The Aspiration for Economic Development

Although generalization about Latin America as a whole should be avoided, most of the countries of the area have variously underdeveloped economies. These are theaters of rapid economic development, which is defined primarily as technological change. Thus conceived, economic growth has a universal character, both as to time and as to place. However, social scientists in the United States are now especially inter ested in this change process because of the current place of the underdeveloped areas in the foreign policy concerns of this country and because of the peculiar nature of economic devel opment theory as an intellectual problem. The political impli cations of economic development in Latin America are not clear. During World War II, it was generally believed that this proc ess would strengthen the American republics as reliable wartime allies. It is likely, however, that the political significance of economic growth is more complex than that, extending to such matters as the functions performed by the political structures within the Latin-American countries, the nature of their politi cal parties and party systems, and the attitudes toward change of their governing elites.