Political Change in Guatemalan Indian Communities

The international tensions produced in our world by the drive of the so-called under-developed societies to catch up economically with the industrialized countries of the West have compelled social scientists to focus their attention increasingly upon the social processes which are necessary if this development is to be achieved with a minimum of inefficiency and strife. That aspect of this very broad area which is of greatest concern to political scientists is usually called “political modernization.” One of the most efficient ways to study the process of political modernization is to view it as it operates at the level of the local community. In fact, it might be postulated that in those societies variously called under-developed, traditional, or primitive, it is, in the final analysis, the community and not the nation that most directly participates in this process.