Theory Gets Real, and the Case for a Normative Ethic: Rostow, Modernization Theory, and the Alliance for Progress

We investigate the case of the Economic Commission for Latin America in Brazil to discuss how modernization theory was mobilized to influence management education. The theories formulated by the Economic Commission for Latin America formed the basis of the courses it offered on development administration and management and the public administration schools it helped create. The theories from the Economic Commission for Latin America were contrary to US interests and to the modernization theory tenets developed by US scholars. The Alliance for Progress, launched in 1961 by US President J.F. Kennedy, was a project informed by modernization theory aimed to foster development in Latin America, and to contain the spread of Communism after the Cuban Revolution. The Alliance for Progress mobilized a network of US-controlled institutions that invested in management education and in an interpretation of development administration and management based on modernization theory that confronted the Economic Commission for Latin America. We make use of Burke’s Pentad to articulate the interactions among (asymmetrical) players at different levels of analysis and along the historical period investigated. We treat science as literature, and we present our analysis in a dramatistic narrative to promote reflexive management learning. We show that US-led investment in management education increased considerably after the launch of the Alliance for Progress, and that it lasted throughout the 1960s.

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The First Alliance for Progress? Reshaping the Eisenhower Administration's Policy toward Latin America

Journal of Cold War Studies ◽

10.1162/jcws_a_00432 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 85-110 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Thomas Tunstall Allcock

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Latin American ◽

Vice President ◽

Eisenhower Administration ◽

General View ◽

Modernization Theory ◽

Fidel Castro ◽

Richard Nixon ◽

Alliance For Progress ◽

Latin American Countries

The Eisenhower administration's policy toward Latin America is typically viewed as a failure. The general view is that by ignoring calls for increased economic aid and undermining governments suspected of harboring Communist sympathies, U.S. policymakers allowed relations with Latin American countries to deteriorate so much that Vice President Richard Nixon was almost killed during a goodwill tour. Belated efforts were then made to improve relations, but only the rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba and the Kennedy administration's embrace of modernization theory—the argument goes—saw a genuine change in U.S. attitudes. Using a wide variety of sources, including rarely studied personal papers and newly released oral histories, this article demonstrates that even before the Nixon trip a small group of experts on Latin America were determined to adjust attitudes in Washington. Understanding their impact and achievements casts fresh light on the policies of the Eisenhower administration and the nature of hemispheric relations in the subsequent decade.

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Modernization, Globalization, Trends, and Convergence in Health Expenditure in Latin America and the Caribbean

Sociology of Development ◽

10.1525/sod.2015.1.2.321 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 321-346 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Shiri Noy ◽

Patricia A. McManus

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Latin America ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

Health Care Financing ◽

Health Spending ◽

Modernization Theory ◽

The Public ◽

National Differences ◽

Care Systems ◽

Public Private Mix

Are health care systems converging in developing nations? We use the case of health care financing in Latin America between 1995 and 2009 to assess the predictions of modernization theory, competing strands of globalization theory, and accounts of persistent cross-national differences. As predicted by modernization theory, we find convergence in overall health spending. The public share of health spending increased over this time period, with no convergence in the public-private mix. The findings indicate robust heterogeneity of national health care systems and suggest that globalization fosters human investment health policies rather than neoliberal, “race to the bottom” cutbacks in public health expenditures.

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Drama of Modernization Theory. Article 1. Modernization as a Recipe and a Problem

Общественные науки и современность ◽

10.31857/s086904990003946-2 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 156-168

Author(s):

I. Starodubrovskaya ◽

Keyword(s):

Modernization Theory

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Domination of Quantitative Method and The Consequences : Methodological Examination of The Colonial Modernization Theory

Korean Journal of Sociology ◽

10.21562/kjs.2016.04.50.2.123 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 50 (2) ◽

pp. 123

Author(s):

Ki Hong Lee

Keyword(s):

Quantitative Method ◽

Modernization Theory

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Japanese Historical Writing

10.1093/oso/9780199225996.003.0032 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Sebastian Conrad

Keyword(s):

Social Science ◽

Modernization Theory ◽

Master Narrative ◽

Historical Writing ◽

Economic Miracle ◽

To Come ◽

The 1960S

This chapter shows how in Japan, the year 1945 represented a change of a very different kind. Japanese historians now repudiated the ultranationalist historiography of the 1930s and early 1940s, and turned in significant numbers towards Marxism, which rapidly achieved a kind of hegemony. They criticized the master narrative of the post-Meiji past, centered on the Tennō (emperor), and identified it with Fascism as a failed experiment in modernity. In the 1960s, however, this Marxist historiographical dominance was gradually supplanted by a pluralism of competing approaches. Modernization theory, social science methodologies, and ‘history from below’ coexisted, and historians, inspired by the Japanese economic miracle, tried to come to terms with the fact that Japan’s traditions, long perceived as an obstacle to modernization, actually seemed to foster it.

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