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Local and global communications in Chilean social science: Inequality and

relative autonomy
Claudio Ramos Zincke
Current Sociology 2014 62: 704 originally published online 24 February 2014
DOI: 10.1177/0011392114521374

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521374
research-article2014
CSI0010.1177/0011392114521374Current SociologyRamos Zincke

Article CS

Current Sociology

Local and global

2014, Vol. 62(5) 704­–722
© The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permissions:
communications in Chilean sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0011392114521374
social science: Inequality and csi.sagepub.com

relative autonomy

Claudio Ramos Zincke

Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile

Abstract
This article analyzes the connections of the social sciences in Chile with the knowledge
produced in central countries in comparison to those established within Chile and
with other Latin American countries, paying particular attention to the connections
regarding theory. It is based on content analysis of academic publications, and on social
network analysis applied to a database of more than 20,000 bibliographical references
generated for this research project from the universe of investigations published by
Chilean social scientists over a period of seven years in the first decade of this century,
in journals and books, both in Chile and abroad. The results show that, regarding
international communications, there is a low level of connectivity with other Latin
American countries, but that the communications among Chilean authors are relatively
important and particularly those with a group of local theorists who occupy central
positions in the network. This does not appear to be a pattern of cognitive dependence
although it occurs within the context of a global science that is characterized by a
remarkable inequality.

Keywords
Citation, cognitive dependence, scientific communication, scientific regulation, social
network, social science

Corresponding author:
Claudio Ramos Zincke, Department of Sociology, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Cienfuegos 46, Santiago,
Chile.
Email: cramos@uc.cl

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Ramos Zincke 705

The objective of this article is to analyze the connections of the social sciences in Chile,
a Latin American semi-peripheral country, with the knowledge produced in central coun-
tries in comparison with those established within Chile and with other Latin American
countries, paying particular attention to the connections regarding theory. This is dis-
cussed in the horizon of concerns for scientific regulatory and evaluative mechanisms
and their effects on peripheral or semi-peripheral countries like Chile. Such mechanisms
create a notable separation between central science and marginal science. According to
some authors, together with this separation is established a relationship of intellectual or
cognitive dependency, or a colonialism of knowledge (Connell, 2007; Lander, 2004;
Mignolo, 2003, 2004). However, when the whole of the body of knowledge produced in
the social sciences and the communications established by the scientists of these periph-
eral or semi-peripheral countries are examined – and not merely the sub-set selected by
the devices of the core countries is studied – the situation is more blurred and the depend-
ency relationship becomes much less evident; there is a play of local and global relation-
ships that is much more complex, wherein dependency and autonomy superimpose
themselves. From such perspective, this article seeks to provide some empirical elements
for the discussion of the thesis of cognitive dependence based on the study of the particu-
lar case of Chile.
With that objective, in the following sections: (1) I review the stratified construction
of the social sciences at the international level and the devices that shape it, including the
role of local scientific institutionality and I pay attention to the interpretation made of
this as a situation of cognitive dependence; (2) I describe the methodology used for the
empirical research; (3) I analyze the distribution pattern of local and international com-
munications of the social sciences in Chile, (4) giving special consideration to the con-
nections with theorists; and (5) I arrive at conclusions regarding local and global scientific
communications and the possible condition of cognitive dependence.

Building ‘central science’, the mechanisms for its

production and its effects in Latin America
Science, in all its areas, has had a transnational orientation since its beginnings with
modernity, gathering knowledge from diverse parts of the world and it has claimed the
universality of the knowledge generated – although in practice there has been a clear
predominance of the knowledge originating in the central countries, without a proper
validation in other places of the world. This predominance is strengthened by the pecu-
liar characteristics of the devices employed in recent decades to select and to regulate
scientific production.
Together with the advances made in defining methodological procedures for evaluat-
ing and proving its hypothetical statements, science has had to design institutional mech-
anisms for communicating, evaluating and selecting scientific communications. The first
printed bibliography –a register of about 10,000 books– was made in 1545, and putting
it together took years of work (Burke, 2002). The publication in journals of the results of
scientific undertakings began in 1665. The scientific societies and academies that arose
during the 17th century were crucial for the invention of the scientific journal, the use of
which began to expand as a communication medium in replacement of the letters,

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706 Current Sociology 62(5)

treatises and books which were the common way of communication until then. The first
two journals appeared in 1665, one in England – the famous Philosophical Transactions
– and another in France (Merton, 1973). The generalized practice of using footnotes
comes from the 17th century (Burke, 2002) and only in the 19th century did the format
of scientific papers become more or less established and generally adopted, including the
peer review system and the standardization and general usage of the academic apparatus
of notes and quotes (Merton, 1973). Scientific societies, congresses, academic journals,
the peer review system and bibliographic references are some of the procedures taken for
granted today but that have only gradually been refined and stabilized over four
centuries.
Following the Second World War, at a time of tremendous growth in scientific activ-
ity, a last great device appeared that would have powerful effects on the structure of
global science in the decades to come: the bibliometric register of articles and authors,
and of the quotes that refer to them in a body of journals selected as being the best
known. It is a device supported by the mechanisms already operative in a scientific jour-
nal, particularly the bibliographical references and the peer review procedure, and by a
prestige structure that had taken form and was recognized in some fields of science.
There were several other trials attempted previously, but the Scientific Citation Index
(SCI), developed by Eugene Garfield in the US, finally imposed itself around 1961. It
was based on an automated procedure that does away with human classification, and was
managed by a private institution with commercial aims, the Institute for Scientific
Information (ISI). Originally concentrating on the biomedical field, it rapidly expanded
to involve other disciplines, and in 1972 the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)
appeared. Garfield’s institute would be bought in 1992 by Thomson Business Information
(now Thomson Reuters), another private and multinational corporation, based in Canada
and the US, that strengthened the services provided by the index and moved its operation
onto the Internet, multiplying its earnings (De Bellis, 2009). These indexes became the
main tools for regulating science around the world, being the main ways to manage the
relevance of the articles and the levels of prestige of scientists, enjoying an undisputed
preeminence through the end of the 20th century. They are an answer to the enormous
proliferation of publications, which would become unmanageable both for the scientific
community and other users of scientific information if they could not rely on these filter-
ing and ranking mechanisms of published literature.
When these indexes were put together, there was no great effort made to achieve
within them a representation of the various regions of the world. Selection was made
with a view towards the central countries, and particularly from an Anglo-Saxon point
of view. This is reflected in the predominance of the English language: between 1998
and 2007, 94.5% of the articles in the SSCI were written English, and only 0.4% in
Spanish, for example (Gingras and Mosbah-Natanson, 2011). This involves the benefit
of having a lingua franca for science but it has an asymmetrical cost for access (Ammon,
2011). As regards regional representativeness, during the 1970s there was next to no
presence of Latin America or Asia. There was only one journal from Chile among all of
the scientific disciplines. In later years there has been an effort to increase the diversity
of origins, but despite all of that, there is still a great concentration. In 2010, the US and
Europe were the source of 84.3% of all of the journals included in the SCCI, with 49.5%

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Ramos Zincke 707

from the US, 23.7% from the United Kingdom and fewer than 3% from Latin America
(Rodríguez, 2010).
In 2004, the Elsevier publishing company based in Europe (Amsterdam) launched a
new database and citations index, Scopus, which broke the monopoly of the North
American Thomson Scientific.1 At the same time, other more open search engines like
Google Scholar gained relevance. This caused an overall increase of the number of pub-
lications included in these indexes, although Scopus, with its commercial outlook, the
greatest change that produced was the increase in the proportion of European publica-
tions (Guédon, 2011).
These indexes and citation databases that mix the selectivity characteristic of pre-
existent scientific recognition with the selectivity criteria that arise from the geopolitical
and sociocultural positions of those who construct the index, provide orientation for the
searching and reading of scientists and for the making of institutional decisions, particu-
larly those of librarians in purchasing scientific publications (Vessuri, 2008). They gen-
erate a collective ‘Matthew effect’, not only referring to the most visible authors who are
recognized as prestigious, as described by Merton (1973), but also referring to visible
journals recognized as prestigious. As a result of their selection in the index they concen-
trate the preferences for publication and reading, to the detriment of others that are not
included. This produces a massive ratification of the privileged status of these journals.
The initial qualification of the journals is self-validated. Those that are included, and
thereby made visible, are more frequently cited, and those that are excluded and there-
fore less visible do not attract submissions for publication or citations, at least not as a
consequence of the effect propagated worldwide that the index produces. Even more, the
exclusion extends to entire regional clusters of journals and the sub-representation
becomes consolidated, resulting in a configuration of a global science that is markedly
associated with the central countries, particularly the Anglo-Saxon countries, as a per-
formative effect of the mechanisms registering publications and citations. SSCI and
Scopus shape this central science; the very make-up of the devices and the way they
operate cause this shaping to stabilize and reproduce itself.
Since the 1990s, as a reaction against this scientific marginalization, several indexes
and journal databases have been created in Latin America: Redalyc, Latindex and Scielo.
They try to articulate and increase the visibility of the regional production in the social
sciences. Scielo, also including Spain and Portugal, promoted by the Brazilian govern-
ment, is the index that has achieved the greatest recognition from the academic world. In
second place is Latindex, which operates from Mexico and is chosen above all for its
most demanding version: Latindex Catálogo (Guédon, 2011; Rodríguez, 2010).
The scientific institutions in Chile, in the area of the social sciences, have assigned
full validity to the central indexes, especially to the SSCI, commonly referred to as ISI,
and to Scopus, assuming them as objective and unquestionable standards of quality.
Scielo is recognized as belonging to a secondary category and Latindex to a third rank
category. The National Council for Science and Technology (Conicyt), which is the pri-
mary source of government support for research in the social sciences, currently defines
that a requirement for the approval of a research project proposal is the achievement of
at least one ISI publication. In 2007 Conicyt imposed this condition, whereas before it
had only been a recommendation.2 Furthermore, within the competition among social

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Este es el caso de la
revista ‘Estudios
708 según
Públicos’, Current Sociology 62(5)
encuesta aplicada a 37
investigadores
science research projects, operated by Conicyt, researchers receives almost three times
destacados del mundo
as manynacional,
académico qualifying fuepoints for an ISI or a Scopus publication than for a Scielo publica-
tion, points
considerado como lathat are often decisive factors in the overall approval decision. And it is
worthwhile
revista pointing
más valorada. A out that Chile has a very limited number of ISI journals: none in
sociology,
pesar one in en
de este hecho, political science and two in anthropology, which undoubtedly puts
la competencia
pressure on por la to publish abroad. On the other hand, some of the better recognized
people
financiación de
and most
proyectos read journals in Chile are neither ISI nor Scielo indexed. This is the case of
la calificación
Estudios Públicos,
en puntos apenas which in a survey that I applied among 37 outstanding researchers of
the national
recibe un tercio o academic world, was considered to be the most highly valued journal. In
spiteque
menos of this
una fact, in the competition for project funding, it receives a third or fewer points
revista
publicada
than a en revistas in an ISI or Scopus journal.
publication
indexadas en ISI o de
Scopus. Something similar occurs with the evaluations made in the country of the institutional
productivity at universities or other scientific centers.3 The most frequently used indica-
tor for ranking and making comparisons is the number of ISI publications. As a conse-
quence, an increasing number of universities, particularly new private universities,
founded since the 1980s, are now offering economic incentives for achieving that type of
publications, with amounts of money that, in some cases, are close to a month’s salary,
being extremely attractive, given the tight economic situation of scholars in Chile. Some
universities include this kind of incentive for Scielo publications, repeating the stratified
pattern, by offering sums that are between half and one-third of those offered for ISI
articles. Furthermore, these publications, especially those in ISI, are considered to be a
privileged indicator of individual productivity and so they influence professional
advancement. In that way, Chilean scientific institutions themselves, wherein the very
researchers
¿Puede participate,
concluirse ((de promote the reproduction of this stratified structure of a central
lo observado: 91% de highly valued, and a peripheral science.
social science, more
What, then,
los artículos are the
chilenos seeffects of this structuring of global science, and the way of embed-
ding Chilean
registran socialde
en revistas sciences in it? It is clearly a type of communication that has been
Europa y USA))
established on aque
foundation of inequality, for which the rules for the selection of journals
existe una dependencia
are set by scientific regulatory corporations located in the central countries and the selec-
cognitiva o intelectual?
tionesta
¿Es of articles is defined by evaluators who are principally from those same countries.
una cuestión
Local social
de colonialidad delscience competes at a disadvantage, and nor do its local academic institu-
tions stimulate,
saber? En las últimas as we have seen, publication in local journals, no matter how well quali-
décadas
fied theysurge
are. un
pensamiento crítico
When we look at scientific communications from the point of view of the databases
cuyo hilo conductor es
and indexes
la dependencia of centralized science, the following results emerge (see Table 1). Scientific
production in Latin America barely exists for the central countries: Europe and the US
cognitiva o epistémica
make fewer
(Mignolo, 2004),than 1% of their citations to authors from that region. For its part, Latin
el tipo
de conocimiento
America orientates 90.1% of its references to those countries, a situation that is repeated
colonial (Lander, 2004)
in Asia and Oceania. This is to say, if we make an evaluation on the basis of the exchange,
y, en general, en cuanto
althen we have
problema de alas
total imbalance.
Can it be
relaciones centro /concluded from this that there is a cognitive or intellectual dependence? Is
this a matter
periférico en la of coloniality of knowledge? Over the past decades, a thread of critical
generación
thought hasdel appeared regarding epistemic or cognitive dependency (Mignolo, 2004), the
conocimiento (Alatas,
colonial nature of knowledge (Lander, 2004) and, in general, about the problem of the
2003; Burawoy et al,
relationships
2010;. Connell,between
2007; the central and the peripheral countries as regards the generation
Mignolo, 2003, 2004;
UNESCO, 2011).
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 Ramos Zincke 709

Table 1.  The orientation of the social science citations worldwide, 2003–2005 (in the 200
most cited journals, in percentages).

Country or region making the reference

  USA Europe Latin America

Country USA 78.1 47.9 56.2
or region Europe 20.4 50.3 33.9
referred to Latin America 0.2 0 6.9
Rest of the world 1.3 1.8 3.0
  100.0 100.0 100.0
Desde estos puntos
Source: de
SSCI, Gingras and Mosbah-Natanson (2011).
vista, el problema es el
uso excesivo e
of knowledge
inapropiados de (Alatas, 2003; Burawoy et al., 2010; Connell, 2007; Mignolo, 2003, 2004;
categorías UNESCO,
y del juicio2011). From this point of view, the problem is the excessive and inappropriate
teórico y use
conceptual
of theoretical and conceptual categories generated in the central countries, without
generados desde los
países centrales,the
giving sinnecessary
el attention to their coincidence with local realities in the peripheral
countries,
necesario cuidado en and without a local production able to generate its own stream of knowledge,
que taleswhich
juicioscould
o develop a cognitive relation, on an equal standing, with the core countries,
categorías and, furthermore, which could overcome the marginality of autochthonous currents of
coincidan
con las realidades
thought.
locales de los países
Although science supports itself upon a global accumulation of knowledge and has an
periféricos, impidiendo
inherent
generar sus propios pretension of universality, in the social sciences, local references are extremely
important,
flujos locales de in a way that is not present in other scientific disciplines. In this regard, all the
social de
conocimientos; science disciplines involve important and meaningful configurations of knowl-
lograse superar esos
edge associated to local areas (e.g., sociological knowledge about France, political sci-
problemas se podría
desarrollar una relación of certain realities of the United States, and so on). Even in the field of
ence knowledge
cognitiva economics,
de confianza, which certainly has a self-image of being global, some of its theoretical
dando pieconstructs
a igualdadand de statements contain marked national differences, as shown with conspicu-
condicionesousfrente
precision
a losin the study made by Fourcade (2009) that compares the USA, the UK and
países centrales,
France; they, por
flags of the universal nature of knowledge, so ardently waved by economists,
otra parte, generando
cause those
las posibilidades para
differences to pass unnoticed. Such cognitive differences are associated with
the peculiar
superar la marginalidad characteristics of the institutions that deal with the production and transmis-
sion of knowledge, and with their ways of entanglement with the rest of society.
de las corrientes
autóctonas de To analyze the situation of cognitive dependence in a particular country, like Chile,
pensamiento.
my assertion is that it is not adequate to judge the direction of scientific communications
and to ponder the possible cognitive dependence with regard to the central countries by
limiting our observation to what happens in the central indexes and citation databases. It
needs to be taken into account that this Latin American social science, which makes
fewer than 10% of its references to Latin American countries (Gingras and Mosbah-
Natanson, 2011), represents but a small fraction of the social science production in this
region, and that the authors of this group, selected by central indexes, are precisely those
involved in establishing a dialogue with the production of the central countries. So it is
necessary that we analyze what is going on with the rest of the national production.

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 ESO ES LO QUE SE
PRETENDE HACER
710 Current Sociology
EN ESTE 62(5)
ARTÍCULO,
EN EL CASO
CHILENO. ELEGÍ ESTE
That is what I shall do here with regard to Chile. I choose this countryPAÍS to examine
PARA EXAMINAR
ideas about cognitive dependence. In global economic and power relations, IDEASChile,SOBRE LA
although subordinate to core countries, has an intermediate position and has DEPENDENCIA
been consid-
ered a semi-peripheral country (Babones and Alvarez-Rivadulla, 2007). ItCOGNITIVA.
can be sug- EN LA
ECONOMÍA Y EL
gested that the results found regarding Chile could be hypothetically extended SISTEMA to other
DE
semi-peripheral countries, at least from the region, such as Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay.
RELACIONES
I will analyze, then, what direction scientific communications take whenGLOBALES
we base ourDE
analysis on the universe of social scientific production being generated in PODER,
the country,
and how strong the orientation is towards the central countries as opposed toCHILE -AUNQUE PAÍS
the orienta-
SUBORDINADO A LOS
tion towards Chile itself and the Latin American region. PAÍSES CENTRALES-
As part of this analysis and by paying attention to the assertions about TIENE cognitive
UNA POSICIÓN
dependence, I also question what is happening regarding theory. Theory isINTERMEDIAat the very Y HA
center of the making of scientific observation and of the way reality is interpreted and
SIDO CONSIDERADO
explained. So I seek to identify the sources of theory used in the country – inCOMO
terms of UN thePAÍS
SEMI-PERIFÉRICO
theorists referred to by national researchers and with whom they establish a(Babones
dialogue in y Alvarez-
their publications – and who are the most central theorists in the field. At theRivadulla,
same time, 2007). A
I ask if there are local theorists who are relevant within the network of theoretical
PARTIRcon- DE LOS
nections. Once that has been analyzed, the question is what the findings RESULTADOS,
have to say SE
about the eventuality of cognitive dependence. PODRÍA DECLARAR A
CHILE
HIPOTÉTICAMENTE
Methodology COMO EQUIPARABLE
A OTROS PAÍSES
For this analysis of the scientific communications as observed from the Chilean field
SEMIPERIFÉRICOS,
itself, I have taken three basic disciplines of the social sciences: sociology,POR LO MENOS
which has DE
LA ZONA, COMO
achieved notable progress in becoming established institutionally in this country during
BRASIL, MÉXICO Y
the 1960s; political science, at first with strong links with and dependence URUGUAY
upon sociol-
ogy but gradually consolidating its own institutionality since the 1980s; and anthropol-
ogy, which made early progress in the country, at the beginning of the 20th century,
although its institutionalization and development have been slower (Fuentes and Santana,
2005; Garretón, 2005; Palestini et al., 2010; Ramos, 2005; Ramos and Canales, 2009;
Rehren, 2005). Economics was not included because for Chilean scientists, at least in the
period studied, it is conceived as a separated field, whereas sociology, political science
and anthropology are viewed as part of the same field. This is similar in the social sci-
ences of other Latin American countries (Trindade, 2007). The discipline of economics,
with all the complexities involved, would require its own research.
Research into scientific communications has habitually considered only articles pub-
lished in journals, because of their accessibility. This is valid in sciences like chemistry
or biology, where most of the results of research effectively appear in journal articles, but
Con el finin de
theevitar
sociallasciences, the pattern of publications is different. In particular, sociology has
distorsiónbeen a culture
((cuando el of the book, as indicated by Clemens et al. (1995) writing about the US,
análisis and
se limita
thereaare estimates that suggest that ‘between 40% and 60% of the literature of the
artículos)), se incluyen
todos lossocial sciences is comprised of books’ (Archambault and Larivière, 2011: 264). So, in
formatos
order to avoid distortion, I have included all the formats that are relevant to social scien-
relevantes a la difusión
social del conocimiento dissemination in the country: books, book chapters, journal articles and
tific knowledge
científicopublicly available working papers.
en el país:
libros, capítulos de
libros, artículos de
revistas y de
documentos de trabajo Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at University of Lausanne on November 6, 2014
(‘working-papers’)
disponibles anualmente.
 Ramos Zincke 711

I concentrated attention on publications that make up the core of scientific activity:

publications that report research results, which is to say those that involve the generation of
new knowledge through systematic research, empirical or theoretical. Therefore, I have
excluded book reviews and opinion pieces, and texts that do not meet the minimal require-
ments for selection in a social science journal of recognized quality. To select a text, its
author – or at least one of the authors, in the cases of multiple authors – should have under-
graduate or graduate education in one of the three aforementioned disciplines. I included
not only researchers who were Chilean citizens, but also those who were residents in Chile
during the period of study and who were active participants in their disciplines.
The research tried to cover the universe of texts that fulfilled the requirements men-
tioned and that were published between 2000 and 2006. The research team gave special
attention to gathering material produced outside of the central metropolitan region, and
we traveled to regional centers looking for texts. We also reviewed a variety of series of
working papers and institutional publications, both private and public, and from interna-
tional organizations located in Chile, and we requested texts from those researchers who
Usando lamight
lógicahave
de copies of those that we were unable to locate. Regarding publications made
in foreign
análisis de co-citación journals, we reviewed ISI and Scielo social science journals, and looked for
Chilean
consideramos queauthors
una who wrote in them. All of this was a demanding effort made to achieve
conexión aentre dos coverage, so that those texts that were finally not identified nor found would
maximum
autores en temas
teóricos, produce represent a very small fraction of the whole body of work, and there are no rea-
have to
sons for
cuando ambos sonthinking that there was any bias involved in their being excluded; their distribu-
tion must
co-citados en el corpus be random. The final corpus comprised 479 texts.
With2003).
del texto (Gmür, two other researchers, we read each text, reviewed it and made its characteriza-
tion based on a variety of features, one of which, pertinent to this article, was the intended
destination of knowledge. We determined the principal destination for the knowledge
generated considering what was said explicitly in the texts themselves and through infer-
ences based on available data.
Furthermore, we recorded all the bibliographical references contained in each text.
After long and very time-consuming work, we obtained a total of 21,787 bibliographic
references, and we specified all of the characteristics of each one.
Among the references we distinguished those that cite theorists, understood as authors
whose work reaches sufficient levels of abstraction and generalization articulating a
hypothetical argumentation with sufficient coherence, consistency and originality. To
study the connections with theorists and the networks that involve them we applied
social network analysis (Degenne and Forsé, 2004; Scott, 2000; Wasserman and Faust,
1994). Using the logic of co-citation analysis we considered that a connection between
two theoretical authors occurs when they are both cited in the same text of the corpus
(Gmür, 2003).4

Local and global dimensions of social science in Chile

Table 2 presents the distribution of the publications effectively found and studied,
according to discipline of the authors and format of the publication. These figures con-
firm the importance of books in Chile as media for transmitting knowledge in the social
sciences, especially in sociology. This reveals the degree of distortion that may result

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 Del total de los textos
encontrados, sólo el
7,6% se publican en el
712 extranjero. Se podría Current Sociology 62(5)
suponer que, apoyado
en este pequeño grupo,
Table es2.  sobre
Distribution
quienesof publications
se ha by format and discipline (in percentages).
ejercido el impacto de
Format TOTAL Disciplines
los países centrales
definiendo desde ese Sociology Political science Anthropology
7,6 % la agenda local
Journalde
article
investigación. Sólo 42.4 34.0 52.1 53.8
Book orunbook
grupo muy pequeño
chapter 35.9 45.2 23.6 25.5
Workingde paper
estosortextos
similar format 21.7 20.8 24.3 20.8
ubicados en la esfera
  central de la ciencia, 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
ocupan un lugar (479) (268) (165) (106)
relevante en las citas
Note: In some cases, there have been multiple authors and a text was classified in more than one discipline,
nacionales de
so the total of the articles by discipline is greater than the sum of the articles.
publicaciones, mientras
que los otros se
from anlocalizaron
analysis of enpublications
una in the social sciences that does not take this format into
segunda línea de citas y
account. The book
reconocimiento. Por is a cognitive product with manifestly different characteristics and
with capabilities
otra parte, casithat an article has not, that are outstanding in the field of the social sci-
la mitad
ences.deIn los
order
mástofrecuentes
include descriptive stories and explanations of some complexity in
society, with an
autores integrative
citados en el aim, supported by an adequately developed line of argument
país no han publicado
and backed up by a store of empirical material, a journal article is insufficient. There are
afuera de Chile. Es
numerous works in the social sciences that have made considerable impact in Chile that
decir, EN LAS
have been published
CIENCIAS as books. I can mention: Chile: The Anatomy of a Myth, by Tomás
SOCIALES,
Moulian; Chilean Identity, by Jorge Larraín; The Paradoxes of Modernization, by the
EL PRESTIGIO
UNDP; Culture and Modernization
INTERNACIONAL NO in Latin America, by Pedro Morandé; and The
COINCIDE CON EL
Shadows of the Future, by Norbert Lechner. The impact achieved by such works would
PRESTIGIO
be unimaginable
NACIONAL. ALGO
in the format of a journal article. One cannot find journal articles of
comparable
PECULIAR,levels ENTRE
of impact. On the one hand, those formulations are not condensable
into the
LOStight space allowed for an article; and on the other, academic journals in Chile
MEJORES
are of INVESTIGADORES
a very restricted level of circulation within the academy and they are not generally
able toLOCALES QUE from outside academia.
attract a public
APARECEN EN EL
Of the total of the texts found, only 7.6% had been published abroad. One might sup-
CONCIERTO
pose that it is basically over
INTERNACIONAL EN this small group that the central countries would have exer-
cised an
SUinfluence
MAYORÍA in ESOS
defining their research agenda. Of these texts, located in the sphere
of central science, TIENEN
CHILENOS a few also occupied positions of relevance in national publications and
RELACIONES
citations, whereas theCON others were located in a second line of citations and recognition.
On theLASotherINSTITUCIONES
hand, nearly half of the most frequently cited authors in the country have
EN LOS PAÍSES
not been published abroad.
CENTRALES. Por lo That is to say, in the social sciences, international prestige
does not
quecoincide with national prestige. Something peculiar to those who are better
esa condición
playersfacilita
of themantener
international game is that most of them have relationships with institutions
in the contactos
central countries,
personales which
y facilitates their maintenance of personal contacts and a
una presencia física en
physical presence in those countries, and not merely a connection by way of their pub-
esos países, más allá
lished de
writing.
su conexión por
To medio
appraise dethe relative importance of local and global dimensions of Chilean social
artículos
science, the analysis of the distribution of bibliographic references provides us with a
publicados.
measure of the degree of attention that social scientists give to local production of
knowledge – either to the national or to Latin American production – in contrast with

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Ramos Zincke 713

the attention given to knowledge generated in the central countries; this allows us to
determine the direction textual communications take. Thus, we have classified the
21,787 identified references according to the cited author’s country. The categories
applied are: (1) Chile; (2) other Latin American country; (3) the USA (and Canada,
although there are few references to this country); (4) the UK (mainly England ); (5)
France; (6) Germany; (7) Spain; (8) other European country (Belgium, Italy, Poland,
Austria, Sweden, etc.); (9) other country (India, Japan, Israel, China, Australia,
Singapore, etc.); (10) several countries for the same reference or unidentifiable country.
The resulting distribution of the references is presented in Table 3, which also groups
them according to the discipline of the researcher making the citation.

Table 3.  Distribution by country of the bibliographic references, according to the discipline of
the citing author (distribution of the cited authors, in percentages).

Country of origin of Discipline of the citing Chilean author TOTAL

author cited
Sociology Political science Anthropology
Chile 44.6 39.2 43.2 42.6
Other Latin American 10.7 10.2 12.7 10.8
country
USA/Canada 14.1 27.8 11.9 18.5
UK 4.6 6.0 5.3 5.2
France 5.6 2.7 7.0 4.8
Germany 6.3 4.0 4.2 5.3
Spain 5.6 4.5 7.4 5.5
Other European country 3.0 3.8 2.6 3.2
Other country 0.4 0.8 0.6 0.6
Several or unidentified 5.0 1.0 5.1 3.6
countries
TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
(11,582) (7369) (2836) (21,787)

It can be observed that Chilean social science shows a clear local vector: 42.6% of the
references cite Chilean authors and allude to discussions about the country. There is a
clear orientation to the social problems that are of local concern: social inequality, pov-
erty, educational problems, the evaluation of public policy, social movements, gender,
etc. and the knowledge generated has a significant orientation towards local audiences.
If we consider the destination for which the work was intended, apart from the aca-
demic community itself, the other large destination for knowledge is the state. About
40% of all the production of the three disciplines studied has that destination, whether
because of demands coming from the state itself, or because they are the initiative of
other institutions – universities, non-governmental organizations or international
organizations – which seek to influence in the definition of policies, programs or other
governmental decisions. Sociology, particularly, demonstrates a strong connection
with the state apparatus: nearly half of its production is interconnected with the state
or oriented in its direction. Governmental organisms such as the National Institute for

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714 Current Sociology 62(5)

Youth (INJUV) or the National Service for Women (SERNAM) are frequently demand-
ing social science research. On the other hand, 18% of the production is oriented
towards civil society entities (social movements, NGOs, political parties, etc.).
As we see in Table 3, the international or global direction is also very important in the
communications Chilean social scientists made. Particularly important are those com-
munications that have to do with the production of the central countries (42.5% of all the
references), the USA appearing as the main pole of attraction.
Comparing disciplines, political science appears as the most focused on the global
orientation: 48.8% of its references are made to central countries (vs. 39.2% from sociol-
ogy and 38.2% from social anthropology). In this discipline also noteworthy is the
greater relative importance assumed by the US. It is, moreover, the discipline in which
the members have a greater number of publications in foreign journals. Thus, political
science is the discipline that now appears to be the most internationalized.5
The regional dimension – references to knowledge generated within Latin America
– has a reduced presence: only 10.8%. The field of social science in Chile shows little
interest in Latin American production. We do not have comparative information for peri-
ods in the past for Chile, but I would think that the proportion of references made to Latin
America has been decreasing since 1970s, when there was much more attention to the
region. In fact, according to an analysis for the entire region, using the SSCI database,
the citations from Latin American authors to other Latin Americans have been declining
in number: in the period 1993–1995 they corresponded to 11.7% of total citations, while
between 2003 and 2005 this figure dropped to 6.9%, giving way to a greater proportion
of connections with the US and Europe (Gingras and Mosbah-Natanson, 2011).
Regarding the inequality between central science and regional science derived from the
operation of indexing and ranking systems, the variety of forms of pressure and institutional
incentives that place greater value on the central standards determined by ISI and Scopus
have been turning researchers towards the publications that are blessed by said indexes, and
that seems to be setting the future tendency. In the case of sociology, during the decade of
the 1990s the average of ISI publications was 1.5 articles per year (Farías, 2004); in the
period 2010–2012 the rate is 15.3 by year (Web of Science). The Scielo and Latindex
Catálogo publications have also increased in number but well below that rate of growth.
The strong institutional preference for prioritizing ISI publications can increasingly
tilt the balance towards global connections, especially Anglo-Saxon. In fact, in ISI arti-
cles the references to national authors are substantially lower, still much lower than those
in books, book chapters and articles with Scielo or Latindex indexing, or articles without
indexing.
This value given to the central standards, which leads scientists to seek publication at
the international level, especially in English, causing negative impacts on national jour-
nals and the publication of books, is constantly being criticized by scholars and local
authorities, but universities and scientific institutions apply those standards of evaluation
because they are broadly legitimized and have become part of the rules of the game.

The structure of communications with theorists

To investigate the connections with theorists, I began by reviewing the existence of
references to a list of 120 internationally recognized theorists, and found that, from the

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Ramos Zincke 715

total of 21,787 bibliographic references, 10% were referred to them: 11.4% in sociol-
ogy, 7.5% in political science and 10.5% in anthropology.6 There were 50 theorists who
got more than 10 references in the whole field, but in each discipline about 40% of
references were concentrated on five main authors (52.4% in anthropology, 39.9% in
sociology and 37.8% in political science). See Table 4, which presents the 25 most cited
authors in the field.

Table 4.  Internationally renowned theorists most cited in the field (the top 25, in
percentages).

  Author Country Discipline of the citing researcher TOTAL

Sociology Political Anthropology

science
 1 Luhmann, Niklas Germany 11.9 (1) 0.5 13.2 (2) 9.4
 2 Bourdieu, Pierre France 7.0 (3) 1.0 16.5 (1) 6.9
 3 Giddens, Anthony England 7.1 (2) 2.7 7.4 (4) 6.1
 4 Habermas, Jürgen Germany 6.6 (4) 4.4 6.6 (5) 6.1
 5 Beck, Ulrich Germany 6.3 (5) 1.7 3.3 4.8
 6 Foucault, Michel France 2.7 2.4 8.7 (3) 3.5
 7 Touraine, Alain France 4.5 1.5 0.8 3.3
 8 García Canclini, Argentina 3.1 0.2 5.4 2.8
Néstor
 9 Mainwaring, Scott USA 0.1 11.2 (1) 0.0 2.7
10 Weber, Max Germany 2.7 3.7 0.4 2.6
11 Sartori, Giovanni Italy 1.0 5.9 0.0 2.0
12 Bauman, Zygmunt Poland / 2.4 1.5 0.8 2.0
England
13 Huntington, Samuel USA 0.5 6.8 (3) 0.0 2.0
14 Parsons, Talcott USA 2.9 0.2 0.0 1.9
15 Lipset, Seymour USA 0.0 7.8 (2) 0.0 1.8
16 Maturana, Chile 2.0 0.0 3.7 1.8
Humberto
17 O’Donnell, Argentina 0.7 5.6 0.0 1.8
Guillermo
18 Castel, Robert France 1.6 1.0 2.1 1.5
19 Nohlan, Dieter Germany 0.2 6.1 (4) 0.0 1.5
20 Geertz, Clifford USA 1.0 0.0 5.8 1.4
21 Lijphart, Arend Holland 0.1 5.9 (5) 0.0 1.4
22 Martín-Barbero, Spain / 2.2 0.0 0.0 1.4
Jesús Colombia
23 Marx, Karl Germany 1.7 0.7 0.0 1.3
24 Castoriadies, Greece / 1.5 0.5 1.7 1.3
Cornelius France
25 Willke, Helmut Germany 1.9 0.0 0.0 1.2
  (1092) (409) (242) (1743)

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 Entre los teóricos más La ciencia política, en
citados sólo el 12% son cambio, se diferencia
716
de América Latina... notablemente
Current Sociology 62(5) de la
Esta baja cifra… pauta de autores. La
ratificaría un patrón de sociología y la
división delThere
trabajoare strong similarities between sociology and anthropology regarding antropología the son
authors with
((internacional)), esethe highest quantities of citations; of the top five in each discipline, four arepor los "
dominadas
patrón deja Political science, in contrast, markedly differs from that patterngrandes
a los países
matched. teóricos"
of authors.
centrales la producción (Bourdieu, Luhmann,
Sociology and anthropology are dominated by the ‘big theorists’ (Bourdieu, Luhmann,Giddens),
Habermas,
teórica... lo que podría
Habermas,
entenderse como un Giddens), while in political science middle-range theorists are emphasized,
mientras que en ciencia
authors that
patrón cognitivo de are more closely tied to empirical research on the basis of which they estab-
política la influencia se
lish abstract generalizations (Mainwaring, Lipset, Huntington, etc.). Moreover,
dependencia. while en
concentra in los
sociology and anthropology the major countries of origin of the theorists are teóricos
Europeande alcance
medio, autores más
– Germany, France and England – in political science, the USA dominates: the three ligados
estrechamente
most cited authors in this discipline are of US origin. a la investigación
Among the most cited theorists only 12% are of Latin American originempírica, or have had basados en la
prolonged stays in the region and show a close relationship with it: García cualCanclini,
Ellos ((QUIÉNES
Maturana, O’Donnell, Martín-Barbero, Germani, Cardoso, Laclau, and Hinkelammert. GUIDDENS Y CIA?))
llegan a
One of them – Maturana – additionally, is not properly a social scientist and does not
generalizaciones
make a reflection focused on the social reality of Latin America. Laclau,conceptuales meanwhile,
despite being born in Argentina and concerned with the analysis of his native country, Lipset,
(Mainwaring,
has developed most of his work primarily in the central countries. This low figure of 12%etc.). Por
Huntington,
would ratify the pattern of a division of work in which the theory is basically otraproduced
parte, mientras que
la sociología y la
in the teórica
La producción central countries. The theoretical production from the region is antropologíasecondarily en los
reported,
de la región de Américaso that the theoretical connection is primarily established with the central
países coun-
principales de
tries,una
Latina tiene in what could be understood as a pattern of cognitive dependency. origen de los teóricos
importanciaAll of the above notwithstanding, and although the dominance of the central
secundaria, soncountries
europeos -
en esa medida
in termslaof the development of theory in the field of social science is quite clear, Alemania,
a review Francia e
prioridad teórica guarda Inglaterra - en la ciencia
of the national
relación principalmente production permits us to identify a group of Chilean authors who are fre-
política, la EE.UU.
quently cited; and even though they are not recognized as international-level
con los países theorists,
domina: los tres autores
they have
centrales, en lo que developed abstract arguments of some generality that have achieved
mása citados
signifi-en esta
cant level of
podría entenderse diffusion within national borders and additionally extending their
como ideas,son
disciplina in de origen
un patrón cognitivo
some cases, to other Latin American countries. We could say that they areestadounidense.
‘local theo-
dependiente
rists’ or, more precisely, authors doing theoretical work, since they do not focus entirely
on theory and are not generally recognized as theorists. In this group we considered, due
to being the most cited: Eugenio Tironi, José Joaquín Brunner, Norbet Lechner, Tomás
Moulian, Jorge Larraín, Sonia Montecinos, Pedro Morandé, Fernando Robles and Oscar
Godoy, as ranked according to the number of citations.
If we include these authors in the total group of theorists, they receive 16.8% of all
theoretical references. Although a low proportion, it is not negligible and may have influ-
ence in the national process of generation of knowledge. Whether it actually has this
influence or not is the next question, whose answer I seek to advance using network
analysis. I ask, then, how these producers of knowledge, these local theorists, connect
with theorists from the North and how central or peripheral are their positions in the
resulting theoretical network of the field. For this I appeal to the logic of co-citation
analysis. I consider 73 authors, a sum of 64 international and those nine local authors.
The network analysis applied allows identifying a grouping of central authors such as
Habermas, some others at a clearly peripheral position such as Jon Elster, Harold
Garfinkel and Chantal Mouffe, and a third set in an intermediate position, like Norberto
Bobbio or Richard Sennett. At the center are the greatest theorists: along with one of the

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 El análisis de las redes esta condición se repite,
((de co-citación de 73 al hacer el análisis de
autores, 64 de ellos las redes por fuera de
Ramos Zincke 717
internacionales y, las disciplinas: en
locales, los nueve sociología... al igual que
classics – Weber
restantes)) – there is a group of authors
hay un of the asecond
en cuanto los half of the 20th century:
grupo de autores
Habermas, Bourdieu,de Luhmann,
la Giddens andantropólogos,
Foucault. Butentrealso,
los closely intertwined
segunda mitad del siglo que Lechner aparece
with them, are
XX: Habermas,
several of the ‘local theorists’, prominently
como uno de los
Moulian, Larraín, Brunner,
Lechner and Tironi.
Bourdieu Luhmann, Analyzing the networks separately
“brokers” más by discipline, this situation is
repeated: in sociology,
Giddens y Foucault Moulian occupies a position
destacadosof great centrality in the theoretical
network; in political science, Lechner and Tironi have such a position; and in the field of
entrelazados
((INTER-DEPENDIENT
anthropology Montecinos and Lechner are the central authors, constituting Lechner an
ES DE MANERA
exceptional
SIMÉTRICA Y
case of a political scientist cited by the anthropologists, making him one of
theSUPLEMENTARIA))
most prominent brokers in the whole field.
con teóricos
reconocidos localmente:
Conclusions
Moulian, Larraín,
Brunner,
When observed with a global perspective, considering the results of central indexing
platforms, the data reveal a strong divide between central and peripheral social sciences.
However, when the relations between local social science and global science are observed
from the point of view of the local space of a particular dependent and semi-peripheral
country, Chile, the picture is more balanced than when observed from the perspective of
the central indexing devices. One sees a body of social science that deals intensively with
local situations and requirements, with extensive connections among local authors;
although, on the other hand, paying special attention to what central scientific production
could provide.
The great relevance of the references made to the theorists of central countries is
unquestionable and, in that sense, Chile is part, to a large degree, of the international
division of labor, in which theoretical production is being realized principally in the core
countries. Nevertheless, there is also a group of local authors who do creative work
elaborating abstract propositions, of a theoretical nature, referring fundamentally to local
reality, who are frequently cited, and who are strongly intermingled with the interna-
tional theorists (as confirmed by the co-citation analysis). One might say that the use and
assimilation of international theories happens, to a large degree, within this mediating
and translating network. Therefore, to conclude, on the basis of the relevance that the use
of knowledge from the central countries has, that there is a situation of cognitive depend-
ence would be exaggerated or at least an excessively simplified statement. If a central
characteristic of cognitive dependence is to use knowledge that is inadequate for the
local reality, which has the imprint from the central countries, without a filter, translation
or criticism (Alatas, 2001, 2003), it could be argued that within this local circle of theo-
retical development such a creative and adaptive process is occurring. As a matter of fact,
a review of the works of said authors leads us to the conclusion that among them such
translation work – critical and adaptive – is really taking place. These results in the
Chilean case contradict some of the statements made under the idea of cognitive depend-
ence, allowing us to criticize the generalizations made about it and could further discus-
sion of this notion.
An historical review of social science in Chile allows us to confirm that from the
beginning, together with the institutionalization of this way of generating knowledge,
there have been such receptive, adaptive and creative processes (Barrios and Brunner,
1988; Beigel, 2010, 2011; Brunner, 1988; Franco, 2007). The period between 1960 and

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718 Current Sociology 62(5)

1973 is a conspicuous example in this regard, with a significant production of social sci-
ence knowledge, focused on the local reality and with a profuse use of theories coming
from the central countries (Beigel, 2010).7 Around 1980, also, there is a significant theo-
retical elaboration and debate trying to develop ways to analyze the social reality of
Chile under dictatorship. The field of local social science has conserved endogenous
capabilities for generating knowledge, although it is situated within an international
framework of inequality regarding the flow and appreciation of that knowledge.
A matter of concern regarding the observed pattern of global connections is the fact
that the local production is not sufficiently valued and projected on a global level and that
the local institutions do not help to increase its value and international projection, but
rather they place obstacles in the path of its achievement. The problem is this and not the
pronounced utilization of international publications. The central indexes, like SSCI and
Scopus, despite the fact that they began with a definitely local character, referring to
countries like the USA and UK, have defined themselves from the start as global, as
representing a science authentically universal, covering the whole world, whereas, in
contrast, the regional indexes of Latin America, like Scielo and Latindex, are conceived
and projected as local, and are used by the countries of the region – definitely so in Chile
– as second class indexes. In such a way, unintentionally, and despite all of the reiterated
public discourse against the situation of scientific inequality, academic institutions
become an accomplice in maintaining and reproducing the distinction between central
science (coincidental with what is produced in the central countries) and peripheral sci-
ence (correlated with what is produced by the peripheral countries).
Consequently, if there is no change in the central and regional indexation procedures
or in the ranking criteria employed by scientific institutions in Chile, the inequality
between central and peripheral science will remain. On the other hand, the strong empha-
sis given to global science by universities and public funding institutions is a threat to the
current local focus and relative autonomy of the social sciences in this country.

Acknowledgements
I thank Andrea Canales and Stefano Palestini for their valuable collaboration in the research, and
Fernando Valenzuela, Fernanda Beigel and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Funding
This work was part of a research supported by the National Council of Science and Technology of
Chile under Fondecyt grants number 1070814 and 1121124.

Notes
1. For advertising reasons, Thomson currently hosts its products under the name ‘Web of
Science’, and Elsevier under the name of ‘Sciverse Scopus’.
2. The respective fund for scientific research (Fondecyt) was created in 1982 and throughout
its 30 years of existence has financed more than 15,000 projects, from all disciplines, for a
total of about US$1,500 million. The amounts invested have steadily grown since the late
1980s and since 2006 have had an accelerated growth, so that in 2011 the awarded amounts
where three times larger than the 2005 funds. For its part, the policy of putting ISI publica-
tions as the required standard has had its effects: in the late 2000s, the annual number of ISI

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Ramos Zincke 719

publications more than doubled that of the beginning of the decade and in the period 2007–
2011, 23% of all ISI publications in the country came from projects funded by Fondecyt
(Fondecyt, 2012).
3. In Chile there are 59 universities and numerous research centers, however approximately
80% of ISI publications are generated by six universities (Baeza, 2010: 161).
4. We do this from a mode-2 network, of texts and theorists, and then we reduce it to a mode-1
of theorists. For this analysis we have used a variety of software programs: ORA, Ucinet and
Pajek.
5. Additionally, within Conicyt, the political science study group is the group that, for evaluat-
ing researchers, gives more qualifying points to ISI publications, well beyond the points given
to Scielo or Latindex publications.
6. The list of theorists includes producers of grand theory, middle-range theories and theoreti-
cal generalizations. There is no difference between positive and negative citations, since all
involve establishing a connection to the respective author, even if it is only to criticize him.
Moreover, the links with critical content are very scarce.
7. For a broader and deeper discussion of the relation between autonomy and dependence, see
Beigel (2010), covering the period between 1950 and 1980, referring to Chile and Argentina.

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Author biography
Claudio Ramos Zincke, PhD in sociology, is professor at Alberto Hurtado University, Chile. His
main research interest is the study of science and technology, focused on social sciences in Chile.
Currently, he is investigating the processes of social measurement that occur inside the state and
the construction and diffusion of sociological narratives, alongside the performative consequences
of both processes. He has recently published the book El ensamblaje de ciencia social y sociedad.
Conocimiento científico, gobierno de las conductas y producción de lo social (2012).

Résumé
Cet article analyse les connexions entre les sciences sociales chiliennes et la connaissance
produite dans les pays du centre, en les comparant avec les connexions existantes entre
ce même pays et les autres pays latino-américains, tout en accordant une attention
particulière au domaine théorique. Ce travail s’appuie sur l’analyse du contenu de
publications académiques et l’analyse du réseau social d’une base de données de plus
de trente milles références bibliographiques, issues de projets de recherche publiés par
des chercheurs en sciences sociales chiliens dans des revues et des livres au Chili et
à l’extérieur, durant une période de sept ans dans la première décennie de ce siècle.
Les résultats montrent que le niveau de connexions avec les autres pays de l’Amérique
Latine est bas mais que les communications entre les auteurs chiliens sont relativement
nombreuses, surtout celles qui concernent un groupe de théoriciens locaux qui
occupent des positions centrales dans le réseau. Il ne semble pas qu’il s’agisse ici d’une
forme de dépendance cognitive bien qu’elle se produise dans le contexte d’une science
internationale caractérisée par une remarquable inégalité.

Mots-clés
Communication scientifique, dépendance cognitive, réseau social, régulation scientifique,
sciences sociales, citation

Resumen
Este artículo analiza las conexiones de las ciencias sociales en Chile con el conocimiento
que se produce en los países centrales, en comparación con las establecidas en el mismo
país y en otros países de América Latina, prestando especial atención a las conexiones
con respecto a la teoría. Se basa en el análisis de contenido de publicaciones académicas
y en el análisis de redes sociales aplicado a una base de datos de casi treinta mil
referencias bibliográficas generadas por este proyecto de investigación del universo de

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722 Current Sociology 62(5)

investigaciones publicadas por científicos sociales chilenos en revistas y libros, tanto en

Chile como en el extranjero, en un período de siete años en el primer década de este
siglo. Los resultados muestran que, en relación con las comunicaciones internacionales,
existe un bajo nivel de conectividad con otros países de América Latina, pero que las
comunicaciones entre autores chilenos son relativamente importantes y en particular
los que tienen un grupo de teóricos locales que ocupan posiciones centrales en la
red. Este no parece ser un patrón de dependencia cognitiva, aunque se produce en el
contexto de una ciencia global que se caracteriza por una desigualdad notable.

Palabras clave
Comunicación científica, dependencia cognitiva, red social, regulación científica, ciencias
sociales, citación

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