 3 (Spring 1984):423-46; and John D. Martz and David J. Myers, “Understanding Latin American Politics: Analytical Models and Intellectual Traditions,” Polity 16, no. 2 (Winter 1983):214-41.

47. Robert H. Dix, “Consociational Democracy: The Case of Colombia,” Comparative Politics 20, no. 3 (Apr. 1980):303-21; Dix, “The Varieties of Revolution,” Comparative Politics 15, no. 3 (Apr. 1983):281-94; Susan Eckstein, “Revolutions and the Restructuring of National Economies: The Latin American Experience,” Comparative Politics 18, no. 4 (July 1985):473-94; Daniel Levy, “Comparing Authoritarian Regimes in Latin America: Insights from Higher Education Policy,” Comparative Politics 14, no. 1 (Oct. 1981):31-52; Peter McDonough, “Repression and Representation in Brazil,” Comparative Politics 15, no. 1 (Oct. 1982):73-99; and Karen L. Remmer, “Redemocratization and the Impact of Authoritarian Rule in Latin America,” Comparative Politics 17, no. 3 (Apr. 1985):253-76.

48. Henry A. Dietz, “Political Participation in the Barriadas: An Extension and Reexamination,” Comparative Political Studies 18, no. 3 (Oct. 1985):323-55; and John Sloan and Kent Tedin, “The Consequences of Regime Type for Public Policy Outputs,” Comparative Political Studies 20, no. 1 (Apr. 1987):98-124.

49. For the special topic issue, with an introduction by Gláucio Ary Dillon Soares, see Studies in Comparative International Development 21, no. 2 (Summer 1986).

50. For broader and more detailed treatments that draw substantially on the Handbook of Latin American Studies, see David W. Dent, “Past and Present Trends in Research on Latin American Politics, 1950–1980,” LAR 21, no. 1 (1986): 139–51; and Dent, “Political Science Research on Latin America: North American versus Latin American Subjects of Investigation, 1960–1985,” paper presented at the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, 17–19 Mar. 1988, New Orleans.

51. Joseph S. Tulchin, “Emerging Patterns of Research in the Study of Latin America,” LAR 18, no. 1 (1983):89.