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Aldo Mascareo / Daniel Chernilo

Obstacles and Perspectives of Latin American Sociology:Normative Universalism and Functional Differentiation*

Zusammenfassung: Der vorliegende Aufsatz versucht die Erkenntnisblockaden derlateinamerikanischen Soziologie, die die Auffassung der Moderne Lateinamerikas inden 19 und 20 Jahrhunderten geprgt haben, zu beschreiben und zu berwinden DreiErkenntnisblockaden struktureller, normativer und methodologischer Art werdenidentifiziert und als wesentliche Elemente eines konstruierten Vorbildes der lateiname-rikanischen Moderne verstanden Das Werk klassischer lateinamerikanischer Soziolo-gen wie Gino Germani, Fernando H Cardoso und Enzo Faletto wird danach analysiertund als Grundlage fr den Entwurf einer soziologischen Beschreibung Lateinamerikasals ein regionaler, partikulrer Weg innerhalb der modernen Weltgesellschaft konzi-piert Mittels einer Kombination systemtheoretischer Soziologie und kosmopolitischerGesellschaftstheorie entfalten wir eine alternative Perspektive, die darauf gerichtet ist,die lateinamerikanische Moderne zugleich als universal (weltgesellschaftlich) und par-tikulr (lateinamerikanisch) zu erfassen

The problem of modernity is constitutive of sociology worldwide, and LatinAmerican sociology is no exception to this trend In fact, it has handled its rela-tionship to modernity with ambivalence On the one hand, although its ref-erences to a certain Latin American unity have been much more importantthan its mentions to particular national traditions, it has found it difficult toget away from an idea of society as equated with the nation-state and fromidentity conceptions understood as an unchangeable cultural ethos On theother hand, Latin American sociology has adopted the most abstract and gen-eral sociological theories available at different junctures, which of course werecreated in, and thought for, historical times and social contexts that are notthose of the subcontinent itself In other words, the very regional conditionof Latin American sociology has made it aware of the universalistic vocationthat lies at the core of the sociological canon But it is equally noticeable thatsignificant parts of it advance or even reproduce a highly particularistic view inwhich Latin American modernity is little else than an incomplete version of itsEuropean counterpart

* This article was possible thanks to financial support by the Chilean Council for Science andTechnology (Grants 1070826 and 1080213) The authors should like to thank Srgio Costa andanonymous reviewers of Soziale Systeme for their comments and bibliographic references

Soziale Systeme 15 (009), Heft 1, S. -9 Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart


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Obstacles and Perspectives of Latin American Sociology 3

We speak here ofepistemological obstacles of Latin American sociology to char-acterize this particular crossroad A term first introduced by Gaston Bachelard,Niklas Luhmann (1997) made the notion operative for understanding con-ceptual developments within sociology Of course, Luhmann himself suggests

that his epistemological obstacles do not apply to any particular kind of sociol-ogy but to the discipline tout court; so it can be said that these epistemologicalobstacles may well reveal some general features that are equally applicable toother regions of world society Our hypothesis is that Latin American sociol-ogy takes places within particular versions of these epistemological obstaclesthat prevent it from conceptualizing Latin Americas relations with and itsown position within modern world society These obstacles make it hard forLatin American sociology to live up to the universalistic expectations that arerequired to provide a structural account and a normative critique of its own

situation within modern world society We shall expand below on how each ofthese obstacles unfold but, briefly put, they can be summarized as follows:

Obstacle 1: Latin American modernity is understood as a limited version ofWestern (ie European and North American) modernity To this difficulty inlocating the position of Latin America in its own right, but within modern

world society, we refer to as the structural obstacleObstacle 2: The idea of society in Latin American sociology has taken theform of either the nation-state as a territorial unit or a particularistic ethicalcommunity Insofar as this reductionism precludes the adoption of a moreuniversalistic normative standpoint, what we shall call it the normativeobstacleObstacle 3: The production of sociological knowledge has not beenregarded as a goal in itself but finds justification as an instrument for thepolitical modeling of Latin American societies This, we believe, is Latin

Americas sociologymethodological obstacle

Surely, the recognition of these obstacles must not be understood as thetotal impossibility by Latin American sociology to link its particular empirical

accounts with the universalistically-oriented knowledge claims of the sociolo-gical canon Likewise, the adoption of this kind of universalistic position can-not be bought at the price of obliterating the importance of the local and theparticular in understanding the specificity of Latin American history Maybewhat remains of classical social theory for twenty-first century sociology is pre-cisely the search for concepts and procedures with which to transcend particu-larisms that reject the universal on the basis of an a-historical essence, ethicalcommunity or Sonderweg as well as the rejection of empty universalisms inwhich the particular is merely the application, derivation or example of whatthe general theory predicts (Chernilo 2007b) Both positions are, in our view,equally untenable because nowadays it looks increasingly impossible to con-ceive of the particular outside the universal or the universal with abstractionof the particular We may be doomed to think of both terms as the two sides of


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the same distinction; structurally, because of the emergence of a modern worldsociety with diverse (regional) trajectories to modernity; normatively, because acosmopolitan framework can now be regarded as the condition of possibility ofa plural and pacific coexistence worldwide; methodologically, because sociologi-

cal explanations require that scientific operations are increasingly autonomousfrom outside interferenceThe distinction and mutual interplay between universalistic and particularisticapproaches to sociological knowledge and the legitimization of norms havetheir empirical correlate in the distinction between world society and region:particular regional features cannot be delineated as if isolated outcomes ofendogenous evolution All regions must now consider themselves, under thecontemporary conditions of factual, social, and temporal interrelationship, asa moment of modern world society Even if we cannot pursue it here, it is our

assumptions that similar processes of structure-building in different regionsof world society lead to different yet equivalent semantic responses Yet ourempirical focus in this piece is only on Latin American sociology, so we do notseek to pass a broader judgment as to how a similar analysis may be carriedout in other national or regional sociologies The key sociological question forus is to strike the right balance between the expansion of functional differen-tiation and the historical events and semantic properties of each region thatis, between universal trends and particular institutional developments in dif-

ferent regionsA particular historical constellation thus emerges that for Latin America soci-ology has obtained in certain epistemological obstacles The revolutionaryprocesses in Europe and the US in the late eighteenth century triggered thestructural declination of the colonial domination of Latin America and the con-stitution of independent national states Notions of homogeneous universalprogress and civilization played a central ideological role in the early configura-tion of national legitimating semantics Latin American thought reflected uponthis trend in the form of thefirst structural obstaclewe mentioned above As a

reaction to this homogenizing universalism, which let not only to the exclusionof non-urban lifestyles in the nineteenth century but also to rationalistic state-oriented modernization programs in the twentieth century, social analysis con-structed a normative image of Latin America grounded on particularistic ethicalpreferences national, ethnic, ethical or even class based The second (norma-tive) epistemological obstacle derives from this, as much as the third (methodo-logical) obstacle became increasingly relevant as political pressures were soonstarted to be felt on sociological knowledge The task scientific explanation wasless to come up with diagnosis or solutions to specific issues but to serve as aninstrument for confronting certain actors in political strugglesIn the following pages, we would like to examine, through key passages ofLatin American intellectual history social science in the nineteenth and twen-tieth centuries, how these three obstacles led to a certain interpretation of the


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Latin America as a region Under different images and metaphors, we find adepiction of the continents trajectory over the past two hundred years thatoperates to a great extent within the framework of the three obstacles men-tioned above (I) We then move on and, rather summarily, review how key Latin

American sociologists such as Gino Germani, Fernando H Cardoso and EnzoFaletto were able, between the late 1950s and early 1970s, to overcome at leastpartially these obstacles by means of abstract theoretical frameworks withinwhich to grasp the position of Latin America within modern world society (II)Our own perspective as to how to overcome the epistemological obstacles ofLatin American sociology through a reconstruction of its particular concretiza-tion of universal trends of modern world society is then introduced (III) As aconclusion, we offer a brief assessment of some recent works in Latin Ameri-can sociology that seek to explicate the continuous interplay between global

trends and local or regional agencies that signal a path towards the overcom-ing of these epistemological obstacles (IV)

I

The first obstacle of Latin American sociology is constructed under the premisethat Europe and North America represent an ideal stage for the analysis of

Latin America This can be explicated because, over the past two hundredyears, continental social thought described Latin America through the lensesof European and North American discourses (Germani 1959; Werz 1995; Lar-ran 2000) The Enlightenment, positivism, the German Geisteswissenschaften,as well as theories of modernization, were the main philosophical and scientifictraditions with the help of which Latin American sociology sought to under-stand the continents situation and possible trajectories Below we should liketo reject this idea that Latin America must, somehow necessarily, be seen asEuropes inverted mirror But at earlier stages this is precisely what we find:

Europe and North America as the teleological stage, the vanishing point, ofLatin American development The possibility of a Latin American path throughmodernity, within which to grasp its specific features within modern worldsociety, was absentThe problem does not lie in the local appropriation of European or NorthAmerican sociology, but rather in the impossibility of distinguishing betweenthe universalistic vocation of the theoretical frameworks and its highly naive,indeed uncritical, application What takes centre stage in these reconstructionsis certain substantive notions of civilization and development in relation toEurope or the US thence of the complete or relative absence of some of itsfeatures in Latin America On the whole, the all-encompassing depiction ofsocial relations in Latin America was bound to the verdict of their incomplete-ness: the incompleteness of civilization, as represented in the distinction civili-


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Obstacles and Perspectives of Latin American Sociology

being called modern in its own right because it lacked an autonomous paththrough modernityWith regard to the second, more normative, obstacle it finds expression in theuse of the concept of society as equated with the nation-state or an ethical

community Its reference point was one particular semantic component withinsociety; most notably national, cultural or ethnic identity The potentially uni-versalistic idea of society as an all-encompassing yet plural system of differ-ences that underpins the sociological tradition (Chernilo 2007a; Frisby / Sayer1986; Outhwaite 2006; Turner 2006) is lowered down to the level of the partic-ular worldview of a certain nation or ethical community Within contemporarysocial theory, this debate has been framed as the discussion on methodologicalnationalism (Beck 2002; Chernilo 2006; Wimmer / Schiller 2002) The nation-state increasingly became the quasi-natural scenario for the concretization of

the particularistic normative worldview of whatever form of communityIn the nineteenth century, the selected reference point for the constructionof national societies was the liberal-positivistic community that oriented itsproject against the authority of religion (Bilbao 1940), the hierarchical rem-nants of the colonial order (Lemos / Texeira 1980; Texeira 1964) and indeedindigenous peoples (Arguedas 1964) In the early part of the twentieth century,these communities became diversified and more directly related to the controlof the political system Thus, for instance, Maritegui (1986) and Haya de la

Torre (1961) described Latin America from the perspective of the indigenouscommunity which is both the ultimate substrate and limit of every possiblemodern expectation (Hale 1996) Alternatively, as with Argentinean populism(Rama, Puiggrs, Hernndez), the selected community was the nation itself(indeed the people, el pueblo), represented by a charismatic leader (elcaudillo),who incarnated the particularistic unity of the national society and rejected itspositioning as a part of the more democratic and plural developments modernworld society (Werz 1995) Something similar has been said for the Braziliancase Authors like Manoel Bomfim and Alberto Torres abandoned the idea of

hierarchy of races and the mestiagem branqueadora and replaced it by the par-ticularistic project of the construction of a Brazilian national character (Costa2007, 213ff) a nationalistic view that is best expressed in Gilberto FreyresCasa-Grande & Senzala, where Brazilian race relations are being described asharmonious and producing a racial democracy (Skidmore 2002)In the second half of the past century, the hybridization of political projects (indi-genism, populism, socialism, developmentalism, authoritarianism, neoliberalism)reopened the problem about the true identity of Latin American ethical com-munities Indeed, the question of whether there is an authentic Latin Americancommunity lying underneath the surface of modernity seemed to be the centralquestion for social thinkers (Octavio Paz) and sociologists alike (Pedro Morand,Cristin Parker, Claudio Vliz) Their answers were dissimilar, however Whereasfor Paz (1989) there was no identifiable Latin American community but a lab-


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yrinth of solitude , for sociologists the substrate of Latin American identity wasrepresented by the catholic community that was to be found within traditionalsocial relations, in the Hacienda (Morand, 1984), or in the symbiosis of popularreligiosity (Parker, 1996) Claudio Vliz (1994) illustrates possibly an extreme ver-

sion of this argument as he speaks of an Anglo-American community whosecall was the thorough substitution of the baroque foundations of Latin Ameri-can culture with the gothic spirit of Anglo-American culture with of course anunmistakably view as to the superiority of the latterWe can see how Latin American social thought and sociology has tended toidentify itself with one or another social group, which was then turned intothe representative of the civilizing or developing hopes of the nation as awhole When sociology becomes instrumental to particular ethical communi-ties, which then seek to impose their particularistic normative assertions onto

the whole society, it becomes only natural to consider sociological knowl-edge as an instrument for political actions obstacle 3 described above Thegoal of knowledge-production is, first and foremost, whatever program thatis regarded as a priority by particular social actors The methodological prob-lem in the construction of sociological knowledge is the rather crude and non-reflexive transition between scientific operations and the political interests ofactors themselvesAt his inaugural address for the opening of the University of Chile in 1843,

Venezuelan intellectual Andrs Bello held the view that useful application,positive results, and the improvement of society are [the outcomes] that thegovernment expects from this university (Bello 1981, 10) A similar position isfound in Justo Sierra (Mexico) at the beginning of the twentieth century: theuniversity has to be able to coordinate the guiding lines of the national charac-ter in order to develop a science that defends the homeland (Sierra 1910)In Marxist sociology (Pablo Gonzlez Casanova, Andr Gunder Frank, OrlandoFals Borda, Luis Vitale, Rui Mauro Marini), we find an equally clear expressionof this methodological obstacle, though of course under a different political

vector Following Nikolaus Werz (1995), we can summarize this outlooks mainpropositions as follows: a) new concepts must be constructed because the exist-ing ones were developed in and for the European experience; b) this new con-ceptualizations must take into account class exploitation in Latin America; c) asocial science of the third world has thus to be different from first-world (capi-talist and socialist) social science; d) the very possibility of a universalisticallyoriented sociology is rejected precisely because it would hamper the develop-ment of a politically-involved sociology at the service of particular actors; ande) a Latin American social scientist must therefore become a militant observer(Werz 1995, 130-132)With the dedifferentiation between sociological knowledge and political inter-ests society is diagnosed as in a permanent state of emergency and sociology istrusted with the role of being its firemen The social world is discovered, con-


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structed or indeed imagined always from a particularistic point of view, and theknowledge thus generated is organized in order to exclude alternative inter-pretations and courses of action By the late 1960s, Latin America sociology hadbecome so deeply involved in societys problems that it eventually got caught

in the crossfire and, alongside society, burnt itself Military dictatorships liter-ally shut down the dream of social transformation and, non-metaphorically,sociologists were among its easier and preferred targets (Franco 2007)

II

The mutually reinforcing interaction of the three obstacles obtains in a par-ticular image of Latin America An unreachable ideal of society (obstacle 1), a

primordial ethical viewpoint (obstacle 2) and a pre-established political goal(obstacle 3) fed nicely into each other In this scenario, it has been difficult tofound a kind of sociology in Latin America that can and is willing to under-stand the particularity of the region as a moment of the universality of modernworld society We have seen that Latin American sociology has, once and again,struggled to describe the region in terms of its position within modern worldsociety because it regards the local as a self-contained image without a hint ofuniversality Thus, structural accounts take for granted the nation-state level

and normative assessments usually take the form of pre-conventional or con-ventional judgments only rarely do they strive for post-conventional criteriaBut despite these difficulties, exceptions are available Indeed, long passagesin the works of Gino Germani (a) and Fernando H Cardoso and Enzo Faleto(b) demonstrate that abstract theoretical frameworks have been developed anddeployed and they were able, to a great extent at least, to grasp the position ofLatin America within modern world societya) Gino Germani is frequently seen as a rather crude representative of mod-ernization theory in Latin America (Larran 1989; Kay 1989) a characteriza-

tion we regard as fundamentally misleading Indeed, modernization theoriesput forward a lineal conception of social development within which the West-ern model emerges as the necessary final stage of all possible historical andregional trajectories They clearly fall under obstacle 1 as they assumed thatthe attraction force of the West will guide the rest of modern world society tothe same kind of industrial age (Rostow 1960) Germani, however, suggestsprecisely the opposite; namely, that modernity can unfold along different paths whose organization depends on complex interactions between economic,political, societal and cultural conditions in particular regions of the world TheWestern model cannot and will not simply be replicated elsewhere but has tobe reinvented once and again (Germani 1981, 130ff) He tackles directly obsta-cle 1 in his creative reinterpretation of Parsonian sociology As he engagedwith Parsons early conceptual developments his voluntaristic action theory


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0 Aldo Mascareo / Daniel Chernilo

(Parsons 1968) and his triad culture, social system, and personality (Parsons1970) it is with the AGIL model that Germani (1981) came to the idea of aLatin American path through modernity Most dramatically, however, Germanirevisits Parsons pattern-variables to the identification of traditional and mod-

ern forms of social action thence his notion ofasynchrony As Germani surelyadopts significant portions of the Parsonian theoretical architecture, he alsointroduces important modifications for the understanding of social transforma-tions in Latin America In speaking about a dualistic society in Latin America,Germani does not mean that two separated social formations one traditionaland the other modern coexist next to each other Rather the opposite, tradi-tional and modern structures of expectations interact dynamically and simulta-neously with each other The asynchronic character of Latin America has to dowith the diversity of its institutional temporalities taking place all at once The

notion of a dualistic society is an analytical distinction, because there can be amultiplicity of transitional forms, as it has been demonstrated by historical andpresent experience (Germani 1962, 71)He also addresses obstacle 2, as Germani put forward no notion of a primor-dial community in either ethical or national terms His sociology regards LatinAmerica in a universalistic fashion and substitutes tradition with no particu-laristic prejudice of progress or development Germani describes and indeedassesses Latin America through the prism of a world sociology, that is, the

beginning of the overcoming of the national overtones that had characterizedits development until then (Germani 1959, 448) He explicitly rejects meth-odological nationalism as was currently found in sociological theory forinstance, in his critical commentary of C Wright Mills who, in his view,

insists in considering the adoption of this unit of analysis [the nation-state]as practically the only possible when studying an important problem

Although there can be no doubt about its methodological importance inthe study of contemporary societies, it does not seem acceptable to ignoresome other bigger or smaller units With regard to the latter () what must

actually be criticized is the ignorance of the global context () The study ofa small town or group of students may be extraordinarily fruitful or whollyuseless: the scale is not what decides; it is the meaning within a globalcontext (Germani 1962, 25)

Furthemore, in characterizing pre-sociological writings in Latin America, Ger-mani (1959, 436) also recognized the problems we raised above as obstacle 3:

political and social concerns are present everywhere in the intellectual workof Latin Americans: the key theme of their writings is precisely the concrete,

historical society in which they live and that they feel their duty to transform[] There is only one topic, as it were, and this single theme is the realemancipation of the different countries of the continent, its transformationinto nations with a reality of its own or a being if its own


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He differentiated this early type of proto-sociology from scientific sociology,which tends to adjust itself to the level of international social theory And in sodoing he rejected, as a product of the national sociologies he sought to leavebehind, the distinction between basic and applied research, which is con-

ceived within the tradition of national sociology and it ends with knowledgeof a geographically and historically defined object; this sociography has nointention to contributing to generalizations of the highest level (Germani1959, 451)This is however not to argue that Germanis sociology bears no normative con-sequences or implications In the same sense that Parsons sociology has beenread as an attempt to found a sociological standpoint to describe and assessdemocratic arrangements vis--vis totalitarian regimes (Gerhardt 2002), Ger-manis work refers to the contrast between populism and democracy Indeed,

as an Italian migr who fled Italy and came to Argentina to escape politicaloppression, Germani was deeply influenced by the experience of fascism in hisnative country (Germani 2004) Populism and democracy are for him the nor-mative correlate of the structural distinction between tradition and modernityInstead of formal and well-developed institutional structures, what he foundin Latin America was, as said, a society full of asynchronies His simultaneousstructural and normative account works as follows: if mechanisms of integra-tion are proceduralized and institutionalized so that they correspond to the

populations expectations, democracy can emerge If, on the contrary, suchmechanisms are only partially present or do not exist at all, and yet high expec-tations of inclusion remain in place, the national-populist alternative is likelyto emerge National-populism is thus a functional equivalent to democracy ifand when there is no institutionalized social framework, but it is also a func-tional equivalent to the revolution if and when there is no self-conscious work-ing class Populism is based upon the illusion of mass participation although inreality it fosters a manipulated form of freedom insofar as democratic institu-tions are not able to integrate effectively and meet the demands of a popula-

tion that has already been mobilized (Germani 2004, 100)The theory of institutional asynchrony is Germanis own warning against thedangers of populism On the one side, he suggests that in Latin America noinstitutionalized fascism will arise because there are no fully differentiatedmechanisms of social integration, whereas on the other side he supports thereconciliation between mechanisms of integration and expectations of inclu-sion that in his view are central conditions for a stable democracy Parsons pat-tern-variables are crucially important here because they allow us to interpretconceptually the different motivational orientations of democracy and pop-ulism again, similar to Parsons own analysis of democratic and totalitariansocial orders It is however highly original that Germani analyses a particularregion of modern world society within which formally proceduralized insti-tutions are intertwined with informally-steered processes and decisions Ger-


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mani subsequently tried to construct a theoretical model to comprehend thisnew phenomenon and thanks to his original understanding of the conceptualpair tradition / modernity, his theory of institutional asynchrony, and his theory world sociologyavant-la-lettre , he was able to locate, within a universalistic

theoretical framework, the dualism of institutions in Latin America as much asthe continents particular interaction between democracy and populismb) Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto are regularly considered asmembers of the Latin American school of dependency theory (Heintz 1969;Greve / Heintz 2005) They are regarded in the same movement that wouldinclude Andr Gunder Franks (1987) differentiation between metropolis andsatellite, Franz Hinkelammerts (1970) categories of central economies and bal-anced and unbalanced peripheries, or Ernesto Laclaus (1972) revisiting of thedistinction between feudalism and capitalism To an extent this view is accu-

rate, but we would like to suggest that Cardoso and Faletto represent the mostrefined sociological version of these theories, and that this refinement accordsthem a status of their own in relation to some of this traditions shortcom-ings we briefly reviewed in the previous section It is true that the concept ofdependency plays a systematic role in Cardoso and Falettos classic Dependencyand Development in Latin America (1990 [1969]), but their use of the term hardlyallow us to connect it with orthodox Marxism or indeed with CEPALs writ-ings of the mid-twentieth century According to Cardoso and Faletto, Marxism

ignores the importance of relations of domination at the local level Depend-ency is as much external as it is internal and the foundations of underdevelop-ment lie both outside and inside of Latin America It follows that the distinc-tion between centre and periphery is sociologically insufficient to characterizethe relations between North America, Europe and Latin America as it lacks theadequate means to single out national and international levels In trying to givefull expression to the complexities that characterize any situation ofdepend-ency, Cardoso and Faletto also reject methodological nationalism (obstacle 2):structurally, because the reference point is never the nation-state; normatively,

because they have no obsession for finding the true particularistic communityAgainst CEPALs thought, moreover, Cardoso and Faletto argue that the situa-tion of dependency cannot be explicated only in economic terms The sociologi-cal question is to understand the evolution of this situation of dependency andthey thought that only a historical perspective can illustrate the preconditionsfor dependency to emergeYet dangers of reification remain present in the concept of dependency itselfThis is the reason why, as said, they prefer speaking of a situation ofdepend-ency or situation of underdevelopment in order to avoid its ontologization (Car-doso / Faletto 1990, 22) There are four guiding principles in their approach: thestructural analysis of economic and political relations, the historical analysis ofboth economic and political actors and processes, the assessment of differentactors value orientations, and the observation of all these themes through a


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combination of a national and a global point of view Cardoso and Faletto fol-low Germanis approach in relation to the interplay of traditional and modernforms of differentiation in Latin America, but at the same time they emphasizethat this interplay should be explored with reference to the interaction of social

classes and domination groups at the level of the world society That is, theanalysis should not be restricted to the worldwide structures of the politicaland economic system (Cardoso / Faletto 1990, 144ff) They go as far as to arguethat, in order to define dependency consistently, we should rather be speakingof interdependency (Cardoso / Faletto 1990, 165) Indeed, they strongly denythat the periphery will follow the evolutionary path of the centre

Rigorously put, it is methodologically unacceptable to suppose that indeveloping countries the history of developed ones is being repeated[] neither is it enough to consider their differences in terms of deviationsfrom a general pattern of development, because factors, forms of behavioras well as social and economic processes, which at first sight constitutedeviant or imperfect forms of actualization of the classical pattern ofdevelopment, must rather be considered as the centre of analysis that willmake intelligible the socio-economic system (Cardoso / Faletto 1990, 33)

They are thus explicitly against obstacle 1 Latin America is not an incompleteform of modernity, but a complex composite of differing vectors that need tobe analyzed through the sociological category of a situation of dependency

They also draw a clear distinction between political and theoretical interestsand possibilities: we do not fall for the vain expectation of trying to delimittheoretically the probable course of future events Rather than on theoreticalprognosis, this shall depend on collective action which, guided by a politicalwill, shall make feasible what structurally is barely possible (Cardoso / Faletto1990, 166) The authors point beyond the methodological problems of obsta-cle 3 and dissociate themselves from the Marxist revolutionary solution, whichcombines voluntarism and populism since relations of domination remainstructurally anchored in the evolution of Latin America as much as of modernworld society itself Yet they remain committed to the normative assessment ofproblems in a universalistic fashion and are prepared to criticize the objectify-ing consequences of development for individual as well as collective autonomyIn their own words:

In the conditions of Latin America, this process [of development], even ifit is true that it produces economic growth, urbanization and welfare, itredefines but does not remove indeed, in some cases even worsens theexistential, social and economic problems of the majority of the population

They the people are seen as a resource for capital accumulation ratherthan as a real potential for the creation of a model of society based on theirown interests (Cardoso / Faletto 1990, 194)


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The conclusion is similar to Germanis: Latin America is not essentially differ-ent from the rest of the world so its trajectory within modernity needs to beaccounted for in its own terms Latin American modernity is a dynamic result actualized and condensed at a regional level of historical, normative and

evolutionary processes within modern world society This is what can be calledthe Latin American path through modernity

III

Whereas in section I we showed how Latin American social thinkers interpretedthe region from restrictive notions of progress, exclusive communitarian posi-tions as well as actors particular interests, in section II we revisited some alter-

natives to the obstacles: Latin American as a regional concretization of globalstructures and normative principles Now we are interested in offering, ratherbriefly, an alternative account of the Latin American path through modernitywhich we think point towards overcoming the epistemological obstacles Werequire of a distinction that is abstract enough to see what makes Latin Ameri-can modernity, simultaneously, modern (universal) and Latin American (par-ticular) This is the distinction between universalism and particularismOur starting point is located firmly within the tradition of sociological the-

ory because it is there that we found the unremitting commitment to give anempirical description as well as a normative assessment of modern society,both of which point towards striking the balance between particular histori-cal and regional trajectories vis--vis modernitys global vocation and reach(Chernilo 2007a; 2007b; 2009; Chernilo / Mascareo 2005) Descriptively, mod-ern world society can then be defined as functionally differentiated in the sensethat functionalist thinking from Spencer via Durkheim and Parsons to Luh-mann has given to the notion (and which in the previous section we equallyfound in Gino Germanis work) As it points towards the rise of modernity in

terms of societal systems that move beyond the actors control and best inten-tions, the theorem of functional differentiation gives the opportunity to con-ceptualize truly global social process in relation to the different ways in whichpeople depend upon, adopt and react to different societal rationalities (legal,economic, political, intimacy, scientific) and thus recreate them institutionallyin a number of different ways Conversely, as the normative correlate of thisdepiction, we should like to construe a universalistically oriented standpointthat seeks to justify what is preferable not for one or another particular com-munity but for the human species as such This kind of claim to universalism,which can of course be traced back to the critical theory of Marx (1978) butalso to Kants (1999) own categorical imperative and cosmopolitan writings, isnow best represented in some of the so-called cosmopolitan social theory ofthe past two decades; most notably but by no means exclusively in the work of


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Jrgen Habermas (1998; 2001; 2006; also Fine 2007; Turner 2006 as well as ourdiscussion of Cardoso and Faletto above)These two traditions, with their different yet never exclusive emphases ondescription and normativity, may come together with universalism as a regula-

tive principle that, although it can never be fully achieved in practice, it remainsclosely tied to process of functional differentiation Cosmopolitan normativeprinciples of human liberty, dignity and equality, as anchored in political cit-izenship and the rule of law, are key institutions of modernity Fixed at thesemantic level and embedded in structural political and legal operations ofmodern world society, these institutions avoid that individual experiences andactions are caught up in the communicative networks of the nation-state, onthe one side, and push them to consider that there is always an alter-ego whois an equal subject with the same fundamental rights, on the other (Luhmann

1999) From this perspective, the achievements of modernity are threefold: theconsolidation of a semantic of individuality, individual freedom to communi-cate across different systemic contexts, and a set of reasons for maintaining asufficiently flexible structure that is able to support individuality and freedomto communicate among individuals Fundamental rights are thus an institu-tional construction of modernity that combines differentiated moral, legal andpolitical communications in order to preserve the constitutive differentiationof the whole order in face of dangers coming from system division and the

reciprocal interdependencies tied to it (Luhmann 1999, 71-72) They are anevolutionary and co-original accomplishment of functional and normativeoperations that produce a mutual and reflexive regulation of social order Evenbeyond the philosophical, socio-scientific and legal-dogmatic significance offundamental rights as natural or human rights, argues Luhmann (1999, 72),it makes sense to consider liberty and dignity as pre-state legal goods Thisis why they may be also seen as regulative principles, in this case of functionaldifferentiation, and simultaneously emerging from it They provide the specifi-cally modern moral justification to preserve the access of each individual to the

outcomes of functional systems, on the one hand, and to defend differentiationagainst the risks of political power centralization, on the otherThe logic of functional differentiation and cosmopolitan principles are estab-lished beyond and underneath particular preferences: beyond, because func-tional differentiation and cosmopolitan principles have become indissolublycombined with each other along the evolutionary process of modernity; under-neath, because the universality of functional differentiation and cosmopolitanprinciples is the condition of possibility for the emergence of these particularpreferences Their interconnections, as constitutive orientations of modernity,simply cannot be undone without damaging all major institutional arrange-ments that have made modernity what it is: the modern state, capitalism, therule of law, scientific innovations, human rights and so on Their actualizationis however never mechanical but depends upon the way in which particular


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actors in particular circumstances are able to come to terms with these evo-lutionary trends Free-trade can be treated with hope or suspicion, the habeascorpus defended or disregarded, human rights can be violated and defended inthe same instance As a description, then, we witness the tension between the

globally extended structures of functional differentiation vis--vis a multiplicityof historically and regionally situated institutional orders Normatively, there isthe ambivalence between the universalistic foundations of key modern institu-tions such as citizenship, the rule of law and human rights and the particular-istic, pre-conventional and conventional, norms of different communities andactors In both cases, we are forced to recognize the fact that we all belong tothe same human species and live in one single society When theoretical expla-nation and normative assessment remain distinct yet linked as two sides of thesame account, we are in a position to say that it is from this interplay between

universality and particularity that the different (regional) paths followed bymodern world society have crystallizedThe idea of different paths through modernity is of course nothing new to thesociological tradition (Moore 1973; Huntington 1966; Therborn 1995; Waller-stein 1995; Hefner 1998; Mouzelis 1999; Jepperson 2002; Japp 2007) WithinLatin American sociology, it is Jorge Larran (2000, 19) who has most consist-ently pursued this argument: It is frequently believed that modernity is anessentially Western European phenomenon, and it is forgotten that its very

globalizing tendency makes it expand all over the world, thus forcing it to con-nect with different realities and to acquire different configurations and trajecto-ries Larran distinguishes five historical paths through modernity: the NorthAmerican, the Japanese, the African, the European, and the Latin AmericanBuilding upon this perspective, we should now like to offer an argument on theLatin American path through modernity which, with the help of the function-alist and critical traditions mentioned above, may allow us to grasp the tensionbetween universality and particularity in the regionIn its original, systems theory has argued that the result of the evolution of

functional differentiation can be described as a polycentric society (Luhmann1997; Willke 1993; Stichweh 2000; Schimank 2007) Functional systems operateautonomously from, and yet coupled with, each other Systems theory rejectsthe idea that modern society has a center (Luhmann, 1987) and we have else-where discussed extensively the implications of this for Latin America (Mas-careo 2000; 2003; 2004; 2007a; 2007b; Mascareo / Mereminskaya 2005; Cherni-lo / Mascareo 2005) The main argument deriving from these considerations isthat, in this region, the evolution of functional differentiation adopts a concentriccharacter thanks to the primacy of the political communications over the othersocietal spheres Understood as a generalized symbolic medium of communica-tion, power has been able to exercise an extra-political influence during most partof Latin American evolution and could expand its preference criteria and selec-tivity to other social systems These episodes of de-differentiation can be described


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Obstacles and Perspectives of Latin American Sociology

as systemic interventions which, although they preclude the strictly autonomousfunctioning of any system, remain unable to encompass fully, spatially and tem-porarily, the other systems At the structural level, this means a tension betweenpolitical communications and the specific rationality of other social systems,

whereas at the normative level it implies a serious contravention of fundamentalrights, which in modern society contribute to the preservation of differentiation(Luhmann 1999, 72) Or, to phrase it in Habermas preferred (1998, 189) formu-lation, human rights have the rare quality of operating simultaneously as moralnorms and enacted law: as constitutional norms they enjoy positive validity,but as rights possessed by each person qua human being they are also accordeda suprapositive validityThis particular extra-political dissemination of power takes place in LatinAmerica for two reasons Firstly, because the transformation of colonial hier-

archies into modern political hierarchies did not take place against an autono-mous legal framework that could have set limits to political interference Ratherthe opposite, politics was able to instrumentalize, at least to an importantextent, the legal system in order to accomplish its particular ends (Mascareo2004; Mascareo / Mereminskaya 2005; Neves 1992; 2007) Secondly, there isthe presence of informal networks organized around stratified and reciprocitycriteria in different particularistic ethical communities Through mechanismssuch as personal influence, corruption, coercion and violence, and by means

of a strategic positioning of key (informal) actors in (formal) political positions,the inclusion of members was sought, and often achieved, at the institutionallevel Historically, this finds expression in nineteenth-centurys caudillismo(Rozas in Argentina, Porfirio Daz in Mxico); twentieth-centurys populismo(Ibez in Chile, Pern in Argentina, Vargas in Brazil, and now Chvez in Ven-ezuela) as well as in current clientelismo practices (Pritzl 1997; Mascareo 2000;2005; Mascareo / Mereminskaya 2005)Normatively, this feature of the Latin American political system has impliedthat particularistic interests have prevailed over universalistically-grounded

democratic principles In this sense, social inclusion tends to become a matterof mechanical and non-reflexive adjustment of actions and expectations to theconventional and pre-conventional normative prescriptions of informal net-works She who does not share such particularistic prescriptions is excludedfrom the (universalistic) distribution of benefits and goods at the institutionallevel The roots of inequality and discrimination in the region, as much as thehistorical skepticism towards democratic principles that may point towards acosmopolitan order, can be traced to this constitutive tensionConcentric functional differentiation in Latin America may well contribute toits deep-seated dynamics of exclusion, but its main source is still found in howinstitutional framework are co-opted by the informal networks of particular-istic communities Interestingly, however, systems have no inbuilt normativemotivation to deny access to benefits and goods to any specific human group


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or community On contrary, as said, the co-original functional and normativeinstitutionalization of fundamental rights must take care of the fact that thesubsystems of society remain available for each other, for only then it is thereciprocal interdependence possible (Luhmann 1999 35) Indeed, functional

differentiation effectively operates under a (cosmopolitan) principle of full-inclusion (Stichweh 2005); it normatively runs against all forms of informal(particularistic) restriction to its outcomes Each member of the human speciesmight enjoy their distributional outcomes:functional differentiation can thus besaid to promote a universalistic cosmopolitan order But problems do arise whenparticular communities establish particular normative conditions and mecha-nisms to restrict such access A gap then widens between the cosmopolitanprinciple of full-inclusion and the prescriptions of particularistic regimes orcommunities

Informal networks of stratification and reciprocity operate not only in relation topolitics but also in close contact with formal procedures in all functionally dif-ferentiated systems From the actors point of view, the problem is particularlycomplicated because their decisions need not only be processed by the formalprocedures of functionally differentiated institutions but, equally frequently, theymust successfully filter through key informal networks Decisions are thus caughtin a double uncertainty: the cognitive uncertainty of the outcome of the formalprocedure itself, and thefactual uncertainty that takes place when these decisions

are translated into actions by informal networks Formal decisions are unable tofulfill expectations because when informal networks change or reject them, theydo so on the basis of their own particularistic interests and normative expecta-tionsThe coupling of formal and informal procedures turns decisional situations intoparadoxes Informal action must employ mechanisms of influence (violence,coercion, or even money) to become a formal procedural decision Its originalinformality is then erased or at least covered up as soon as it begins actingwithin the framework of the proceduralized institutions of functional differentia-

tion Corruption cases are a good example because by means of bribes or per-sonal influence (coercion, family networks) different kinds of formal procedural-ized outcomes, like legal or political decisions, are obtained by the members ofthese informal For the network itself this constitutes a reward; yet as long as theformally intervened institution remains unable to distinguish the presence of thisinformal payment or influence, these legal or political decision seem to have suc-cessfully obtained as a result of its own formal rules (legal validity in the case oflaw system, democratic legitimacy in the case of political system): the system oper-ates informally but with a veil of formality At the structural level, Latin Americaconfronts thus multiple episodes of de-differentiation For actors, it becomes acompulsion to joining the informal network in order to fulfill the expectations ofbeing included in the distribution of outcomes of functionally differentiated insti-tutions (in health, education, law or even in the labor market) At the normative


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level, we find semantics of full-inclusion promoting a quasi-cosmopolitan orderalongside of those that emphasize all kinds of particularistic justifications againstsuch principlesThe Latin American path through modernity can thus be described, historically,

structurally and normatively, as a tense interplay between formal procedures ofthe universally extended functional differentiation and its (cosmopolitan) post-conventional normative criteria, on the one hand, and the informal mechanismsof inclusion of historically and regionally situated social networks with theirparticularistic conventional and pre-conventional standards, on the otherUnder these conditions, power and the political system more generally haveplayed a key role in the construction of Latin Americas institutional framework sometimes by promoting its proceduralization under universalisticdemocratic principles, sometimes by capturing the state with the normative

worldviews of particularistic ethical communities (creoles, indigenous socialmovements, national-populist ideologies, Catholic groups, entrepreneurialbourgeoisies and even the working classes)

IV

If we take the end of the colonial phase as an indicator of the consolidation

of functional differentiation worldwide, and the United Nations Declarationof Human Rights as expression of the opening of a cosmopolitan order, thesemid-twenty century events that point to the definitive constitution of modernworld society coincide with the now classics works of Germani, Cardoso andFalleto From then on, a wide variety of scholarly discussions have taken placeon the nature of globalization and the emergence of world society (Albrow1996; Beck 2000; Castells 1996; Luhmann 1997; Habermas 2001; Stichweh 2000;Willke 2007) In our own view, modernity can be seen as structurally guided byprocess of functional differentiation and normatively oriented by cosmopolitan

principles We have argued that this by no means implies the homogenizationof the world society, for the expansion of functional differentiation and cos-mopolitan principles constantly meets structural and semantic particularisms,which in turn allow us to speak of regions of world society and consequently oftrajectories or paths through modernity But this is of course not the only wayof looking at these phenomena Theories that can be grouped as postcolonial orsubaltern studies even if to an extent they are critical of the terms themselves hold that European modernity has sought to exert homogenizing influencesover world society not only through neo-colonialism and globalization but alsoin terms of epistemic patterns ie, through the constant making and remak-ing of categories that were first developed in Europe (Bhambra 2007; Connell1997; 2007) In addition to being technological, economic or even military, itseffects are equally felt ontologically as these disciplines ushered in, from its


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their very inception, as a description of modernity in terms of the distinctionwest / rest (Hall 1996; Said 1978) Rather the opposite, postcolonial theoriesargue that the world is best characterized as a place of cultural hybridization(Pieterse 1995) In this context, hybridization means the emergence of a het-

erogeneous culture which expands itself through diffuse social networks andwith no clearly identifiable boundariesPostcolonial theories are quite right in considering the relevance of what wewould call the symbolic interpenetration of cultures in the modern world soci-ety (Mascareo 2007b; 2008), but, as Srgio Costa put it in relation to J NPieterses notion of cultural hybridization, symbolic interpenetration doesnot take place in the air: Essentially, the author looks for a plural conceptof modernity and culture without actually considering the variety of moderndynamics of production and reproduction (Costa 2007, 109) As said, in our

approach these dynamics of production and reproduction have to do with howthe structural and normative properties of modernity (functional differentia-tion and cosmopolitan principles) interact with regional institutional develop-ments and local agencies to configure different trajectories through modernityA continuous interplay between these levels is what produces not only sym-bolic interpenetration but also structural interconnections of local patterns ofaction and worldwide operating functional systemsIn connection to this continuous interplay between global trends and local or

regional agencies, a renewed assessment of Latin America can be witnessedin recent years Even if this is still an emerging trend, we are able to identifythree main thematic fields and we should like to discuss them briefly as away of conclusion to our piece: a) issues related to transnational contexts ofagency, b) the analysis of a peripheral modernity, and c) debate on citizenshipand democracy in Latin Americaa) With the category of transnational contexts of agency (transnationale Han-dlungszusammenhnge) Brazilian sociologist Srgio Costa seeks to overcometwo problems of current theories of modern society: the tendency to reduce

multiple social processes to a single dynamic and, implicit into it, the view thatthere is a final stage in modernity be that reflexivity (Giddens), world citi-zenship (Habermas), hybridization (Pieterse) Arguably, Costa rejects neitherthe normative aspiration of these viewpoints nor their explanatory power incertain circumstances, but he does question its universal applicability withoutconsidering the particularity of transnational contexts of agency; that is, thediscourses, actors and structures of action, which specify themes, aims andstrategies of action beyond the limits of the nation-state (Costa 2006; 2007,134ff) In this sense, transnational contexts of action de-center sociology bothmethodologically and epistemologically Costa analyzes this in relation to themestiagem in Brazil (Costa 2007)In our own view, transnational contexts of agency are a key to understand-ing how regional social constellations interact with the pressures of functional


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differentiation and cosmopolitan principles, on the one hand, and how theseregional constellations may also promote social transformations at the globallevel with consequences beyond the context of agency within which they wereborn, on the other The struggles for recognition of indigenous people are a

good example of this two-way street They emerge as responses to old coloni-alist pressures in different contexts of action and produce legal consequencesin international global law and politics which, in turn, affect the national legal-political systems and subsequently change the contextual conditions for agentsthemselves (Rodrguez 2005) There is no teleological necessity of modernityhere, but as soon as global structures and normative principles are relativelystabilized, it becomes increasingly difficult for each region and context ofagency of world society to act as if these structures and principles do not existIt is in order precisely to account for this that different paths through moder-

nity do in fact emergeb) Marcelo Neves analyses of peripheral modernity reveal the complex rela-tionships between global trends, regional institutional developments and localagencies By looking in great detail to the empirical case of Brazil, Neves holdsthe view that the functional differentiation between law and politics is crossed-over by political operations (local interests, traditional institutions), with theconsequence that no autopoietic functioning system of law can be identifiedin conditions of peripheral modernity The system of law system operates allo-

poietically (Neves 2007), and the Constitution, which represents the milestoneof the rule of law, becomes an instrument of political-ideological preferencesNeves coined the notion of symbolic constitutionalization to characterize thisprocess (Neves 1996) A peripheral modernity is thus a region of world societywhere the rule of law hardly ever functions as it is expected, a process whichhas substantive effects for the whole organization of this regionNeves shows the drama behind the de-differentiation problems between lawand politics which characterize Latin America This is a major contribution tocontemporary Latin American sociological theory as it underscores the inter-

play between functionally differentiated expectations and local or regional con-texts of agency This interplay produces episodes of de-differentiation On theone hand, there are mainly political interventions into operatively closed sys-temic that affect their autonomous functioning On the other hand, this doesnot preclude the emergence of structural couplings between systemic commu-nications, for instance, in tribunals, contracts, bureaucracies, political elections,taxation policies and human rights legislation To that extent, we prefer notto speak of an allopoietical region or indeed of a peripheral modernity but, asargued above, of a region where expectations of differentiation or integration(de-differentiation) interact in a variety of institutional frameworks and waysfrom which, once again, a path through modernity can be said to be emergingc) Last but not least, Jos Maurcio Domingues has no reservations in speak-ing of modernity in Latin America and he does so beyond any dogmatic or


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reified way In fact, instead of multiple, alternative, or entangled moderni-ties, he would rather speak of modernity as a heterogeneous global civilization(Domingues 2008, 128) After a detailed account of the struggles for rights andjustice in the region, the consequences of economic globalization and the plu-

ralization of social life, Domingues argues for a conception of modernity as aopen-ended process, in which however some themes are played out, insti-tutions persists in some basic ways, and the imaginary retains a number ofcharacteristics that define whether a social formation falls within the boundsof modernity concretely or at least as an aspiration and as its subjective tel-eological horizon (Domingues 2008, 126) Latin American modernity is forDomingues one of several regionalized space-time constructions of the mod-ern world best defined as uneven, combined, contradictory and peripheral inan economic sense (structural level) but at the forefront in terms of emancipa-

tory movements and potentials as singled out by his notion of collective sub-jectivities (normative level)From our own perspective, Domingues speaks clearly of a Latin Americanpath through modernity Normatively, a great deal of creative possibilitiesfor the concretization of universalistic cosmopolitan principles, ranging fromindigenous, worker, popular, feminist, youth, gay and ecological movementsall they way up to formal democracy, are encountered through the last dec-ades in Latin America At the structural level and we say this with no ideo-

logical consideration whatever Latin American economic institutions are aspart of the world economy as any other region of the world so its depiction asperipheral is somewhat misleading Free trade agreements, financial markets,international commercial arbitration, foreign investment, transnational organi-zations, and commercial supranational corps are part of everyday economic lifein Latin America regardless of whether actors like them, have any controlover them or are even aware of them But rather than seeing this as an exampleof peripheral modernity, we prefer to understand it, using Domingues ownterms, as a trait of the combined and contradictory path through modernity of

Latin AmericaAs we review the obstacles and perspectives of Latin American sociology, clas-sic as much as contemporary, we locate our own contribution within that trendthat has sought to grasp the key features of Latin American modernity beyondrushed abstract generalizations and nave kinds of particularisms From the very early days of nineteenth-century proto-sociological writings, goingthrough the semi-sociological essays of the first half of the past century andthe disciplinary efforts for consolidation during its later part, a good deal ofLatin American sociology has understood the universal as a horizon that mustbe rejected on the basis of political emancipation, moral conventionalism orethical prescriptions We have tried to observe the strengths and weaknessesof sociological reflections in and on Latin America to recover certain histori-cal tends and conceptual tools which, combined with some developments of


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contemporary sociology, may shed some light for a better understanding of ourcurrent global modernity and the Latin American path through it

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ding, migration and the social sciences Global Networks 2, 4, 301-334

Aldo Mascareo PhD / Daniel Chernilo PhD

Departamento de Sociologa, Universidad Alberto HurtadoAlmirante Barroso 6, Santiago de Chileamascaren@uahurtadocl / dchernil@uahurtadocl

Documents

2009, Mascareño-Chernilo SS