Dimensions of development, socio-economic development, and domestic political instability

Purpose The purpose of this thesis was to determine the relationship between political development, socio-economic development, and domestic political instability in Latin America for the years 1960, 1963, and 1966 in order to contribute to a theory of Latin American political development. Methods The goals of this studywere accomplished through the following methods: (1) after examining the analytical literature on political development, indices of political and socio-economic development and domestic political instability were constructed; (2)correlation coefficients were computed among the political, socio-economic, and instability variables to determine interrelationships; (3) image factor analysis was performed to determine the dimension of development; (4) component factor analysis was applied to the data in order to reduce the development variables to a set of uncorrelated factors for multiple regression; and (5) multiple regression analysis was employed in order to predict political development from socio-economic development and instability, and instability from political development and socio-economic development. Findings 1. Political measures of integration, participation, and national finances were associated with socio-economic measures. Theoretical political measures, such as differentiation, showed a weak relationship with socio-economic measures. 2. Political measures of integration, participation, and national finances were associated with instability measures. Theoretical political measures, such as differentiation, were noticeably related to instability. 3. Only socio-economic measures of domestic wealth or economic industrial infrastructure were associated with forms of instability. 4. This study found that political development and domestic political instability in Latin America evolved around “citizenry awareness.� The research did not generate a specific theory of Latin American development, although it moved in the direction of improving a theory of development.