elites in latin america by seymour martin lipset; aldo solari - wagley

7/29/2019 Elites in Latin America by Seymour Martin Lipset; Aldo Solari - Wagley

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Elites in Latin America by Seymour Martin Lipset; Aldo SolariReview by: Charles WagleyJournal of Inter-American Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Jul., 1968), pp. 511-513Published by: Center for Latin American Studies at the University of MiamiStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/165361 .

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Book Reviews 511

Lipset, Seymour Martin and Aido Solari, editors. Elites in Latin America.New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1967. vii, 531 pp. $2.95(paper), $9.50 (cloth).

It has been commonplace among Latin Americanists to bemoan the lackof attention given to this region by sociologists. This lacuna is about to becorrected, if the present volume is any indication of the trends. This is asymposium written mainly by sociologists; of the 15 authors representedin the volume, all but two are sociologists (a "behavioral" political scientistand a social anthropologist are the others). There are seven North Ameri?cans and eight Latin Americans represented in the volume. Although theessays are not primarily based upon survey research techniques, one sensesin many of the papers the presence of studies of this kind which are invarious stages of completion. Further, the basic theoretical positions ofmost of the authors owe much to their disciplines, although they are oftenvery eclectic in their sources.The volume is the result of a seminar on elites and development inLatin America held in June of 1965 at the University of Montevideo. Theseminar was sponsored jointly by the University of Montevideo, the Instituteof International Studies of the University of California (Berkeley), and theCongress for Cultural Freedom. The elite is defined as "those positions insociety which are at the summits of key social structures, i.e., the higherpositions in the economy, government, military, politics, religion, massorganizations, education, and the professions" (p. vii). "A basic assumptionof the book is that factors affecting the calibre of the elites play a major rolein determining the propensity of different countries for economic growth andpolitical stability and are worth analyzing in depth regardless of the impor?tance of other variables" (p. viii).As an occasional participant and editor of collaborative volumes, I washardly surprised that most of the authors seemed not to have written to thepoint. Some of them did not write about the elite at all, but about other sectorsof the Latin American social scene (i.e., the middle class and the peasants) orabout Latin American institutions. Even those who seemed to have kept aneye on the announced theme did not describe in any detail the compositionof, the attitudes of, and the role of the people who occupy such key positions,with the exception perhaps of Fernando Cardoso (The Industrial Elite) andFrank Bonilla (The Cultural Elite).Yet, many of the essays in this volume, whatever their focus, areimportant contributions of Latin American scholarship. Lipset, in his longintroductory essay, discusses the persistence of traditional Latin Americanelite values and their possible relationship to economic development. Hefinds these values "antithetic to the basic logic of a large-scale industrialsystem" (p. 32). His analysis derives mainly from well known sources, buthe does cast them into a very broad comparative perspective. His compari?son of Latin America with French-Canada is, for example, rich in insight.


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512 Journal of Inter-American Studies

Three essays, however, seemed to me to be especially sound and thought?ful, namely those by Ivan Vallier on the Catholic Church, Robert Scott onpolitical elites, and Henry A. Landsberger on labor. Vallier stresses the impor?tance of the Church as the "only formal organization that spans four anda half centuries of Spanish-American history" and "that supersedes nationalboundaries" (p. 222), providing a unifying force in Latin America. He de?scribes "new Catholic elites" who, in face of the traditional conservatism,are eager to make the Church an important instrument of political, social,and economic modernization. Robert Scott speaks of a "crisis of elites"?asituation in which the traditional elite powers, namely landowners, the Army,and the Church, no longer have a consensus regarding the proper politicalprocess. And, in turn, the spokesmen for the new interests, such as industry,labor, and the like, are either co-opted by the traditional elites or in compe?tition with one another. Landsberger attempts to show that Latin Americanlabor (including its leadership) is today basically nonrevolutionary and non-ideological; it is more interested in improving its immediate economic situa?tion than in a thorough-going structural change in the society. Yet, becauselabor was granted at least legal gains by populist or liberal governments eagerto capitalize upon its potential vote, it seems to have in most Latin Americancountries more political than economic power. Landsberger points out that "therank and file cannot be convinced to threaten violence on a purely ideologicalissue, even if labor leaders wish to do so, unless there are genuine economicgrievances" (p. 295). Of course, he might have added that economicgrievances are not hard to find almost anywhere in Latin America.There are other essays in this volume worthy of mention, particularlythose by Fernando H. Cardoso on the industrial elite and by Frank Bonillaon the cultural elites or intellectuals. The last third of the volume is devotedto essays by Darcy Ribero, Luis Scherz-Garcia, Kenneth N. Walker, GlaucioAry, Dillon Soares, Aldo Solari, and Aparecida Joly Gouveia on secondaryschoolteachers. This latter group of papers are more descriptive, often sum?marizing research. Taken together, this last third of the volume provides aninteresting and useful discussion of the process of elite formation in LatinAmerica through education.

Finally, reading this volume strengthens my conviction that studies en?compassing Latin America as a whole generally are arid, if not of dubiousvalue, unless some systematic attempt is made to control for variations inthe Latin American scene. I would be the first to admit that there is abroad similarity of culture in the societies of Latin America?even some?thing like a Latin American style in politics or in the composition and at?titudes of the elite. But it seems to me that the time has come in ourstudies of Latin America when what is needed are more detailed analysesof specific processes and problems in specific countries, and more limited andcontrolled comparative studies. Many of the authors of the essays in thisbook are fully aware of this shortcoming. Some of them limit their generaliza?tions with an implicit classification (i.e., the more industrialized countries);others are limited to those countries where surveys have been carried out.


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Book Reviews 513

Aparecida My Gouveia limits herself to Brazilian secondary teachers, andher paper gains in doing so. But Luis Ratinoff discusses the middle classwithout referring to any specific country, and his vague generalizations arehard to check against any empirical situation. It is my feeling that what isotherwise an important book could have been better if the authors had writtenexplicitly on those countries of Latin America in which they have done re?search and those for which truly comparative data existed.

Charles Wagley, DirectorInstitute of Latin American StudiesColumbia University

BOOKS RECEIVED

General and Regional Latin AmericaAdams, Henry E., Editor. Handbook of Latin American Studies: Number29; Social Sciences. (Prepared by a number of scholars for the His?panic Foundation in the Library of Congress.) Gainesville: Universityof Florida Press, 1967. Introduction, bibliography and general works,acronyms and abbreviations, title list of journals indexed, subject index,

author index. 720 pp. $25.00.Alba, Victor. Politics and the Labor Movement in Latin America. StanfordCalifornia: Stanford University Press, 1968. Notes, bibliography, index.404 pp. $12.50.Elliott, Sean M. Financing Latin American Housing: Domestic SavingsMobilization and U.S. Assistance Policy. (Praeger Special Studies inInternational Economics and Development.) New York: FrederickA. Praeger, 1968. Tables, glossary, introduction, appendix, selectedbibliography, About the Author. 216 pp. $12.50.Moore, John R. and Frank A. Padovano. U.S. Investment in Latin AmericanFood Processing. (Praeger Special Studies in International Economicsand Development.) New York: Frederick A. Praeger. Acknowledg?ments, 19 tables, 11 maps, statistical appendix, bibliography, About theAuthor, xiii, 208 pp. $15.00.Petras, James and Maurice Zeitlin, Editors. Latin America: Reform or Revo?lution? A Reader. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc.,1968. Introduction, index. 511 pp. $ .95 (paper).Veliz, Claudio. Latin America and the Caribbean: A Handbook. (Hand?books to the Modern World.) New York and Washington: FrederickA. Praeger. Plates, maps, editor's preface, historical introduction, noteson contributors, acknowledgments, xxiv, 840 pp. $25.00.

elites in latin america by seymour martin lipset; aldo solari - wagley

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