ABSTRACT
The O'Donnell's model is an attempt to place national processes into distinct patterns that borrow eclectically from all the other approaches: modernization, dependency, modes of production, and corporatism. Theorists of modernization argued that value changes would lead this process of economic development, and optimistically suggested that democracy would be the result of the value change and economic growth. Modernization theory was criticized by the dependency analysts for not giving sufficient attention to the external economic constraints that shaped the Latin American economies and class structures. There is also a growing convergence among Marxists and non-Marxists to refine conceptual issues such as the state, its relation to the changing economy, and the role of ideology and legitimacy—issues that are also central to Latin American analyses. As Fernando Henrique Cardoso suggests in his historical-structural perspective, the relationship between the external economy and the domestic economies shapes both class structure and political processes.
