Problematizing lineages: simultaneity and divergence between dependency theory and world-system analysis

Abstract

This article is an exercise in intellectual history whose objec-tive is mainly to reveal the almost simultaneous origin be-tween dependency theory in Latin America and world-systems analysis in the United States since the second half of the 1960s. Here we offer in great detail and textual evidence the reasons why the world-system perspective (before having been baptized as such) is not a mere US-American (or “grin-go”) copy of dependency theory. This will be addressed, first of all, with an analysis of the “formal” aspects in the main dependency works—Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina (1969), by Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Fa-letto; Dialéctica de la dependencia (1973), by Ruy Mauro Ma-rini; and El capitalismo dependiente latinoamericano (1974), by Vania Bambirra—through the theoretical, methodological and epistemological lenses of the essay “The Comparative Study of National Societies” published by Terence K. Hop-kins and Immanuel Wallerstein in 1967 regarding the VI World Congress of Sociology in 1966 in Evian (France). Sec-ondly, we will delve into the “substantive” aspects—that is, the methodological as well as epistemological discrepancies—between both approaches. Although they are not completely antagonistic, we want to make it clear, on the basis of their methodological and epistemological foundations, not fully discussed until now, that the lines of research in dependency theory and in world-systems analysis have divergent implica-tions.

Keywords

• dependency theory; world-systems analysis; epistemological
• theoretical
• and methodological divergences; formal aspects; substantive aspects.