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New Strategies for the Comparative Analysis of Latin American Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Philippe C. Schmitter
Philippe C. Schmitter*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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… We now live in an era in which it is scarcely worthwhile to lie without statistics.

Raymond Bauer

Several years ago, students of Latin American politics discovered with some alarm that the subdiscipline of comparative politics had not only been ignoring their scholarly efforts, but the area altogether. At that time the principal focus of discontent was conceptualization. Classification systems, typologies, checklists, functions and isolated concepts about the politics of transition were being derived and applied without reference to and relevance for Latin America. While the terminological estrangement has by no means ended, some reconciliation has subsequently occurred. Recent theoretical works make occasional references to the area. It has become essential for all readers or collections of essays on political development to contain at least one (often the same) article on Latin American politics. Conversely, new research in Latin America has been increasingly sensitive to approaches prevalent in the general comparative politics literature.

Type
Topical Review
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Summer 1969 , pp. 83 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © 1969, by Latin American Research Review

Footnotes

*

Prepared for delivery at the Latin American Studies Association meeting, New York City, November 7-9, 1968.

†

I would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences Research Council of the University of Chicago for computational expenses and the Center for the Comparative Study of Political Development for secretarial assistance. A special vote of thanks I offer to Mrs. Evelyn Hortik for sticking it out during a “long, hot summer.”

References

Notes

1. C.F. John D. Martz, “The Place of Latin America in the Study of Comparative Politics,” Journal of Politics, 28, 1 (February 1966), pp. 57-80; Merle Kling, “The State of Research on Latin America: Political Science” in C. Wagley (ed.), Social Science Research on Latin America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), pp. 168-207.

2. E.g. S. N. Eisenstadt, Modernization: Protest and Change (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966), esp. pp. 83-97; David E. Apter, The Politics of Modernization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965); C. E. Black, The Dynamics of Modernization (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966); Irving Louis Horowitz, Three Worlds of Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966); Dankwart Rustow, A World of Nations (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1967); C. W. Anderson et al., Issues of Political Development (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967); Andrew M. Scott et al., Simulation and National Development (New York: Wiley, 1966).

3. E.g. John H. Kautsky (ed.), Political Change in Underdeveloped Countries (New York: Wiley, 1962); R. Macridis and B. Brown (eds.), Comparative Politics: Notes and Readings (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1961)—succeeding editions have increased their Latin American content—; Harvey B. Kebschull (ed.), Politics in Transitional Societies (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1968); J. L. Finkle and R. W. Gable (eds.), Political Development and Social Change (New York: Wiley, 1966); Wilson C. McWilliams (ed.), Garrisons and Government (San Francisco: Chandler, 1967); Karl W. Deutsch and William J. Foltz (eds.), Nation-Building (New York: Atherton, 1963); Louis Hartz (ed.), The Founding of New Societies (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964).

4. However, of three recent introductory texts: Alexander Edelmann, Latin American Government and Politics (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1965); B. G. Burnett and K. F. Johnson (eds.), Political Forces in Latin America (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1968); Martin C. Needler (ed.), Political Systems of Latin America (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1964), only the latter shows even a verbal acquaintance with them.

5. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964) and (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1963). The former is a collection of ratio and interval data on some 75 variables, mostly from national censuses and United Nations sources. The latter contains 57 categorized pieces of nominally or ordinally coded information, gathered by the authors and, reportedly, checked by academic area specialists in the Boston region. Somewhat analagous handbooks which focus more specifically on economic development variables are Norton Ginsberg, Atlas of Economic Development (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961) and Irma Adelman and Cynthia Taft Morris, Society, Politics and Economic Development (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1967). Again, the former uses metric and the latter categorized data.

6. The most important of these is the Dimensionality of Nations Project at Northwestern University. For a description of it, see Rudolph J. Rummel, “The Dimensionality of Nations Project” in R. Merritt and S. Rokkan (eds.), Comparing Nations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 109-130. Professors Ivo and Rosalind Feierabend at San Diego State College have also put together an important compilation of data on violence.

7. In this regard, see especially the articles in R. Merritt and S. Rokkan (eds.), ibid; the excellent review of the Yale Handbook and the Cross-Polity Survey by Michael Hass, “Aggregate Analysis,” World Politics, XIV, 1 (October 1966), pp. 106-121 and Ralph H. Retzlaff, “The Use of Aggregate Data in Comparative Political Analysis,” Journal of Politics, 27 (November 1967), pp. 797-817.

8. C.f. Ralph Retzlaff, op. cit., pp. 799-800.

9. Op. cit., p. 1.

10. “A Scalogram Analysis of Political Development,” The American Behavioral Scientist, IX, 7 (March 1966), pp. 33-36.

11. Since the census of 1961, this gap in the information has slowly been filled. See, for example, A. Solari, Uruguay en Cifras (Montevideo: Universidad de la Republica, 1966). The scarcity on Cuba has been somewhat alleviated by Dudley Seers (ed.), Cuba: The Economic and Social Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964).

12. The major source is America en Cifras (Washington, D.C.: Union Panamericana, Instituto Interamericano de Estatística, 1960-1968). IASI's Boletin Estatístico is a valuable interim source and regularly publishes cost-of-living information. Special compilations are also available, e.g., Characteristics of the Demographic Structure of the American Countries (1964); La Situación de la Vivienda en América (1962); La Estructura Agropecuaria de la Naciones Americanas (1957); Estudio Social de América Latina (1961, 1962, 1964). Also the Pan American Health Organization's Health Conditions in the Americas (1966).

13. The two principal sources are the yearly Economic Survey of Latin America (1949-) and the quarterly Statistical Bulletin for Latin America (1964-). The Economic Bulletin for Latin America (1956-) often carries articles with important original data. ECLA special studies are another indispensable source, e.g. The Process of Industrial Development in Latin America (1966); External Financing in Latin America (1965); The Economic Development of Latin America in the Post-War Period (1964).

14. For example UN, Demographic Yearbook, World Economic Survey (1948-), Yearbook of International Trade Statistics (1950-); World Energy Supplies (1929-1950, 1951-); IMF, International Financial Statistics (1948-); Balance of Payments Yearbook (1940-); IBRD, Annual Report (1946-); FAO, Production Yearbook (1958-); ILO, Yearbook of Labour Statistics; UNESCO, Current School Enrollment Statistics (1948-). Also UN, Compendium of Social Statistics: 1963. Growth of World Industry 1938-1961.

15. The Annual Reports of the Social Progress Trust Fund (1961-) are good, if somewhat incomplete, sources of information. The latest (1967) has detailed important material on higher education. IADB special studies are very useful, e.g. the recent El Desarrollo Agrícola de América Latina en Próxima Década (1967). Alliance for Progress, CIAP documents and country summaries are also full of information, but difficult to obtain.

16. Cf. Eugene J. Webb et al., Unobtrusive Measures: Non Reactive Research in the Social Sciences (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966).

17. “National Political Development: Measurement and Analysis,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 28, no. 2 (April 1963), pp. 253-264. Cutwright's weighting procedures have changed. See also his “Political Structure, Economic Development and National Social Security Programs,” American Journal of Sociology (March 1965), pp. 537-550. In the latter article, he devises a scale of experience with social security programs with information on this crucial policy outcome for 76 countries including those of Latin America.

18. Op. cit., pp. 97-104.

19. “The Dimensions of Conflict within and between Nations,” General Systems Yearbook, 8 (1963), pp. 1-50; “Dimensions of Conflict Behavior within and between Nations, 1958-1960,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, X, 1 (March 1966), pp. 41-64.

20. “Aggressive Behavior within Polities, 1948-1962: A Cross-National Study, Journal of Conflict Resolution, X, 3 (September 1966), pp. 249-271.

21. Internal War: The Problem of Anticipation, a. report submitted to the Research Group in Psychology and the Social Sciences, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1962. For a ranking which differentiates only the “unequivocal” incidences of internal war, see Merle Kling, “Violence and Politics in Latin America,” The Sociological Review, Monograph no. 11 (February 1967), p. 123. For more detailed data on violence, see Ted Gurr with Charles Ruttenberg, “The Conditions of Civil Violence. First Tests of a Causal Model” (Princeton: Center for International Studies, Research Monograph No. 28, April 1967).

22. “Toward Explaining Military Intervention in Latin American Politics,” World Politics, XX, 1 (October 1967), pp. 83-110.

23. James Preminger, “Guerilla Movements in Latin America: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis,” MA paper, University of Chicago, August 1968.

24. Cf. Cutwright's indices of economic development and communications development in the above-mentioned articles, footnote 17.

25. Cf. Peter Heinz, “Paradigma del desarrollo latinoamericano”; Ruben D. Katzman, “Dependency and Absorption of Social Tensions in Underdeveloped Countries,” Survey Research Center, University of California (Berkeley), mimeo, 1968; Alaor S. Passos, “Developmental Tension and Political Instability: Testing some Hypotheses concerning Latin America,” Journal of Peace Research, No. 1 (1963), pp. 70-85.

26. For the most recent version, see “Measuring Democratic Change in Latin America,” Journal of Politics, 29 (February 1967), pp. 129-166.

27. Op. cit., pp. 192-195. Also David C. McClelland, The Achieving Society (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1961).

28. “A Proposed Framework for Latin American Politics,” in J. D. Martz (ed.), The Dynamics of Change in Latin American Politics (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1965), p. 9.

29. For an excellent suggested coding scheme, see Kenneth Janda, Information Retrieval (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968), pp. 118-164. See also Sidney Verba, “Some Dilemmas in Comparative Research,” World Politics, XX, 1 (October 1967), pp. 111-127 for a discussion of the encounter between configurative and comparative analysis and a plea for a “disciplined configurative approach”; and Simon Schwartzman and Manuel Mora y Araujo, “The Images of International Stratification in Latin America,” Journal of Peace Research, 3 (1966), pp. 225-243.

30. Cf. the work of the International Population and Urban Research Center at the University of California (Berkeley) in the fields of birth and mortality rates. O. A. Collver, Birth Rates in Latin America: New Estimates of Historical Trends and Fluctuations (1966) and E. E. Arriaga, New Life Tables for Latin American Populations in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1968).

31. Sometime their enthusiasm trips them up. Paraguay, for example, reported more children in secondary school in 1960 than there were people in the relevant age category in the 1962 general census.

32. “Some Aspects of Comparative Research,” Polls, II, 3 (Spring 1967), p. 3.

33. Op. cit., pp. 15-21.

34. World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators, op. cit., p. 3.

35. “The Dimensions of Conflict Behavior Within and Between Nations,” op. cit.

36. “Cross-National Comparisons using Aggregate Data: Some Substantive and Methodological Problems” in R. Merritt and S. Rokkan (eds.), op. cit., p. 140.

37. Ted Gurr, “New Error-Compensated Measures for Comparing Nations: Some Correlates of Civil Violence,” Princeton University, Center of International Studies, Research Monograph, No. 25, May 1966.

38. For example, see “Toward a Theory of Political Instability in Latin America,” Journal of Peace Research, 3 (1967), pp. 209-227. For an intelligent and practical discussion of the consequences of such transformations, see H. Alker et al., World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators, op. cit., pp. 311-313.

39. An interesting case in point is the total number of government employees. Fragmentary (and wildly disparate) data are available, but for most Latin American countries this seems to be a state secret. For an independent estimate in 1955, see “Government Income and Expenditure: 1947-1954,” ECLA Economic Survey of Latin America—1955, pp. 111-176. Also see America en Cifras—1963, Vol. VI, “Situación Política y Administrativa” and the Social Progress Trust Fund Report (1965) for incomplete and contradictory, but more recent, figures.

40. Cf. Albert D. Biderman, “Social Indicators and Goals,” in Raymond A. Bauer (ed.), Social Indicators (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1966), pp. 68-153.

41. For the original discussion of this methodological fallacy, see W. S. Robinson, “Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals,” American Sociological Review, XV (1950), pp. 351-357. An excellent restatement which incorporates the comments of Menzel, Goodman, Arrow, Duncan and Davis is Raymond Boudon's “Propriétés individuelles et proprietes collectives: un problème d'analyse écologique,” Revue Francaise de Sociologie, IV, 3 (July-Sept. 1963), pp. 275-299.

42. Robinson (op. cit.) also demonstrates that the strength of association varies directly with the size of the unit over which the same data is aggregated. The greater the amount of internal (within cell) variance that is squashed the higher the association. In other words, correlations between data on whole political systems, e.g. Brazil, are likely to be artificially inflated. See also E. Scheuch, op cit., pp. 149-150.

43. Cf. Austin Ranney, “The Utility and Limitations of Aggregate Data in the Study of Electoral Behavior,” in Essays in the Behavioral Study of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), pp. 9-102.

44. Op. cit., p. 133.

45. Leo A. Goodman, “Some Alternatives to Ecological Correlation,” American Journal of Sociology, LXIV, 6 (May 1959), p. 611; also H. Menzel, “Comment on Robinson's Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals,” American Sociological Review, XV (October 1950), p. 674.“

46. For one recent example see D. P. Bwy, “Political Instability in Latin America: The Cross-Cultural Test of a Causal Model,” Latin American Research Review, III:2 (1968), pp. 17-66.

47. Op. cit., p. 159.

48. World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators, op. cit., p. 323. See also his Mathematics and Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1965). Evidence of the contextual effect of different regions is sometimes disconcerting to analysts of aggregate data, if encouraging to area specialists. For example, Raymond Tanter and Manus Midlarsky, “A Theory of Revolution,” Journal of Peace Research (September 1967), discovered that while change in GNP per capita and primary school enrollment ratios “worked” in the predicted directions for Asia and the Middle East, they worked in the opposite direction for Latin America. They “save” their initial hypotheses by drawing in parametric conditions, e.g. the improbable observation that “Asian countries…. may not experience the same degree of class rigidity as the Latin American nations.”

49. The essential works are Herbert A. Simon, Models of Man (New York: Wiley, 1957); Hubert M. Blalock Jr., Causal Inferences in Nonexperimental Research (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961); Idem., “Theory Building and Causal Inferences,” in H. Blalock Jr. and A. Blalock (eds.), Methodology in Social Research (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968); Paul Lazarsfeld, “Evidence and Inference in Social Research,” Daedalus, 87, 4 (Fall 1968); Idem., “The Interpretation of Statistical Relations as a Research Problem,” in P. Lazarsfeld and M. Rosenberg (eds.), The Language of Social Research (New York: Free Press, 1955), pp. 115-125. Hayward Alker Jr. has shown the way for political scientists. See his “Causal Inference in Political Analysis” in Joseph Berhd (ed.), Mathematical Applications in Political Science, 2nd Series, (Dallas: S.M.U. Press, 1966) and Mathematics and Politics, op. cit. For a clear, concise philosophical treatment, see Mario Bunge, Causality (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959).

50. Hubert Blalock Jr., Causal Inference in Nonexperimental Research, op. cit.

51. Ibid., p. 15.

52. Cf. Ibid., and Herbert Simon, Models of Man, op. cit., pp. 12-13.

53. Theory and Methods of Social Research (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1967), pp. 383-384.