Neoliberalism (Latin American)

Essays addressing what type of democracy may result from the constraints and opportunities that arise from neoliberalism.

While there is much literature analyzing the politics of implementing economic reforms, very little has been written on the social and political consequences of such reforms after they have been implemented. The basic premise of this book is that the convergence of many social, economic, and political ills (such as high levels of poverty, income inequality, criminal violence, and the growth of the informal sector) in the context of unprecedented levels of political democratization in Latin America presents a paradox that needs to be explained. What Kind of Democracy? demonstrates how the myriad social problems throughout the region are intimately linked both to a new economic development model and the weaknesses of Latin American democracy.

This volume brings together prominent scholars from Canada, the United States, and Latin America representing several different disciplines to analyze ongoing processes of economic, social, and political change in the region. The contributors are Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, Yoshiaki Nakano, Werner Baer, Claudio Paiva, Jorge Schvarzer, Jean-Francois Prud'homme, Juan Alberto Fuentes K., Manuel Barrera, Francisco Zapata, and Francisco Weffort.

The Left Strikes Back addresses the neglected topic of popular resistance to capital globalization & neoliberal polices, & considers the future of the revolutionary left in this region. James Petras shows that the current stage of capital globalization & the weakening of the ability of established popular groups to defend themselves have generated an important organized response on the part of those whose standard of living is most undermined & threatened by the process. The book argues convincingly that we can now see the emerging forms of resistance in new, popular organizations which, while frequently local & provincial, nevertheless have developed an international consciousness. By discussing their spatial-economic focus, social base, style of political action, & political perspective, The Left Strikes Back both identifies & differentiates the different waves of the Left. Further, it presents data documenting the growth, contradictions, & political challenges that confront these burgeoning socio-political movements.

Does it matter when politicians ignore the promises they made and the preferences of their constituents? If politicians want to be reelected or see their party reelected at the end of their term, why would they impose unpopular policies? Susan Stokes explores these questions by developing a model of policy switches and then testing it with statistical and qualitative data from Latin American elections over the past two decades. She concludes that politicians may change policies because unpopular policies are best for constituents and hence also will best serve their own political ambitions.

In Neoliberalism & Education in Latin America, Adriana Puiggros illuminates the process by which the borders separating educators in the United States & Latin America have been erased due to imperialist policies that affect democratic pedagogy in both parts of the Americas. Puiggros takes stock of the critical work on educational relations between the United States & Latin America, covering the evolution of Latin American pedagogical discussion in recent decades. She argues that the association of education with progress, the cornerstone of the U.S. educational system, takes on a different meaning when exported to Latin America as a slogan. Limitless progress, an aim typical of advanced capitalism, becomes, in developing countries, an exhortation toward an unattainable goal: a mirror reflection of U.S. society.

During the past two decades, virtually all developing countries shifted from state-led to market-oriented neoliberal economic policies. This book analyzes fresh evidence from Southern Mexico about the effects of this global wave of policy reforms. The evidence challenges the widely held view that these reforms have set countries on a convergent path toward unregulated markets. The analysis shows that free-market reforms, rather than unleashing market forces, trigger the construction of different types of new regulatory institutions with contrasting consequences for economic efficiency and social justice.

There has been a radical series of transformations in the economic, political, social, and cultural life of Latin America. This text offers a holistic approach to understanding these changes, relating them to the wider processes of modernization and globalization. An international team of contributors from a range of disciplines contextualize their different fields within a broad political economy approach that provides a critical yet balanced analysis of the neoliberal policies provided by nearly every country in the region over the last two decades. They then argue that a new political economy is being constructed in Latin America; as national economies become radically restructured and transformed, democracy becomes the institutional norm and new social arrangements are being created within national societies.

Developing an original blend of perspectives from the fields of international and comparative political economy, this book presents an innovative and in-depth account of the contemporary political economy of the southern cone of Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. It identifies a new and distinctive model of regional capitalist development emerging in the southern cone and a complex relationship with both the global political economy and the five distinctive national political economies in the region. Ranging across the contours of labour, business, states and regionalist processes, Phillips assesses the significance of the Southern Cone Model for the ways in which we understand contemporary capitalist development at both national and transnational levels.

Looking at how Latin American countries have coped with the 1994 Mexican crisis and the debt crisis of the 1980s, this book reveals the full extent of what has come to be known as the "tequila effect." Written by distinguished economists and financiers from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States, Sthe volume also examines the social, political, and economic issues associated with ever-expanding trade and globalization. The opening chapters consider the impact of the Mexican crisis on Argentina, Colombia, and Venezuela and provide an interesting account of the events leading up to the crisis. The following section examines issues of economic growth by considering the need for a new growth strategy, comparing the Latin American and Asian economies, and looking at the Cuban economy from a trading partner's perspective. The final section takes an in-depth look at the complex issues of neoliberalist versus neopopulist thinking in shaping Latin America's economic policies.

Since the 1930s the state has played a primary role in the development process of Latin American countries, & political systems have had strong corporatist & authoritarian-centralist features. In the last several years, as that role has become increasingly incompatible with neoliberal reforms & the requirements of a transition to democracy, state power has been significantly decentralized, & the state has withdrawn from direct intervention in the economy. This book examines the consequences of the redefinition of the state for processes of democratization & state-civil society relations.