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This essay deals with the study of Latin American politics in the United States. The basic question asked is: "Where do we go from here if we take seriously that body of thought loosely and somewhat misleadingly known as dependency theory?" It argues that even though the literature is at times incomplete, confusing, and contradictory, the issues to which it directs us warrant our most serious attention.

The field of Latin American politics has undeniably achieved major advances in the last several decades. Nevertheless, one detects a growing intellectual unease and a sense that the excitement engendered by the pathbreaking work and heated debates of previous decades—focusing on authoritarianism, democratization, and market restructuring and related structural transformations—has waned and perhaps given way to a certain "normalization" of our intellectual enterprise.

It has been almost two decades since trends in research on Latin American politics were measured in any systematic way. The early profile of the state of Latin American research in political science developed by Peter Ranis showed that Mexico, Brazil, and Chile "receive about one-third of all political science research attention." Less than 1 percent of political science research was devoted to Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua. The subjects that received the most attention in the 1960s were interest groups (the military, students, and the church), the history of political institutions, and the nature of political, economic, and social change.

ABSTRACTDecentralization has triggered widespread use of the subnational comparative method in the study of Latin American politics. Simultaneously, it has created challenges for this method that deserve careful attention. While subnational governments after decentralization can often be treated as potentially autonomous policy jurisdictions, their autonomy is also subject to new constraints and incursions, which may limit scholars' ability to treat them as relatively independent units. By taking stock of the vibrant literature that has emerged in recent years, this article explores three major challenges that complicate the use of the subnational comparative method. Two are vertical in nature: how to theorize national causes of subnational variation, and how the varied linkages between subnational governments and transnational actors can be conceptualized in work that compares subnational units. The third challenge is horizontal, referring to interactions between governments at the same subnational level that can either enhance or subvert autonomy.

Beginning in the 1970s, "corporatism" came to be a major focus of attention in research on Latin America. 1 Analysts employed the concept to refer both to a pattern of interest group politics that is monopolistic, hierarchically ordered, and structured by the state and to a broader cultural and ideological tradition of the region that they viewed as patrimonial and statist. The concept commanded great attention, as it seemed to provide a valuable analytical tool for scholars concerned with the authoritarian regimes emerging in Latin America during this period. In addition, the understanding of political relationships suggested by this concept appeared to offer a useful alternative, or at least an important supplement, to pluralist models widely used in the United States. Hence, corporatism has been subject to much theoretical debate, and the concept has been applied in many empirical studies.

© 1995 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. Beginning in the 1970s, "corporatism" came to be a major focus of attention in research on Latin America. 1 Analysts employed the concept to refer both to a pattern of interest group politics that is monopolistic, hierarchically ordered, and structured by the state and to a broader cultural and ideological tradition of the region that they viewed as patrimonial and statist. The concept commanded great attention, as it seemed to provide a valuable analytical tool for scholars concerned with the authoritarian regimes emerging in Latin America during this period. In addition, the understanding of political relationships suggested by this concept appeared to offer a useful alternative, or at least an important supplement, to pluralist models widely used in the United States. Hence, corporatism has been subject to much theoretical debate, and the concept has been applied in many empirical studies.

El artículo define y muestra las conexiones entre los conceptos fundamentales del análisis de regímenes políticos, desde Schumpeter a Linz. El análisis provee el contexto para resaltar cambios y continuidades en el trabajo que Guillermo O'Donnell dedicó a la política post-transicional,incluidas las nociones de democracia delegativa, zonas marrones e instituciones informales. El texto plantea que si estas nociones son combinadas con la sociología política de Max Weber, el último trabajo de O'Donnell en realidad implica una ruptura con el paradigma de la democratización. Su trabajo dejó de centrarse en cuestiones de acceso alpoder y pasó implícitamente a estudiar cuestiones de ejercicio del poder.