THE IDEOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENTALISM: AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE'S PARADIGM-SURROGATE FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES.

The inadequacy of American political science research on Latin America is a fact so well recognized and so often rehashed in conferences and graduate seminars as to require no further elaboration. Much less generally understood are the reasons why this is the case. Definitive modifications of prevailing theories about Latin America seem unlikely in the absence of changes in the basic social, economic, and political conditions governing the concrete relations between the U. S. and Latin America, as well as in the assumptions of American social scientists about American society and their own position within it. In the meantime, however, those who reject the conventional paradigm-surrogate must explore possibilities for an alternative paradigm for Latin American studies to demonstrate the last section of this article. It is generally agreed that one of the main characteristics of a paradigm is a consensus as to the basic assumptions, the main theoretical and empirical problems, and the procedures for investigating them. What is too easily assumed, however, is that because there is no paradigm in political science, there is no consensual basis at all.