Ronald H. Chilcote

Chilcote also edited and published At the Hour of Combat: Sabino Osuna's Photographs of the Mexican Revolution, featuring previously unpublished photographs of the revolution during the 1908-1922 period. It was previewed at the 2012 LASA Congress but was formally launched in August, followed by his co-curated exhibition of 56 prints from the Osuna archive which opened November 10, 2012, at the California Museum of Photography in Riverside. The exhibit has since visited various university campuses, has been shown in Mexico, and will eventually be permanently exhibited at the UC Casa de California in Mexico City.

To facilitate use of these materials and other Latin American resources at the UCR library, Chilcote led the effort to establish an endowment to fund the Latin American Perspectives Visiting Scholar Fellowship, to bring scholars from outside the United States to the library for a research residency of up to two months. Since 2007 there have been six recipients.

In 2000, Chilcote placed the complete archives of Latin American Perspectives, including all manuscripts submitted, publication decisions, editorial board minutes, annual reports and other working documents, in the UCR Library and recruited additional donations from other scholars.

The first issue of the journal focused on the debates within dependency theory in Latin America, with a lead article by Chilcote, "Dependency: A Critical Synthesis of the Literature", and contributions from leading Latin American theorists. In the Summer-Fall 1981 edition, Chilcote explored the relationship of dependency and Marxism. A consistent proponent of class analysis, Chilcote critiqued the neo-Marxist and postmodernist theoretical currents that developed as approaches to new social movements, as expressed in his lead article in LAP's 1990 thematic issue on "Post-Marxism, the Left, and Democracy". Since the setbacks for Latin American revolutionary movements and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the journal's content reflected the shift toward critical analysis of the ascendant Washington Consensus around neoliberalism and the resistance to it by social movements. LAP approached neoliberal globalization from the perspective of imperialism and class analysis, as illustrated by Chilcote's article "Globalization or Imperialism?" in the November 2002 issue.

Chilcote previously edited Latin American Perspectives Monographs with 24 titles for Westview Press (1980-2000).

In 1974, Chilcote was a founder of the academic journal Latin American Perspectives (LAP), focused on critical theoretical and empirical work related to Latin America, which had few academic outlets in the United States at that time. It was organized as an independent editorial collective, with Chilcote serving as the elected managing editor from its founding to the present. It emphasized scholarship that analyzes national and transnational systems of power and the movements for structural transformation, social justice and human rights in Latin America. The founders published work from a range of approaches, including Marxism, and also brings the work of Latin American scholars to an English-speaking readership, including translating Spanish and Portuguese manuscripts.

Chilcote is the author of over 200 academic publications, including books, book chapters, and peer-reviewed journal articles, with emphasis on comparative politics, political economy, and development economics. He was one of the earliest U.S. scholars to assess Latin American dependency theory, as in his lead article in the first issue of Latin American Perspectives, "Dependency: A Critical Synthesis of the Literature." He also edited and/or contributed to several additional LAP issues on the subject. He wrote a book on the topic, Latin America: The Struggle with Dependency and Beyond (1974), edited with his student and colleague Joel Edelstein, which was used as a college text and went through eight printings. His Theories of Comparative Politics was used for advanced graduate study in the United States, and he wrote two books on comparative political economy as well as an anthology of retrospective essays on imperialism.

Chilcote donated more than 12,000 books and other research materials to the UCR library to establish the Ronald H. Chilcote collection on the politics, economy, and history of Latin America, Portugal, and Portuguese-speaking Africa. The collection includes rare books and periodicals on Brazilian left movements; approximately 4,000 literary pamphlets of social poetry, drawn from the singing and writing of troubadours (Cordel); books, ephemera, and research, including written and audio interviews, on Northeast Brazil, in particular its hinterland or sertão; books and pamphlets on the Portuguese revolution of 1974-1975 and its aftermath, including audio interviews and transcripts with participants; comprehensive writings by and about the revolutionary, Amílcar Cabral; pamphlets, leaflets, films, and newspaper clippings on Central American political and resistance movements as well as covert and overt cases of intervention in Latin America; audio cassettes, videotapes, and books on the Iran-Contra Affair; and materials on the Southern Cone, especially Chile.

An active environmentalist, Chilcote has also been involved in conservation and wilderness protection campaigns, especially in California and Wyoming. Since 1974 he has served as a board director of Laguna Greenbelt, which campaigned to preserve 22,000 acres of land in a rapidly urbanizing area of Southern California. He has combined this environmental activism with his work as a landscape and nature photographer. In 2003 he co-founded Laguna Wilderness Press, which has published 13 books of photography to promote the preservation of pristine environments. Chilcote's photographs have also been exhibited at art galleries in Southern California and Wyoming, including a retrospective of 60 of his photographs of the Laguna Wilderness at the Founders Gallery of Soka University of America from January to August 2012.

Chilcote taught in the departments of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) from 1964 to 1994, where he was honored with the Distinguished Teaching Award. Since 1994, he has been professor emeritus. With a Ford Foundation grant he led the Latin American Research Program at UCR during the 1960s. He was a founder of the Latin American studies major, served as director of the Program on Latin American Studies for over 15 years, and as professor emeritus continues to serve on the Latin American Studies Steering Committee. He also established the UC Brazil Studies Center in Rio de Janeiro and served as its director from 1992-1994.

He and Frances Bunker Chilcote have been married since 1961 and they have two sons, Edward and Stephen.

Chilcote has produced extensive scholarship on Brazil, Portugal, and the former Portuguese colonies in Africa, visiting all many times in the course of his research. His work on Lusophone Africa in the 1960s provided a foundation for an African perspective critical of the Portuguese presence in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde. He published a book on the African revolutionary, Amílcar Cabral, who inspired and led the independence movements. He has written four books on Brazil, three of which have been translated into Portuguese. His 2010 book The Portuguese Revolution: State and Class in the Transition to Democracy culminates decades of research to analyze the 1974–1975 Portuguese revolution and its aftermath through periods of authoritarianism and resistance as well as representative and popular democracy. His 2014 book Intellectuals and the Search for National Identity in Twentieth Century Brazil likewise draws on his decades of research in Brazil and the relationships he developed with Brazilian intellectuals, more than one hundred of whom were interviewed for the book.

Ronald H. Chilcote (born February 20, 1935) is a political economist from the United States. He is currently the Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Riverside, and has served as managing editor of the academic journal Latin American Perspectives since its founding in 1974. Chilcote's main area of research is on Brazil, Portugal and the former Portuguese colonies in Africa, as well as comparative politics, political economy and development theory.