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Comparative Political Development: Latin America and Afro-Asia*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Edward J. Williams
Affiliation:
University of Arizona

Extract

Latin American political thought and scholarship has historically evidenced preoccupation with the problem of self-definition. Simón Bolívar, for example, concerned with the distinctive quality of Latin American civilization, said that it was not European nor North American nor Indian, but a new synthesis. A century later Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, father of the Aprista political movement, insisted that he had spawned a new ideology derived from the unique reality of Indoamerica. The contemporary Christian Democratic movement formally acknowledges its debt to the European tradition but also highlights its differences, which stem from the disparity between industrial and emerging nations. The well-known thesis of Herbert Eugene Bolton and the ‘Atlantic Triangle’ of Arthur P. Whitaker are variations on the same theme.

Type
Political Development
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1969

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References

page 342 note 1 On Bolívar, see the Jamaica Letter and Angostura Message in Bierck, Harold A. Jr., ed., Selected Writings of Bolivar (New York: The Colonial Press, Published by Banco de Venezuela, 1951) I, pp. 103–22, 173–97;Google Scholar on the Apristas, Kantor, Harry, The Ideology and Program of the Peruvian Aprista Movement (Washington: Saville Books, 1966), pp. 2260;Google Scholar on the Democrats, Christian, Tomic, Radomiro, Unidad y Diversidad de la Democracia Christiana en el Mundo (Santiago de Chile: Imprenta del Pacifica, 1962);Google Scholar on Bolton, and Whitaker, , Hanke, Lewis, ed., Do the Americas Have a Common History? A Critique of the Bolton Theory (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964).Google Scholar On the same general theme, see Whitaker, , The Western Hemisphere Idea, Its Rise and Decline (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1954).Google Scholar

page 343 note 1 Almond, , ‘Comparative Political Systems’, Journal of Politics, 18, No. 3 (08 1956), 391409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a good summary of the recent literature as well as some useful prescriptions, see Martz, John D., ‘The Place of Latin America in the Study of Comparative Polities’, Journal of Politics, 28, No. 1 (02 1966), 5780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 343 note 2 Millikan, Max F. and Blackmer, Donald L. M., eds., The Emerging Nations: Their Growth and United States Policy (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1961), Table 1, pp. 150–1. In the statistical data surveyed in this study, the number of nations compared sometimes varies slightly because of the differing sources utilized.Google Scholar

page 343 note 3 Harbison, Frederick and Myers, Charles A., Education, Manpower and Economic Growth (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), Table 1, p. 33.Google Scholar

page 343 note 4 How Low Income Countries Can Advance Their Own Growth (New York: Committee for Economic Development, 1966), Table I, pp. 62–6. Cuba was not indexed in this study.Google Scholar

page 344 note 1 Almond, Gabriel and Powell, G. Bingham Jr., Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1966), p. 23.Google Scholar The following discussion of ‘political culture’, ‘theo-philosophic tradition’, ‘historic tradition’, ‘cultural and political environment’, or ‘civilization’ differs from the discussions and definitions heretofore presented in the comparative developmental literature. The concept of political culture as used in the literature is useful and fills a void in the proper understanding of any political system. However, the lexicographers have been remiss in not introducing a rather more comprehensive concept to encompass the theophilosophic or cultural tradition which informs the political culture more proximately understood, and which is logically and chronologically precedent to it. For discussions of political culture, see Almond, and Powell, , pp. 5072Google Scholar, and Pye, Lucian W. and Verba, Sidney, Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 344 note 2 Verba in Pye, and Verba, , op. cit., p. 522.Google Scholar

page 345 note 1 Charles W. Anderson has made a similar point by proposing the difficulties which the revolutionary left encounters in attempting to modernize the Latin American nations. In Afro-Asia the imperial masters, counterpart of Latin America's oligarchy, have departed; in Latin America, they remain. Politics and Development Policy in Central America’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, 5 (11 1961), 349.Google Scholar

page 345 note 2 Hispanic American Report, 17 (11 1964), 856.Google Scholar For the distinction between mass and elite political culture, see Pye in Pye, and Verba, , op. cit., p. 16.Google Scholar

page 346 note 1 For a picture of urban population and growth in Latin America, see Edelmann, Alexander T., Latin American Government and Politics (Homewood, 111.: The Dorsey Press, 1965), Figures 3–1,Google Scholar 3–2, 3–3, 79, 80, 81. To compare with the Afro-Asian world, see Almond, Gabriel and Coleman, James S., eds., The Politics of Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), Appendix.Google Scholar

page 346 note 2 For a statement on the ‘Exaggerations of Africa Borrowing from the West’, see Hodgkin, Thomas L., ‘The Relevance of “Western” Ideas for the New African States’, in Self-Govern-ment in Modernizing Nations, Pennock, J. Roland, ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 5080.Google Scholar

page 346 note 8 Fred von der Mehden, R., Politics of the Developing Nations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p. 54. The following analysis is based on von der Mehden, pp. 54–66.Google Scholar

page 347 note 1 On the superiority of competitive political party systems over monopolistic authoritarian systems, see Pye's discussion in LaPalombara, Joseph and Weiner, Myron, eds., Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 388–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Pye begins ‘… it is impossible to make any sweeping assertions about the overriding advantages of either authoritarian or competitive systems for national development’, p. 390. He then devotes the remainder of his discussion to arguing, it seems correctly, in favor of competitive systems. For example: ‘Monopolistic politics in Asia … has tended to produce stagnant rule. … For rule by oligarchy, even when disguised in the language of revolution, remains the sterile rule of oligarchy’, p. 392. ‘If we survey the record of the last two decades in Asia, we must conclude that it is hard to find any striking advantages for authoritarian rule’, and ‘If we now move on and look at the positive side of the question, it seems that in the Asian setting of limited competitive party systems there is considerable evidence to support many of the classic arguments for democratic practices’, p. 394. Pye's arguments are very convincing. The resolution of this apparent paradox, it seems, is that Pye is not making any ‘sweeping assertions about the overriding advantages’ (my italics) of the two systems. Parenthetically, however, one might charge that Professor Pye has been overly modest about the universal applicability of his analysis.

page 347 note 2 On the superiority of two-party competitive systems, see Almond, and Powell, , op. cit., pp. 102–3.Google Scholar

page 347 note 3 Weiner in Almond, and Coleman, , op. cit., p. 318;Google ScholarPye, , op. cit., pp. 115–16.Google Scholar

page 348 note 1 Binder, Leonard in Pye, and Verba, , op. cit., p. 426.Google ScholarWeiner, in Almond, and Coleman, , op. cit., p. 211. See pp. 211–12 for the discussion of interest groups in South Asia.Google Scholar

page 348 note 2 Anderson, , Politics and Economic Change in Latin America (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1967), p. 128.Google Scholar

page 348 note 3 Ibid.

page 348 note 4 In Venezuela, for example, both major parties have favored this concept. For the Socialist Action Democratica's position, see Friedmann, John, Venezuela: From Doctrine to Dialogue (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1965), esp. pp. 140–7.Google Scholar For the Christian COPEI's stance, see Landínez, Victor Giménez, ‘Reforma Agraria Integral: Bases Jurídicas de su Planificacion’, Politico (Caracas) III (12 1963), 1415.Google Scholar Compare the attitudes outlined in these discussions with that of South Asia's, particularly India's, planners as described by Weiner in Almond, and Coleman, , op. cit., pp. 211–12.Google Scholar

page 348 note 5 Immanuel Wallerstein in LaPalombara, and Weiner, , op. cit., p. 213.Google Scholar

page 349 note 1 Scott, Robert E. in Pye, and Verba, , op. cit., p. 345.Google Scholar

page 349 note 2 Anderson, , Politics and Economic Change in Latin America, p. 128.Google Scholar

page 349 note 3 Ibid. p. 126, postulates the ‘common idea that literacy is a minimum requirement for meaningful involvement in the modern system of government. …’

page 349 note 4 Almond, and Coleman, , op. cit., Appendix. Also listed are other indices which lend further credence to the participation argument: Number of Persons per Radio, Number of Persons per Newspaper copy, Percentage Enrolled in Primary Education. On the newspapers, moreover, see a May 1967 report by The Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri, which sees more freedom of the press in the Western Hemisphere than in any other region of the world. Noted in Press of the Americas, 165 (June-July 1967), 3.Google Scholar

page 349 note 5 Johnson, John J., Political Change in Latin America (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958), p. 2.Google Scholar

page 349 note 6 Hamburg, Roger P., The Soviet Union and Latin America: 1953–1963. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1965, p. 59.Google Scholar The following paragraph is based on Hamburg, pp. 49–50, 57–8.

page 350 note 1 Pye in Almond, and Coleman, , op. cit., p. 103.Google Scholar

page 350 note 2 Though no longer the bête noire of old, the Church issue has not been put to its final rest in the Western world. See, for instance, Shabecoff, Philip, ‘Bonn Irritated by Vatican Note: Antagonism Over Schools Rises’, The New York Times, 13 04 1967, p. 22.Google Scholar On the same problem in Mexico, see Scott, , op. cit., pp. 368–69.Google Scholar

page 350 note 3 Scott, in Pye, and Verba, , op. cit., p. 383.Google Scholar

page 350 note 4 The Center of Intercultural Formation, editor, Latin America in Maps, Charts, Tables: Socio-Religious Data (Catholicism), Vol. II (Cuernavaca, Mexico: Center of Intercultural Formation, 1964), p. 262.Google Scholar

page 351 note 1 Scott, in Pye, and Verba, , op. tit., p. 350.Google Scholar

page 351 note 2 O'Gorman, in Hanke, , op. tit., p. 105.Google Scholar

page 351 note 3 Rodney Arismendi quoted in Hamburg, , op. cit., p. 73.Google Scholar

page 352 note 1 Lleras, Alberto, ‘Y Sin Embargo, Se Mueve’, Visióln, 32, No. 10 (14 de Abril de 1967), 21.Google Scholar On Latin American continentalism, see Alexander, Robert J., Latin American Government and Politics (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 149–51.Google Scholar

page 352 note 2 Almond, and Powell, , op. cit., pp. 60–1, 259–60.Google Scholar

page 353 note 1 Ibid., See for example the striking congruity between the contemporary Chilean and Italian political parties and political ideologies. From left to right, both nations count a relatively mild Communist party; two Socialist parties, one moderate and one radical; a large Christian Democratic group, a Radical-Liberal sector and an unreformed Right. The same comparison would hold for the French Fourth Republic and Weimar Germany.

page 353 note 2 For a review of the positions, see Martz, , op. cit.Google Scholar

page 353 note 3 Miller, J. D. B., The Politics of the Third World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. xi.Google Scholar

page 353 note 4 Indications of this distinctive style are clearly evident in Mexico, Bolivia and Cuba and may be emerging in Chile and Venezuela. See Scott, in Pye, and Verba, , op. cit.;Google ScholarScott, , Mexican Government in Transition, Revised edition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964).Google ScholarAlgmond, and Verba, , The Civic Culture (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1965).Google ScholarAlexander, , The Bolivian National Revolution (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1958)Google Scholar and the various American Universities Field Staff Reports of Patch, Richard W.. Cope, Orville G., ‘The 1965 Congressional Election in Chile: An Analysis’, Journal of Inter-American Studies, 10, No. 2 (04 1968), 256–76.Google ScholarAlexander, , The Venezuelan Democratic Revolution (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1964).Google Scholar