Past and Present Trends in Research on Latin American Politics, 1950-1980

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.