Political Science and Latin American Studies: Patterns and Asymmetries of Research and Publication

Abstract

“Scholars and intellectuals, like human beings in other walks of life, need to interpret and come to grips with the crises plaguing the contemporary global political and social system. Indeed, their obligation to do so may be a particularly special and important one.” This credo might properly be etched on the minds of all those who study the politics of Latin America. Scholarship is not restricted to an academic preserve in which the principal, even sole commitment must be the intellectual task at hand. Rather, the study of Latin American politics requires a heightened sense of self-consciousness, which is linked in turn to the parameters and strictures of the several professional disciplines involved.