Título en español.

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is the analysis of the relationship between the development of the social sciences and the political process in Puerto Rico. This relationship has three fundamental moments. In the first moment we have the initial manifestations of nineteenth-century Puerto Rican social scientific thought in confrontation with Spanish colonial policy. We have also in this period the military conquest of Puerto Rico by the United States and the utilization of religion and the public education system as intellectual tools of Manifest Destiny ideology. In the second period Puerto Rico goes through a process of government sponsored modernization and industrialization. Operation Bootstrap brings many social scientists from the U.S to our country, whose works will have an important impact on Puerto Rican politics. The beginnings of the third period coincide with the weakening of the process of economic development in the island. This is the moment when U.S. social scientists start to be replaced by Puerto Rican professors and researchers.