ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3 political scientist Kalman Silvert recognizes the liberal bias of the modernizationists in assuming that Latin America had to follow the Western model of development. “What else is one to do,” he asks, “other than define development by the selection of certain characteristics of the already developed states?” Echoing Lipset’s cultural interpretation, Silvert argues that “there is something in the quality of the Latin American man in his culture which has made it difficult for him to become truly modern … which has made this part of the Western world so prone to excesses of scoundrels, so politically irrational in seeking economic growth, and so ready to reach for gimmicks.”
If some Latin Americans were kept tradition-bound by a strong “Mediterranean ethos,” however, they coexisted with other Latin Americans of a modernist bent. While reflecting the traditional-modern dichotomy in his analysis, Silvert is upbeat in his belief that the modernizers, particularly among the expanding middle classes, were in the forefront of the political, social, and economic changes that were rapidly transforming Latin American society. For Silvert these changes—particularly evident since World War II—were leading Latin America “to the antechamber of the truly modern state.”
