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Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Karen L. Remmer  and
Gilbert W. Merkx
Karen L. Remmer
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
Gilbert W. Merkx
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
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With the publication in 1973 of Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics, Guillermo O'Donnell initiated a new phase in the debate over the relationship between social change and politics in Latin America. In contrast to most of the political development literature of the 1950s and 1960s, O'Donnell argued that social and economic modernization in the context of delayed development is more likely to lead to authoritarianism than democracy. His analysis focused on the emergence of military regimes in Argentina and Brazil in the middle 1960s—regimes that he labeled “bureaucratic-authoritarian” to distinguish them from oligarchical and populist forms of authoritarian rule found in less modernized countries. O'Donnell's suggestion that an “elective affinity” exists between higher levels of modernization and the rise of bureaucratic-authoritarianism in South America anticipated the military takeovers of the 1970s in Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina. The timeliness of his argument, together with its broad theoretical implications, stimulated considerable discussion, which culminated in the recent publication of a volume devoted to the exploration of themes raised by O'Donnell.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , 1982 , pp. 3 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

The research for this paper was partially supported by a summer grant from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of New Mexico. Linda Peterson provided very useful research assistance. The authors also extend thanks to Guillermo O'Donnell and David Collier for their valuable comments and suggestions. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Council on Latin American Studies in El Paso, Texas, May 1979.

References

Notes

1. Guillermo A. O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics, Politics of Modernization Series No. 9 (Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1973). A second edition was issued in 1979. Unless otherwise noted, all citations are to the first edition.

2. David Collier, ed., The New Authoritarianism In Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). See also David Collier's review article, “Industrial Modernization and Political Change: A Latin American Perspective,” World Politics 30 (July 1978):593–614, which analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of O'Donnell's work for understanding the collapse of democratic regimes. Other relevant works include Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, “Inducements versus Constraints: Disaggregating ‘Corporatism,’” American Political Science Review 73 (Dec. 1979):967–86; Mario S. Broderson, “Sobre ‘Modernización y Autoritarismo’ y el estancamiento inflacionario argentina,” Desarrollo Económico 13 (oct.-dic. 1973):591–605; Liliana de Rix, “Formas del estado y desarrollo del capitalismo en América Latina,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología 39 (abril-junio 1977):427–41; Daniel Levy, “Higher Education Policy in Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Regimes: Comparative Perspectives on the Chilean Case,” paper prepared for the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 1979; Susan Kaufman Purcell, The Mexican Profit-Sharing Decision: Politics in an Authoritarian Regime (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1975); Robert R. Kaufman, “Transitions to Stable Authoritarian-Corporate Regimes: The Chilean Case?” Sage Professional Papers in Comparative Politics 5 (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1976); Alfred Stepan, The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); Juan J. Linz, “Totalitarianism and Authoritarian Regimes,” in Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science, vol. 3: Macropolitical Theory (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Press, 1975); Daniel Hellinger, “Class and Politics in Venezuela: Prologue to a Theory of Democracy in Dependent Nations,” paper prepared for the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Bloomington, Indiana, October 1980; Michael Wallerstein, “The Collapse of Democracy in Brazil: Its Economic Determinants,” LARR, 15, no. 3 (1980):3–40; Oscar Oszlak, “Notas críticas para una teoría de la burocracia estatal,” Documento CEDES/G.E. CLACSO no. 8, Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, Buenos Aires, 1977.

3. “Reflexiones sobre las tendencias generales de cambio en el estado burocrático-autoritario,” Documento CEDES/G.E. CLACSO no. 1, Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, Buenos Aires, 1975 and its English translation, “Reflections on the Patterns of Change in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State,” LARR 13, no. 1 (1978):3–38; “Acerca del ‘corporativismo’ y la cuestión del estado,” Documento CEDES/G.E. CLACSO no. 2, Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, Buenos Aires, 1975 and its English translation, “Corporatism and the Question of the State,” in Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America, ed. James M. Malloy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977), pp. 47–87; “Apuntes para una teoría del estado,” Documento CEDES/G.E. CLACSO no. 9, Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, Buenos Aires, 1977; “Tensiones en el estado burocrático-autoritario y la cuestión de la democracia,” Documento CEDES/G.E. CLACSO no. 11, Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, Buenos Aires, 1978 and its English version, “Tensions in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State and the Question of Democracy,” in New Authoritarianism, pp. 285–318; Roberto Frenkel and Guillermo O'Donnell, “The ‘Stabilization Programs’ of the International Monetary Fund and Their Internal Impacts during Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Periods,” Latin American Program, The Wilson Center, Working Papers, no. 14, Washington, D.C., 1978. The English versions are cited in all subsequent references.

4. Modernization, pp. 99–103.

5. Ibid., p. 95.

6. Ibid., pp. 93, 95–96n. O'Donnell argued that this type of political system closely resembled the conservative and authoritarian responses to modernization in Eastern Europe during the 1930s, Franco's Spain, Greece under the military, and contemporary Mexico.

7. Ibid., p. 112.

8. Ibid., 2nd ed., p. 206n.

9. The term “political system” is not explicitly defined in Modernization, but O'Donnell used the term in the sense of “regime” or institutionalized rules of political interaction. See, for example, p. 9.

10. O'Donnell's definition of the state is similar to that advanced by European neo-Marxists such as Nicos Poulantzas and Joachim Hirsch. An analysis of the theoretical issues this raises is beyond the scope of this paper, but for an incisive review and critique of the assumptions of such approaches, see Koen Koch, “The New Marxist Theory of the State or the Rediscovery of the Limitations of a Structural-Functionalist Paradigm,” The Netherlands Journal of Sociology 16 (Apr. 1980):1–19.

11. “Tensions,” p. 296. For a fuller exposition of O'Donnell's theory of the state, see “Apuntes.”

12. “Tensions,” p. 310.

13. Ibid., pp. 291–93. It should be noted that O'Donnell presents this definition in the context of a discussion of the initial stage of BA rule. Elsewhere he has emphasized two additional, and apparently longer term, characteristics of the BA state: namely, economic “deepening” and the “expansiveness” of the state. See “Corporatism,” pp. 54, 59, 61, 78: “Reflections,” pp. 6, 9–16. In “Tensions,” O'Donnell only alludes briefly to these characteristics (pp. 303–4n, 307n).

14. “Corporatism,” p. 53.

15. For example, David Collier has emphasized the need for the “disaggregation” of the variable in O'Donnell's model, particularly “regime,” “coalition,” and “policy.” See Collier, “Industrial Modernization”; idem, “The Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Model: Synthesis and Priorities for Future Research,” in New Authoritarianism, pp. 365–71. Fernando Henrique Cardoso argues that a distinction should be drawn between “state” and “political regime” on the grounds that “an identical form of state—capitalist and dependent, in the case of Latin America—can coexist with a variety of political regimes.” “On the Characterization of Authoritarian Regimes in Latin America,” in New Authoritarianism, p. 39.

16. “Reflections,” pp. 28–31; “Corporatism,” pp. 53–54. In O'Donnell's more recent essay, “Tensions,” Mexico is not referred to as a BA state (see, especially, p. 312). See also the glossary, pp. 399–400, in New Authoritarianism.

17. “Reflections,” p. 7.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid., p. 8.

20. “Tensions,” pp. 297–98.

21. “Reflections,” pp. 8–9.

22. “Tensions,” p. 315.

23. Ibid., p. 306.

24. “Reflections,” pp. 16, 34n.

25. “Tensions,” p. 306.

26. “Reflections,” pp. 19–26.

27. Ibid., pp. 16–19, 22, 25–26; “Tensions,” p. 312.

28. “Tensions,” pp. 305–7.

29. “Reflections,” pp. 18, 33n; “Tensions,” p. 307n.

30. “State and Alliances in Argentina, 1956–1976.” Journal of Development Studies 15 (Oct. 1978):3–33.

31. Modernization, p. 102; “Reflections,” pp. 7, 32n.

32. “Tensions,” pp. 306–7.

33. “Reflections,” p. 7.

34. For a discussion of this issue, see Robert R. Kaufman, “Industrial Change and Authoritarian Rule in Latin America: A Concrete Review of the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Model,” in New Authoritarianism, pp. 187–89.

35. “Reflections,” pp. 8–9.

36. See Amnesty International, Relatório sôbre as acusações de tortura no Brasil (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1972); Peter Flynn, Brazil: A Political Analysis (London: Ernest Benn, 1978), pp. 366–471.

37. Karen L. Remmer, “Political Demobilization in Chile, 1973–1978,” Comparative Politics 12 (Apr. 1980):277–82.

38. Amnesty International, Chile: An Amnesty International Report (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1974), pp. 16, 31.

39. Chicago Commission of Inquiry, “Chicago Commission of Inquiry,” in Chile: Under Military Rule, comp. IDOC (New York: IDOC/North America, 1974), p. 59.

40. International Labour Office, Year Book of Labour Statistics (Geneva: International Labour Organization, 1979), p. 592.

41. Report of an Amnesty International Mission to Argentina, 6–15 November 1976 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1977), pp. 18, 27.

42. Times of the Americas, 29 Aug. 1979, p. 9; 20 June 1979, p. 13.

43. Times of the Americas, 30 Jan. 1980, p. 11. See also Anselmo Sule C., “La situación de los derechos humanos en Argentina,” Chile-América, nos. 39–40 (1978), pp. 149–59; Stephen Kinzer, “Argentina in Agony,” New Republic, 23 Dec. 1978, pp. 17–21; The Guardian Weekly, 24 June 1979, p. 16; Argentine Information Service Center, Argentina Today: A Dossier on Repression and the Violation of Human Rights, 2nd ed. (New York: n.p., 1977); “Argentina: Hemisphere's Worst Human Rights Violator,” Argentine Outreach (Berkeley) 4 (Jan.-Feb. 1979), p. 3.

44. Remmer, “Political Demobilization,” p. 278.

45. Alfredo Errandonea and Daniel Costabile, Sindicato y sociedad en el Uruguay (Montevideo: Biblioteca de Cultura Universitaria, 1969), p. 136.

46. Amnesty International, Political Imprisonment in Uruguay (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1979), pp. 4, 5.

47. Latin America Political Report 11 (17 June 1977):181.

48. In 1978, for example, the Washington Office on Latin America described Uruguay as the “worst violator” of human rights in the hemisphere. “Uruguay: Five Years into the Military Dictatorship and Getting Worse,” Washington, D.C., Oct. 1978 (mimeographed).

49. Political Imprisonment, pp. 5, 10. See also Uruguay: Generals Rule (London: Latin America Bureau, 1980), pp. 53–55.

50. Modernization, p. 29.

51. Ibid., p. 54n.

52. See, in particular, “Reflections,” p. 8.

53. Modernization, p. 101.

54. Ibid., p. 103 (italics added).

55. It should be emphasized, however, that opposition from subordinate groups does not constitute the sole or even the most important explanation offered by O'Donnell of the varying paths of Brazilian and Argentine BA rule in the 1960s.

56. Latin America 10 (14 May 1976):147; 10 (1 Oct. 1976):302; 10 (12 Nov. 1976):351; 10 (3 Dec. 1976):373. Latin America Economic Report 7 (16 Feb. 1979):56; 7 (30 Mar. 1979):104; 7 (4 May 1979):136. Latin America Political Report 11 (4 Feb. 1977):39; 11 (18 Feb. 1977):52; 11 (4 Mar. 1977):72; 11 (25 Mar. 1977):95; 11 (4 Nov. 1977):337; 11 (11 Nov. 1977):345, 11 (9 Dec. 1977):381; 13 (27 Apr. 1979):121; 13 (4 May 1979):136. Latin America Regional Reports: Southern Cone, no. 1 (7 Dec. 1979), p. 2; no. 6 (1 Aug. 1980), p. 4. Latin America Weekly Report, no. 1 (2 Nov. 1979), p. 3; no. 5 (30 Nov. 1979), p. 52. Conditions in Argentina (New York: Argentine Information Service Center, 2 April 1979), pp. 8–10.

57. Conditions, p. 9; Argentine Outreach 4 (Jan.-Feb. 1979): 2.

58. See, for example, Latin America Political Report 11 (4 Feb. 1977):40; Solidaridad (Santiago), no. 58 (Nov. 1978), p. 7; Chilean Resistance Courier (Oakland, California), no. 5 (Oct. 1976), p. 25; Chile-América, nos. 22–24 (Aug.-Oct. 1976), pp. 62–68; ibid., nos. 31–32 (May-June 1977), pp. 43–62; ibid., nos. 35–36 (Sept.-Oct. 1977), pp. 134–41.

59. “Tensions,” p. 306.

60. World Bank, World Tables 1976 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), pp. 48–49, 60–61.

61. Inter-American Development Bank, Economic and Social Progress in Latin America: 1978 Report (Washington, D.C.: Inter-American Development Bank, 1979), p. 3.

62. Ibid., p. 6.

63. Rosemary Thorp and Laurence Whitehead, eds., Inflation and Stabilization in Latin America (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979), p. 6.

64. Ibid.

65. ECLA, Economic Survey of Latin America 1977 (Santiago: United Nations, 1978), p. 33.

66. “Tensions,” p. 293.

67. Economic and Social Progress, p. 452.

68. It should be noted, however, that the Uruguayan growth of the 1974–77 period partially represented a recovery from the decline of 1971 and 1972. Government incentives for the expansion of nontraditional manufacturing exports, which are discussed below, provided the main impetus for this recovery, but it also reflected the influence of factors beyond the control of Uruguayan policymakers. Argentine economic policy, in particular, fuelled tourist demand for Uruguayan goods and resort housing.

69. World Tables, p. 396.

70. “Tensions,” p. 307.

71. Economic and Social Progress, p. 152.

72. Foreign Economic Trends and Their Implications for the United States: Argentina (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, May 1980), p. 10.

73. Quarterly Economic Review of Argentina (London), 4th Quarter, 1979, p. 7.

74. “Tensions,” p. 306.

75. Ibid., p. 303.

76. “Reflections,” p. 17.

77. Inflation and Stabilisation, pp. 1–22; see also Thomas E. Skidmore, “Economic Stabilization Attempts in Latin America: Explaining ‘Success’ and ‘Failure,‘” paper prepared for the national meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Bloomington, Indiana, Oct. 1980.

78. M. H. J. Finch, “Stabilisation Policy in Uruguay since the 1950s,” in Inflation and Stabilisation, p. 163.

79. Albert Fishlow, “Some Reflections on the Post-1964 Brazilian Economic Policy,” in Authoritarian Brazil, ed. Alfred Stepan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 72.

80. Economic and Social Progress, p. 433.

81. John Thompson, “Argentine Economic Policy under the Onganía Regime,” Inter-American Economic Affairs 24 (Summer 1970):51–75; see also Richard D. Mallon, in collaboration with Juan V. Sourrouille, Economic Policy-Making in a Conflict Society: The Argentine Case (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975).

82. “Chile Spin-Off of Corfo Holdings is Down to Last Few,” Business Latin America, 23 Feb. 1977, p. 59.

83. Latin America Regional Reports: Southern Cone, no. 6 (27 June 1980), pp. 6–7; Quarterly Economic Review of Argentina, 1st Quarter 1979, p. 13. On the Brazilian tariff reform, see Joel Bergsman, Brazil: Industrialization and Trade Policies (London: Oxford University Press, 1970).

84. World Bank, Uruguay: Economic Memorandum (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1979), p. 15.

85. Ibid.; Finch, “Stabilization Policy,” pp. 144–80; Howard Handelman, “Economic Policy and Elite Pressures in Uruguay,” American Universities Field Staff Reports, no. 27 (1979); Bolsa Review 13 (Mar. 1979):192.

86. Uruguay, p. 49.

87. Ibid.; Latin America Regional Reports: Southern Cone, no. 1 (1 Feb. 1980), p. 5.

88. Business Latin America, 3 Sept. 1980, p. 284; Handelman, “Economic Policy,” p. 15.

89. Latin America Regional Reports: Southern Cone, no. 7 (5 Sept. 1980), p. 8; Organization of American States, Short-Term Economic Reports, vol. 8: Argentina (Washington, D.C.: OAS, 1979); Latin America Weekly Report, no. 34 (29 Aug. 1980), p. 4.

90. “Tensions,” p. 307n.

91. See, in particular, R. Kaufman, “Industrial Change,” pp. 165–253; José Serra, “Three Mistaken Theses Regarding the Connection between Industrialization and Authoritarian Regimes,” in New Authoritarianism, pp. 99–163; Albert O. Hirschman, “The Turn to Authoritarianism in Latin America and the Search for Its Economic Determinants,” in New Authoritarianism, pp. 61–98.

92. Ibid., p. 79; see also Cardoso, “Characterization of Authoritarian Regimes,” p. 51.

93. Latin America Regional Reports: Southern Cone, no. 6 (27 June 1980), p. 6.

94. Handelman, “Economic Policy,” pp. 11–16.

95. Latin America Regional Reports: Southern Cone, no. 6 (27 June 1980), pp. 6–7.

96. “Reflections,” pp. 23–24.

97. “Tensions,” p. 305.

98. Ibid., pp. 297–98.

99. Ibid., p. 306.

100. Latin America Regional Reports: Southern Cone, no. 1 (1 Feb. 1980), p. 5. For the reaction of Chilean and Argentine industrialists, see ibid., no. 1 (7 Dec. 1979), pp. 2, 5; Latin America Weekly Report, no. 11 (14 Mar. 1980), p. 10; Quarterly Economic Review of Chile, 4th Quarter 1974, p. 2.

101. Howard Handelman, “Class Conflict and the Repression of the Uruguayan Working Class,” paper presented at the Conference on Contemporary Latin America, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M., April 1977.

102. Handelman, “Economic Policy,” p. 16.

103. In analyzing the relationships between the pattern of economic development and the nature of class interests in Argentina during the 1956–76 period, O'Donnell himself has emphasized the importance of sectoral conflicts for understanding the lack of intra-bourgeois cohesion in Argentina. See “State and Alliances.”

104. Liisa North, “The Military in Chilean Politics,” in Armies and Politics in Latin America, ed., Abraham F. Lowenthal (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1976), pp. 165–96. Edy Kaufman, Uruguay in Transition (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1979), p. 75. Ronald M. Schneider, The Political System of Brazil: Emergence of a “Modernizing” Authoritarian Regime, 1964–1970 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), pp. 129, 199, indicates that major purges in 1964 resulted in 555 forced military retirements and 165 involuntary transfers to the reserves. No comparable evidence of military disunity exists for the post-1976 period in Argentina, despite continuing reports of factional struggles and interservice rivalries. Between April 1976 and April 1979, for example, Latin America and its successor, the Latin America Political Report, contained thirty-one separate stories dealing with Argentine military disunity; yet no profound break with professional norms for career advancement occurred during this period.

105. Latin America Political Report 11 (1 Apr. 1977):103; 11 (27 May 1977):157; 11 (23 Sept. 1977):296; 12 (7 July 1978):208; 13 (2 Feb. 1979):38–39; Uruguay in Transition, pp. 75–76.

106. See Modernization, p. 99.

107. Richard Cornell, ed., The Soviet Political System (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970), p. 1.