Latin America, The United States, And The Interamerican System

John D. Martz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367172053
• eBook ISBN: 9780429728419
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This collection of original essays focuses on the dynamics of the contemporary system of inter-American relations, with emphasis on changes in the hemispheric political economy, the control exercised by the United States over the behavior of Latin American governments, and the issue of human rights. The authors discuss varying facets of the complex

Part 1

Perspectives on Inter-American Relations

1
Contemporary Paradigms in the Study of Inter-American Relations

Steven W. Hughes
Kenneth J. Mijeski

Once the virtual preserve of the historian and diplomat, the study of inter-American relations has come to be discovered, colonized, and dominated by the social sciences. One sign of this shift has been the growth in concept formation and theory construction to investigate hemispheric relations. To follow the literature of the past two decades, it has been necessary to grapple with such concepts as linkages, dependency, import substitution, foreign policy distance, satisficing, and the like. The amount and sophistication of theorizing have steadily increased. This development has led to new concerns in the field. In recent years, scholars have become interested in determining the numbers and types of concepts and theories available. Is there still too little theorizing? Is there too much? Do the existing theories and concepts offer differing perspectives on inter-American relations or is the field of study actually dominated by a very limited perspective? Do we need more approaches or fewer approaches?¹

The purpose of this chapter is to address some of these questions. In framing our arguments, we have been influenced by the recent essays of Paul Feyerabend.² In his book Against Method, Feyerabend writes: “Science is an essentially anarchistic enterprise: Theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.”³ Later he argues that

it is … possible to create a tradition that is held together by strict rules, and that is also successful to some extent. But is it desirable to support such a tradition to the exclusion of everything else? Should we transfer to it the sole rights of dealing in knowledge, so that any result that has been obtained by other methods is at once ruled out of court? This is the question I intend to ask in the present essay. And to this question my answer will be a firm and resounding NO.⁴

Feyerabend’s plea is not for the abolition of scientific method or theory but for the acceptance of differing perspectives, approaches, and epistemologies. Feyerabend is concerned that science is governed by an authoritarian set of rules characterized by rigidity, intellectual hegemony, and the inability to meet change effectively.

We share similar concerns with regard to the study of inter-American relations. In spite of the variety of “approaches” currently in use, the field is dominated by two fundamental perspectives that we will call paradigms. Although it is obvious that paradigms, in the strictest sense of the term,⁵ do not exist in the social sciences, a compelling argument can be advanced that virtual paradigms, or paradigm-surrogates, do exist. In the second section of this chapter, we review some of the recent literature on the study of inter-American relations in order to demonstrate the extent to which these two paradigms currently dominate analyses in the field.

In the third section we turn to the central points of our argument. First, we clarify certain differences between the dominant paradigms. Our primary purpose is to illustrate some of the ways in which each model provides us with differing methodologies and perspectives on critical issues. One potential advantage of allowing for pluralism is a kind of Hegelian dialectic; that is, out of differing and opposing approaches we might be able to reach a higher synthesis. We demonstrate the possibility of this by a brief look at the work of Guillermo O’Donnell—work we believe constitutes a new and unique paradigm.

Although the possibilities of synthesis and the dialectical payoff are quite real, our fundamental concern is with the current tendencies toward scientific authoritarianism, and the remainder of the third section returns to this point. We seek to describe some of the common problems of both paradigms in order to advance our plea for greater pluralism.

In order to avoid misunderstandings, we should like to state clearly that we are not particularly interested here in the greater merits of any one paradigm over another. Nor do we seek to argue that the current paradigms are useless. Ultimately, our point is a simple one: we object to any single framework designed to define reality for all. Our assumption is that reality cannot so easily be bound and tied. Instead, we are better served when we accept the need for differing approaches. If, as some have contended, the study of inter-American relations is besieged by a bewildering array of approaches—a claim we cannot support-then so much the better.

Paradigms in the Study of Inter-American Relations

It is apparent that the number of approaches one can identify in the study of intrahemispheric relations is partly dependent upon the definitional scope of the term “approach.” In a recent essay, Jorge I. Dominguez⁶ describes eight different approaches to, or what he called “perspectives” on, inter-American relations. In another effort, Susanne Bodenheimer⁷ identifies only two approaches, or what she calls “paradigms” or “paradigm-surrogates.” Although Dominguez is sensitive to the inherent arbitrariness of any classificatory scheme and the resulting fuzziness along category boundaries, he opts for a “narrower” notion of the term “perspective” for several reasons, one of which is particularly relevant here. One should differentiate among these perspectives, he argues, even though they are not mutually exclusive, because “there is often confusion when scholars are lumped together at a very high level of aggregation as if they all agreed.”⁸

Conversely, Bodenheimer’s central point is that although there are obvious differences in hypotheses, competing theories, and alternative perspectives, these differences mask a “consensus at a more fundamental level.”⁹ Until the recent emergence of an alternative paradigm, this consensus upon one major “paradigm-surrogate” controlled most empirical research in Latin American studies.

Although we do not agree with Bodenheimer’s position in toto, we do agree with her observation that fundamental and often unarticulated consensus governs the study of inter-American relations. Dominguez bemoans the pluralistic, nonparadigmatic state of inter-American studies; Bodenheimer claims that social scientists’ blindness to the existence of an all-encompassing approach prevents them from realizing that although they may be using different oars, they are all rowing in the same boat.

Our purpose here, like Bodenheimer’s, is primarily to point out not the differences but the overarching similarities in analytical styles and assumptions in the field. First, however, we shall attempt to demonstrate the existence of two primary paradigms and the emergence of a third paradigm that, in part, synthesizes the former two. These paradigms we shall loosely label liberal-developmental, dependency, and organizational ideology. Table 1.1 presents our categories and illustrates how they incorporate the approaches identified by Dominguez, Bodenheimer, and others.

Table 1.1 Paradigms in the Study of Inter-American Relations

Paradigms described in this essay	Liberal-developmental	Dependency	Organizational ideology
Other approaches:
Bodenheimer	Developmental or paradigm-surrogate	Dependency
Chalmers	Development, developmentalism	Dependency
Lowenthal	Liberal, bureaucratic	Radical
Domínguez	Liberal, bureaucratic, strategic, presidency, political systems	Orthodox dependency, Unorthodox dependency	Organizational ideology

The Liberal-Developmental Paradigm

The liberal-developmental paradigm is chronologically the first of the three, and although it is dealt with somewhat differently by various writers, there appears to be a consensus as to its core. The basic assumptions of this model are that the interests of the United States and Latin American countries are compatible;¹⁰ that revolution, particularly of a Communist sort, is a “bad” solution to hemispheric problems;¹¹ and that U.S. aid can encourage orderly change in Latin American nations as well as the growth of stable, pluralistic, and increasingly modernized societies—in short, carbon copies of the United States.¹² Additional key liberal assumptions are that the United States has a national interest in Latin America “different from and superior to the private interests of any sector of American enterprise or of business enterprise as a whole and that the U.S. government is capable of defining and pursuing that interest.”¹³ In general, this paradigm has been associated with such scholars as Samuel Huntington, Merle Kling, Martin Needier, Alfred Stepan, Raúl Prebisch, Gino Germani, and Adolph Berle and with such programs and institutions as the Alliance for Progress and the Economic Commission for Latin America.

As Douglas Chalmers cogently points out, the liberal-developmental paradigm has gone beyond approach and become an ideology. By the 1950s, the descriptive and interpretative sociological concept of development became an ideology; it “came to be thought of as the historical process which shaped all else.”¹⁴ Bodenheimer states that “the paradigm-surrogate may be seen as an ideology—a body of ideas whose substantive content reflects concrete interests of particular social classes.”¹⁵

The recent essays of Bodenheimer, Chalmers, Lowenthal, and others clearly demonstrate the existence and predominance of a particular body of assumptions and a particular framework for viewing and analyzing inter-American relations. Although it is apparent from Dominguez’s essay that there are variants within this paradigm, a fundamental consensus is pervasive. This consensus, outlined above, we call the liberal-developmental paradigm.

The Dependency Paradigm

The second, and more recent, dominant paradigm is the dependency model. As an essentially neo-Marxist approach to the study of inter-American relations, dependency apparently stands in stark contrast to the liberal-developmental paradigm. However, as Dominguez suggests, the dependency approach, or aspects of it, is not as terribly different as some think.¹⁶ Nevertheless, there are a significant number of competing assumptions and viewpoints between the two dominant paradigms. Fernando Cardoso states the case as follows:

Studies of dependency continue a live tradition in Latin American thought, reinvigorated in the 1960’s by the proposition of themes and problems defined in a theoretical-methodological field not only distinct from what inspired Keynesian and structural-functionalist analyses … but radically distinct with respect to its inherent critical component.¹⁷

A full treatment of the differences between the paradigms is not possible here. However, it is possible to outline some of the more cogent contrasts. Where liberal-developmentalists see a compatibility of U.S.-Latin American interests, dependentistas see a basic conflict between U.S. aims to dominate the region and Latin America’s struggle for independence and development. Where the liberal-developmentalists believe assistance from the United States is carried out in the interests of further Latin American development, dependentistas argue that U.S. “aid” is no more than an imperialist tool designed to increase rather than decrease the dependency of Latin America upon dominant capitalist interests. Where liberal-developmentalists treat problems in U.S.-Latin American relations as unintended mistakes and misunderstandings, the dependentistas view these “problems” as logical outcomes of a rational, continuous pattern of intentional domination on the part of the United States. Moreover, where the liberal-developmental approach emphasizes the primacy of politics in inter-American relations, dependentistas are preoccupied with the economic stakes of these relationships.¹⁸

There are, of course, variants within the dependency paradigm just as there are in the liberal-developmental paradigm. Dominguez, for example, speaks of orthodox and unorthodox schools of dependency.¹⁹ The latter, among others, tends to deemphasize U.S. intentions to subjugate Latin America. Ronald Chilcote distinguishes between a bourgeois version and a Marxist version of dependency, the former being comparable to Dominguez’s unorthodox dependency and the latter to the orthodox school. Nevertheless, the basic positions are similar and do not represent significantly different epistemological assumptions and approaches to understanding inter-American relations.

The Organizational-Ideology Paradigm

The organizational-ideology paradigm, best represented by the preliminary efforts of Guillermo O’Donnell,²⁰ comes closest to being a new approach, while also representing a serious effort at synthesizing and bridging other paradigms. In the latter sense, O’Donnell’s model is truly a hybrid that borrows from the theories of some strange intellectual bedfellows, including Huntington, Marx, Cardoso, Falleto, Apter, Dahl, and Frank. It is a paradigm that owes much to at least four separate areas of study: conventional analyses of modernization and nation building, studies of bureaucratic values and structure, Marxist and dependency investigations of modern capitalism and imperialism, and analyses of populism and labor movement repression in Latin America.

However, this approach is distinct from the two dominant paradigms in several ways. It differs from liberal-developmentalism by its emphasis on conflict rather than compatibility of interests; its deemphasis of the role of the monolithic rational actor; its heavier stress on the economic stakes involved in inter-American relations; and its greater sympathy with Marxist and dependency critiques of Latin America’s inexorable progression toward modernization as a result of U.S. “aid.” It may be argued then that O’Donnell’s approach has more in common with the dependency paradigm than with the liberal-developmental paradigm, but there are a number of significant contrasts with the dependency model.

Unlike the dependentistas, O’Donnell allows for some degree of institutional autonomy and for the possibility of intra- a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• The Contributors
• Introduction
• Part 1 Perspectives on Inter-American Relations
• Part 2 United States-Latin American Relations: The Shape of Hegemony
• Part 3 Human Rights and U.S. Policy Toward Latin America
• Index