Introduction: Whither Development Theory?

• Author: Joana Salém Vasconcelos,Ronald H. Chilcote
• Date: 01 January 2022
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211070020
• Subject Matter: Introduction

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211070020

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 242, Vol. 49 No. 1, January 2022, 4–17

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211070020

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

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Introduction

Whither Development Theory?

by

Ronald H. Chilcote and Joana Salém Vasconcelos

In the politically charged wake of the Cuban Revolution, in the early 1960s

Latin American intellectuals and political activists grappled with fundamental

questions: the characteristics of Latin American capitalism and its incorpora-

tion into the broader international division of labor, class relations in Latin

American countries, and the political strategies that could achieve radical social

transformation. Critical theorists made structural analysis of class and social

relations central to their work. Seeking both economic development and social

justice, they sought new theory to overcome the inadequacies of dominant

North American and Eurocentric thinking on modernization and the limita-

tions of the Soviet understanding of semifeudalism and the stage theory of how

to achieve socialism. This time of military intervention and repression in Latin

America prompted intellectuals to resist not only dictatorship but also imperi-

alism and to seek ways out of the backwardness in their countries, find national

unity, open up to democratic practices, and rid themselves of ruling class dom-

ination. Today these questions remain as pressing as ever, as does the need for

theory that can address contemporary forms of capitalism and imperialism and

advance twenty-first-century struggles.

While these theoretical advances transformed the intellectual field in Latin

America, they failed to be reflected in mainstream social science in the United

States. Young, critical Latin Americanists recognized the need for new outlets

to bring the exciting work from Latin America to English-language Latin

American studies and to create spaces for progressive U.S. scholarship. Amidst

this ferment, Latin American Perspectives (LAP) was founded in 1974 as a “Journal

on Capitalism and Socialism.” In its early years, its principal themes were

debates about theories of dependency and underdevelopment in Latin America,

and controversy about major trends and ideas appeared in many journal issues

and books by LAP editors. In the same year 10 of them joined in the publication

of a popular textbook, Latin America: The Struggle with Dependency and Beyond

(Chilcote and Edelstein, 1974), which contrasted a model of capitalist diffusion

and development in the region with a model of dependency and capitalist

underdevelopment. The book sold tens of thousands of copies and was used

1070020LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211070020Latin American PerspectivesChilcote and Salém/Introduction

research-article2021

Ronald H. Chilcote is managing editor of Latin American Perspectives and the author of Intellectuals

and the Search for National Identity in Twentieth-Century Brazil (2014).

Joana Salém Vasconcelos is a coordinating editor of the journal and a professor of contemporary

history and Brazilian contemporary history at the Facultade Cásper Líbero in São Paulo, Brazil.

The collective thanks them for organizing this two-part issue.