Latin American theoretical approaches

LECHINI, GLADYS; DUSSORT, MARIA NOEL

New Delhi

Workshop; Latin America in the South; 2019

Research and Information System for Development Countries (RIS)

Latin American (LA) theoretical approaches have not always been recognised as such by the mainstream International Relations scholars and even in the LA region itself. Nevertheless, most Latin American scholars, mainly from Argentina and Brazil, recognise that there is a Latin American theoretical approach, conceived to answer to regional issues from a local point of view.It is also worth mentioning that even though the ideas and approaches mentioned inthis paper could not be considered explicit theories of SSC, they constitute the basic assumptions of any theoretical approach on SSC, laying the ground for a Southern Latin American thinking.Within this context, there have been three main waves in LA thought since the 1950s to date. The first one was the Development Theory coined by Raúl Prebisch (1949; 1976) during the 1950s, when he was the Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA/CEPAL). His proposals were a starting point from which the second wave of theories appeared, contesting or complementing his assumptions, like the Dependency Theory, which being born also within ECLA, flourished during the sixties and seventies. The Autonomy Theory, coined in the late seventies, is considered the third wave and was developed by Argentinean Juan Carlos Puig (1980; 1983; 1984a; 1984b) and Brazilian Helio Jaguaribe (1969; 1982).