While dependency analysis has a long tradition within Latin America, only recently has it emerged from the relative obscurity of certain Latin American writers to be included among the approaches used by scholars in the United States. The dependency approach was first adopted by a group of “radicals” in the United States, partially as a reaction to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but also as part of a general attack on the capitalist system, the military-industrial complex, and U.S. imperialism. It is now evident that dependency analysis has emerged as a legitimate field of inquiry for Latin Americanists, even if some scholars refuse to acknowledge its existence. In spite of generating considerable analysis of Latin America and the inter-American system, the dependen tistas have not been subjected to the critical scrutiny they deserve, primarily because of the lack of academic respectability of the radicals and the different channels through which their publications appear. Aside from the critiques of Raul Prebisch (Flanders, 1964; Hodgson, 1966; Salera, 1971), an article by David Ray (1973), and the internal bickerings among the dependentistas themselves, systematic criticism of the dependency approach has been lacking. For this reason we felt the need to delineate the broad outlines of the dependency theory of underdevelopment; present a selective critique of the methodologies, content, and conclusions of the major writers; and identify some of the more potentially rewarding areas for subsequent research.

Central to research on Latin American politics has been the pursuit of an explanation for both the stability and the instability of its various systems. Two general modes of analysis on Latin America have emerged. One, developed on the foundations of sociology and anthropology, has evolved as structural-functional analysis and its partner, behavioralism. The second mode grew out of an economic perspective and is having a profound effect on contemporary studies. This article will give a brief review of some of the analyses that have their bases in economics and will specifically apply assumptions of human behavior drawn from microeconomic theory to the problem of explaining systems of political competition and their resultant structures.

On 7 December 1897, on the outskirts of Havana in San Pedro, a small party of Cuban rebels led by Lieutenant General Antonio Maceo y Grajales was ambushed by a Spanish patrol. General Maceo was killed; at his side, Panchito Gómez Toro, son of the Cuban Commander-in-Chief Máximo Gómez, also died. The surviving Cuban soldiers buried the two bodies in a secret grave to protect them from desecration by the Spanish forces. Several days later in Havana, the Spanish commander-in-chief, General Valeriano Weyler, learned of Maceo's death and celebrated. Weyler, whose cruelties had earned him the enduring title of “the butcher,” gathered his officers and supporters around him; they feasted, drank, and prematurely toasted Spanish victory. They could not imagine that the rebels would continue to fight once they had lost the superhuman figure of Maceo.

The study of political participation in Latin America has, until very recently, been too narrowly conceived by social scientists, focusing largely on elites and violence. The former is illustrated by studies of the military (Lieuwen, 1961, 1966; Johnson, 1964; Horowitz, 1967; Fagen and Cornelius, 1970; Schmitter, 1973), the Church (Dillon Soares, 1967; Solari, 1967; Petersen, 1970; Suchlicki, 1972), industrialists (Cardoso, 1967; Polit, 1968; Petras and Cook, 1973), and large landholders (Whetten, 1948; Carroll, 1966; Feder, 1971; Cockroft, 1972). Attention to violent forms of political participation is found in studies of revolution and the military coup d'état (Payne, 1965; Needler, 1968; Von Lazar and Kaufman, 1969; Moreno and Mitrani, 1971; Kohl and Litt, 1974). Those studies that have centered on nonviolent mass participation (Horowitz, 1970) have generally been limited to elections (for example, Martz, 1967; Petras, 1970), political parties (Fitzgibbon, 1957; Ciria, 1974), and labor unions (Payne, 1965; Angell, 1972; Erickson et al., 1974). As a result of the narrowness of these approaches, we have only a partial image of the faces of the Latin American citizen political activity; we have underestimated the scope of such activity and have failed to investigate its many forms.