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American Academy of Political and Social Science

Elites in Latin America by Seymour Martin Lipset; Aldo SolariReview by: Nathan L. WhettenAnnals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 374, Combating Crime(Nov., 1967), pp. 234-235Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and Social

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234 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYnuclear capacity of the Western and Sovietblocs and in particular to the strategicplanning of the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization (NATO) powers; the foreignpolicy goals of the various Germanpoliticalparties are soundly tied to their domesticsupport and programs; the influence ofpowerful personalities, like Adenauer,Schu-macher, Strauss, or Erler, on the objectivesof their parties, is well presented. Inshort, one could put together from thisbook a well-documented and suggestive ac-count of the foreign policy of the AdenauerChancellorship.

The author's goals are, however, muchmore ambitious. Foreign policy, Hanriederargues, has usually been analyzed-by sys-tems theorists-either as the product ofthe "internal political processes of thenation-state" or as the playing-out of arole assigned to a nation by the inter-national system; a more comprehensiveanalysis is possible by considering boththe "opportunities and strictures presentedby the nation's external, operational en-vironment, and the internal, psychologicalenvironment of the national system." Theexample of West Germany seems especiallysuitable for this treatment because its for-eign policy choices were relatively limitedand because all German political partiesregarded foreign policy issues as deter-mining the future character of Germansociety.German foreign policy goals during thisperiod were three, the author claims: secur-ity, recovery, and reunification. From thisaxiomatic beginning, he proceeds to con-sider whether the prevailing internationalsystem-bipolarity up to 1955 and "hetero-symmetry" after 1955-favored or opposedthe realization of these goals, and whetherthere was "consensus" on the ends andmeans of foreign policy among the domesticpolitical parties. The analysis of the inter-national system provides many new per-spectives on such issues as the Soviet offerof March 1952 to exchange reunificationfor neutralization of Germany, or the prob-lem of a multilateral nuclear force. Thetreatment of domestic politics is moreconventional. Perhaps the biggest prob-lem, however, lies in the somewhat sim-plistic definition of German goals. It is

doubtful whether reunification was evermore than a pious declaration for internalconsumption. "Recovery" is an inade-quate description of West Germany's eco-nomic miracle or of the forward-lookinggoals of conciliation with France and inte-gration in western Europe. Germany'sgoals were more complex than the author'sframe of reference permits him to believe.F. RoY WILLISProfessor of HistoryUniversity of CaliforniaDavis

LATIN AMERICA

SEYMOURMARTINLIPSETand ALDOSOLARI(Eds.). Elites in Latin America. Pp.xv, 531. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1967. $9.50.This volume is the result of a seminaron Elites and Development in Latin Amer-ica held at the University of Montevideo,Uruguay, in June 1965 under the directionof the editors. Scholars were broughttogether for the conference from variousparts of the Americas. Papers were pre-sented and discussed dealing with the valuesystems in relation to economic and socialdevelopment. Some of the papers wererewritten by the contributors following theconference; others were preparedespeciallyfor this volume. Papers are included byfifteen differentauthors.The work is divided into four parts.Part I, called "Economic Development andthe Business Classes" contains three chap-ters. The first of these, written by Lipset,provides a good introduction to the entirework and deals with "Values, Education,and Entrepreneurship" in which he de-velops the idea that Latin-Americanvaluesare antithetic to the basic logic of a large-scale industrial system. He concludes that"governments and parties which are delib-erately concerned with the need to changevalues must also seek for ways to fosterthe rise of new occupationalstrata to statusand power, and the reduction of the privi-leged position of old power groups, suchas the land-linked traditional oligarchies

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BOOK DEPARTMENT 235who have little interest in economic growth,social modernization, expanded opportuni-ties for talent, or democracy and equality"(p. 49). Other chapters follow on "TheNew Urban Groups: The Middle Classes,"and "The Industrial Elite."Part II, called "Functional Elites," con-tains six chapters as follows: "PoliticalElites and Political Modernization"; "TheMilitary Elites"; "Religious Elites: Differ-entiations and Developments in RomanCatholicism"; "Cultural Elites"; "The La-bor Elite: Is it Revolutionary?"; andContemporary Peasant Movements." Inthe chapter on cultural elites, Frank Bonillawill probably create some thought and con-siderable discussion with his conclusionthat "it seems difficult to build a con-vincing case for the primacy of culturalvalues-concern with creativity or freeexpression-as a distinctive mark of LatinAmerican society. Neither art, science,ideology, nor religion can be said to bedecisive sources of motivation for changenor do they command much power asembodiments of cherished values" (p. 242).Although the chapter on peasant move-ments is an interesting one, it seems curiousthat the tremendous impact of Mexico'sagrarian reform programs are not evenmentioned either in the text or in thereferences.The last two parts of the work deal witheducation. Part III is called "Educationand Elite Formation: The University."It contains four chapters as follows: "Uni-versities and Social Development"; "Rela-tions between Public and Private Univer-sities"; "Political Socialization in Univer-sities"; and "Intellectual Identity andPolitical Ideology among University Stu-dents." All of these chapters are inter-esting and informative. The chapter on theuniversity by Darcy Ribeiro is especiallygood and provides a great deal of insightinto the functioning of the Latin-Americanuniversity.

Part IV deals with secondary schoolsand contains chapters on: "SecondaryEdu-cation and the Development of Elites"and "Education and Development: Opin-ions of Secondary Schoolteachers." This isan important work and will be of interestnot only to scholars but also to laymen

interested in understandingmore fully oursouthernneighbors.NATHAN L. WHETTENDean of the Graduate SchoolUniversity of Connecticut

HAROLDCOURLANDERnd RvMY BASTIEN.Religion and Politics in Haiti. Pp. xvi,81. Washington: Institute for Cross-CulturalResearch, 1966. $3.00.This book is not a single work co-authored by Courlander and Bastien buttwo separate essays, "Vodoun in HaitianCulture" by the former and "Vodoun andPolitics in Haiti" by the latter writer.While there is, unavoidably, a certainamount of overlapping in the two essays,on the whole they complement each othervery well. Both essays are perceptive andilluminating, and together provide an ex-cellent introduction to the subject for onewho, like the present reviewer, starts witha meagerknowledgeof Haiti.The authors devote considerable atten-tion to the West African origins of Vodoun-usually spelled "Voodoo"in nonscholarlyusage-and the gradual modification ofbelief and practice under the influence ofFrench Catholic culture in the West Indies.However, Vodoun has demonstrated re-markable tenacity in its hold on the massesand has had to absorb relatively little fromCatholicism. Sometimes Catholic prayersare used in a service for the dead or insome other ritual. "Beyond these elements,

and the fact that saints are invoked amongthe loa, there is little in the Vodoun serviceto remind us that Vodoun and Catholicismhave lived intimately side by side for cen-turies" (p. 15).Vodoun was intimately involved in earlyrevolts of the Negro slaves against theirFrench masters. In 1791 a general up-rising was led by a powerful Vodoun priestnamed Boukman, who first gathered hisfollowers in a forest, sacrificed a pig andmixed its blood with gunpowder, and dis-tributed the mixture to his rebel band tostrengthen its will to win. While Boukmanwas soon killed, the revolt under moresecular leadership eventually led to theindependenceof Haiti.The relative weakness of Catholicism is