ABSTRACT
The Iberic-Latin nations were largely bypassed by the great revolutions associated with the making of the modern world. The Protestant Reformation, the rise of capitalism, the scientific revolution, the rise of socially more pluralistic and politically more democratic societies, the industrial revolution and its many-faceted ramifications—all of these had little effect on the nations of the Iberic-Latin culture area. One looks in vain in the standard works on political theory for more than brief mention of the Iberic-Latin tradition. The Iberic-Latin sociopolitical tradition goes hand-in-hand with its religio-cultural tradition. Again, a useful point of departure for the discussion is to picture the Iberic-Latin nations as structured horizontally in terms of distinct and fairly rigid classes and vertically in terms of a number of corporate elites and intereses. In keeping with the Catholic-Thomistic conception, society and the state in the Iberic-Latin context are thought of as an organic whole with a profoundly moral purpose.
