SUMMARY The author carries out a comparative analysis ot the ways in wich the technobureaucracy has gained (or is gaining) power in the various countries ot Latin America. An element which all the individuai national experiences have in common has been a progressive increase in the areas of responsibility and the activities of the state, and hence of its power. From bein a simple guardian ot the interests ot the old land-owning and commerciai oligarchies, it has become, with the passage ot time, an autonomous torce, a centre ot socio-economie power and a privileged mediator in international relations. Technobureaucratic power has gone about deveioping itselt in Latin America by means ot just such an extension ot the area ot state influence. In Europe and in the USA an analogous phenomenon has occurred as a consequence ot economie development becoming too complicated to be controlled on purely private terms. In South America, however, technobureaucratic power has taken on the role ot the «motor» ot development, presenting itselt as the sole torce capable of coping with the requirements ot economie take-off and industrialisation. The generally authoritarian political form assumed by Latin American states is the most functional with regard to the nature of technobureaucratic power and to the necessity tor a rapid exit trom phase of backwardness and underdevelopment. The author examines the social origins of the technobureaucratic classes ot Latin America, their relationship to the so-called « middle classes », and the various tunctions they develop as such. He emphasizes the decisive role played by the Armed Forces in this process, whether as supreme arbiters between the various torces which are contending tor the control ot the state apparatus, or as sole trustees ot power. The presence within them of technocrats (senior officers and generals) capable ot carrying out managerial and not merely bureaucratic-executive tunctions, has made them particularly well-suited to tunction as the central motor of technobureaucratic evolution. The article ends with a review ot the different Latin American states, in which the individuai characteristics ot each national technobureaucracy, the specific nature of their power, and the historial means by w11ich such power was formed and consolidated, are considered. RESUMEN El articulo realiza un analisis comparado de las modalidades traves de las cuales la tecnoburocracia ha conquistado (o va conquistando) el poder en varios paises de America Latina. Un elemento comun a todas y a cada una de las experiencias nacionales ha sido el progresivo aumento de la competencia y de la actividad del estado y, por lo tanto, de su poder. Este, de simple guardian de los intereses de la vieja oligarquia terrateniente y commerciai, se ha convertido, con el paso del tiempo, en una fuerza autonoma, motor de ini82
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