ABSTRACT
Latin Americans on the whole are poor, although the region also is home to some of the wealthiest individuals in the world. Beyond the realm of hard economic data and fact-based argumentation lies theory. Theories are broad models, or constructs, that attempt to explain the macroeconomic and political realities of our world. Political scientists and others began to provide a whole range of new and adjusted theses. Some examined Latin American society, and argued that resistance to modern capitalism and pluralistic democracy was ingrained due to the medieval Hispanic heritage. Many scholars found Samuel Huntington’s argument no more convincing than those made under the rubric of modernization theory—a paradigm increasingly in disrepute, having itself been subjected to critique. In the nineteenth century, for example, large portions of Latin America fell into isolation—the exact opposite of what should have happened in an emerging system.
