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Rise and Decline of Latin American Dependency Theories*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2011

Walther L. Bernecker  and
Thomas Fischer
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Extract

In order to understand the value of any theory, one has to know its origins and background. This is especially true of the various dependency theories, which have always been more than just ‘theories of theorists for theorists’. Dependency theories can only be understood against the background of Latin American politics in the 1960s. Taking this into account, there was an obvious connection between the Cuban Revolution on the one hand, and the unfulfilled expectations of development caused by the failure of modernisation efforts, on the other. The basic idea behind dependency theories is the explanation of the historically unequal relations between Latin America and the North Atlantic economies (Europe and the United States). Dependency theories are essentially attempts to justify government policies to acquire control of national development.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , 1998 , pp. 25 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1998

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References

Notes

1 See Rock, David ed., Latin America in the 1940s: War and Postwar Transitions (Berkeley 1994)Google Scholar; Bethel, Leslie and Roxborough, Ian eds, Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War, 1944–1948 (Cambridge 1992)Google Scholar; Bulmer-Thomas, Victor, The Economic History of Latin America since Independence (Cambridge Mass. 1994) 238–275Google Scholar; Thorp, Rosemary, ‘A Reappraisal of the Origins of Import Substituting Industrialisation’, Journal of Latin American Studies 24 (1992) 181–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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7 A good introduction to the ‘political economy’ of Prebisch and the different positions of CEPAL until the end of the seventies, is Gurrieri, Adolfo ed., La obra de Prebisch en la CEPAL I and II (Mexico 1982).Google Scholar

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10 The idea that one pays less for natural resources (minerals and agricultural products) than for manufactured products, goes back to the colonial era. The concept of ‘unequal change’, according to which the North determines the price, can be traced back to Ricardo and John Stuart Mill. During the 1920s and 1930s, this concept was discussed extensively in Europe. The German economic historian Werner Sombart applied it to European history for the first lime in 1928, adding the center-periphery. See Sombart, Werner, Der Moderne Kapitalismus (Munich/Leipzig 1928). Sombart describes a dominant centre (Great Britain with support of the United States) that was surrounded by an exploited and dominated periphery, namely the countries of central, eastern and southern Europe. From this idea resulted the necessity of a forced industrialisation, directed by the state. In 1946 the work of Sombart was published in Spanish in Mexico. It is possible that Raúl Prebisch knew the debates about the center-periphery model.Google Scholar

11 FitzGerald, ‘ECLA’, 90.

12 United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America: Economic Survey of Latin America, 1948 (New York 1949).Google Scholar

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21 In the bibliography on the subject there are divergent opinions about the coherence of the development concept. The term desarollismo was especially used by critics of this concept; it is rarely defined in concrete terms. On this and what follows, see Dieter W. Benecke, ‘Desarollismo – ein überlegtes Konzept?’, Buisson and Mols, Entwicklungsstrategien,197–206.

22 See Mar, J. Matos ed., La crisis del desarrollismo y la nueva dependencia (Buenos Aires 1969).Google Scholar With regard to the criticism on the desarrollista concept, see also: Benecke, ‘Desarrollismo’.

23 Bulmer-Thomas, Economic History, 276–288, 308–322.

24 O'Brien, Philip J., ‘Zur Kritik lateinamerikanischer Dependencia-Theorien’, Puhle, Hans-Jürgen ed., Lateinamerika - Historische Realität und Dependencia - Theorien (Hamburg 1977) 38.Google Scholar

25 The process of diffusion is described in detail in Packenham, Robert A., The Dependency Movement: Scholarship and Politics in Development Studies (Cambridge Mass. 1992) see especiallyGoogle Scholar 186–267.

26 Lindström, Naomi, ‘Dependency and Anatomy: The Evolution of Concepts in the Study of Latin American Literature’, Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv 17–2/3 (1991) 109–144.Google Scholar

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28 Cardoso, Fernando H., ‘The Consumption of the Dependency Theory in the United States’, Latin American Research Review 12/3 (1977) 9ss.Google Scholar

29 Baran, Paul, The Political Economy of Growth (New York 1957);Google ScholarSweezy, Paul M. et al., Der Übergang vom Feudalismus zum Kapitalismus (Frankfurt am Main 1978). The marxist terminology, characteristic of large part of the dependency studies, should not hide the differences with the purely marxist analysis.Google Scholar

30 Packenham, Dependency Movement, 56–66.

31 Wöhlke, Manfred and Wogau, Peter von, ‘Einführende Darstellung’, Manfred Wöhlke and Waltraud Martens, Die neuere entwicklungstheoretische Diskussion: Einführende Darstellung und ausgewählte Bibliographic (Frankfurt am Main 1977) 14.Google Scholar

32 O'Brien, ‘Zur Kritik’, 38ss.

33 Packenham, Dependency Movement, 33–130.

34 On the development of the debate, see Kay, Latin American Theories; Peter F. Klarén, ‘Lost Promise: Explaining Latin American Underdevelopment’, Klarén, Peter F. and Bossert, Thomas J., Promise of Development: Theories of Change in Latin America (Boulder and London 1986) 14–26Google Scholar. See also (not only with regard to Latin America) Boeckh, Andreas, ‘Abhāngigkeit, Unterentwicklung und Entwicklung: Zum Eklārungswert der Dependencia-Ansātze’, Nohlen, Dieter and Nuscheler, Franz eds, Handbuch der Dritten Welt I (Hamburg 1982) 133–148; O’Brien, ‘Zur Kritik’, 33–60; Wohlke and Von Wogau, ‘Einführende Darstellung’, 7–42.Google Scholar

35 Santos, Theotonio dos, ‘The Structure of Dependence’, American Economic Review 60/2 (1970) 231–236.Google Scholar

36 Ibid.

37 Frank, Andre Gunder, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York 1967).Google Scholar

38 Furtado, Celso, La economia latinoamericana desde la conquista ibérica hasta la revolutión cubana (Mexico 1969).Google Scholar

39 Cardoso, Fernando H. and Faletto, Enzo, Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina (Mexico 1979).Google Scholar

40 Osvaldo Sunkel, ‘Transnationale kapitalistische Integration und nationale Desintegration: der Fall Lateinamerika’, Senghaas ed., Imperialismus, 258–315.

41 Werz, Das neuere politische und sozialwissenschaftliche Denken, 178.

42 Kay, Latin American Theories, 126.

43 Wöhlke and Von Wogau, ‘Einführende Darstellung’, 14.

44 Ibid.

45 Werz, Das neuere politische und sozialwissensckaftlicke Denken, 172.

46 Thomas J. Bossert, ‘The promise of Theory’, Klarén and Bossert, Promise of Development, 316.

47 Laclau, Ernesto, ‘Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America’, New Left Review 67 (1971) 19–38.Google Scholar

48 O'Brien, ‘Zur Kritik’, 24,49ss; Wöhlke and Von Wogau, ‘Einführende Darstellung’, 22ss.

49 O'Brien, ‘Zur Kritik’, 24,49ss; Andreas Boeckh, ‘Entwicklungstheorien: Eine Rückschau”, Nohlen and Nuscheler, Handbuch I, 114.

50 Werz, Das neuere politische und sozialwissenschaftliche Denken, 190.

51 Wöhlke and Von Wogau, ‘Einführende Darstellung’, 23.

52 Valdés, Juan Gabriel, Pinochet's Economists: The Chicago School in Chile (New York 1995).Google Scholar

53 Davis, Ricardo French and Devlin, R., Una breve historia de la crisis de la deuda latinoamericana (Santiago de Chile 1992).Google Scholar

54 A good summary of the state of the issue is So, Alvin Y., Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World System Theories (Newbury Park 1992) 169–260. The World Bank even introduced the practice of issuing policy-based loans both for sector adjustment and for structural adjustment.Google Scholar

55 Boeckh, ‘Abhängigkeit’, 133.

56 Menzel, Ulrich, Geschichte der Entwicklungstheorie: Einführung und systematische Bibliographic (Second revised and expanded edition, Hamburg 1994) 43.Google Scholar

57 See above all Menzel's collection of essays, Das Ende der Dritten Welt und das Scheitern der Grossen Theorie (Frankfurt am Main 1992). With regard to the crisis of the theory, also see Boeckh, Entwicklungstheorien, 110–130.

58 Kay, Cristóbal, ‘For a Renewal of Development Studies: Latin American Theories and Neoliberalism in the Era of Structural Adjustment’, Third World Quarterly 14/4 (1993) 691–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Sunkel, Osvaldo ed., Development from Within: Toward a Neostructuralist Approach for Latin America (Boulder and London 1993);Google ScholarSunkel, Osvaldo and Zuleta, Gustavo, ‘Neostructuralismo versus neoliberalismo en los an̄os noventa’, Revista CEPAL 42 (1990) 35–53.Google Scholar Many other interpretations of the politics of development opposed the ‘neoliberal theory’ and favoured neo-structuralism with broad pretensions of development See Mols, Manfred and Birle, Peter eds, Entwicklungsdiskussion und Entwicklungspraxis in Lateinamerika, Sudostasien und Indien (Munster 1993).Google Scholar

59 Rosenthal, Nadones Unidas, 12

60 Faletto, Enzo, ‘La CEPAL y la sociología del desarrollo’, Revista CEPAL 58 (1996) 203.Google Scholar

61 Ramos, Joseph, ‘Un balance de las reformas estructurales neo-liberales en América Latina’, Revista CEPAL 62 (1997) 15–38.Google Scholar

62 Boeckh, Andreas, ‘Dependencia-Theorien’, Nohlen, Dieter ed., Lexikon Dritte Welt: Länder, Organisations Theorien, Begriffe, Personen (Hamburg 1989) 162.Google Scholar