With the publication in 1973 of Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics, Guillermo O'Donnell initiated a new phase in the debate over the relationship between social change and politics in Latin America. In contrast to most of the political development literature of the 1950s and 1960s, O'Donnell argued that social and economic modernization in the context of delayed development is more likely to lead to authoritarianism than democracy. His analysis focused on the emergence of military regimes in Argentina and Brazil in the middle 1960s—regimes that he labeled “bureaucratic-authoritarian” to distinguish them from oligarchical and populist forms of authoritarian rule found in less modernized countries. O'Donnell's suggestion that an “elective affinity” exists between higher levels of modernization and the rise of bureaucratic-authoritarianism in South America anticipated the military takeovers of the 1970s in Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina. The timeliness of his argument, together with its broad theoretical implications, stimulated considerable discussion, which culminated in the recent publication of a volume devoted to the exploration of themes raised by O'Donnell.

Among archaeologists concerned with the study of cultural regularities in the evolution of the early civilizations, few general hypotheses have stirred such controversy as that which postulates a causal link between the phenomenon of irrigation agriculture and the origins of the state. Adumbrated initially by Karl Wittfogel in the 1920s and stated by him most completely in Oriental Despotism (1957), the hydraulic theory has been subject to much discussion and to varying fates in recent literature and research history. Although Wittfogel's original formulation was based chiefly on Old World data, the theory has had major impact on research and interpretation in the New. The first large-scale use of the approach in American archaeology followed World War II, when the Institute of Andean Research sponsored the Viru Valley Project in North Coastal Peru (Bennett, 1948; Willey, 1953). In recent years American archaeology has become concerned with questions of process beyond the limits of simple historical reconstruction (Binford and Binford, 1968). Concepts derived from systems theory (Flannery, 1968a; Hole and Heizer, 1969) are increasingly invoked to explain the cause-and-effect feedback mechanisms involved in the evolution of culture. Concomitantly, a virtual explosion of data has occurred concerning the chronology, size, and sociological and demographic matrix of New World irrigation systems. Thus, both investigative techniques and theoretical frameworks have undergone considerable recent modification and the body of relevant data is large and growing. While some might consider the hydraulic agriculture hypothesis a dead issue, such is not the case. Changes in the total conceptual context of any theory, and new evidence both pro and con, necessitate reevaluation of the theory.

La latinoamericanística, una de las más jóvenes ramas de la ciencia soviética, tiene raíces que se remontan hacia un pasado lejano. En Rusia el interés hacia América Latina acrecentó especialmente a principios del siglo XIX. La guerra por la independencia de 1810-1826 inspiró una profunda compasión de la opinión pública rusa progresista. En tiempos prerevolucionarios unas expediciones rusas visitaron los países de América Latina. Pero solamente después de la Gran Revolución Socialista de Octubre, que fue un momento crítico en las relaciones con las estados latinoamericanos, se comenzó el estudio sistemático de los problemas de los países del continente.

“Statistics are the poetry of Latin America” was Frank Tannenbaum's discreet version of “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” This is a widespread enough view, even now, when numbers are fashionable, and a fair number of my colleagues suggest any series will do to illustrate their well-conceived articles. A few skeptics refuse to go in for misplaced fashion. A Mexican economist, working in the statistics in the boondocks, said he was told to apply a correction coefficient to his numbers, to make them consistent with his boss's earlier reports. He quit, and became an essayist. An Argentine economist said that when his division head wanted to show growth, the investigators were sent to big firms; slumps were reported by surveying the output of small firms.

Few events in Latin America have attracted so many journalists as Pope John Paul's visit to Mexico in January 1979. Few have been so poorly reported.

The contradiction is a reflection of coverage of Latin America in general: of the more than one thousand reporters present in Mexico, only a handful, mostly from the Catholic press, had a background in both religious affairs and Latin America. The vast majority did not speak Spanish, knew nothing about Latin America's Catholic Church, and had only a rudimentary understanding of Vatican affairs, which are Byzantinely complex even for the initiated; “color,” therefore, substituted for in-depth reporting. But then journalists are not the only ones ignorant of the Latin American Church. When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee questioned intelligence representatives on the National Security Council about Catholic leaders in Latin America, in regard to the United States' “unpreparedness” for the religious upheaval in Iran, they reportedly could not name a single one.