ABSTRACT
Many countries of the Third World have not in the past been very liberal; instead, they have for most of their recent histories been corporatist and often authoritarian. Whereas liberalism means a system of free and unfettered associability, pluralism, and largely unregulated interest group or nongovernmental organization (NGO) activity, corporatism means state regulation and control of interest group/NGO activity and even the creation of official, state-run associational life. Liberalism and free associability have not been the sole, inevitable, or universal outcome of recent modernization processes; instead, corporatism and various mixed forms of state control/freedom have predominated. In much of the theoretical literature on developing nations as well as in policy analysis, three main routes to development were usually posited: an authoritarian route, a liberal-pluralist route, and a Marxist-Leninist one. Corporatism, organicism, and integralism have a long history in Western thought as well as political practice.
