Cold War Sociology in Ecuador? History of a Failed Intervention during the 1960s

In the late 1950s, Ecuadorian universities were in a crisis. The old structure did not suffice for a modernizing society with the need for professional state servants. The same happened to Ecuadorian sociology. Despite the creation of research institutes and academic conferences, sociology seemed to have ended. The pioneers were dead, their students almost all had migrated to other courses or even outside of academia, and a new generation of sociologists was not to be found.

In this panorama, attempts at reform were undertaken to improve research and education. The Central University of Ecuador was pioneering. Attempts to acquire external support led, in 1963, to a collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh in the context of the Alliance for Progress with the backing of USAID. Only shortly after the first mission of professors and technical assistants had arrived, a military coup established a fiercely anti-communist dictatorship that pushed for a renewal of the universities in the sense of technical formation. The mission of UPitt was functional in this: they created a Faculty for Basic Sciences that included a school for social sciences and what would become the country's first degree course in sociology. However, this attempt to establish a scientific sociology happened without any sociologist or influential intellectual supporting it. Instead, anthropologists, social psychologists, historians, and others tried to establish a sociology focusing on social research, rurality, and cooperatives. The lack of support from established academics meant that this attempt ended with the dictatorship in 1966 and the end of funding by USAID in 1968. Even worse: the connection between the reform and the dictatorship led to an open fight against this US-American positivist sociology in favor of a Marxist one.