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Industrial Modernization and Political Change: A Latin American Perspective

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O'DonnellGuillermo A., Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Politics of Modernization Series No. 9, 1973, 219 pp., $3.25.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

David Collier
David Collier
Affiliation:
Indiana University, University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

The recent emergence of harshly repressive military governments in several of the industrially most advanced nations of Latin America has called into question earlier hypotheses of modernization theory regarding the links between socioeconomic modernization and democracy. Guillermo O'Donnell has made an important contribution to explaining this new authoritarianism and to using the recent Latin American experience as a basis for proposing a major reformulation of the earlier hypotheses. Yet O'Donnell's analysis requires significant modification if its potential contribution is to be realized. Highly aggregated conceptual categories such as “bureaucratic-authoritarianism” should be abandoned, and his explanatory framework should be broadened to explicity incorporate the crucial political differences among Latin American countries, as well as the impact of the international economic and political system. A revised explanation for the rise of authoritarianism is presented to illustrate how some of these modifications could be applied in future research on political change in Latin America.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , July 1978 , pp. 593 - 614
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1978

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References

1 Bendix, Reinhard, “Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, ix (April 1967), 292–346;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGusfield, Joseph R., “Tradition and Modernity: Misplaced Polarities in the Study of Social Change”, American journal of Sociology, Vol. 72 (January 1967), 351–62;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWhitaker, C. S., “A Dysrhythmic Process of Political Change”, World Politics, XIX (January 1967), 190–217;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRudolph, Lloyd I. and Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber, The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1967);Google ScholarPackenham, Robert, Liberal America and the Third World: Political Development Ideas in Foreign Aid and Social Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1973),Google Scholar chaps. 3 and 5; Tipps, Dean C., “Modernization Theory and the Comparative Study of Societies: A Critical Perspective”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, xv (March 1973), 199–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Although O'Donnell employs the term “modernization” as an overall label for the processes of economic and social change he analyzes, he focuses on clearly delimited empirical referents (see below) and explicitly dissociates his discussion from the normative biases associated with the term (p. 27).

2 One of many examples of such criticism is found in Tilly, Charles, “Reflections on the History of European State-Making”, in Tilly, , ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1975), 8–83.Google Scholar

3 A recent discussion of the failure of conventional approaches to modernization to achieve these goals is found in Haq, Mahbub ul, The Poverty Curtain (New York: Columbia University Press 1976).Google Scholar

4 O'Donnell, , “Reflexiones sobre las tendencias generales de cambio en el Estado burocr´tico-autoritario" Documento CEDES/G.E. CLASCO/No. I, Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad (Buenos Aires 1975)Google Scholar, English trans, in Latin American Research Review, xvi, No. 3 (1977);Google Scholar“Estado y alianzas en la Argentina, 1956–1976”, Desarrollo Económico, xvi (January-March 1977), 523–54;Google Scholar“Corporatism and the Question of the State”, in Malloy, James M., ed., Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press 1977), 47–88.Google Scholar See also O'Donnell, , “Modernización y golpes militares: Teoría, comparación, y el caso Argentino”, Desarrollo Economico, XII (October-December 1972), 519–66,CrossRefGoogle Scholar English trans, in Lowenthal, Abraham F., ed., Armies and Politics in Latin America (New York: Holmes and Meier 1976).Google Scholar O'Donnell's historical argument resembles that presented in a substantial literature on the “populist” and “post-populist” periods in Latin America, perhaps most importantly in the path-breaking work by Cardoso, Fernando Henrique and Faletto, Enzo, Dependencia y desarrollo en America Latina (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores 1969).Google Scholar O'Donnell's innovations in relation to this broader literature include his presentation of a highly detailed and elaborately conceptualized political analysis; his attempt to organize the argument into systematic propositions; his attempt to move toward greater theoretical parsimony by devoting close attention to a small number of critical variables; and his elaborate critique of existing modernization theory and detailed discussion of how the types of comparative analysis commonly employed in tests of modernization theory must be modified if they are to deal meaningfully with the new theoretical perspectives emerging from the research on Latin America.

5 In Modernization, O'Donnell explicitly restricts the analysis to South American countries (viii-ix); but in “Reflexiones” (fn. 4) he adds Mexico to the analysis (44–53), thereby implicitly broadening his framework to include all of Latin America. Following the emphasis of this more recent study, the present discussion treats his work as applying to Latin America as a whole.

6 See Broderson, Mario S., “Sobre ‘Modernizatión y Autoritarismo’ y el estancamiento inflacionario argentino”, Desarrollo Economico, XIII (October-December 1973), 591–605;CrossRefGoogle ScholarLinz, Juan J., “Totalitarianism and Authoritarian Regimes”, in Greenstein, Fred and Polsby, Nelson, eds., Handbook of Political Science, III, Macro-Political Theory (Reading, Mass.; Addison-Wesley 1975);Google ScholarKaufman, Robert R., “Notes on the Definition, Genesis, and Consolidation of Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Regimes (unpub., Department of Political Science, Douglass College, 1975),Google Scholar and “Mexico and Latin American Authoritarianism”, in Reyna, José Luis and Weinert, Richard S., eds., Authoritarianism in Mexico (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues 1977), 193–232;Google ScholarPurcell, Susan Kaufman, The Mexican Profit-sharing Decision: Politics in an Authoritarian Regime (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1975), chap. 1;Google ScholarSmith, William C., “The Armed Forces and the Authoritarian-Bureaucratic State in Argentina”, paper presented at the Inter-University Seminar on the Armed Forces and Society (Tempe, Arizona 1976);Google ScholarErickson, Kenneth P. and Peppe, Patrick V., “Dependent Capitalist Development, U.S. Foreign Policy, and Repression of the Working Class in Chile and Brazil”, Latin American Perspectives, III, (Winter 1976), 19–44;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCollier, , “Timing of Economic Growth and Regime Characteristics in Latin America”, Comparative Politics, VII (April 1975), 331–59,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Squatters and Oligarchs: Authoritarian Rul and Policy Change in Peru (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press 1976);Google Scholar James M. Malloy, “Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America: The Modal Pattern”, in Malloy (fn. 4), 3–19; David Collier and Ruth B. Collier, “Who Does What, to Whom, and How: Toward a Comparative Analysis of Latin American Corporatism”, ibid., 489–512; Silvio Duncan Baretta and Helen E. Douglass, “Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America: A Review Essay”, ibid., 513–524; Stepan, Alfred, The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1978),Google Scholar chap. 3; and three papers presented at the meeting of the Working Group on the State and Public Policy of the Joint Committee on Latin America Studies (SSRC/ACLS) in February 1977: Albert O. Hirschrrian, “The Turn to Authoritarianism in Latin America and the Search for its Economic Determinants”; José Serra, “Three Mistaken Theses on the Connection between Industrialization and Authoritarian Regimes”; Robert R. Kaufman, “Industrial Change and Authoritarian Rule in South America: A Concrete Review of the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Model.” An example of the application of this perspective to East Asian politics can be found in Han, Sungjoo, “Power, Dependency, and Representation in South Korea”, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (Washington, D.C. 1977).Google Scholar

7 This thesis has, of course, played a central role in earlier research on political change. Within the large literature dealing with this relationship, three crucial initial studies are Seymour Lipset, Martin, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 53 (March 1959), 69–105;CrossRefGoogle ScholarColeman, James S., “Conclusion: The Political Systems of the Developing Areas”, in Almond, Gabriel A. and Coleman, James S., eds., The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1960);Google Scholar and Cutright, Phillips, “National Political Development: Measurement and Analysis”, American Sociological Review, XXVII (April 1963). 253–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 In Modernization, O'Donnell refers to these as “traditional” systems (112 and 114). However, this usage could lead to the incorrect conclusion that his analysis is oriented around the widely criticized distinction between tradition and modernity (see fn. 1). The expression “oligarchic” corresponds to the standard usage of Latin American scholars who refer to the period of the “oligarchic state.” In “Corporatism (fn. 4), O'Donnell refers to the period of “oligarchic domination” (p. 66).

9 Modernization, chaps. 2 and 3; “Reflexiones” (fn. 4), 6; “Estado y alianzas” (fn. 4), 1.

10 Modernization, 92–93; “Reflexiones” (fn. 4), 51.

11 Ibid., 50.

12 For instance, all of the studies cited in fn. 7 use per capita indicators.

13 “Reflexiones” (fn. 4), passim.

14 Stepan, Alfred, “The New Professionalism of Internal Warfare and Military Role Expansion”, in Stepan, , ed., Authoritarian Brazil: Origins, Policies, and Future (New Haven: Yale University Press 1973), 46–63;Google Scholar see also Modernization, 154 ff.

15 Modernization, 95, fn. 77; “Reflexiones” (fn. 4), 45 ff.

16 Ibid., 31 ff.

17 Ibid., 36 ff.

18 The underlying problem with O'Donnell's classification may be summarized in terms of the traditional criteria for evaluating classifications, namely, whether the categories are collectively exhaustive and mutually exclusive. The categories are not collectively exhaustive. Many, if not most, of the periods during which well-defined patterns of regime, coalition, and policy have been established in different Latin American countries, do not fit exactly into any of the three categories as defined. In addition, at least coalition and policy, and in some cases also regime, are highly fluid in many periods. These cases also do not fit the categories. As defined, the categories appear to be mutually exclusive. But because each category has so many defining characteristics, few cases fit the categories exactly. Cases assigned to different categories therefore may not always differ in terms of all of the defining characteristics, and cases in the same category may not be similar in terms of important defining characteristics.

19 With reference to Mexico, see Purcell (fn. 6), chap. 1. Regarding the other cases, see Collier, Ruth B. and Collier, David, “Inducements versus Constraints: Disaggregating ‘Corporatism’”, (unpub., Department of Political Science, Indiana University 1977).Google Scholar

20 See Daniel Levine, “The Role of Political Learning in the Restoration and Consolidation of Democracy: Venezuela since 1958”, and Wilde, Alexander W., “The Breakdown of Oligarchical Democracy in Colombia”, both forthcoming in Linz, Juan J. and Stepan, Alfred, eds., The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press 1978).Google Scholar

21 O'Donnell refers briefly to these elements of continuity (64–65). For a detailed discussion of this type of continuity with respect to Argentina, see Most, Benjamin, “Changing Authoritarian Systems: An Assessment of their Impact on Public Policies in Argentina, 1930–1970”, Ph.D. diss. (Indiana University 1978),Google Scholar chap. 3.

22 One of the contexts in which earlier exclusionary governments have appeared is in countries such as Peru and Bolivia, where the extraction or production of minerals and agricultural products for export has occurred in isolated “enclaves” of highly capitalized, mechanized, modern economic activity. The concentrations of workers in these enclaves produced a very early and intense political activation of organized labor that was a central element in major episodes of incorporating policies and populist-type coalitions. In turn, they set in motion ongoing cycles of incorporation and exclusion at a time when these countries were at relatively low levels of industrialization—indeed, much lower than one would expect on the basis of O'Donnell's discussion of populism. For a discussion of the enclave pattern in Peru, see Klaren, Peter F., Modernization, Dislocation, and Aprismo: Origins of the Peruvian Aprista Party (Austin: University of Texas Press 1973).Google Scholar I discuss the cycles of incorporation and exclusion in Squatters and Oligarchs (fn. 6). With reference to Bolivia, see Klein, Herbert S., Parties and Political Change in Bolivia, 1880–1952 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1969.)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the role of technocratic orientations and the concern with intermediate and capital-goods industries in what is generally considered to be a populist period in Brazil—the Vargas Government of 1930–1945—see Skidmore, Thomas, Politics in Brazil, 1930–1964: An Experiment in Democracy (London: Oxford University Press 1967),Google Scholar chap. 1.

23 “Reflexiones” (fn. 4), 6.

24 Eldon Kenworthy's “Did the ‘New Industrialists’ Play a Significant Role in the Formation of Perón's Coalition, 1943–46?” in Ciria, Alberto and others, New Perspectives on Modern Argentina (Bloomington: Indiana University, Latin American Studies Working Papers, 1972), 15–28,Google Scholar raises serious questions about the role of industrialists in the original Peronist coalition. Another case in point is the split in the Liberal Party in Colombia in the 1930's and 1940's in opposition to populist “Revolutión en Marcha.” See Martz, John D., Colombia: A Contemporary Political Survey (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1962),Google Scholar chap. 3; Dix, Robert H., Colombia: The Political Dimensions of Change (New Haven: Yale University Press 1967), chap. 4.Google Scholar

25 The tendency for a rapid shift from incorporation to exclusion comes out clearly in the “enclave” cases noted in fn. 22.

26 These themes emerge in the discussion of the first Vargas period in Skidmore (fn. 22), chap. 1. They also appear to be crucial elements in the orientation of a number of the officers who led the 1943 coup in Argentina which initially brought Perón into the government; see Potash, Robert, The Army and Politics in Argentina, 1928–1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1969).Google Scholar

27 For evidence of the decline in real wages in Mexico in the 1940's—a decade commonly identified as a crucial early phase of industrial expansion—see Wilkie, James W., The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change since 1910 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1967), 187.Google Scholar

29 For an overview of this issue, see Baer, Werner, “Import-Substitution and Industrialization in Latin America: Experiences and Interpretations”, Latin American Research Review, VII (Spring 1972), 95–122.Google Scholar

29 See, for instance, Kaufman, in Reyna and Weinert (fn. 6). For an interesting discussion of the pattern of more nearly balanced growth in Colombia, see DiazAlejandro, Carlos F., Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development: Colombia (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research 1976).Google Scholar

30 For a discussion of these issues, see Kaufman, in Reyna and Weinert (fn. 6); Mercelo Cavarozzi, “Populismos y ‘partidos de clase media’: Notas comparativas”, Documento CEDES/G.E. CLACSO/No. 3, Centre de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad (Buenos Aires 1976).

31 See Levine, Wilde (both fn. 20).

32 For instance, the 1966 coup in Argentina came extremely late in relation to the relatively low level of industrial modernization in terms of many of O'Donnell's own indicators of the absolute size of the modern sector—a level roughly comparable to that of Ecuador (chap. 1).

34 Probably the most conspicuous example is the first Peron government in Argentina. For relevant data on export trends in Argentina, see Diaz-Alejandro, Carlos, Essays on the Economic History of the Argentine Republic (New Haven: Yale University Press 1970).Google Scholar

34 For an excellent discussion of some of these issues, see Kaufman, “Industrial Change and Authoritarian Rule in South America” (fn. 6).

35 Hirschman, , “The Political Economy of Import-Substituting Industrialization in Latin America”, in Hirschman, , ed., A Bias for Hope (New Haven: Yale University Press 1971), 100.Google Scholar

36 “Reflexiones” (fn. 4), passim.

37 For a valuable study that provides useful documentation of U.S. intervention over several decades in Chile and Brazil and uses elements of O'Donnell's analysis, see Erickson, Kenneth P. and Peppe, Patrick V., “Dependent Capitalist Development, U.S. Foreign Policy, and Repression of the Working Class in Chile and Brazil”, Latin American Perspectives, III (Winter 1976), 19–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Cardoso and Faletto (fn. 4), 140–41. An important assessment of these various external factors that have shaped Latin American authoritarianism is currently being carried out through a collaborative research project supported by the Joint Committee of Latin American Studies (SSRC/ACLS) and directed by Richard Fagen of Stanford University.

39 The order of the first two variables in the text and the figure is not intended to imply that one is the result of the other. They may vary independently.

40 For a partial summary of relevant data, see Wilkie, James W., ed., Statistical Abstract of Latin America, XVII (Latin American Center, University of California at Los Angeles 1976), 286.Google Scholar

41 See Douglas A. Chalmers, “The Politicized State in Latin America”, in Malloy (fn- 4). 23–45.