Abstract
This chapter examines how Latin American dependency theory became a global counter–Cold War social science. To do so, it focuses on a transnational network of economists and sociologists, diplomats and policymakers, whose nexus was the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL in Spanish and Portuguese). By shaping the theory and practice of economic development in the region, the economists in this network, referred to as cepalinos, became the fundamental point of reference for the generation of social scientists who came of intellectual age in the global 1960s and whose work gave rise to the concept of dependency. As “dependency theory” circulated across the region and flowed from South to North, it became the counterpart to the Cold War-imbued modernization theory.
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Notes
- 1.
Inderjeet Parmar, Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015). Helen Delpar, Looking South: The Evolution of Latin Americanist Scholarship in the United States, 1850–1975 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008), esp. chapter 7.
- 2.
On Project Camelot, see Irving Louis Horowitz, The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot: Studies in the Relationship between Social Science and Practical Politics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974); Mark Solovey, “Project Camelot and the 1960s Epistemological Revolution: Rethinking the Politics-Patronage-Social Science Nexus.” Social Studies of Science, 31, no. 2 (2001): 171–206; Juan José Navarro, “Cold War in Latin America: The Camelot Project (1964–1965) and the Political and Academic Reactions of the Chilean Left.” Comparative Sociology, 10, no. 5 (2011): 807–25.
- 3.
Mariano Plotkin, “US Foundations, Cultural Imperialism and Transnational Misunderstanding: the Case of the Marginality Project.” Journal of Latin American Studies, no. 47 (2014): 65–92.; Patrick Iber, “Social Science, Cultural Imperialism, and the Ford Foundation in Latin America in the 1960s,” in The Global 1960s: Convention, Contest, and Counterculture, edited by Tamara Chaplin and Jadwiga Pieper Mooney (New York: Routledge, 2018).
- 4.
Patrick Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom: Cultural Cold War in Latin America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).
- 5.
On the evolution of the social sciences in Latin America, see the pieces by Guillermo Palacios, Luiz Jackson, and Alejandro Blanco in Carlos Altamirano, ed. Historia de los intelectuales en América Latina: Los avatares de la “ciudad letrada” en el siglo XX, Vol. 2, (Buenos Aires: Katz Editores, 2010); Sergio Miceli, ed. História das Ciências Sociais no Brasil (São Paulo: Editora Sumaré; IDESP, 1995); and for an institutional perspective, Manuel Antonio Garretón, Miguel Murmis, Gerónimo de Sierra, and Hélgio Trindade, “Social Sciences in Latin America: a Comparative Perspective-Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay.” Social Science Information, no. 557 (2005): 557–93. For the notion of “internal colonialism,” see Rodolfo Stavenhagen, “Siete Tesis Equivocadas de América Latina,” originally published in El Dia, México, June 25 and 26, 1965, and for the notion of “marginality,” see, for instance, Aníbal Quijano, “Dependencia, Cambio Social y Urbanización en América Latina,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 30, no. 3 (1968): 525–70.
- 6.
Andrew Kirkendall, Paulo Freire and the Cold War Politics of Literacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Jafte Dilean Robles, and Joanne Rappaport, “Imagining Latin American Social Science from the Global South: Orlando Fals Borda and Participatory Action Research,” Latin American Research Review, 53, no. 3 (2018): 597–612.
- 7.
For the term “counter-Cold War social science,” see Nils Gilman, “The Cold War as Intellectual Force,” Modern Intellectual History, Available on CJO 2014 doi:10.1017/S1479244314000420 (2014): 1–17.
- 8.
For the term, “anti-Cold War social science,” see Mark Solovey, “Cold War Social Science: Specter, Reality, or Useful Concept,” in Mark Solovey and Hamilton Cravens, eds., Cold War Social Science: Knowledge Production, Liberal Democracy, and Human Nature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): pp. 1–24.
- 9.
On the history of CEPAL as an institution and on cepalino ideas, the primary accounts of Hernán Santa Cruz and Celso Furtado as well as the secondary analysis of Joseph Love and Edgar Dosman are crucial starting points. See Hernan Santa Cruz, Cooperar o perecer: el dilema de la comunidad mundial (Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor Latinoamericano, 1984), V. 1; Celso Furtado, La Fantasía Organizada (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo Editores, 1989); Joseph Love, “Economic Ideas and Ideologies in Latin America since 1930” In: The Cambridge History of Latin America, edited by Leslie Bethell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), and Edgar Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008). For a discussion of the literature on CEPAL, see my article “The Economic Commission for Latin America” (CEPAL) and the Region’s Postwar Development Project on the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. For the first book-length history of cepalinos and the regional and global impact of their intellectual movement, see my forthcoming work The World that Latin America Created.
- 10.
See for instance: Ricardo Lagos, Mi vida: de la infancia a la lucha contra la dictadura (Santiago: Debate, 2013), Kindle, Loc.1663;
- 11.
Elisa Kluger, “Meritocracia de laços: gênese e reconfigurações do espaço dos economistas no Brasil,” Universidade de São Paulo, PhD dissertation, 2015, pp. 528–542; L. Jarvis to P. Bell, “Final Report University of Chile Graduate Program in Economics,” Ford Foundation, Grant Files, Grant no. 61372, r. 3126, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, New York (hereafter RAC)
- 12.
CEPAL, La cooperación internacional en la política de desarrollo latinoamericana (Nueva York: Naciones Unidas, 1954), 24
- 13.
On institutionalization and internationalization of the social sciences in Latin America, see Luiz Carlos Jackson, “Generaciones pioneras de las ciencias sociales en Brasil,” in Historia de los intelectuales en América Latina, edited by Carlos Altamarirano (Buenos Aires: Katz Editores, 2010); Manuel Antonio Garretón, Miguel Murmis, Gerónimo de Sierra, and Hélgio Trindade, “Social Sciences in Latin America: a Comparative Perspective-Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay,” Social Science Information, no. 557 (2005), esp. p. 577. Also, see Helen Delpar, Looking South.
- 14.
- 15.
On the internationalization of economics and regionalization of Latin American social sciences, see A.W. Coats, ed. The Post-1945 Internationalization of Economics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995); Marion Fouçade “The Construction of a Global Profession,” American Journal of Sociology, 112, no. 1 (2006): 145–94. Rolando Franco, La FLACSO clásica: viscitudes de las ciencias sociales latinoamericanas (Santiago: FLACSO, 2007). Fernanda Beigel, “La Flacso chilena y la regionalización de las ciencias sociales in América Latina,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 71, no. 2 (2009): pp. 319–49.
- 16.
G. Duran to D. MacGrananan, February 28, 1958; T. Marshall to H.G. Phillips, April 11, 1958; H.M. Phillips, “Seminar on Social Factors in Economic Development,” April 16, 1958, Paris, UNESCO Archives, 330.19 (8) A06 (72) “60.”
- 17.
CEPAL, “Proposal Seminar on Social Aspects of Economic Development,” March 1, 1956, Paris, UNESCO Archives, 330.19 (8) A06 (72) “60.”
- 18.
J. Medina Echvavarría to A. Orfila, March 26, 1956, in Adolfo Castañón, and Alvaro Morcillo Laiz, José Medina Echavarría: Correspondencia y Notas (México: El Colegio de México, 2010), p. 296.
- 19.
T.H. Marshall to H.M Phillips, April 14, 1958, UNESCO Archives, 330.19 (8) A0672 “60.”
- 20.
See for instance, Stephen Rabe, The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communists Revolution in Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
- 21.
See Michael Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and Nation-Building in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
- 22.
Stephen Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: the Foreign Policy of Anticommunism (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1988). pp. 142–144
- 23.
Ernesto Guevara, “Economics cannot be separated from politics,” in: Our America and Theirs: Che, Kennedy, and the Debated on Free Trade, edited by Aleida March (Victoria: Ocean Press, 2005); Raúl Prebisch, “Exposición del Subsecretario a cargo de la CEPAL, Dr. Raúl Prebisch, durante la Reunión Extaordinaria del CIES” Noticias de la CEPAL, 7, no. 2 (1961): 3–7.
- 24.
“Seminar in Latin America on Social Factors of Economic Development,” April 16, 1958, UNESCO Archives, 330.19 (8) A0672 “60.”
- 25.
Egbert de Vries, and José Medina Echavarría, eds. Social Aspects of Economic Development in Latin America. Vol. I (Paris: UNESCO, 1963).
- 26.
Edgar Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, pp. 357–58 and 366–67.
- 27.
“Annual Report to the Economic and Social Council, covering the period 16 May 1961 to 16 February 1962,” Official Records (New York: United Nations, 1962). E/CN.12/AC.50/11/Rev.1.
- 28.
This and all other translations are my own. José Medina Echavarría, “Sección de Sociología del Desarrollo,” memorandum, March 22, 1963, ILPES, https://repositorio.cepal.org/handle/11362/32938
- 29.
CEPAL, El desarrollo social de América Latina, (Buenos Aires: Solar/Hachette, 1963)
- 30.
The result of that work was Fernando Henrique Cardos’s “El empresario industrial en América Latina: Brasil,” Décimo periodo de sesiones (Santiago: ECLA, 1963). E/CN.12/646/Add.2 and the aforementioned text written with Enzo Faletto but published under institutional authorship.
- 31.
On the paulista school, see Maria Arminda do Nascimento Arruda, “A Sociologia no Brasil: Florestan Fernandes e a ‘escola paulista,’” in História das Ciências Sociais no Brasil, edited by Sergio Miceli (São Paulo: Editora Sumaré; IDESP, 1995), pp. 107–232
- 32.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Empresariado industrial e desenvolvimento no Brasil (São Paulo: Difusão Europeia do Livro, 1964), Chap. 1; “Curso de posgraduação, Relações entre Subdesenvolvimento e Desenvolvimento,” UNB, July 1, 1963, Andre Gunder Frank Collection (hereafter AGF), Amsterdam: International Institute of Social History (hereafter IISH), b. 201
- 33.
Angela de Castro Gomes, and Jorge Ferreira, 1964: o golpe que derrubou um presidente, pôs fim ao regime democrático e instituiu a ditadura no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2014).
- 34.
Sections 2 and 3 of this chapter draw largely on the last two chapters of Margarita Fajardo, The World that Latin America Created, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA: forthcoming).
- 35.
Daniel Aarão Reis, “As esquerdas no Brasil: cultura, politica, e tradições,” in Historia e perspectivas da esquerda, ed. Alexandre Fortes (São Paulo: Chapeco/Fundação Abreu/Argos, 2005), pp. 173–181; Alzira Alves de Abreu, “Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasileiros,” in As esquerdas no Brasil: Revolução e democracia, ed. Daniel Aarão Reis and Jorge Ferreira (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2007), 411–432.
- 36.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Empresariado Industrial e Desenvolvimento no Brasil (São Paulo: Difusão Europeia do Livro, 1964): 177–179.
- 37.
Cardoso, Empresariado Industrial: 74–76.
- 38.
Andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America: Historical Studies of Chile and Brazil (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967). Cody Stephens, “The Accidental Marxist: Andre Gunder Frank and the Neo-Marxist theory of underdevelopment,” Modern Intellectual History (2016), Available on CJO 2016 doi:10.1017/ S1479244316000123, p. 4.
- 39.
“Research Proposal for Historical Dimension of Development and Underdevelopment,” July 1, 1963. AGF, Amsterdam, IISH, b. 129.
- 40.
“Proyecto para una conferencia latinoamericana de economistas revolucionarios,” July 13, 1967. AGF, Amsterdam: IISH. B. 21.
- 41.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, El proceso de desarrollo en América Latina: hipótesis para una interpretación sociológica (Santiago: ILPES, 1965); 13.
- 42.
Fernando H. Cardoso, “Notas sobre el estado actual de los estudios sobre dependencia,” Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, no. 4 (1972): 10.
- 43.
Fernando H. Cardoso, El proceso de desarrollo: 36.
- 44.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and Enzo Faletto, Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina (México: Siglo XXI, 1969): 164.
- 45.
Cardoso and Faletto, Dependencia y Desarrollo: 166.
- 46.
Andre Gunder Frank, “The Development of Underdevelopment,” Monthly Review Press, 18, no. 4 (1966): pp. 17–31.
- 47.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, El proceso de desarrollo en América Latina: hipótesis para una interpretación sociológica.
- 48.
For the author, dependency was more about politics than scholarly work, hence the term “movement.” Robert Packenham, The Dependency Movement: Scholarship and Politics in Development Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).
- 49.
Delpar, Looking South: 154–63.
- 50.
Delpar, Looking South: 169–70.
- 51.
Ronald Chilcote, “The Cold War and the Transformation of Latin American Studies in the United States,” Latin American Perspectives, 45, no. 4 (2018): 27–32.
- 52.
Bernardo Sorj, A construção intelectual do Brasil contemporâneo, da resistência à ditadura ao governo FHC (Rio de Janeiro: Centro Edelstein de Pesquisas Sociais, 2008).
- 53.
Chilcote, “The Cold War”: 16 and 27.
- 54.
R. Chilcote to F. H., October 10, 1973, Latin American Perspectives Records (hereafter LAP), Issues, Special Collections and University Archives, University of California-Riverside (hereafter UC-R), B. 1
- 55.
R. Chilcote to R. Fernández and J. Ocampo, August 27, 1973, LAP, Issues, UC-R, B. 1
- 56.
Raúl Fernández and José F. Ocampo, “The Latin American Revolution: A Theory of Imperialism, Not Dependence,” Latin American Perspectives, 1, no. 1 (1974): 30–61.
- 57.
R. Chilcote to F.H. Cardoso, January 7, 1974, LAP, LAP, Issues, UC-R, B. 1.
- 58.
A. Frank to R. Chilcote, December 1, 1973, LAP, LAP, Issues, UC-R, B. 1.
- 59.
R. Chilcote to participating editors, October 2, 1975, LAP, Issues, UC-R, B. 1.
- 60.
A. Frank to R. Chilcote, June 19, 1974 and A. Frank to participating editors, July 21, 1975, RC, LAP, Issues, UC-R, B. 1
- 61.
D. Johnson to R. Chilcote, January 30, 1976, RC, LAP, Issues, UC-R, B. 11.
- 62.
W. Bollinger to J. Edelstein, February 24, 1977, RC, LAP, Issues, UC-R, B. 1
- 63.
Ibid.
- 64.
Fernando Enrique Cardoso, “The Consumption of Dependency Theory in the United States,” Latin American Research Review, 12, no. 3 (1977): 14.
- 65.
Tulio Halperin-Donghi, “‘Dependency Theory’ and Latin American Historiography,” Latin American Research Review, 17, no. 1 (1982): 116.
- 66.
Margarita Fajardo, The World that Latin America Created (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, forthcoming).
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Fajardo, M. (2021). Latin America’s Dependency Theory: A Counter–Cold War Social Science?. In: Solovey, M., Dayé, C. (eds) Cold War Social Science. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70246-5_7
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