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Politics, Social Structure and Military Intervention in Latin America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Gino Germani  and
Kalman Silvert
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Extract

The recent politico-military events of Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and even France demonstrate that the application of unabashed armed might to the solution of civic problems is not peculiar to Latin America, nor indeed a phenomenon to be correlated only with economic underdevelopment. Public violence and political instability in Latin America have all too often been treated either as merely comic or else a manifestation of “spirit”, “temperament”, or “Latin blood”. Riots in the streets of Buenos Aires are no less tragic than riots in the streets of Algiers—and no less related to the basic facts of social disorganization as they may be reflected in crises of political legitimacy and consensus.

Type
Le Sabre Et La Loi
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , June 1961 , pp. 62 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1961

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References

(1) The table appeared in a slightly modified form in Gino Germani, “The strategy of fostering social mobility”, paper prepared for the Seminar on The Social Impact of Economic Development in Latin America (Proceedings publ. by the Unesco, forthcoming). Only part of the basic data are shown in the table.

For the main concepts used in formulating the scheme, see: Germani, G., Integración politica de las masas (Buenos Aires, CLES, 1956)Google Scholar; “El autoritarismo y las clases populares”, in Actas IV Congreso Latino Americano de Sociologia (Santiago, Chile, 1957)Google Scholar; Politica e Massa (Minas Gerais, Universidade de Minas Gerais, 1960)Google Scholar; Silvert, K., “Nationalism in Latin America” in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 334 (1961), 1–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; of the relevant bibliography on this subject we took especially into account: Lipset, S. M., Political Man (New York, Doubleday, 1960)Google Scholar, and Lerner, D., The Passing of Traditional Society (Glencoe, the Free Press, 1958).Google Scholar

(2) The phenomenon of ‘non-voting’ and ‘political apathy’ which appear in some developed countries (as the U.S.A. for instance) has a different meaning from the non-participation of the marginal and isolated sectors in underdeveloped countries.

(3) For a narrower version of this typology and other suggested categorizations of Latin American politics, see Silvert, K. H., Political Change in Latin America, in Matthews, Herbert, ed., The United States and Latin America (New York, The American Assembly, 1959)Google Scholar. Also refer to the March 1961 issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, entitled Latin America's Nationalist Revolutions, for other pertinent and recent information.

(4) Lewis, Oscar, in his “Mexico Since Cardenas”, in Bryson, Lyman, ed., Social Change in Latin America Today (New York, Harper, 1960), pp. 301–302, writes:Google Scholar

« A comparison of the allocations of federal funds to the various departments over the four presidential administrations from Cardenas to Ruiz Cortines reveals […] some highly significant trends. Especially marked is the sharp decrease in the proportion of funds allocated to national defense, reflecting the demise of caudillismo as a serious factor in Mexican life. Adolfo Ruiz Cortines was the first president since the 1920's who did not depend heavily on either the national or a private army to maintain his control.»

Professor Lewis then points out that between 1935 and 1940 defense expenditures absorbed 17.3 percent of the national budget, dropping to 8.1 percent in the period 1953–1956.

(5) The Statistical Abstract of Latin America 1960 (Center of Latin American Studies, University of California in Los Angeles), p. 32Google Scholar, offers some partial and tentative figures on the percentage of Latin American budgets devoted to defense expenditures. The data are incomplete for all countries.

(6) Carr, A. R. M., “Spain”, in Howard, Michael, ed., Soldiers and Governments: Nine Studies in Civil-Military Relations (London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1957), pp. 145–146.Google Scholar