4. The Resurgence of the Internationalist Perspective

The positive result of this critique of development/modernization theory was the generation of a number of alternative versions of the process of development and change. One example is Bendix's notions regarding the greater role of states and innovative ruling elites in "follower" societies than in those Western European countries that developed initially ([1964] 1977). Probably the most influential theoretical developments that emerged, however, came from a group of social scientists in Latin America. (A more general observation can be made here: as semi-autonomous academic social-science traditions develop in the Third World countries, one evident result is that international factors will receive heavier stress.) In the 1950s number of economists associated with the Economic Commission on Latin America, notably Prebisch (1950), generated a perspective based on the primary assumption that the underdevelopment of Latin American countries rested not primarily on internal factors but on the fact that these countries were an integral part of the world economy. Prebisch proposed that the world economy could be regarded as having a "center" and a "periphery." Neoclassical

economic analysis suggest that the terms of the trade should be more favorable to the periphery because the increased use of technology in the center lower prices on industrial products in relation to the agricultural products from the developing countries. The reverse has happened, however, and Prebisch thought the reason was that unions in industrialized countries prevented wages from falling and that oligopolies in the center kept prices on industrial products artificially high.

A more general perspective,"dependency theory," grew out of this approach. It is associated with the names of Cardoso, Dos Santos, Frank, and others. Cardoso's definition of dependency is as follows:

Capitalist accumultion in dependent economies does not complete its cycle. Lacking autonomous technology, as vulgar parlance has it, and compelled therefore to utilize imported technology, dependent capitalism is crippled…. It is crippled it lacks a fully developed capital goods sector. The accumulation, expansion, and self-realization of local capital requires and depends on a dynamic complement outside itself. It must insert itself into the circuit of international capitalism. (1973, 163)

Dependency, then, involves a reliance on outside capital, and the more this reliance is concentrated on one or a few others nations, the greater the vulnerability and dependency of the dependent country. Furthermore, this dependency causes the internal fragmentation of the economy's sectors. The most sophisticated dependency theorists, however, argue that only the grossest information can be gathered by focusing on only the international phenomenon of economic penetration:

The expansion of capitalism in Bolivia and Venezuela, in Mexico or Peru, in Brazil and Argentina, in spite of having been submitted to the same global dynamic of international capitalism, did not have the same history or consequences. The differences are rooted not only in the diversity of natural resources, not just in the different periods in which these economies have been incorporated into the international system…. Their explanation must also lie in the different moments at which sectors of local classes allied or clashed with foreign interests, organized in different forms of state, sustained distinct ideologies, or tried to implement various policies or defined alternative strategies to cope with imperialist challenges in diverse moments of history. (Cardoso and Faletto 1969, xvii)

The dependency perspective marks not only clear focus on international factors but also a resuscitation of the perspective of economic and political domination found in the works of Marx, Lenin, and Weber. In these sense it contrast in another way with development/modernization theory, which lays greater stress on institutional and cultural patterning.

Another major international theory of change is "World systems theory," associated with the names of Brunel and Wallerstein. Although

this approach also distinguishes between core and periphery, it identifies a semiperiphery between them as well. These formations set the stage for patterns of economic domination and competition. Wallerstein has divided the history of the capitalist economy into three broad phases, each characterized by different patterns of relations among the core, semiperiphery, and periphery, with these relations largely determining the internal economic fates of the nations in each category.

The influence of these internationalist perspectives, cast mainly in a neo-Marxist framework, has increased greatly in the social sciences in the past two decades. In 1980 the Executive Committee of the Research Committee on Economy and Society of the International Sociological Association circulated a questionnaire to all its members asking about their areas of research and perspectives used. About one hundred responses were received from scholars in a large number of nations.The areas of research most commonly mentioned were (1) the relations of social classes or groups to the economy, (2) institutions, the state, and the economy, and (3) the world system. And topics listed under the first two headings frequently referred to the international dimension. When asked, "What theoretical position do you believe is most often used in the study of economy and society?" 90 percent of the respondents responded "Marxist or neo-Marxist" (Makler, Sales, and Smelser 1982).