You are on page 1of 337

This page intentionally left blank

Edited by

and

First published in Great Britain in 2004 by


Hodder Education, an Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH
www.hoddereducation.com
2004 Edward Arnold (Publishers)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically,
including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval
system, without either prior permission in writing from the publisher or a
licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences
are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency: Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street,
London EC1N 8TS.
The advice and information in this book are believed to be true and
accurate at the date of going to press, but neither the editors, the contributors
nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility or liability for any
errors or omissions.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 978 0 340 80930 3
Typeset in Great Britain by Phoenix Photosetting, Chatham, Kent
What do you think about this book? Or any other Hodder Education title?
Please send your comments to educationenquiries@hodder.co.uk

To Catherine, Daniel and Sylvia

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

List of tables
List of gures
About the authors
Preface

PART 1:

GLOBALIZATION AND MODERNITY


1

xi
xiii
xv
xix

Latin America transformed: globalization and neoliberalism


Robert N. Gwynne, Cristbal Kay

Unravelling the concept of globalization in Latin America


Globalization and the contemporary relevance of structuralism and
dependency theories
Globalization in the neoliberal era
Social bases of neoliberalism
Conclusion: a paradigm shift in theory and policy

5
11
14
17
19

Modernity and identity: cultural change in Latin America


Jorge Larran

22

Introduction
The Latin American trajectory to modernity
Some specic elements of Latin American modernity and culture
Conclusion

22
24
32
38

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: Economic and


Regional Perspectives
Robert N. Gwynne

39

Historical contexts
Economic policy change
Impacts and problems of neoliberal reform
Neoliberalism and economic spaces
Conclusion

43
46
50
57
63
vii

Latin America Transformed

PART 2:

67

A region of small and dependent states


Development policies prior to neoliberalism
The debt crisis and the neoliberal remedy
The meaning and impacts of globalization
The neoliberal development model
Cuba: island socialism amid global capitalism
Migration and transnationalism
Regional trading blocs
The growing drug economy
Conclusion

69
73
76
77
80
84
87
87
90
91

The urban revolution


Alan Gilbert

93

Urban growth during the twentieth century


Explanations for urban growth
Ruralurban migration
The geography of urban growth under the new economic model
The urbanization of poverty
Differential patterns of urban change
An unpredictable future

94
95
98
101
102
104
114

The political economy of sustainable development


Warwick E. Murray and Eduardo Silva

117

Natural resource use economy or environment?


Political-economic issues and implications
Whose sustainability? The Chilean fruit export boom
Environmental issues and implications
The politics of natural resource extraction
Conclusion

118
122
124
128
133
135

POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS
7

viii

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central


America and the Caribbean
Thomas Klak

139

Authoritarianism, democracy and development


Eduardo Silva

141

Political economy and the state


Democracy, authoritarianism and development
Conclusion

141
143
154

The new political order: towards technocratic democracies?


Patricio Silva

157

Neoliberalism, modernization and democracy


The depoliticization of society
Political legitimation and consumerism
The technocratization of policy-making

157
159
162
164

PART 3:

SPACE, SOCIETY AND LIVELIHOODS


9

10

11

12

PART 4:

166
168
171

Livelihood transitions, place transformations: grounding


globalization and modernity
Anthony Bebbington

173

Conceptualizing livelihoods in Latin America


Livelihoods since neoliberalism
Livelihood politics
Livelihoods, NGOs and development
Globalization and livelihoods in Latin America
Conclusion

174
181
183
185
188
191

Civil society, grassroots politics and livelihoods


Sarah A. Radcliffe

193

Civil society in Latin America: social difference, rights and the state
Civil society mobilization in the 1970s and 1980s
Civil society and the transition to democracy
Civil society and social difference
Conclusion

194
196
202
202
207

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender


Sylvia Chant

210

Household livelihoods
Urban employment
Gender and the urban labour market
Conclusion

210
215
221
228

Rural livelihoods and peasant futures


Cristbal Kay

232

The lost promise of agrarian reform


Globalization, neoliberalism and agriculture
Peasant futures: a permanent semi-proletariat?
The new peasant movement: indigenous and environmental dimensions
Conclusion

232
234
240
246
249

LATIN AMERICAN FUTURES

251

13

The alternatives to neoliberalism


Robert N. Gwynne and Cristbal Kay

253

The neoliberal model evaluated


Alternatives to neoliberalism

253
259

Bibliography
Index

268
311
ix

Contents

Disenchantment
The future of democracy in Latin America

This page intentionally left blank

List of tables

1.1
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
4.1
4.2
4.3
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.7
5.8
5.9
5.10
5.11
5.12
5.13
5.14
5.15
5.16
5.17
5.18
5.19
6.1

Increasing asymmetries in the world economy, 19782001


Population and production in North and South America, 19652001
South America and Mexico: peak ination years between 1970 and 1993 and ination
average, 198493
Chronology of trade liberalization in Latin America, 198591
Latin America: export growth during the 1980s and 1990s
Latin America: changes in labour market indicators during the 1990s
Latin America: open urban unemployment, 19852000
Latin American labour markets, 199099
Contribution to total manufacturing employment by size of rm, 1990s
Latin America: employment growth by sector, 199097
Basic indicators for Central American and Caribbean countries and territories
Trade dependency: selected Central American and Caribbean countries in
comparative perspective
Central American and Caribbean trading blocs: intra-regional exports as a percentage
of total exports, selected years
Latin America: urban share of population in selected countries, 19302000
Latin America: annual population growth, 199095
Economic growth in selected Latin American countries since 1950
Urban growth in major cities and countries of Latin America, 19502000
Poverty and inequality in Latin America during the 1990s
The incidence of poverty in Latin America, 197099
Foreign direct investment: Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 19902001
Chile, Colombia and Mexico: export performance, 19652001
Chile, Colombia and Mexico: development of manufacturing exports, 19652001
Chile, Colombia and Mexico: manufacturing value added, 195099
Chile, Colombia and Mexico: economic growth by decade since 1980
Mexico: population growth rates in the major cities, 19502000
Mexico: growth of the maquiladoras, 19662002
Mexico: poverty and inequality, 19632001
Chile: annual population growth of the largest cities, 195292
Chile: poverty and inequality, 19702001
Colombia: the economy, murders and internal displacement, 19902001
Colombia: annual population growth largest cities, 195193
Colombia: poverty and inequality, 197899
Export specialization in Latin America, proportional values, 2000

8
41
44
49
52
54
55
56
59
60
701
72
88
95
96
98
101
103
104
105
105
105
106
106
107
107
108
109
110
112
112
114
121
xi

Latin America Transformed

11.1
11.2
11.3
11.4
11.5

xii

Latin America: key labour market aggregates, 199099


Level and composition of unemployment in urban and rural areas of Latin America,
199099
Percentage of male and female labour force in the informal sector
Womens share of labour force, and key occupational and sectoral characteristics
Wage differentials in paid employment by gender and age cohort

213
216
220
222
226

List of gures

1.1
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
6.1
6.2
6.3
8.1
9.1
9.2
11.1
11.2
11.3
11.4
12.1
12.2
12.3
12.4
13.1
13.2
13.3

Latin American countries and capital cities


Schemes of economic integration in Latin America
Hemispheric representation according to income and population size
Latin America: export markets, 2001
Assembly industry and the Mexican border towns
The economic power of Chiles regions
The small countries of Central America and the Caribbean
The weekly banana shipment from Dominica to Britain
Electronics assembly in Costa Rica
Dominicas non-traditional industrial exports
Cuban economic growth rates, 19852002
Components of sustainable development
Este valle est bajo Control
The output of plantation forestry in Southern Chile
Grafti saying Death to the Guerrillas, Central Colombia, 2001
A livelihoods framework
Male and female market traders, Otavalo, Ecuador
Low-income settlement, Quertaro, Mexico
Home-based commerce, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Home-based footwear production, Lon, Mexico
Home-based services hairdressing, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Man and machete, Liberia, Costa Rica
Seasonal female labour in one of Chiles Fruit-Packing Plants
Truck bringing cane workers home from a day in the elds, Liberia, Costa Rica
Inside a smallholders greenhouse, Peumo, Chile, 1996
The results of foreign direct investment in Chilean agriculture
The informal sector in action
Elderly beggars, Quinch, Ecuador

4
40
42
53
62
64
68
75
79
82
85
119
125
130
161
177
187
213
214
217
221
237
238
239
243
254
256
257

xiii

This page intentionally left blank

About the authors

EDITORS
Robert N. Gwynne is Reader in Latin American Development at the School of Geography,
University of Birmingham. In recent years, he has also been Visiting Professor at the Catholic University
of Chile. His research interests focus on industrialization in the developing world and on the impacts
of neoliberalism and globalization on regional and rural development in Latin America. He is the
author of two books (Industrialisation and Urbanisation in Latin America; New Horizons? Third World
Industrialization in an International Framework) and has recently co-authored Alternative Capitalisms:
Geographies of Emerging Regions (2003, Arnold) with Thomas Klak and Denis Shaw. In addition he has
written numerous articles in both geography and Latin American journals and chapters in a wide
range of edited books.
Cristbal Kay is Associate Professor in Development Studies and Rural Development at the
Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. He has held lectureships in the University of Chile and the
University of Glasgow and has been Visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Peru. He is coeditor of the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies and was the editor of The
European Journal of Development Research. His books include Latin American Theories of Development
and Underdevelopment, Labour and Development in Rural Cuba (joint author), Development and Social
Change in the Chilean Countryside (co-editor) and Globalisation, Competitiveness and Human Security
(editor).

CONTRIBUTORS
Anthony Bebbington is Professor in the Institute for Development Policy and Management,
University of Manchester. Previously he was Associate Professor of Geography at the University of
Colorado at Boulder, and has also worked at Cambridge University, the World Bank and the Overseas
Development Institute. In recent years he has held fellowships at the Center for Advanced Studies in
the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization in Chile. His
research in Latin America has addressed: NGOs and rural social movements; poverty and rural
livelihoods; agricultural development; and more generally the links between development
interventions and political economy. He is married with two young daughters.
Sylvia Chant is Professor of Development Geography at the London School of Economics and
Political Science. She has specialist interests in gender and development, with her most recent books
including Women-headed Households: Diversity and Dynamics in the Developing World, Three Generations,
Two Genders, One World (with Cathy McIlwaine), Mainstreaming Men into Gender and Development:
Debates, Reections and Experiences (with Matthew Gutmann), and Gender in Latin America (in
association with Nikki Craske). She has worked mainly on Latin America (Costa Rica and Mexico), but
xv

Latin America Transformed

has also conducted research in the Philippines. Recently she embarked on work on youth, gender and
livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa with her LSE colleague, Dr Gareth A. Jones. Between 2003 and 2006,
Professor Chant will be engaged in comparative research on inter-generational and household
dimensions of gender and poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America under the auspices of a three-year
Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.
Alan Gilbert is Professor of Geography at University College London. He is the author or editor of
thirteen books and more than one hundred chapters and articles. His latest book is the Latin American
City (2003). His expertise is principally in the area of housing, urbanization and urban management in
Latin America and South Africa. He has acted as a consultant and researcher for the IDB, World Bank,
and UNHabitat for whom he has recently completed a report on rental housing.
Thomas Klak is Professor of Geography at Miami University and Adjunct Professor of Geography
at Ohio State University. His research analyses the theories, discourses, practices, and ecological
consequences of development and urban sprawl. He is the editor of Globalization and Neoliberalism:
The Caribbean Context (1998), and co-author of Alternative Capitalisms: Geographies of Emerging
Regions (2003) and The Contemporary Caribbean (2004).
Jorge Larran is Head of the Department of Social Sciences at the University Alberto Hurtado,
Santiago, Chile and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Birmingham. His present
research interests focus on culture, modernity and identity in Latin America, especially Chile. His books
include The Concept of Ideology; Theories of Development, Ideology and Cultural Identity and Identity and
Modernity in Latin America.
Warwick E. Murray is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Victoria University, New Zealand.
In 1997, he gained his PhD from the University of Birmingham (UK), which built on a years eldwork
in Chile investigating the impacts of neoliberalism on small farmers. He has held lectureships at the
University of the South Pacic (Fiji) and Brunel University (UK), and has extended his research on
globalization, political economy and rural development to the Pacic Islands and Rim. His work has
been published in journals including Economic Geography, European Journal of Development Research,
Journal of Peasant Studies and Journal of Rural Studies. In 2002 he co-edited (with Jonathan Barton) a
special edition of the Bulletin of Latin American Research entitled Chile: A Decade in Transition. He is
currently Managing Editor of the academic journal Asia Pacic Viewpoint.
Sarah Radcliffe teaches Latin American studies, and social and cultural geography, at the
Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. Her current research interests include
indigenous development and transnationalism, theories of the state and citizenship, and gender and
development. Her books include Viva! Women and popular protest in Latin America (Routledge, 1993)
and Remaking the nation: place, identity and politics in Latin America (Routledge, 1999).
Eduardo Silva is Professor of Political Science and Fellow of the Center for International Studies at
the University of Missouri, St. Louis. He is author of The State and Capital in Chile, and co-editor of
Organized Business, Economic Change, and Democracy in Latin America and Elections and
Democratization in Latin America, 198085. In addition to contributions to edited volumes and public
affairs pieces, his articles have appeared in World Politics, Comparative Politics, Development and Change,
Global Environmental Politics, Journal of Latin American Studies, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World
Affairs, Latin American Politics and Society, Bulletin of Latin American Research, Latin American Research
Review, and the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
xvi

xvii

About the authors

Patricio Silva is Professor of Modern Latin American History at both the Department of Latin
American Studies and the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies, Leiden University. His recent
research has focused on the technocratization of the political arena and civil-military relations in
several Latin American countries. He is co-editor of several books, including The Soldier and the State
in South America, The Politics of Expertise in Latin America and Designers of Development: Intellectuals and
Technocrats in the Third World.

This page intentionally left blank

Preface

Welcome to the Second Edition of Latin America Transformed. Four chapters (5, 9, 11 and 13) are
completely new and the other nine chapters have been updated, with most of them considerably
revised and changed. In addition, all chapters now have recommended web sites for readers to
consult, along with suggestions for further reading. The maps and diagrams have been produced by
Kevin Burkhill and Anne Ankcorn at the University of Birmingham.
As editors we were very gratied by the many favourable reviews that the First Edition received. Its
aim was to make more comprehensible the radical series of transformations that had taken place in
the economic, political, social and cultural life in Latin America in the last quarter of the twentieth
century. It adopted a political economy approach in order to unravel such concepts as globalization,
neoliberalism and modernity and how they related to the transformations that Latin America was
experiencing.
In the Second Edition, we have maintained the importance of this political economy perspective in
the rst two parts of the book. All chapters have been signicantly updated and revised, and there is
one completely new chapter (The urban revolution, by Alan Gilbert).
We think that the Second Edition is a considerable improvement on the First Edition in that we
more systematically introduce another dimension that of understanding the dynamics of peoples
livelihoods. The third part of the Second Edition focuses on how people weave their way through,
make sense of and live out the structural transformations that are taking place at the level of the city,
the countryside, the state or world economy. The emphasis is on how people construct their
livelihoods from below, albeit framed within these wider political and economic structures. In this part
there are two completely new chapters (Livelihood transitions, place transformations, by Anthony
Bebbington; and Urban livelihoods, by Sylvia Chant) and the other chapters have been substantially
revised.
One criticism of the First Edition was that it lacked a conclusion. In this Second Edition, the editors
have grasped the nettle and, in part four, discuss the political economy of Latin Americas future. If the
analysis proves prescient, we may later be asked to do a Third Edition!
Robert N. Gwynne
Cristbal Kay
September 2003

xix

This page intentionally left blank

1
GLOBALIZATION
AND MODERNITY

This page intentionally left blank

1
Latin America transformed: globalization
and neoliberalism
Robert N. Gwynne, Cristbal Kay

Globalization has been associated with a series of economic, political, social and cultural
metamorphoses in Latin America. This book aims to explain the various components of these
metamorphoses, explore theoretical debates and contribute to a greater understanding of how
these transformations are affecting the people of Latin America (see Figure 1.1).
It could be argued that studies on societal transformations in contemporary Latin America have
been characterized by their strong fragmentation along disciplinary lines. Since the early 1980s,
political scientists have directed their attention to the processes of democratic transition and
consolidation taking place in a large number of countries (see Chapters 7 and 8). During the same
period, economists have focused on analysing the policies of macro-economic adjustment and trade
liberalization implemented in order to regenerate economic growth across the continent (see
Chapters 3 and 4). Meanwhile, several sociologists and social anthropologists have begun, in recent
years, to examine the nature of the social and cultural transformations generated by modernization
and the increasing globalization of Latin American societies (see Chapters 2, 10 and 12). Geographers
have tried to examine change at different scales of analysis and by foregrounding place and livelihoods
in their analysis (see Chapter 9).
There are many ways of examining how transformations have occurred in Latin America and
the Caribbean in the past few decades. Political economy provides one set of tools. Part 1 of this
book uses a political economy approach in order to unravel the concepts of globalization and
modernity and how they relate to economic, political, social and cultural change in the region. The
emphasis is on interpreting the broad structures that frame the several transformations that are
taking place. These interpretations cast their analysis at a macro-level, creating arguments that seek
to explain the transformations in the region by reference to international, national and regional
processes.
In the rst two parts, all authors attempt to contextualize their different disciplinary foci within a
broad political economy approach that consciously tries to integrate political, economic, social and
geographical phenomena. In several chapters, key theoretical perspectives and debates, as far as they
exist, are used to analyse these transformations in a critical manner. Other chapters, while discussing
theoretical issues, present more empirical evidence to examine the various transformations of Latin
America and discuss the adequacy of current theories.
Another dimension is to focus on how people weave their way through, make sense of, rework and
live out these structural transformations. Part 3 aims to understand the dynamics of peoples
livelihoods. The emphasis in these chapters is on how people construct their livelihoods from below
and within the existing structural constraints of the current phase of globalization. We hope that, by
having chapters that rely on one or the other of these two dimensions, this book will provide a more
comprehensive picture of Latin American transformation. The challenge is to focus on the weave that
knits together global and local networks and which has produced and continues to generate
distinctive chronologies of place and livelihoods.
3

Latin America Transformed

Havana

MEXICO

CUBA

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Mexico City

Santo Domingo

GUATEMALA

BELIZE
HONDURAS

Guatamala City
San Salvador

Tegucigalpa

EL SALVADOR Managua

NICARAGUA
Caracas

San Jose
Panama

COSTA RICA

VENEZUELA
GUYANA
Bogota

SURINAME

FRENCH
GUIANA

COLOMBIA
Quito

ECUADOR

PERU
BRAZIL

Lima

La Paz

Brasilia

BOLIVIA

PARAGUAY
Asuncion

CHILE
Santiago

ARGENTINA
URUGUAY
Buenos Aires

Figure 1.1 Latin American countries and capital cities.

Montevideo

The concept of globalization has been strongly linked to the economic (see below), but in this book
we aim to emphasize the political, social, environmental and cultural components of globalization as
well. The globalization of politics has impacted upon Latin America in such diverse forms as the shift
to systems of democratic governance and greater concern for human rights (see Chapter 8).
Meanwhile, global environmental concerns (such as global warming) have impacted upon
government and public attitudes to the environment in many countries, while the growth of media
emanating from the core economies (and most particularly the United States) is transforming social
customs and cultural practices in much of urban Latin America (see Chapters 2 and 5). One ought
to add that there is also evidence of local reactions to the processes of globalization, as with the rise
in grassroots movements representing local environmental issues (see Chapter 6) and indigenous
movements (see Chapter 10).
In terms of economic globalization, it should be emphasized that capitalism has always been an
international system. However, today, the international integration of the world-market economy is
progressing at a very rapid pace. This process encompasses economic transformations in production,
consumption, technology and ideas. Many social scientists dene the current reality as one of
unprecedented globalization and call for new forms of global governance (Soros, 2002). The idea that
we have entered an era of globalization is so often repeated in the news media and in scholarship that
it has the status of a truism, so obvious that it is beyond refute or need for empirical substantiation.
Many observers go one step further, presenting globalization as an unquestionable empirical
manifestation of contemporary capitalism. Against this trend, there is now also a powerful antiglobalization movement that receives considerable media attention (see Box 1.1).

BOX 1.1 The anti-globalization movement


The process of globalization has unleashed an anti-globalization movement, largely situated in the
countries of the North. In the past decade, it has organized major protest actions in Seattle,
Washington, DC, Genoa and other cities where international organizations such as the World
Bank have organized key meetings. The anti-globalization movement is a broad coalition of a great
variety of groups who wish to voice their concern about the negative impact of the process of
globalization on such issues as the environment, labour rights, working conditions and the cultural
identity of groups and nations. However, these anti-globalization protests have not yet coalesced
into a permanent and coherent social movement. While it may not have fundamentally contested
or changed the global capitalist system, it has been relatively successful in raising more
widespread concern about the negative consequences of the globalization process. A major antiglobalization movement in the South is being shaped by the Social Forum, which has so far had
three gatherings in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Thousands of representatives of NGOs, trade unions, and
other organizations from the North and the South meet during a week or so to discuss a great
variety of issues concerning the economic, social and political impact of globalization and
neoliberalism on mainly the peoples of the South. It attempts to forge an international movement
that counters the power of transnational corporations and the policies pursued by governments
in the North and the South, which try to further neoliberal globalism. These anti-globalization
gatherings and protest movements view globalization as an umbrella term that covers a variety of
current transformations which they attribute to the spread and intensication of capitalism, and
which they view as having deleterious effects on peoples, cultures and the environment
throughout the world.
5

Latin America transformed: globalization and neoliberalism

UNRAVELLING THE CONCEPT OF GLOBALIZATION IN


LATIN AMERICA

Latin America Transformed

Theses of globalization
It may, therefore, be useful to refer to some of the key discourses on globalization in the social
science literature (with reference to Latin America, see Harris, 2002) . This will demonstrate that
globalization is a contested concept with a range of arguments and interpretations associated with it.
One attempt at classifying the interpretations of globalization was that of Held et al. (1999), who
argued that there were at least three such discourses, or as they call them, theses: hyperglobalist,
sceptical and transformationalist.
The hyperglobalist thesis
According to the hyperglobalist thesis, globalization denes a new epoch of human history in which
traditional nationstates have become unnatural, even impossible units in a global economy (Luard,
1990; Ohmae, 1995). The key assumption is of movement towards global markets and global prices.
In this model, national economies become subsumed and rearticulated into the international system
by international transactions and processes (Michalak, 1994: 53). Although nationally determined
policies still operate, they are subordinate to wider international determining factors. The key actor
becomes the transnational corporation (TNC), detached from constraints of government regulation
and unconstrained by any specic national base. The TNC can thus be seen as the single most
important force in economic restructuring both between and within nationstates.
This thesis privileges an economic logic to globalization and argues that economic globalization is
bringing about a denationalization of economies through the establishment of transnational networks of
production, trade and nance (Strange, 1996; Deardorff and Stern 2000). Held et al. (1999) maintain that
within this framework, at least two discourses prevail. On the one hand, there is the neoliberal version,
which welcomes the triumph of individual autonomy and celebrates the dominance of the market
principle over state power that such a thesis of globalization implies (Ohmae, 1995). On the other, this
thesis has neo-Marxist adherents for whom contemporary globalization represents the triumph of
oppressive global capitalism (Peet and Watts, 1993; Petras, 1999). Petras and Veltmeyer (2001a), indeed,
would argue that globalization constitutes a new form of imperialism for the twenty-rst century.
The steady erosion of old hierarchies and the generation of new patterns of regional winners and
losers are emphasized. A new global division of labour replaces the traditional coreperiphery
structure and a more complex architecture of economic power evolves. In the creation of these new
world geographies, the neoliberals stress advantages in global competition. Some spaces within a
country may be made worse off as a result of such competition, but other spaces will have a
comparative advantage in producing certain goods for global markets. The neoliberals tend to see all
countries (rich and poor) beneting from globalization, although within each country signicant
restructuring will take place. In contrast, the neo-Marxists believe that global capitalism creates and
reinforces structural patterns of inequality both between and within countries.
The sceptical thesis
Facing the tidal wave of globalization discourse, a few sceptics have countered that many of the
fundamental features and empirical manifestations of global capitalism today remain much as they
were in the nineteenth century (Hirst and Thompson, 1999; Wallerstein, 2000). Hirst and Thompson
(1999: 2) argue that in some ways the current international economy is less open and integrated
than the regime that prevailed from 1870 to 1914. Using statistical evidence of world ows of
trade, investment and labour from the nineteenth century, Hirst and Thompson argue that
contemporary levels of economic interdependence are by no means historically unprecedented. The
sceptics think that true globalization must imply a fully integrated world economy, which remains a
long way into the future. One crucial economic factor of the world economy, labour, remains
relatively immobile, particularly compared with capital.
More generally, this thesis sees the world economy as one in which the principal economic entities
are still states, and their governments are involved in facilitating the process of increasing economic
6

The transformationalist thesis


This thesis sees globalization as a powerful transformative force which is responsible for a massive
shake-out of societies, economies, institutions of governance and world order. The direction of this
shake-out remains uncertain, since globalization is conceived as an essentially contingent historical
process replete with contradictions. At issue is a dynamic and open-ended conception of where
globalization might be leading and the kind of world order which it might pregure (Held et al.,
1999: 7). Contemporary processes of globalization are historically unprecedented, such that
governments and societies across the globe need to adjust to a world in which there is no longer a
clear distinction between international and domestic, external and internal affairs (Rosenau, 1997).
This thesis emphasizes the continuation of global divergence increasing inequalities between and
within countries. Distinctions between North and South or First World and Third World overlook
the ways in which globalization has recast traditional patterns of inclusion and exclusion between
countries by forging new hierarchies which cut across and penetrate all societies and regions of the
world (Held et al., 1999: 8).
Globalization in this book
What is interesting from a Latin American viewpoint is that most perspectives (apart from the
hyperglobalist) do not see global convergence (that is, fewer inequalities between and within
countries) resulting from globalization. Growing inequalities appear to be the result of production,
exchange and nance becoming increasingly transnational in dimension. We tend to favour the
transformationalist thesis, in which a great variety of outcomes is possible. Some countries, regions,
communities and households will benet economically from being more closely linked to the
fortunes of the global economy, but others (and perhaps the majority in Latin America) will be
disadvantaged. As a result, globalization is associated with new patterns of global stratication in
which some states, societies and communities are becoming increasingly enmeshed in the global
order while others are becoming increasingly marginalized (Held et al., 1999: 8). Our main critique of
the transformationalist approach is that it does not foreground the reaction of local communities
and individuals to what they regard as the overwhelming force and reach of global economic
processes; in Part 3 we attempt to confront this limitation.
Globalization and differentiation within Latin America
Divergence between countries and unevenness between different regions of the world, therefore,
have become interwoven with globalization. Some argue that, as a result, globalization (a word
which implies convergence) can be a misleading term for the unfolding process. Table 1.1 gives some
7

Latin America transformed: globalization and neoliberalism

interaction at the global scale. International phenomena are outcomes that emerge from the distinct
and different performance of national economies (Michalak, 1994). This can explain the increasing
importance of trading blocs in the contemporary world. It could be argued that individual states make
signicant efforts to come together in regional groupings in order to achieve greater economic
stability within a world economy that is increasingly uncertain as markets (and thereby prices) become
more global in character.
Sceptics emphasize the enduring power of national governments to regulate international economic
activity. Thus, they regard the early twenty-rst century as indicating only heightened levels of
internationalization. Economic interactions occur between predominantly national economies,
although some of these economies may link together into trading blocs where the law of one price
can become a reality (unlike in the global arena). However, it could be argued that the law of one
price has so far only been achieved in the European Union, where full labour mobility within the
trading bloc distinguishes it from other examples. Sceptics see globalization as increasingly
marginalizing the countries of the world periphery. Globalization provides economic growth for core
economies and certain countries of the semi-periphery, but a whole series of economic and political
factors retard the economic growth of the poorer countries of the world, most notably in Africa.

Latin America Transformed

TABLE 1.1: Increasing asymmetries in the world economy, 19782001


Year

1978

1990

2001

A Per capita income of


six core economies

US$7,899

US$20,945

US$30,406

B Per capita income of


six Latin American
countries with highest
GNP

US$1,602

US$2,721

US$4,373

US$676

US$770

US$1,227

Ratio AB

4.9

7.7

7.0

Ratio BC

2.4

3.5

4.2

Ratio AC

11.7

27.2

29.0

C Per capita income of


six Latin American countries
with lowest recorded GNP

A six core economies: USA, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy.


B six Latin American countries with highest GNP per capita in 2001: Argentina, Uruguay,
Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela.
C six Latin American countries with lowest recorded GNP per capita in 2001: Haiti, Honduras, Bolivia,
Guatemala, Ecuador, El Salvador (no data set available for Nicaragua and Cuba).
Sources: World Bank (1980), (1992) and (2003b).

indication of the increasing asymmetries between the core economies of the world on the one
hand, and the semi-peripheral and peripheral countries of Latin America on the other (for a full
discussion of these concepts from world systems theory, see Gwynne et al., 2003: Chapter 2). In
Table 1.1, the Latin American semi-periphery is represented by the six countries with the highest
Gross National Product (GNP) per capita in 2001; they are Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Mexico
and Venezuela. Meanwhile, the periphery is represented by the six poorest countries of Latin
America and the Caribbean, with World Bank data sets for the years in question. This category thus
includes Haiti, Honduras, Bolivia, Guatemala, Ecuador and El Salvador.
The evidence for increasing divergence between Latin American countries on the one hand, and the
core or developed economies on the other, is indisputable. Already in 1978, the per capita income
enjoyed by inhabitants of the core economies of the world economy was virtually ve times that of
the semi-periphery of Latin America and 12 times that of the lowest income economies. By 1990, after
the lost decade (see Chapter 3), the ratio had increased to virtually eight and 27 times respectively.
Since 1990, the ratios have stabilized to a certain extent. Indeed, the changing ratios between the core
economies and the semi-peripheral countries of Latin America between 1990 and 2001 showed
some indication of convergence (ratio AB in Table 1.1).
However, it should be borne in mind that this period is followed by severe economic crises in two
of the semi-peripheral countries in question, Argentina and Venezuela. After 2001 the shift to
divergence has probably resumed apace. This volatility in economic relationships between core and
semi-periphery introduces the concept of truncated convergence (ECLAC, 2002a). This concept
acknowledges that there will be periods in which convergence may occur, but that these will be
relatively short-lived and temporary. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that the divergence
8

the export prole of virtually all of the smaller countries of Latin America is dominated by
primary products, much as it was in the 1950s;
the export prole of the larger, more-industrialized countries of Latin America is characterized by
labour-intensive consumer products or components. Certainly the case of Mexico, and particularly
the type of industrialization experienced in its northern cities, has been well documented in this
respect (Sklair, 1989).
Nevertheless, both large and small states in Latin America must increasingly pursue national goals
and objectives within globally dened parameters and structures (Watson, 1996). The consequence
of being more fully inserted into the global economy means less and less room for policy
manoeuvre. In part, this is because the governments of developing countries are more dependent
on the policy approval of the global institutions that supervise the world economy (such as the IMF,
the WTO and the World Bank) and on the investment decisions of transnational companies that can
be strongly swayed by the verdicts of international institutions.
Latin America in its global context
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the crisis of the Soviet world in the late 1980s have reasserted the
dominance of the world capitalist system and emphasized the importance of economic success in
establishing nodes of power in the world. The demise of the bipolar world, which had been based on
Cold War political ideologies, shifted the emphasis to the variations of political economy within the
capitalist world system. Some have argued that the world is now tripolar (Preston, 1996), centred on:
1 North America, with the USA, in particular, re-emphasizing its global hegemonic power in both
political and economic matters.
2 Japan and the rst-generation newly industrializing countries (NICs) of East Asia, such as Taiwan
and South Korea. These countries had formerly been closely linked politically to the USA in the
bipolar world. This region has emerged as a global economic pole, deriving its power from its
success in manufacturing in general, and knowledge-intensive industries in particular.
9

Latin America transformed: globalization and neoliberalism

between the core economies and the six poorest countries of Latin America has continued to
increase and has reached extreme levels by 2001 the mythical average inhabitant of the core
economies was nearly 30 times better off than those living in the poorer countries of the Caribbean,
Central America and the Andean region.
As well as asymmetries between regions in the global economy, there are growing asymmetries
within Latin America and the Caribbean. The data in Table 1.1 distinguishes between the performance
of countries of the semi-periphery and periphery within Latin America (ratio BC). The divergence
between the richer and poorer countries of Latin America continued to grow apace a virtual doubling
of the divergence ratio in 23 years to reach a ratio of 4.2 by 2001. In this book, we make the distinction
between the larger countries of South America and Mexico (Chapter 3) and the smaller countries of
Central America and the Caribbean (Chapter 4). Larger countries have been more successful at
industrializing and developing more complex economic structures; they have slightly more room for
manoeuvre in a globalized world than smaller countries. Meanwhile, as Tom Klak argues in Chapter 4,
the smaller countries are economically vulnerable, not only in terms of traditional sectors such as
agriculture, but also as regards new sectors such as garment assembly and offshore nance.
What is true is that the Latin American periphery and semi-periphery are becoming increasingly
differentiated. Those spaces (whether at the scale of the nationstate, region or city) that are
becoming both more fully inserted into the global economy and more able to achieve a sustained
improvement in international competitiveness, seem to be operating like new growth centres within
Latin America, attracting capital, technology and labour (if the latters mobility is allowed). To what
extent are these new centres linked to the growth in manufacturing or service activity? Analysis of the
nature of export growth within Latin American countries still reveals that:

Latin America Transformed

3 The European Union, a regional bloc in the process of both enlargement and deepening, and with
increasing links to Eastern Europe and parts of the former Soviet Union.
There are at least two important characteristics of this tripolar world relevant to Latin America.
First, transnational corporations from these three poles have identied hinterlands or spheres of
inuence, where they can subcontract labour-intensive operations and extend the regional markets
for their products. European corporations have identied Eastern Europe; rms from the key East
Asian NICs have targeted China and the second-generation NICs of East Asia (such as Malaysia and
Thailand). North American corporations have identied Latin American countries in this respect.
Second, the great majority of direct foreign investment (DFI) during the 1980s and 1990s of the
large transnational rms originating in the three poles has been in countries of the other two poles
(Hirst and Thompson, 1999).This cross-investment has been particularly noticeable for rms from the
East Asian pole (that is, Japanese and South Korean rms investing in North America and Europe);
North American rms have tended to concentrate on DFI in Europe, and European rms in North
America. The important issue for Latin America has been that major corporations from North
America and the other two poles have often preferred to cross-invest rather than to invest in Latin
America. In the two peak years of global investment (1999 and 2000), only 7.8 per cent of the
US$2580 billion of DFI was directed to Latin America. Meanwhile, the North American and West
European poles received 80 per cent of this investment (ECLAC, 2003a: 23).
There are three spaces in Latin America which have maintained signicant amounts of DFI: Brazil,
Mexico and offshore nancial centres. The sheer size of Brazils market (a population of 175 million in
2002) has attracted a wide variety of investment. Between 2000 and 2002 Brazil received 30.6 per
cent of the US$235 billion of the DFI channelled into Latin America (ECLAC, 2003a: 32). Most of this
was directed to the metropolitan areas and cities of Brazils south-east region where manufacturing
activity and high-order services are highly concentrated at the national scale. Meanwhile, since Mexico
negotiated to become a member of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) in the early
1990s, European, Japanese and North American rms have increased their investment in the country,
particularly in the Mexican North. These investments reect TNCs trying to gain favoured access to
the key US market from a proximate location with relatively low labour costs. In the rst three years
of the twenty-rst century, Mexico received 22.4 per cent of Latin American DFI (ECLAC, 2003a: 28).
Meanwhile, offshore centres, such as the Cayman Islands, have continued to gain greater proportions
of DFI targeted at nance. Between 2000 and 2002, offshore nancial centres received nearly 20 per
cent of Latin American DFI (ECLAC, 2003a: 13). Overall, then, virtually 75 per cent of Latin American
DFI is now invested in south-east Brazil, northern Mexico and a handful of offshore nancial centres
in the Caribbean.
In the globalizing tripolar world, how then can we interpret the geography of Latin America? How
are its component parts being integrated within the global economy and the global political system?
The key political and economic relationship is that with the United States, the dominant player in the
global economic and political system of the early twenty-rst century. There are then important
political and ideological issues at stake. However, it would seem that Latin American countries see
themselves, after the demise of both the Second World and the military dictatorships of Latin
America, as more inuenced by US policy. There are some variations within Latin America. Some
countries have become closer to the United States partly due to stronger economic links, such as
Mexico (see above) and Chile (with the signing of a free trade agreement). Other countries (such as
Argentina and Venezuela) have had more uctuating relationships due to a range of ideological and
political differences. Brazil has generally attempted to steer a more distant but consistent course in its
relationship with the USA.
Nevertheless, economic relationships between North America and Latin America are asymmetrical.
Exports from Latin American countries to the USA (outside those of Mexico and Brazil) are mainly in
the form of primary products, with manufactured products dominating in imports from the USA.
10

GLOBALIZATION AND THE CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE OF


STRUCTURALISM AND DEPENDENCY THEORIES
As authors, we have been interested in exploring the continued relevance of theories of
development that have emerged from Latin America (Kay and Gwynne, 2000). We have argued that
Latin American theories of structuralism and dependency would seem to have more relevance in a
period in which the forces behind global capitalism have been less restrained than when these
theories were originally formulated. However, few commentators have attempted to go back to these
theories and relate them to development issues raised by globalization (notable exceptions are
Munck, 1999; Frank 1991; and dos Santos, 2002a). This seems a serious omission given that these
theories saw the problems of under-development and development within a global context. The
following section highlights some themes in which these theories would appear still to have relevance.
Increasing asymmetry and the role of the state
A central vision of structuralism was its conceptualization of the international system as being
constituted by asymmetric centreperiphery relations. Similarly, dependency theory took as its
starting point the world system rooting under-development within the unequal relationships within
it. The economic divide and income gap between the centre or developed countries and the
periphery or under-developed countries have widened continually, especially during the debt and
adjustment decade of the 1980s, thereby vindicating the predictions of structuralist and dependency
theories as opposed to the neoclassical and neoliberal theories which foresaw convergence.
Nevertheless, within the peripheral or dependent countries, a few have succeeded in achieving
remarkable and consistent high rates of economic growth in the past three or four decades, as well as
improvements in equity.This is the case of the rst generation of East Asian NICs such as South Korea,
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. In particular, the larger countries of South Korea and Taiwan,
through their spectacular export-oriented industrialization success, have acquired semi-peripheral
status and may be considered as core economies (Gwynne et al., 2003). In this sense, the structuralist
and associated-dependent development view of Cardoso (1973) is more relevant as compared with
Franks (1967) development of under-development version of dependency, which is at odds with the
development achieved by these countries (see Kay, 1989, for a full exposition of these theories).
11

Latin America transformed: globalization and neoliberalism

Exports to the USA are also lower than US exports to Latin America.The US trade surplus with Latin
America is in contrast to its long-standing trade decit with Japan and East Asia. Nevertheless, the
importance of Latin American trade to the US economy is low only about 8 per cent of its exports
go to Latin America and the Caribbean (excluding Mexico). Meanwhile, the three countries of the
North American Free Trade Area (the USA, Canada, Mexico) are the dominant destinations for
exports from the Central American and Andean countries nearly 50 per cent of their exports go
to NAFTA. Only the export trade of Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay) is not
dominated by NAFTA.
The trade of goods and services and the movement of capital are very mobile between Latin
America and the United States. However, this is much less true for labour. In a truly globalized and
market-oriented world, labour should also be free to move as labour represents a key factor of
production and neoliberal economic models are supposedly based on the free ow of factors of
production between countries. Indeed, international business seems to depend on executives,
professionals and workers migrating from one part of the world to another. However, such labour
mobility is restricted to travel within the core economies or to travel by people from core economies
to developing countries. For labour in Latin America, there is little opportunity for legal migration to
core economies unless the migrant is professional, highly skilled or owns considerable capital. Illegal
migration is an option for unskilled labour, as with migration of Mexicans and Central Americans to the
USA, but this produces another set of problems and insecurities (see Chapter 10).

Latin America Transformed

It has to be stressed that such a dramatic transformation in East Asia was possible due to the central
role played by a national developmentalist state with a forceful industrial policy (imposed after
sweeping land reform) in the pursuit of international competitiveness and growth (Gwynne, 1990; Kay,
2002a). This has conrmed the position of structuralists and dependentistas who pointed to the
importance of the state in promoting development. But the East Asian model has shown that this state
intervention has to be selective and temporary, ensuring that rms acquire international
competitiveness within a specied period.
Contrary to initial claims by neoliberals, the success of the NICs of East Asia was state-induced
rather than market-driven, as expressed so well by Wades (1990) phrase of governing the market.
The World Bank has tried to accommodate some of the many critics of their initial interpretations of
the NICs with their East Asian miracle study (World Bank, 1993) by recognizing the inuence of the
state. But this has in turn spawned further criticisms as the basic argument of the World Bank has not
changed as they continue to argue that the less state intervention the better. In our view, the role of
the state in peripheral economies is crucial so as to ensure competitiveness and guard against the
increasing vulnerability of each country in a globalizing world economy.
Financial vulnerability and dependence
The Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s and its aftermath can be seen as a further illustration of
the contemporary relevance of dependency theory. With the vast increase in capital mobility and its
availability in the world economy since the 1970s (see Gwynne et al., 2003: 120), the economies of
developing countries have become more and more dependent on foreign capital. This greatly
increased their exposure and vulnerability to changes in world capital markets and substantially
reduced their room for policy manoeuvre. In the aftermath of the debt crisis the international
nancial institutions were by and large able to dictate economic and social policies to the indebted
countries, especially the weaker and smaller economies through structural adjustment programmes
(SAPs). While Brazil and Mexico were able to negotiate better terms with the World Bank and
foreign creditors, Bolivia and other small countries were unable to do so.
Since the debt crisis, there have been signicant uctuations in the capital ows to Latin America. In
short, they have experienced both feast and famine. This is extraordinary given that most countries
have followed the Washington consensus (see below) and liberalized nancial markets in order to
attract international capital. Net ows (the balance between outows and inows) of private capital
into Latin America averaged only US$8.2 billion yearly between 1982 and 1989 in the aftermath of
the debt crisis. This well-documented famine in capital inows was followed by the inow of private
capital rising steadily through the 1990s. By the end of the 1990s they averaged virtually US$110
billion a year (World Bank, 2001a); virtually 75 per cent of these ows in 1998 and 1999 came from
direct foreign investment. Subsequently net ows have declined substantially, although the signicance
of direct foreign investment in terms of the overall inow of capital has remained (ECLAC, 2003a: 13).
What are the explanations for this volatility in capital ows? The impact of the nancial crises in
some key Latin American countries on the behaviour of international investors provides one reason.
The Brazilian devaluation of January 1999, the rst Argentine crisis of October 2000 and the second
and prolonged Argentine crisis that started in late 2001 are cases in point. It could be argued that
international investors have shifted from risk-taking strategies in the 1990s to risk-aversion strategies
in the early part of the twenty-rst century. There is also the problem of contagion. When a nancial
crisis breaks out in one Latin American country, international investors not only withdraw funds from
that country but also from its neighbours (even if there is no apparent nancial problem in those
neighbouring countries). Bankers argue that contagion is partly linked to liquidity constraints when
the price of a particular instrument falls, they are obliged to sell other types of holdings in order to
restore their own liquidity. Furthermore, bankers not only use similar risk assessment systems but also
evaluate the performance of investments over short periods of time. These factors exacerbate the
effects of contagion both within and between Latin American nancial markets.
12

Unequal exchange
Recent studies have conrmed the deterioration of the peripherys terms of trade in relation to that
of the core economies (ECLAC, 2002a: 38), a fact rst highlighted by structuralism and incorporated
into dependencys unequal exchange theory. This does not necessarily mean that foreign exchange
earnings have declined often the case has been the contrary due to the continued rise in the
volume of commodity exports from the periphery. But it does mean that a substantial part of the
peripherys economic surplus is transferred to the core economies, further strengthening the power
of the cores capitalist class.
The lesson continues to be that Latin American countries should shift their export structure to
higher value-added commodities and services rather than continuing to export basic primary
commodities which can lead to resource depletion and negative environmental consequences. It
should not be forgotten that structuralist theorists were among the rst to argue that Latin American
governments should encourage industrial exports which they saw as the next phase of the regions
industrialization process (Kay, 1989: 40). However, governments (apart from Brazil and Mexico) failed
to act, or did so too timidly. Some countries that tried to diversify into manufacturing exports were
hampered in their efforts by protectionist measures from the US government.
Technological dependence
Dependency writers put particular emphasis on technological dependence. Structuralists had
pointed to the weakness of the Latin American ISI process in the 1960s and 1970s (Jenkins, 1977;
Gwynne, 1985) due to the difculties it was experiencing in moving from the consumer goods
industries to the capital goods industries, which are the source of some of the new technologies. The
larger countries, such as Brazil, had managed to develop a substantial intermediate goods industrial
13

Latin America transformed: globalization and neoliberalism

The debt crisis and its aftermath demonstrated the impacts of the volatility of capital ows,
particularly those from short-term credit. Meanwhile, in the 1990s, the rise and fall of portfolio
investment added a further volatile component. Such volatility can have serious implications on
national economies through their impacts on exchange rates. For example, when net capital inows
grow, the value of the domestic Latin American currency also rises, creating an overvalued exchange
rate (which in turn has a negative effect on exports). However, when net capital inows decline
(sometimes leading to net capital outows), the value of the domestic Latin American currency can
drop precipitously as the domestic currency is sold by international investors. Such a roller-coaster
pattern tends to deepen recessions and require painful economic adjustments (Grifth-Jones, 1998).
It has been argued that Latin American countries should adopt a xed exchange rate in order to
reduce the impacts of such volatility. However, the extreme nancial disasters that followed the ending
of the Chilean xed exchange rate in June 1981 and the Argentine xed exchange rate in November
2001 (after nearly ten years of operation) demonstrate that this is a problematic conclusion. It could
be argued that Brazil has weathered a number of nancial crises in the past decade due to its policy
of a oating exchange rate. There has been a high volatility in capital ows and exchange rates but a
nancial crash (as in Argentina after 2001) has been avoided.
Nevertheless, this shows the heightened vulnerability to and dependence of Latin American
countries on the sharp swings in capital ows.The failure to expand national savings through the 1990s
and early twenty-rst century has increased this vulnerability. The only point of optimism is that since
the late 1990s, direct foreign investment has become the main component of net inward ows to
Latin America (ECLAC, 2002a: 62). Because these ows are linked to physical investments, their
volatility is less than those of portfolio investment and short-term capital ows. Overall, though, most
of Latin America remains highly dependent on international nancial markets, which in turn impose a
series of constraints on Latin American governments. The populist Brazilian President, Luis Incio Lula
da Silva, was quick to recognize this not only during his presidential campaign of 2002 but also during
his early period of ofce.

Latin America Transformed

sector, for example, the steel and chemical industries (Baer, 1969). Despite the increasing presence
of transnational corporations (TNCs) in Latin America, there has been little technological diffusion,
which has conrmed dependency theorys critique of TNCs. Government policy has failed to
develop an indigenous technological capacity in Latin America and could have acted more decisively
to ensure that TNCs made a contribution to this process.
Nevertheless, Brazil and to some extent Mexico have acquired some competitive technological
capacity largely as a consequence of a deliberate industrial policy (Geref, 1994). With the new
biotechnology, electronics and communications revolution the more advanced economies have gained
a further competitive advantage in the generation of new technological capabilities over Latin
American countries. This has increased further the latters technological dependence (Castells and
Laserna, 1995). Through the remittances of royalties, prots and interest payments Latin American
countries continue to transfer a signicant net economic surplus to the core economies in general and
the United States in particular. Such surplus transfers arising from technology payments, foreign
investment and the unequal exchange in foreign trade mean a signicant reduction in funds which
could have been used for domestic investment within Latin America.
Globalization: constraints and opportunities
Neither structuralism nor dependency theory foresaw the rapid growth of world trade in the postwar period. This has acquired a new dimension in the present phase of globalization with its time
and space compression, and the more recent impetus to liberalization of the world economy with
the reduction of barriers to the mobility of goods, services and capital across frontiers, thereby
creating new opportunities for international trade and foreign investment.
These globalization forces have certainly reduced even further the room for manoeuvre of national
development policies as compared with the ISI period, thereby conrming one of the key tenets of
dependency theory. Today, international market forces rule with even greater strength than in the past
and national states have to take even greater consideration of these global market forces than before,
as otherwise they can be faced with large withdrawals of foreign capital (as in the case of Mexico and
Argentina during the 199495 and 20013 nancial crises, respectively), the wrath of the international
nancial institutions and difculties with international rms and investors.
Meanwhile, the reinforcing processes of globalization and liberalization have opened up new export
opportunities for Latin American economies and have attracted increasing amounts of foreign
investment to the region. In some Latin American countries the export sector has been able to give a
new dynamism to the national economy. This dynamic capacity of the world trade system has been
under-estimated by structuralists and seen as having negative consequences by some dependency
writers. While some of these misgivings are justied, it has detracted from focusing more rmly on the
key issue of the domestic policies pursued by the state and the class and other social forces which
shape those policies, as well as the internal market forces in the periphery.

GLOBALIZATION IN THE NEOLIBERAL ERA


In the years since the rst edition of this book, the limits of the neoliberal process of globalization
have become much more evident. In many Latin American countries, opposition to the negative
effects of the neoliberal policies has become more vocal and grown in strength. The most dramatic
situation has been in Argentina, which defaulted on its debt in late 2001, unleashing a major social
and political crisis after exposing the fragility of the economy (Tedesco and Dinerstein, 2003).
Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets not only in Buenos Aires but throughout
most major cities of Argentina, clamouring for a change in economic policy as well as for a renewal
of the countrys political leadership (Burbach, 2002). There was a succession of ve presidents in a
few weeks; all were unable to deal with the spontaneous political mobilizations among the working
and middle classes and which took place largely outside the traditional political system. The economy
14

Denitions, economic characteristics and variations


The use of the term neoliberal has numerous problems in terms of its ideological connotations. For
example, in international policy circles, the term Washington consensus (Williamson, 1990) tends to
be used, indicating virtually the same package of reforms. In their original formulations, neoliberal
reforms have normally emphasized economic reforms as opposed to social policies or political
reform (Kay, 1993). Hence, perhaps, some writers have talked about the new economic model
(Bulmer-Thomas, 1996b). The economic package of reforms has focused on at least ve main areas:
scal management, macro-economic stability, privatization of state rms, labour markets and trade
liberalization.
As governments became committed to neoliberal policies during the 1990s, they tended to stress
the political and economic advantages of creating a more technical, strict and transparent approach
to macro-economic management in order to improve the running of the national economy. Thus,
scal reform has emphasized the need for the reduction of budget decits, the creation of strong
budget and tax ofces and, even, an independent central bank (as in Chile in 1989). In countries such
as Argentina and Peru, Treasury ministers used this policy in order to justify the slashing of public
expenditure, particularly in economic sectors but also in social areas. However, as neoliberal
policies evolved during the 1990s, the need to increase public spending in social areas, such as
education, health and welfare, became more of a priority, as in Chile under the Concertacin
government.
One key concern of the IMF in relation to Latin America was that of high ination. The IMF strongly
emphasized policies that would reduce ination and subsequently maintain price stability. It highlighted
the importance of the relationship between the growth of the money supply and ination. High
ination would discourage investment and therefore have a negative impact on growth. Thus, money
supply became the crucial variable for governments to measure and regulate. This meant reducing the
scal decit as this was one of the main sources of monetary expansion. Strict control of the money
supply normally led to high interest rates, particularly in the early stages of reform, again dampening
down investment.
The reduction in the powers of the state in the neoliberal model was further justied through
privatization. In some countries, most notably Argentina, policies of privatization became intimately
linked to those of scal reform. Privatization had the objective of eliminating supposedly inefcient and
insolvent state enterprises, thereby reducing government expenditure. Furthermore, the sale of these
rms to the private sector was supposed to boost income for government during economic
restructuring, when government nances were at their most vulnerable. In Argentina, the funds from
privatization tended to be classied as government income rather than being saved in a Stabilization
Fund for future use. When there were no more state enterprises to privatize, the Argentine Treasury
thus faced two immediate problems a signicant drop in annual income and the lack of any savings
to draw on from a Stabilization Fund. Privatization also introduced the need to create strong
regulatory bodies so that competition would be ensured in areas of potential monopoly (such as
electricity production and distribution), and that the private sector companies would actually work
more efciently than the companies from the former public sector.
15

Latin America transformed: globalization and neoliberalism

plummeted by 20 per cent of its GNP, unemployment rose to over 20 per cent of the labour force
and poverty shot up to include about half of the total population. The countrys fall from its premier
position within Latin America could not have been more painful and demoralizing. Although
neoliberal policies might not be fully responsible for the crisis, they were certainly a major factor in
the countrys downfall. For several years the IMF had shored up the Argentinean economy with
generous loans, exacerbating the malaise and postponing the implementation of necessary
corrective measures. At the time of writing, the country, which the IMF and neoliberals had heralded
as one of the model countries, still has not found a way out of the crisis, although the country seems
to have left the worst behind.

Latin America Transformed

Another key neoliberal reform was that of restructuring labour markets. New wage and
employment bargaining systems were introduced, giving more power to employers and less to trade
unions. New employment laws were passed in order to make labour markets more exible and to
reduce the social security contributions and responsibilities of employers. Overall, these reforms have
restructured labour markets in favour of employers, as they have gained a more exible system of
hiring and ring and lower wage and non-wage costs (see Chapters 11 and 12).
Private sector employers were seen as the key targets of trade reform. Trade reforms were
concerned with making Latin American economies more outward-looking and private sector rms
keener on becoming more competitive in the international market place. Trade liberalization
emphasized the need to promote exports (partly through the use of more effective exchange rates)
and to reduce tariffs on imports. Such reform aimed to create more international competition for
rms so that they could change their focus from producing for just the home market to supplying
global markets. At the same time, governments were supposed to avoid direct interventions in the
economy (such as through industrial policy) and to encourage the inward ow of direct foreign
investment from TNCs.
These were the core of the neoliberal reforms that were put into place to varying degrees in Latin
American countries (Edwards, 1995; Thorp, 1998). These transformations in political economy were
not similar in all countries. The commitment to and the extent of neoliberal reform in Latin America
varied substantially in the 1990s. There was a difference between Chile (with over two decades of
reform and a shift from authoritarian to democratic governance), Argentina and Peru (late but
committed converts) and Venezuela (where conversion to neoliberal reform between 1989 and 1992
was short-lived and was closely linked to corruption) (Stallings and Peres, 2000). Finally, the Brazilian
conversion to a form of neoliberalism under President Cardoso in the 1990s indicated the
consolidation of the neoliberal paradigm on the continent (Cammack, 1997). Thus, overall the shift in
policy package has been distinctive. Why have these reforms become so widespread?
Global factors
Why has neoliberalism become the dominant paradigm in Latin America? There are perhaps two
relevant geographical scales upon which to attempt an answer: the global and Latin American. At the
global scale, the package of economic reforms was strongly supported by international institutions
such as the World Bank and the IMF hence the relevance of the label that the consensus was
forged in Washington (Williamson, 1990, 1993). These international institutions gave strong external
support for the adoption of a neoliberal framework. The technocracies of these institutions
combined with networks of economic and political advisers throughout Latin America to actively
push for reform, particularly in the wake of the debt crisis.
The neoliberal model had surprising converts in other parts of the world. The late 1980s and early
1990s saw the collapse of the Soviet system and the very different economic model of state direction
and central planning. The introduction of market reforms in Eastern Europe and the countries of the
former Soviet Union, and the apparent vigour with which governments and the populace shifted from
planned to market economies gave neoliberal reform considerable impetus in Latin America (Stiglitz,
2002). Latin America could also look to the economic success of certain East Asian countries, which
had embarked on outward-oriented policies since the 1960s (though with strong state involvement),
thus justifying more export-oriented strategies for Latin American countries (Geref and Wyman,
1990; Jenkins, 1991).
Continental factors
At the Latin American scale, there were a number of relevant historical and comparative factors. In
the 1980s, neoliberal policies provided a framework to extricate Latin American economies from
the severe debt crisis of that decade, in which access to external nance was suddenly curtailed (see
Chapter 3). In many countries, the adoption of a new paradigm also constituted a wider response to
16

SOCIAL BASES OF NEOLIBERALISM


In order to consider the present nature of neoliberalism and its future sustainability, it is important
to assess how rm the bases of consensus for this paradigm are and what are the challenges to this
consensus. Has any social consensus been achieved in order to support the neoliberal order, or is it
just a technocratic consensus of government circles and their advisers (see Chapter 7)?
The technocratic and economic base
It has been argued that the growth of technocratic support for the neoliberal model emerged as a
reaction to the deciencies of the previous inward-oriented paradigm based on protected markets
and industrialization. Economic growth based on ISI had encountered both economic and political
difculties (Gwynne, 1985). The technocratic argument was that due to the power of the state in
the ISI model, opportunities for private investment were crowded out, scal budgets were
characterized by permanent and large decits, ination tended to be high and the rms engaged in
ISI production (whether public or private) had become inefcient and uncompetitive internationally.
These economic difculties were compounded by the political. Industrial rms continued to
demand higher rates of protection in order to survive, which discriminated against exporters and
agricultural producers. In some countries, the emergence of a substantial industrial base had given rise
to an industrial working class that was gaining in political signicance. Meanwhile, industrial rms
emphasized the high social contributions that they were burdened with and complained about the
expensive nature of the rudimentary welfare states that were being created.
The technocratic forces that came to favour neoliberal strategies were not only dened by what
they were against but also by what they were for. The theoretical attraction of free market models,
17

Latin America transformed: globalization and neoliberalism

the perceived economic failure of the previous political economy paradigm of inward orientation
(Kay, 1989; Dietz, 1995). The intellectual justication of inward orientation came from structuralism
and dependency theories (Kay and Gwynne, 2000).
The decade of the 1990s witnessed big advances in the globalization of the Latin American
economy, with capital ows, trade and investment increasing signicantly (ECLAC, 2002a).The inwardoriented model was effectively cutting Latin American economies off from the advantages (and
problems) of being more fully inserted into a globalizing world economy. Neoliberal policies provided
the framework for Latin American economies to increase trade with other world regions and increase
inward investment and capital inows from rms and banks in those regions.
Furthermore, there is the question of the link between neoliberal reform and governance. During
the late 1980s and 1990s, the link between neoliberal policies and democratic governance has
become particularly strong in Latin America (Haggard and Kaufman, 1995) particularly through
transitions to democracy in former authoritarian governments (see Chapter 7). There have been
signicant shifts from authoritarian to democratic governance in all Southern Cone countries and
Brazil during the 1980s and 1990s. In all cases there has either been a shift towards or maintenance of
neoliberal economic policies in the aftermath of the democratic transition (see Chapter 8). Shifts to
neoliberal reform did not always come immediately. In the mid- to late 1980s, heterodox stabilization
plans were attempted in Argentina with the Plan Austral and the Plan Cruzado in Brazil. However,
these plans met with failure and thus allowed the neoliberal paradigm to gain further inuence. It
could be argued that the failure of these stabilization plans helped to persuade the population that the
bitter pill had to be swallowed. There was no soft option to the shock treatment in order to stop the
trend of rampant ination.
Political parties that have come to power after the demise of the authoritarian governments that
instigated neoliberal policies have subsequently maintained them (as in the case of the Concertacin
governments in Chile since 1990). These parties have argued that democratic governance allows for
and encourages greater public participation and representation in the policy process.

Latin America Transformed

a smaller state and the importance of achieving macro-economic stability were some of the main
themes (Gwynne, 1990). The great majority of technocrats had been research students in the
economics and business schools of US universities (Centeno and Silva, 1998). Before the debt crisis,
such technocrats had presented neoliberal policy alternatives but had been unable to command
sufcient political support for their implementation. After the debt crisis, this changed dramatically and
they became the main agents of economic change not only through direct political appointments
(such as Treasury ministers) but also through the range of advisers and civil servants required by
government (see Chapter 8). They became part of an international network of advisers, all broadly
sympathetic to market-oriented solutions, macro-economic reform and outward orientation as a way
out of the debt crisis.
In spite of delays, the evolution of this new government technocracy has occurred in most Latin
American countries. In Argentina and Peru it was delayed until the early 1990s, in Brazil until the mid1990s. In these countries, the technocratic elements supporting more market-oriented policies had to
struggle for the policies to be put in place against the continuation of both populist and inwardoriented policies. Indeed, in Peru, it should be remembered that Fujimori actually came to power on
the back of a populist agenda in the 1990 election; it was only after extensive consultations with
inuential international institutions and networks of Latin American (and Peruvian) technocrats that
he was converted (and forcefully) to the neoliberal agenda. Thus, technocrats became inuential
agents in the installation of the new paradigm.
There was an important distinction as to whether the technocratic force pushing the neoliberal
agenda was linked to democratic or authoritarian governments. Within democratic structures,
government ministers and technocrats needed to explain and justify the concepts behind radical
policy changes to a wide public. Within authoritarian governments, such changes were imposed from
above, often with little justication or consultation. Technocrats within authoritarian governments
tended to become more dogmatic as a result, able to impose theoretically consistent policies but
unwilling to listen and react to the many who suffered from the fundamental restructuring of the
economy. Meanwhile, technocrats within democratic governments have often been both less rigidly
ideological in their policy formulation and more willing to adapt policy to political realities (see
Chapter 8).
The social and political base
It is worth emphasizing that the neoliberal model had little social and political base in the early
stages of its evolution apart perhaps from a limited number of entrepreneurs associated with
export industries. In general, entrepreneurs in the protected sectors of agriculture, nance and
industry were not supportive of more outward-oriented policies as this would bring increased
competition and would change their political inuence in relatively closed markets. How did the
social and political base develop?
In many countries, it developed as a response to the impacts of the debt crisis and the need to shift
power to export-producing sectors and, subsequently, to foreign investors both in terms of nance
and productive capital. During the 1990s, there was a surprising extension of the political base as
centre-left coalitions and governments (as in Chile and Brazil, for example) were converted to more
socially responsible modes of neoliberal economic reform (Demmers et al., 2001). A range of social
democratic parties adopted the Washington consensus (Bresser Pereira, 1996), although they
emphasized the need for social policies and welfare programmes to smooth over the hardships of the
transition and the restructuring process. The expansion of the political base supporting neoliberal
reform gave it a wider sense of social support and legitimacy during the 1990s.
In the early twenty-rst century, this range of support has dwindled, particularly in those countries
that have experienced nancial crises (most notably Argentina). New centre-left parties that have
been elected into government, such as the Workers Party in Brazil, have targeted policies that focus
on reducing the dramatic inequalities inherent in Latin American societies (such as Lulas campaign
18

CONCLUSION: A PARADIGM SHIFT IN THEORY AND POLICY


Latin America has thus experienced a paradigm shift in both theory and policy. Two immediate
conclusions can be mentioned in this context. First, there is the comparison between the theoretical
sources for the two recent paradigms; whereas important elements of structuralism and
dependency originated from within Latin America, the present neoliberal paradigm has been driven
more by external sources. Second, the inward-oriented paradigm had been the dominant one of the
twentieth century (stretching from the 1930s to the 1980s); this may lead one to see the new
neoliberal paradigm as the one that will be more representative of the twenty-rst century. We will
return to this issue in Chapter 13.
This has opened a new chapter in Latin Americas evolution, particularly in terms of forming new
relations with the world economy. It can be termed a paradigmatic change and related historically to
Latin Americas insertion into the global economy of the nineteenth century. While Latin Americas
economies at that time could rely on the comparative advantages of its natural resources, the
important issue today is how competitive advantages can be generated and created at the level of
both the nationstate and the rm. This requires new conceptualizations. Structuralism underestimated the key importance of competitiveness of the world market in transforming economies and
societies. Structuralism thought that Latin American economies could shield themselves from global
forces and that they could continue to rely on comparative advantages in minerals and basic primary
products while promoting inward-oriented industrialization.
In contrast, the pure form of the neoliberal model believes in completely opening up national
economies to global markets without state mediation. It therefore seems willing to sacrice
uncompetitive sectors (most notably in industry) to foreign competition. The corollary for this has
been a return to relying on natural resource advantages and what has come to be known as nontraditional exports (see Chapter 12). Some key leaders in Latin America (such as Cardoso in Brazil)
and neostructuralist thinkers (see Chapter 13) have seen the need for the state to bring about the
necessary institutional changes for the Latin American economies to build up competitive advantages.
The need to be part of the world market is now fully accepted, but it is also identied that there is a
crucial role for the state in (for example) developing human resources. This can be seen as an
interpretation of the East Asian model of economic success based on industrial competitiveness and
its application to Latin America (Fajnzylber, 1990a, 1990b; Gwynne, 1990).
Such social reconstruction can be very painful, affecting many layers of society the industrial
working classes (as industrial plants are closed or modernized), the state-employed middle classes (as
governments privatize and reduce employment in the public services) and uncompetitive (often
inward-oriented) sectors of the capitalist class. In the main, this process has been driven by highly
centralized national governments and has often operated in the form of a state-driven social
restructuring. This has occurred in authoritarian governments, most notably that of the Pinochet
dictatorship in Chile (197390). However, democratically elected governments also initiated marketorientated reforms and even managed to be re-elected on such a platform (Menem in Argentina,
Fujimori in Peru and Cardoso in Brazil). It could be argued that such governments have required
strong presidential systems in order to succeed.
The model of state-driven social restructuring has responded to the exigencies of the global market
and the pulling down of the economic barriers between the national economy and the world market.
In a way, it has represented a repressive approach to the demands of the social losers of the new
19

Latin America transformed: globalization and neoliberalism

against hunger in Brazil in 2003) and have kept their broad adherence to the technocratic elements of
the neoliberal economic agenda more in the background. The achievement of macro-economic
stability that helped the neoliberal programme generate wider legitimacy during the 1990s has thus
been interpreted as a necessary building block for governments who aim nevertheless to target more
directly the huge social problems that confront them (Ocampo and Franco, 2000).

Latin America Transformed

economic model. This social restructuring has had varying impacts on different social groups and has
varied from country to country. On the whole, less protection has been given to certain sectors (such
as the industrial working class, the peasantry and indigenous groups) than to others (such as the
entrepreneurial middle class and the new nancial groups that have emerged). The capitalist class has
been more able to readjust to the changing circumstances and realities of the international market
and, as a result, has not only expanded in size and inuence but has also become the key national
winner of the paradigmatic shift. Ultimately, it is transnational capital that has reaped the benets and
consolidated its global power with the neoliberal turn.

FURTHER READING
Buxton, J. and Phillips, N. (eds) 1999 Developments in Latin American political economy: state,
markets and actors. Manchester University Press, Manchester, and St. Martins Press, New York.
Focuses on the interaction of the state and the market as well as on traditional and emerging
actors such as the military, guerrilla movements, NGOs and women.
Chase, J. (ed.) 2002 The spaces of neoliberalism: land, place and family in Latin America. Kumarian
Press, Bloomeld, CT. Explores the various ways that households, communities, women and ethnic
groups deal with market relations and state policies in everyday life.
Green, D. 2003 Silent revolution: the rise of market economics in Latin America. Second edn., Latin
America Bureau, London, and Monthly Review Press, New York. A popular and well-written critical
analysis of Latin Americas neoliberal economic reforms.
Gwynne, R. N., Klak, T. and Shaw, D. J. B. 2003 Alternative capitalisms: geographies of emerging
regions. Arnold, London. Examines the effects of globalization and economic and political
transformation in Latin America and the Caribbean, and compares them with those occurring in
East Central Europe, the former Soviet Union and East Asia. In this sense, it provides a unique
approach in terms of books published in both geography and the social sciences.
Kay, C. 1989 Latin American theories of development and underdevelopment. Routledge, London. This
still provides the most comprehensive and systematic introduction to Latin American theories of
development. The origins of structuralist and dependency theories are scrutinized alongside those
of marginality and internal colonialism.
Kirby, P. 2003 Introduction to Latin America: twenty-rst century challenges. London and Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. A comprehensive, accessible and engaging overview of the economic,
social and political forces shaping contemporary Latin America.
Munck, R. 2003 Contemporary Latin America. Houndmills, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave
Macmillan. A lively, concise and readable text that provides a general introduction to the region.
Swanson, P. (ed.) 2003 The companion to Latin American studies. Arnold, London, and Oxford
University Press, New York. An original companion to literary and cultural studies that situates the
region in its historical, social, political, literary and cultural context.

WEBSITES
Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, http://www.clacso.org/, is the site of the
Latin American Council for the Social Sciences with links to member research institutions
throughout the region. Many of its books can be downloaded.
Economic Commission for Latin and the Caribbean, http://www.eclac.cl/, probably has the
most economic and social data on Latin America that is available from its publications, particularly in
20

Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, http://www.acso.org/, is the site of the


Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences which has research centres in various Latin American
countries and offers postgraduate study programmes.
Inter-American Development Bank, http://www.iadb.org/, has data and analyses on mainly
economic affairs.
Latin American Network Information Center, http://lanic.utexas.edu/, perhaps the richest
Internet site on Latin America for information and analysis on a great variety of topics, and links to
other useful websites. A good starting point for those interested in Latin American studies.
Latin American Studies Association, http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/, the website of the
largest association of Latin Americanists in the world.

21

Latin America transformed: globalization and neoliberalism

its annual Statistical Yearbook for Latin America and the Caribbean. Most of its recent publications can
be downloaded.

2
Modernity and identity: cultural change
in Latin America
Jorge Larran

INTRODUCTION
This chapter will concentrate on contemporary issues of modernity and identity in Latin America since
the 1970s. However, it must be pointed out that since the beginning of the nineteenth century modernity
has been presented in Latin America as an alternative to identity, as much by those who are suspicious
of it as by those who badly wanted it at all cost. In part, this has been the result of essentialist conceptions
of cultural identity which freeze its contents and do not consider real cultural change. If identity is
considered to have been fixed during colonial times in a traditional and deeply religious mould once and
for all, then any modernization started after independence could only be achieved at its expense.
But this opposition between modernity and identity is also a consequence of the fact that
modernity in Latin America has been often conceived as a process intrinsically connected with the
trajectory of Western societies (Europe and the United States) in which a particular set of institutions
allowed the development of a market economy, a democratic polity and an autonomous scientific
knowledge. Instead of conceiving of modernity as a way of dealing with basic problematics of social life
which seek autonomy in the political and epistemic fields and rational control in order to satisfy basic
needs, it confuses the particular institutional answer of Western societies with a general and necessary
feature of modernity (Wagner, 2001a, 2001b).
This leads to an over-simplified conception of modernity which totally conflates its different
trajectories in a single Western model which has to be accepted by all. This means that it has to be
brought from outside into Latin America, thus seeming to be totally alien to it. Hence it appears to
exist in the region in conflict with its true identity. Some oppose it for this reason and others want to
impose it in spite of this reason. The former believe that modernity cannot succeed in Latin America;
the latter believe that Latin Americas identity has to be dismantled. Both recognize the existence of a
conflict which has to be resolved in favour of one or the other. Modernity and identity are conceived
as absolute phenomena with opposite roots.
Contrary to these positions which present modernity and identity in Latin America as mutually
excluding phenomena, I would like to show their continuity and interconnection. The same historical
process of identity construction has been, from independence onwards, a process of construction of
modernity. It is true that modernity was born in Europe, but Europe does not monopolize all its
trajectory (Wagner, 1994; Therborn, 1995). Precisely because the search for autonomy and rational
control can lead to alternative institutional solutions, modernity has been actively and not passively
incorporated in Latin America. There are important institutional differences with Europe and the
United States, of that there is no doubt. But this does not mean that Latin America has totally failed to
modernize. Latin America has a specific way of being in modernity. Latin American modernity is not
exactly the same as European or North American modernity; it has its own trajectory. But because it
has frequently tried to copy North American or European institutional models, it is neither purely
endogenous nor entirely imposed from without, some call it subordinate or peripheral (Parker, 1993:
81; Brunner, 1994: 144).
22

BOX 2.1 Stages of the Latin American trajectory to modernity (source:


Larran, 2000: 78, 224)
In Latin Americas independent history there have been roughly five alternating stages (to which a
sixth could be added):
1. from independence to 1900: a period of expansion: oligarchic modernization;
2. from 1900 to 1945: a period of crisis: the end of oligarchic domination and the emergence of
populism;
3. from 1945 to 1970: a period of expansion after the Second World War: developmentalism;
4. from 1970 to 1990: a period of crisis: dictatorships and the lost decade of the 1980s;
5. from 1990 to 2000: a period of expansion: neoliberalism;
6. from 2000: still within a neoliberal orientation, a period of crisis sets in. The consequences of it
are still hard to assess (see Chapter 13).

The criteria for periodization are complex and try to link four main factors: (1) economic trends; (2)
cultural developments; (3) political changes; and (4) key international events. The assumption is made
that when there are important changes occurring in all these variables which more or less coincide at
a particular time, then a new stage appears. But obviously there is hardly ever a perfect match and
changes occurring in certain variables may be displaced in time in relation to those occurring in others.
For example, if we focus on the second period entitled the end of oligarchic domination, from an
economic and international point of view it seems to start in 1914, from a cultural point of view it has
already been present since 1900 and in the sphere of politics it seems to start in the 1920s in some
countries and in the 1930s in others. Hence the dates 190045 are only a rough approximation.
Nevertheless, at the heart of the stage, the changes in all four factors are deeply interrelated.The stage
which appears to have started in 2000, mainly because of the economic and political crises in Latin
America, will not be dealt with since it is still very hard fully to anticipate its effects and to determine
its main characteristics.
I shall very briey review the rst three stages in order to concentrate on the last two (19702000).
Yet before doing this it is perhaps useful to be more explicit about the connection between these
stages and the process of globalization. If one of the effects of globalization is the diminishing power
of local circumstances in the life of whole regions so that they are increasingly affected by what
happens elsewhere, then these stages show the deep impact of certain international events on Latin
America. The process of independence at the beginning of the nineteenth century was greatly
inuenced by the Napoleonic invasion of Spain and its main ideas were drawn from the French
Revolution, British liberalism and French positivism.
The second stage of crisis reected the impact of the First World War, the Russian Revolution and
the Great Depression of the 1930s. The expansion of North American and European capitalism after
the Second World War brought about the third stage of development and modernization in Latin
America. The world recession, the end of the Fordist period and the rise in oil prices in the 1970s
23

Modernity and identity: cultural change in Latin America

Elsewhere I have argued (Larran, 2000) that within ve distinct stages, Latin America has been
simultaneously modernizing and constructing its cultural identity, and yet these two phenomena, in
spite of being intimately interconnected, have been persistently perceived as opposing alternatives.
Whether identity or modernity are favoured is not entirely a random process. Theories that privilege
modernity tend to crop up and are more prevalent in times of accelerated development and
economic expansion. Theories that emphasize identity have emerged with greater force in periods of
crisis in which economic growth and general welfare stall or decrease.

Latin America Transformed

affected the fourth stage of negative growth and reinforced the prevailing pattern of dictatorships.The
boom of world capitalism and the overwhelming tide of neoliberalism in the 1990s, deeply affected
the fth stage of Latin American modernization.

THE LATIN AMERICAN TRAJECTORY TO MODERNITY


From independence to 1900: oligarchic modernization
Two features of this stage must be underlined. First, at this time liberal ideas are adopted, lay education
expands, a free press is established, a republican state is built up and democratic forms of government
are introduced. However, all this occurs alongside substantial restrictions for the wider participation of
the non-educated classes. Second, contrary to the US trajectory, industrialization was postponed and
replaced by a raw material exporting system which did little to modernize the productive sectors.
Latin American modernity during the nineteenth century was more political and cultural than
economic and, generally speaking, very restricted. In spite of these limitations. The modernizations
introduced went hand in hand with a reconstitution of cultural identity in which the values of freedom,
democracy, racial equality, science and lay education attempted a considerable advance. This was
particularly notable in comparison with the prevalent values of colonial times that were heavily
inuenced by a monopolistic Catholic religion, closely related to political authoritarianism, not very
open to scientic reason and steeped in slavery, racism and the Inquisition.
The eighteenth-century French Enlightenment, British liberalism and, particularly, the Positivism
derived from Auguste Comte, played a very important ideological role in this process. Just as much as
the Creoles wanted freedom to trade with Britain and the rest of Europe, they also wanted cultural
freedom from the tutelage of the Church. They thought the new ideas were their only hope, to bring
about order and progress to the newly emerging republics. Not that the new Enlightened values and
practices totally displaced the colonial cultural pole, but at least they modied and transformed it in
some important respects.
Pro-modern thinkers of the time felt that modernity could only be achieved as long as the IndoIberian cultural pattern was totally replaced by a new one, but were unable to see how deeply
inuenced by the old racist prejudices they still were. At the same time, their vision of modernity was
shaped by the nave wish to become a true image of the United States or Europe. Latin America was
still to be civilized and its barbaric cultural features eradicated. Sarmiento is the most representative
writer of the time. He explicitly argued that the real struggle in Latin America was one between
civilization and barbarism (Sarmiento, 1945: 58). The former was represented by Europe and the
United States, the latter was the result of Latin American racial inferiority. This vision was more or less
shared everywhere in Latin America by other positivists.
It is therefore not surprising that one of the policies they proposed to modernize Latin America
consisted in improving its racial composition by means of European white immigration (Sarmiento,
1993: 408). For Sarmiento, another way of compensating for Latin Americas racial inferiority was
instruction, education diffused through the mass of the inhabitants (cited by Martnez Estrada, 1968:
134, 137). Modernization, therefore, depended upon Latin Americans being able to replace their
colonial and racial heritage by means of immigration and/or scientic education. For nineteenthcentury Latin American authors there was clearly a need to achieve modernity by destroying the
colonial cultural identity. But obviously, it was not easy to dismantle such an identity and they
themselves unwittingly shared its racism and elitism.
The opposition between barbarism and civilization was not only explicitly developed in critical
essays, but was also an important subtext of many romantic literary works of the time. Unlike
European Romanticism, which wanted to escape from civilization to nd refuge in nature, Latin
American Romanticism wanted to escape from the isolation and barbarism of nature. For example, in
Jos Mrmols novel Amalia (1945), civilization is represented by a small group of intellectuals to which
the three protagonists belong. They struggle against the tyrant Rosas but in the end succumb and are
24

From 1900 to 1945: the crisis of oligarchic modernity


By the turn of the century oligarchic power had begun to crumble, the so-called social question
comes to the fore, new populist regimes emerge which widen the franchise and incorporate middle
classes into government, and the processes of import-substituting industrialization are initiated. Thus,
while in Europe an economic and political crisis of liberal industrial capitalism is experienced (Polanyi,
1957: 29), in Latin America it is the prevalent oligarchic and aristocratic agrarian export-oriented
system which enters into its terminal phase and incipient industrialization processes start with some
success.
This stage of crisis and change in Latin America is accompanied in its beginnings by the emergence
of anti-imperialist feelings, by a new revaluation of mestizaje, by a new indigenista current of thought
that criticizes the discrimination of the Indian communities, and by a growing social consciousness
about the problems of the working class. In general, most of these trends showed a renewed interest
in Latin Americas specic cultural identity and opposed the kind of modernity offered by the North
American or European models.
At this time, a realist tendency in the writing of novels develops and expresses in a literary form the
turbulence of these times. This realism could be rural, naturalist, social or indigenista (Franco, 1980:
21561). In general, the various forms of realism are related to the difcult times of change in which
the old Latin American order is beginning to be challenged, thus producing a crisis of identity. These
novels do not offer clear-cut solutions to the problems of identity but hint at different possibilities
which stem from the virtues of popular characters and geographical places (Xirau, 1992: 185203).
At the beginning of the century, in the context of North American expansionism, a group of
intellectuals raised their voices against the United States and its hegemonic aspirations in relation to
Latin America. Jos Mart of Cuba, Ruben Dario of Nicaragua, Jos Vasconcelos of Mexico, Runo
Blanco Fombona of Venezuela, Manuel Ugarte of Argentina joined their critical voices to that of the
Uruguayan Jos Enrique Rodo. The latter achieved an enormous inuence with his book Ariel, which
was published in 1900. It criticized nordomana, the Latin American inclination to copy foreign models,
especially North American, and advocated a return to its own reality (Rod, 1993: 30417).
Against the positivist idea that mestizaje degenerated the race, Vasconcelos (1927: 14; 1993: 339)
celebrated the values of mestizaje and of the Latin race and contrasted them to the characteristics of
the Saxon race. In a similar vein, the works of indigenista authors like Valcrcel (1925) advocated a
return to Indian values and customs in opposition to the European cultural heritage.
Later on, and in the context of the Great Depression, this difcult period seems to promote very
pessimistic discourses which underline the negative features of Latin American identity or try to
rescue the Hispanic features of the Latin American character (Eyzaguirre, 1947; Lira, 1985). Thus, for
instance, Martnez Estrada (1946) focused on the idea of resentment as best expressing the Latin
American ethos and Alcides Arguedas (1975) described the duplicity of the Bolivians. The Hispanist
currents of thought regretted the conscious neglect of the Hispanic culture and attributed to it the
Latin American failure to make a worthwhile cultural contribution. Although these harsh selfcriticisms did not seem to leave room for any pride in Latin American identity, they still wanted to
emphasize the peculiarities of the Latin American cultural identity as against the European pattern.
The point was to explain why Latin America was different and why modernity could not succeed or
had failed.
From 1945 to the 1970s: industrial expansion
A third stage from the end of the Second World War can be recognized, characterized by
consolidated democracies, a wider participation and important processes of modernization of the
25

Modernity and identity: cultural change in Latin America

killed. They appear surrounded and confronted by the hostile pampa, Rosas and his black and mulatto
agents, gauchos and Indians, all of which represent barbarism.

Latin America Transformed

socio-economic base. Growing industrialization and expanded patterns of consumption, education


and urbanization should be emphasized. The expansion of the mass media and of radical political
movements seeking profound structural reforms are also noteworthy (Garca Canclini, 1989: 812).
Most states developed interventionist and protectionist policies which controlled much of economic
life and introduced some aspects of a welfare state in health, social security and housing. In spite of all
this, the benets of modernity continued to be highly concentrated and the masses of the people
continued to be excluded from them.
The process of modernization and change was accompanied and promoted by modernizing ideas
and theories coming from abroad. Essay writing was replaced by the irruption of the social sciences.
They propounded the dismantling of the traditional agrarian cultural identities and their replacement
by modern values and institutions. First, came the ideas of the North American sociology of
development, usually called the modernization theories in the 1950s. These put forward the idea that
Latin America was in transition from a traditional to a modern society and that Western industrial
societies were the ideal model which would inevitably be reached. The modernization process was
conceived as a historical necessity which would repeat the same stages previously experienced by
advanced societies. A more critical local variant, the pioneering economic work of the Economic
Commission for Latin America, focused on the existence of a centreperiphery world system which
favoured the central industrial countries. This is why it propounded the idea that Latin America had to
modernize its societies by switching from a raw material export-oriented economy to an industrialled economy (Gwynne, 1985).
The disillusion with the results of import-substituting industrialization processes in the 1960s and
early 1970s led to ideas of imperialism and dependency and to the resurgence of Marxism and
socialism. A powerful critique of the capitalist system as unable to deliver economic development in
the conditions of the periphery predominated (see Chapter 1). Capitalism, it was said, did not work in
Latin America because it was dependent upon the main industrial centres.The aim of socialist projects
was to struggle against dependency to bring about a more autonomous national development.
In spite of the widespread prevalence of social analyses centred on Latin American development,
the issue of identity was present in two forms. On the one hand, implicit in the various modernizing
approaches, there was a project for a new identity, a kind of developmentalist identity whose goal was
economic development, in which the state played a central role and the value of equality was very
important. The economic system continued to be capitalist but the modernizers wanted to humanize
it, and by following populist policies they wanted to protect the workers and redistribute national
income in their favour. On the other hand, it was also possible to nd during this period a few works
which more directly tackle the issue of culture and identity (Martnez, 1987: 22135). Yet just as in the
second half of the nineteenth century, Latin American identity was again dened in terms of an
opposition to Europe, which represents, if not civilization per se, at least a culture with a positive selfafrmation and self-condence which Latin America lacked.
Thus, Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla (1959) would argue that the Latin American has a permanent
dissatisfaction with the present and is searching for the new. Caturelli (1961) would afrm that the
Latin American is the unrealised, the purely virtual, the imperfect, the immature, the essentially
primitive (1961: 41). Murena (1954), in his turn, would maintain that Latin Americans were expelled
from Europe (paradise) due to a second original sin, thus leaving history and the Spirit behind. Octavio
Pazs classic The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950), is another expression of these feelings of uprootedness
and abandonment which appear at this time.The Latin American is in search of his/her origins, and can
be compared to an orphan who is conscious of having been uprooted and needs to start a passionate
search. At the same time the Latin American rejects the past, condemns his/her origins and reneges
on his hybridity. All these approaches express a conicting view in which the admiration for European
culture is mixed with the feeling that Latin Americas identity cannot nd its own course. Hence the
ambivalence which in some cases leads to a proposal of total rupture (Murena) and in others to a
total fusion (Mayz, Caturelli, Paz).
26

From 1970 to 1990: dictatorships and the lost decade


By the beginning of the 1970s a new phase can be identied, characterized by a slowing down of
economic growth and a falling rate of prot in industrial nations. In Latin America the processes of
industrialization and development lost their dynamism; economic growth came to a standstill and even
became negative during the 1980s, and, as a consequence, social and labour agitation became
widespread. The international recession resulted in unemployment, ination and increased political
instability everywhere. Radical social movements and parties which had been getting stronger since
the 1950s accentuated their demands for changes in social relations and justice. The challenge of the
Chilean socialist experiment and of populist experiences of the left elsewhere precipitated a series of
confrontations which ended in a wave of military dictatorships. It started with the 1964 military coup
in Brazil and was followed by coups in Argentina (1966 and 1976), Bolivia (1966), Peru (1968),
Ecuador (1972), Chile (1973) and Uruguay (1973).
Dictatorships changed the direction of economic policies by opening up their countries to foreign
investment and international markets. They implemented in practice the rst neoliberal ideas. But it
took many years before a new stage of expansion began to yield some economic fruit and some
improvement for the common people. In the case of the Chilean dictatorship, it took the rst four
years (197377) for the harsh economic policies to begin to have some acceptable results, only to
plunge again into a deep nancial crisis in 1982 (Moulian, 1997: 20112).
It has to be remembered that during the 1980s, the so-called lost decade, Latin America suffered
economic decline. From the point of view of political and social modernity, dictatorships meant an
important regression insofar as they abolished democratic institutions, systematically violated human
rights, dismantled forms of social participation and consistently sought to destroy social organizations
representing the poorest sectors of society. The exclusion of wide social sectors increased as
unemployment levels soared and salaries plummeted. And yet, simultaneously, a new booming
consumer society for the relatively well-off was created.
The market-oriented consumer society of material and symbolic goods which had grown in the
1950s and 1960s became consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s. But the irony of this new stage is the
simultaneity of the massive expansion of television, publicity, production of compact disks, etc., and the
presence of dictatorships and repression. In the Brazilian case, Ortiz has argued:
the cultural movement post-64 is characterised by two sources which do not exclude each other: on
the one hand it is dened by the political and ideological repression, on the other, it is a moment of
the Brazilian history in which more cultural goods are produced and diffused. (1988: 11415)
27

Modernity and identity: cultural change in Latin America

Corresponding with the Latin American post-war economic boom there emerged a notable
literary boom which gave Latin Americas literature a universal dimension. On the emergence of this
new literary wave the expressions magic realism (Asturias) or Carpentiers real marvellous which had
been used to refer to Latin American literature in the 1940s, resurfaced again. In the new novels
frequently fantastic and incredible things occur. Mythical cities like Comala, Macondo and Santa Mara
appear which symbolize Latin Americas isolation disrupted by the external forces of modernity, or
represent in a concrete form relevant parts of its historical past.
In its content, the Latin American novel of this time does not necessarily reect favourably upon the
processes of modernization that were occurring but rather critically questions the injustices and
problems which Latin American peoples suffer. Although the new novel breaks with the realism and
social denunciation typical of the rst half of the twentieth century, it clearly has a political dimension
(Martnez, 1987: 39-40, 23840). Carlos Fuentes has dened this dimension in terms of an interest in
exploring the problem of power in the Hispanic world (Martnez, 1987: 240). For Vargas Llosa the
point is rather that great novels often appear in moments which precede profound historical
transformations: when the world they reect nds itself in a state of decomposition, when its
foundations are eroded and when that world will justly disappear (Vargas Llosa, 1974: 37).

Latin America Transformed

This also happened in Argentina and Chile, but it was in Brazil where the interest in culture of the
authoritarian state is most evident in the creation of new cultural institutions: Conselho Federal de
Cultura, Instituto Nacional do Cinema, EMBRAFILME, FUNARTE, Pr-Memria, etc. (ibid.: 116). The
military government believed that communications and media were crucial for national integration.
The mass culture undergoes an enormous expansion in Latin America as shown by the growth in
the number of TV sets from 31.2 million in 1980 to 64.8 million in 1990.

BOX 2.2 Mediazation of modern culture (source: Thompson, 1990, 1995)


Mediazation is The general process by which the transmission of symbolic forms becomes
increasingly mediated by the technical and institutional apparatuses of the media industries
(1990: 4). This process comprises that the media are increasingly shaping the way in which
cultural forms are produced, transmitted and received in modern societies and the modes in
which people experience events and actions which occur in spatially and temporally remote
contexts (1990, 1220, 22548; 1995: 46).

Television became the most important means of cultural consumption in Latin America (Marin,
1999: 2579). Large international conglomerates start controlling the media and the popular mass
culture of the continent. But at the same time a true cultural industry emerges in Latin America which
produces cultural goods for the mass market. Its best expression is the telenovela (soap opera), a genre
which Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia develop and export. While the North
American soap opera is addressed mainly to a female public in the afternoon, the Latin America
telenovela is a massive prime-time early evening product (Ortiz, 1988: 145).
The ambivalence of Latin American modernity
The exhaustion of the state-led pattern of industrialization in the 1970s, and the succession of military
coups which followed, started a process of re-appraisal among intellectuals which was reinforced by a
sense of continuous failure. The deep crisis went hand in hand with a profound identity crisis, which
was marked by pessimism and renewed doubts as to whether the road to modernity that had been
followed could be wrong. The rise and fall of so many intellectual fashions and the persistence of
enormous economic problems and widespread poverty, not to speak of the brutal activities of military
dictatorships, could not but raise doubts as to whether the relentless pursuit of Western
modernization could bring about any real solution.
Three overlapping types of critique emerged which emphasized:
1 the opposition of Latin American identity to modernity;
2 the lack of authenticity of Latin American modernity;
3 its unexpected results due to telluric factors (those which come from an all-powerful and
uncontrolled nature).
Among the latter is what Brunner has aptly called macondism (1994: 167), which grants a superior
explanatory power to Latin American literature. For instance, Ainsa (1986: 23) has argued that Latin
American identity has best been dened and expressed by its literature which shows societies
profoundly inuenced by telluric factors of portentous and enigmatic character. Macondo is the
metaphor for the magic and marvellous character of Latin America, full of mysteries, which challenges
the purely rational understanding of it. For Brunner Macondo means that foreigners will not fully
understand Latin America and that they will not be able to impose upon us a pattern of
modernization which does not t into our mystery (1994: 172). Macondism is therefore more
defensive than conservative. It does not deny the possibility of modernization, but suggests caution,
28

at the moment that Europe opens up to the political, scientic and philosophical critique that
harbingers the modern world, Spain closes itself in and encloses its best minds in the conceptual
cages of Neo-scholasticism. We, Hispanic peoples, have not succeeded in being really modern
because, unlike the rest of the Western peoples, we did not have a critical age. (1990: 44)
For Paz (1990) there is a big difference between North America and South America. North America
speaks English and is the daughter of the tradition that founded the modern world, especially its three
fundamental processes: the Reformation, democracy and capitalism. South America speaks Spanish or
Portuguese and is the daughter of the Catholic monarchy and the Counter-Reformation.
In a similar way, Carlos Fuentes (1990) argues that Latin Americans are sons of the Spanish CounterReformation, a veritable wall erected against modernity, and that often they prefer preserving the
weight of anachronistic societies. However, he also suggests that Latin Americans often have violently
reacted against tradition, by adopting in an uncritical fashion the last version of Western modernity:
we are a continent in desperate search of its modernity (Fuentes, 1990: 1213).
The ambivalence of Latin American modernity is also the argument of the historian Richard Morse:
the Weberian process of disenchantment of the world never could be completely internalized in Latin
America, not even by its most modern sectors. Once more, the reason is sought in the Spanish
rejection of the scientic and religious revolutions, which impedes the long-lasting implant of European
individualism and utilitarianism (Morse, 1982: 178).
The diagnoses of these three authors is quite similar, but their conclusions differ. Morse (1982: 162,
200, 218), the most optimistic, believes that as a result of the lack of complete assimilation of what he
calls the great Western design, Latin Americans develop a rationality of compromise and that the
structure of their character is better prepared to preserve humanity within industrial society. Fuentes
(1990: 14) suggests that Latin Americas cultural continuity will provide the only solution for the future,
but has some doubts and wonders whether we could transpose into political life the strength of
cultural life and between both of them create development models more akin to our experience, to
our being. Paz is the most pessimistic and concludes that Latin America has reached only a pseudomodernity:
the liberal revolution, initiated with independence, did not result in the implant of a true democracy or
the birth of a national capitalism, but in a military dictatorship and in an economic regime
characterised by the latifundia and the concessions to foreign consortia and enterprises, especially
North American. (1979: 63)
29

Modernity and identity: cultural change in Latin America

because Latin America is supposed to be the world of the unexpected and of uncontrollable telluric
forces.
It can be suggested that this is the implicit position of the authors of the so-called literary boom of
the 1960s who continued to publish their novels during the 1970s and 1980s. I have already suggested
that the novels of the 1960s were suspicious of modernizing processes. In this respect there is little
difference between them and the novels of this period, apart from the fact that the new novels and
short stories can now focus on the reality of dictatorships. Good examples are La Casa de los Espritus
(1983) by Isabel Allende and El jardn de al lado (1981) by Jos Donoso. They are deeply marked by
the tragic events, human rights violations and exile brought about by military dictatorships. Yet these
terrible events continue to be treated within the framework and with the peculiarities of the new
novel, only that there is no longer the same interest in experimentation as in the 1960s. Ainsa has
called these works the narrative of internal resistance (1986: 502).
Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes and Richard Morse, in their turn, highlight the idea that Latin Americas
modernizing processes have not been entirely genuine and authentic. They argue, in various ways, that
Latin America has had fundamental difculties in modernizing in accordance with the European model.
For Paz the main cause of this is that Spain and Latin America could not carry out in depth the Weberian
process of rationalization because they did not experience the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century:

Latin America Transformed

Pazs point is that liberalism proved barren in terms of the evolution of Latin American culture and
could not compare itself with colonial poetry or pre-Columbian architecture. And yet the new liberal
values masked the old pre-modern realities and this would have been the beginning of inauthenticity.
The consequence is that:
At the beginning of the 20th century we were already installed in full pseudo-modernity: railways and
latifundia, democratic constitution and a caudillo in the best Hispanic-Arab tradition, positivist
philosophers and pre-Columbian caciques, symbolic poetry and illiteracy. (1979: 64)
Finally, modernity has also been attacked for supposedly negating Latin American identity. Methol Ferr
(1981) and Morand (1984: 1445) criticize modernization processes in Latin America for they would
oppose its true religious identity. Modernization, as has occurred in Latin America, would be
antithetical to its most profound being insofar as it has sought its ultimate foundation in the European
Enlightenment. According to Morand, Latin Americas intellectual elite were unable to recognize their
deepest cultural roots, thus leading their countries into modernizing experiments which, by ignoring
Latin Americas true identity, could only fail. For Morand and Methol Ferr, the identity denied by an
atheistic modernity has a privileged reservoir in popular religiosity.
These theories are certainly improbable. The problems pointed to by Paz, Fuentes, Morse and
Morand, are not necessarily an expression of the failure of modernity in Latin America, but an
expression of Latin Americas specic manner of being in modernity.They confuse a crisis of modernity
with scepticism about the possibility of a true modernity.
New conceptions of Latin American identity
The doubts about and reactions against modernity are also lived as an identity crisis. In the 1980s
forms of neo-indigenismo and religious fundamentalism emerged which wanted to go back to a
supposedly original cultural identity which could make up for the failures of modernity. The neoindigenistas resorted once more to exploring the Latin American origins and the forgotten cultural
patterns present in the Indian communities, in the hope of nding there the elements of a new
alternative way ahead, which included community-oriented and ecological dimensions.
Luis Guillermo Lumbreras, for instance, argued that the whole process of development in Latin
America has been misdirected from the start and the only solution is to recover the knowledge of our
ancestors and to make use of that knowledge (Lumbreras, 1991: 22). Anibal Quijano (1988: 62; 1991:
348), in his turn, makes a critique of instrumental reason and dreams of a utopia constructed upon
the basis of an alternative historical reason.This reason comes from the past and was cultivated by the
Indian communities, but also has roots in the present: the solidarity, collective effort and reciprocity
remain alive in the mass of the urban poor, in their popular kitchens, in their co-operatives and in their
forms of organization to survive. In this contemporary current one still nds the idea that Latin
Americas future depends on it being true to some age-old Indian traditions or principles which were
forgotten by instrumental reason, alienated Enlightened elites, and neoliberal modernizing attempts.
Morand (1984: 1445) argues that what is typical of Latin American identity was formed from the
meeting of Indian cultures and the Catholic religion. This occurred orally the Indians did not have
written texts and so the result was an ethos, a founding experience of togetherness which has four
essential characteristics:

It was formed before the Enlightenment.


It has a necessary Catholic underlying structure.
It prefers sapiential to scientic knowledge.
It is best expressed in popular religiosity.

According to Morand, Latin Americas intellectual elite were unable to recognize their own identity,
thus leading their countries into modernizing experiments which, by ignoring Latin Americas true
identity, could only fail. Contrary to the Protestant work ethic and the need to save and invest as a
30

From 1990 onwards: the neoliberal stage


The stage which opens up after the end of dictatorships continues with, and accelerates, economic
and political modernization under the inuence of an already consolidated neoliberal ideology. Once
more the concerns about identity recede as the neoliberal optimism gets the upper hand everywhere.
The free market and open economy policies produced an expansion of primary exports but also in
most countries a signicant reduction of industrial production and industrial employment. Mexico and
Brazil managed, after a while, to expand their industrial exports. The rest, on the contrary, followed a
more radical laissez-faire model. Although exports of primary products became more diversied, they
were associated with declining levels of industrial production and employment. In this, the Latin
American trajectory to modernity (with the exception of Mexico and Brazil) is very different from the
Asiatic one where the state assumed a very important role in the acquisition and adaptation of rstclass technologies and in the promotion of industrial exports (Gwynne, 1996a: 2289, 220).
These economic processes now occur in a new political context which values democracy,
participation and respect for human rights. The democratization of the state in Latin America has
made some progress but many problems still remain. In some cases, like the Chilean one, the former
dictatorship left a constitution and laws full of undemocratic elements which it is hard to change.
It is not surprising at this time that some authors openly propound the idea that Latin America must
abandon its old identity in order to be able fully to enter modernity. Claudio Vliz (1994), for instance,
maintains that the main problem that modernization has in Latin America is the cultural resistance
which the essential Latin American identity has opposed to it. Vliz agrees with Morand that Latin
American identity is Baroque, but he sees it as an obstacle to development.The failure of Latin America
to modernize until the 1990s is due to its own Baroque identity, to its aversion to risk and change, to
its distrust of the new, to its preference for stability and central control, to its respect for status and old
loyalties. Nevertheless, after many centuries of resistance to change, the magnicent baroque dome has
begun nally to deteriorate and crumble under the impact of banal cultural artefacts coming from the
Anglo-Saxon world, from trainers to toasters and computer graphics. Vliz advocates in the 1990s an
Anglo-Saxon kind of modernity.This goes to show that in his view, the process of modernization in Latin
America is externally led and antagonistic to its cultural identity (1994: 21922).
Even postmodernism is received in Latin America in a way that does not antagonize modernity. For
many authors like Brunner and Lechner, postmodernism seems to be a particular way or modality
which modernity assumes in the Latin American periphery. They even nd in Latin America
31

Modernity and identity: cultural change in Latin America

proof of salvation, Latin American culture puts an emphasis on work as sacrice and on religious
festivities as ritual squandering. Basically, Latin Americans are not supposed to be motivated by
technical progress, and the subordination of their ethos to instrumental rationality is a form of
alienation, a mistake punished by chronic failure.
According to Morand, this does not necessarily mean that the Latin American identity is anti-modern.
He argues that Latin American identity was created within a different kind of modernity: the Catholic,
Counter-Reformationist, Spanish, Baroque modernity. What threatens Latin American identity is not just
any kind of modernity but the modernity which entails a process of secularization, the modernity
stemming from the Enlightenment. It follows that, given the Catholic substratum of this identity,
secularization is not just a threat to the Church but, more fundamentally, a threat to Latin American
culture itself. This irreligious threat succeeded in converting the Latin American elites to instrumental
reason, but it did not succeed against the popular religiosity of the mestizos, which has resisted all attacks,
to remain even today the most spontaneous and genuine expression of the cultural ethos.
Yet by the end of the 1980s and in spite of these attacks against modernity, the project of rapidly
modernizing even at the cost of identity was becoming dominant in Latin America, supported by the
increasingly overwhelming success of neoliberalism. Notwithstanding this, both sides seem to share the
idea that modernity is something external, which either has to be prevented from expanding in order
to preserve identity or has to be brought about at all cost in order to change the old identity.

Latin America Transformed

postmodern features avant la lettre and tend to relate the new dynamism and openness of Latin
Americas modernization processes with these postmodern features. Many writers have used the
tenets of postmodernism to underpin neoliberal positions (Hopenhayn, 1993: 1019). Whereas in
Europe postmodernism can represent an option for identity against modernity, in Latin America
postmodernism, barring some exceptions, supports modernization against identity.
However, as in other times of accelerating development and economic expansion, a new kind of
identity seems to be implicitly advocated and discursively constructed by the neoliberal project. Its
bearer is the gure of the successful and innovating entrepreneur and its promise is widespread (credit
card) consumption as the linchpin which could deliver the masses. Individual success, conspicuous
consumption and privatized welfare come to replace equality, state-sponsored welfare, fairness and
general austerity. The point now is no longer justice, full employment or industrial development, but
rather to become winner nations comparable with the Asian Tigers.
The 1990s in Latin America witnessed an enormous expansion of television and other communication
technologies such as cable and satellite TV, videocassette recorders, DVD players, and so forth. An
interesting aspect of the Latin American consumption of television in the 1990s is the fact that locally
produced programmes outperform in the ratings the US-produced programmes. In Brazil seven of the
top ten programmes in home ratings in the rst four months of 1997 were nationally made, of which
the top two were telenovelas (Marn, 1999: 293). In Chile, in 1998, more than 60 per cent of the 50,000
hours of transmitted programmes are nationally made. If prime time is taken into consideration (when
more than 70 per cent of television sets are turned on), then during some months of the same year,
81 per cent of programmes were nationally made (Cataln and Souza, 1999: 67). In Mexico,
Argentina and Colombia something similar occurs. Television has also become the rst source of
information for Latin Americans.
In literature new trends are apparent. Of course the old guard who became famous in the 1960s
continue to produce novels that sell very well all over the world, but in the 1990s it is possible to
detect the emergence of younger authors who write novels and stories with a different perspective.
Politics is not one of their main concerns and they tend to be shaped by the new emergent
individualism. This is reected in their outlook towards life and in the kind of narrative they write. They
no longer want to continue with the tradition of magical realism, nor are they concerned with nature,
rural society, left-wing politics or Latin American identity.
Fuguet and Gmez, the editors of a new compilation of stories and members of this generation put
it like this:
the great theme of Latin American identity (who are we?) seemed to give way to the theme of
personal identity (who am I?). The stories of McOndo are centred on private and individual realities.
We suppose that this is one of the legacies of the world privatising fever. (1996: 15)
They accept that they live in a world of McDonalds, malls and computers and that present-day culture
is a mass hybrid culture controlled by the media. What they consider as Latin American is the
supposedly more genuine Indian, left-wing, folkloric or rural traditions.
The new authors write about modern life in the cities, about the middle or upper classes. The
protagonists in their novels and stories come from the upper classes. It can be said, therefore that the
ction written by these authors, as much for its private topics and depoliticization as for its new kind
of upper-class protagonists, contributes to shape the new forms of identity which are emerging from
the neoliberal period.

SOME SPECIFIC ELEMENTS OF LATIN AMERICAN MODERNITY


AND CULTURE
The combined construction of modernity and identity in Latin America which I have explored
historically in ve stages has produced certain specic features and characteristics which can be
32

Clientelism, traditionalism and weak civil society


The rst feature I would like to refer to is clientelism or cultural and political personalism. This is
connected with the populist stage but its effects have remained until today. Recruitment of civil
servants, university lecturers and mass media journalists continues to be done through clientelistic or
personalist networks of friends and supporters.The processes of public openness for a job are absent,
scarcely developed or work in a purely nominal fashion when procedures are xed to favour a preselected individual. Clientelistic recruitment ourishes in Latin America and shows as much the
absence of normal channels of social mobility as the narrowness and high competitiveness of political
and cultural environments.
Education, acquired skills and personal achievements are not enough to secure access to certain
political or cultural jobs. Well-placed contacts, godfathers or friends are required to facilitate entry.
Because the system depends on the patronage of certain individuals who exercise institutional power,
it secures the personal loyalty of the recruited and favours institutional immobility. Thus, veritable
institutional efdoms are created which, because of their discriminatory character, are almost
impenetrable for those who do not belong to the group that controls them.
A second feature could be called ideological traditionalism. In putting forward his theory of
transition to modernity Germani spoke in the 1960s of the fusion effect, by means of which modern
values could be reinterpreted in contexts different from developed societies, with the result that
traditional structures were reinforced (1965: 104). A particular form of this fusion effect was
ideological traditionalism which was that leading groups accepted and promoted changes necessary
for development in the economic sphere, but rejected changes required for such a process in other
spheres (Germani, 1965: 112).
In late modernity a similar phenomenon takes place which consists in that certain leading groups
advocate total freedom in the economic sphere but appeal to traditional moral values in other
respects. Thus, they emphasize almost a religious respect for authority and order, the traditional family
and the national heritage, or they may even cast doubts about democracy and oppose, for instance,
divorce laws or the decriminalization of adultery for women. A good example of this is Chile where
adultery was a crime for which women only could be punished until 1995, and where until this very
day, a divorce law has not been passed due to Catholic and conservative opposition.
These fusions are not exclusive to the developing world. However, traditionalism in Latin America
has stronger institutional bases than in Europe or the United States. One of them is the extraordinary
power and inuence of the traditional Catholic Church over political and legislative matters. This can
be explained by the privileged role which the Catholic Church has played since colonial times in the
maintenance of social and political order. The Church and religious mechanisms have played a central
role in the exercise of authority and the political control of people.
A signicant phenomenon which differentiates Latin American modernity from others is the lack of
autonomy and development of civil society. In Latin America, civil society is weak, insufciently
developed and very dependent upon the dictates of the state and politics. This is a consequence of
the absence of strong and autonomous bourgeois classes developing the economy and culture of
society independently from politics and any state support. Brunner (1988: 33) rightly argues that in
contrast to the modernity of central or core countries, Latin American modernity suffers from a
voracity of politics which swallows everything and behind which everyone seeks protection or
justication: equally entrepreneurs, intellectuals, universities, trade unions, social organizations, clerics,
the armed forces.
33

Modernity and identity: cultural change in Latin America

presented more systematically. These cultural features should not be essentialized; they are the result
of history and they can change, be modied or even disappear altogether. But they still have an
important presence today and are the results of a specic historical evolution. I have selected those
characteristics which seem most relevant and which mark a contrast with other trajectories to
modernity. I make no claim to being exhaustive.

Latin America Transformed

Universities, institutes and even the media are vulnerable to or depend upon state action. It is not
rare to nd that a good number of research and consultancy institutions depend almost exclusively
upon services rendered under contract to various state organizations. Many cultural centres are
directly created by local governments and managed by the political majority which controls them.
Hence politics exercises a disproportionate inuence upon civil society and cultural institutions.
Authoritarianism, legalism and masked racism
One cultural aspect which has survived from colonial days, at times in a moderate form, at other times
in a more extreme form, is authoritarianism. This is a trend which persists in the political eld, in the
administration of public and private organizations, in family life and, in general, in Latin American culture
which concedes an extraordinary importance to the role of, and respect for, authority. Its origin is
clearly related to three centuries of colonial life in which a strong Indo-Iberian cultural pole was
constituted which accentuated religious monopoly and political authoritarianism. As De Imaz has put
it, for three centuries there existed a clear relationship between political authoritarianism and the
legitimating role of the Inquisition (1984: 121).
Flores Galindo has documented how the seventeenth-century religious congregationss persistent
struggles against idolatry in the central sierra of Peru had the connotation of political control: the
relative precariousness of the military system forced an apparent hypertrophy of religious
mechanisms, so that, in that way, through fervour or more frequently fear, control over men could be
secured (1994: 66). In spite of the democratizing inuences of Enlightenment thought which certainly
achieved some partial moderation of the authoritarianism of the Indo-Iberian cultural pole from
independence onwards, its cultural force has not easily been extinguished in Latin American social and
political life.
In the particular case of Chile, various authors have highlighted the historically crucial role of
Portaless strong and authoritarian government in the formation of the Chilean state (Edwards, 1987;
Gngora, 1981). Portaless central idea was that, due to a lack of republican virtues, democracy in the
mid-nineteenth century had to be postponed and unconditional obedience to a strong authority had
to be established. The action in favour of the public good of such authority could not be hindered by
laws and constitutions. It divided the country between the good (men of order) and the bad
(conspirators to whom the rigour of the law had to be applied) (Gngora, 1981: 1216). It is not
surprising that General Pinochets regime should have frequently invoked such a conception in the late
twentieth century.
A feature that also comes from colonial times and has survived in different ways until today is a
peculiar approach to principles, laws and norms whereby they tend to be formally upheld but
practically outed if they go against your interests. The origins of this tendency are many. On the one
hand, it had to do with the plight of the Indians who were forced to convert to Catholicism under
duress. In order to save their lives many of them formally accepted the new religion but secretly
continued to practise their own, often using the same Catholic ceremonies or liturgical celebrations
for their own purposes. On the other, a similar form of pretence was also practised by the Spanish
conquistadors whenever they were faced with royal decrees and laws, which in themselves might have
been very just and good, but which having been drawn up too far away, could not be practically
implemented without causing damage to conquistador interests. This was expressed by the traditional
formula se acata pero no se cumple, which in respect of any such royal command roughly meant it is
obeyed but not implemented. This happened invariably with respect to legislation meant to protect
the indigenous peoples from the abuses of the conquistadors.
Almost without a doubt the king and his administrators knew that this was going on, but they too
turned a blind eye in the belief that the crowns own interest would be affected if they demanded total
compliance with the royal edicts. Garca de la Huerta (1999: 123) has suggested that this chain of
complicity in the outing of the law might have also reached the highest ecclesiastical hierarchy. The
interesting thing about these procedures is that the practical unwillingness to comply with the law did
34

BOX 2.3 Racism denied


Flores Galindo (1994: 215) has observed that:
In Peru nobody would define himself or herself as a racist. Nevertheless, racial categories not only
tinge but sometimes condition our social perception. They are present in the configuration of
professional groups, in the messages transmitted by the media or in the call for beauty contests . . .
racism exists notwithstanding racial terms, suppressed in the procedures of public identification, do
not have official circulation. Yet a masked and even denied phenomenon, does not cease to be
real.
Ral Bjar (1988: 21314) has argued that in the case of Mexico:
it is a commonplace to say that in this country there is no racial discrimination . . .; [yet it is
possible to affirm that] prejudice has grown in the cultural history of Mexico . . . [and that this
affects] especially the Indian or quasi Indian . . . blacks . . . and Chinese.

As pointed out earlier, various governments attempted to improve the race by means of whitening
policies which favoured European immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In
contemporary Latin America, spatial segregation exists in the form of Indian areas being the poorest
and most abandoned. Meanwhile, shanty towns in cities contain a bigger proportion of people with
darker skins, be they Indians, mestizos, mulattos or blacks. There is no equality of opportunity for them.
Some surviving Indian groups constitute true internal colonies, geographically segregated, oppressed
by mestizos, and subject to special laws and forms of administration. Nevertheless, the very fact of
mestizaje and that in many cases social classes overlap with gradations in the skin colour (the darker
the skin, the lower the class) leads frequently to afrmation of racism.
This has even a base in the social sciences, which have often underlined the differences between the
Spanish treatment of Indians and blacks and the British treatment of them. Gilberto Freyre, in his
classic book Casa Grande e Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves, 1946) argued that the treatment of
slaves in Brazil was better than in North America, especially due to closer, even sexual, relationships
between masters and slaves in the plantation economy. Many historians and social analysts have
subsequently noted that whereas in North America the white settlers imposed their separation from
Indians and blacks, in Latin America a wide process of mestizaje took place, thus producing a
continuum of racial gradations. From this the myth arose that in Latin America a racial democracy
35

Modernity and identity: cultural change in Latin America

not question its validity or legitimacy, but on the contrary, had to proclaim respect for the norm.
Principles are transgressed but in such a way that they are simultaneously recognized, thus keeping the
appearance of respect. This is crucial because in this way the principle of authority, so important in
Latin America, is not violated. This feature accounts for both excessive legalism, the formal and
ritualistic adherence to the norm, and readiness to ignore it in practice. Examples of this are found
everywhere in contemporary Latin America. It can be seen, for instance, in the way in which Latin
American Catholics profess their obedience to the Popes teachings about contraception, but
massively use it, often with the complicity of local priests. It can also be seen in the wonderful
declarations about human rights which appear in many regional constitutions while at the same time
the governments which made them systematically violate human rights in practice.
Another important feature is masked racism. The existence of racism in Latin America is well
documented, even though it is a relatively neglected area of social sciences and generally is not
perceived as an important social problem. It is clear, though, that from very early days, there was in
Latin America an exaggerated valuation of whiteness and a negative vision of Indians and blacks.

Latin America Transformed

existed and that racism was a problem for other countries (Cubitt, 1995: 1226). This idea continues
to be believed today and shows its prevalence in that, with the exception of some degrees in
anthropology, there is a signicant absence of courses and studies on Latin American race problems
in social science degrees.
Exclusion and solidarity
One of the most decisive features of Latin American modernity is the great extent of social marginality
and the informal economy. In spite of the obvious progress of modernization and the dynamism of
capitalism in the area, they have never been able to reach most of the population. A high proportion
of the economically active population has never gained access to formal productive work and
therefore lives a life of exclusion and marginality, in casual petty trade or petty criminal activities (for a
fuller discussion, see Chapter 11). In some countries like Peru, it is estimated that more than 50 per
cent of the economically active population fall into this category. About 25 per cent of the population
of Latin Americas major cities have no proper jobs, earn no regular income, and live in slums located
on the periphery of big cities, in conditions of extreme poverty, thus constituting a marginal underclass.
The problem is compounded by the absence of an efcient and extended welfare state.
This is why it is imperative for many people who suffer from poverty and social exclusion to
organize a complex system to survive. Hence the emergence of the informal economy, of private
organizations such as work co-operatives, popular kitchens, and a series of practices based on
solidarity, reciprocity and mutual aid.This does not necessarily indicate the emergence of an alternative
rationality to modern instrumental rationality, as many authors in the 1980s suggested (Quijano, 1988;
Parker, 1993); on the contrary, it can even be considered an expression of the same rationality insofar
as it resorts to the only means that make possible a precarious survival in very difcult circumstances.
The phenomenon of exclusion as much as the phenomenon of solidarity has important effects on
the processes of identity construction in vast popular sectors. The former clearly has negative effects
in that individuals become accustomed to the idea that they are surrounded by a hostile and unfair
world in which, whatever their personal effort, positive results are never guaranteed.The link between
action and result is broken; the external world appears uncontrollable, and therefore everything that
happens tends to be conceived in terms of fate or luck. When someone learns that his/her efforts are
useless, a disposition could emerge which in social psychology has been called the learned
hopelessness syndrome (Montero, 1987: 2941), which is characterized by a fatalistic conception of
life, by a lack of plans and a passive attitude which derive from a situation in which the individual has
ceased to believe that his/her personal effort can change or inuence the things that happen.
On the other hand, the experience of solidarity and communal participation in the resolution of
problems could partially return trust in that the external world is not seen as always hostile and
threatening, and common actions can achieve positive results for all. These experiences return to
individuals the sense that what happens is related to their own actions and that they have an
important responsibility in the construction of their own destiny. Collective actions in solidarity restore
a sense of individual value and relink individual effort to positive result. From learned hopelessness it
is then possible to go to learned hope. The lack of equality of opportunity, access to jobs and social
security for vast sections of Latin American society has made solidarity and popular collective
organizations for survival an almost permanent feature of Latin American modernity and identity.
Politics
It is also necessary to refer to the fragility of the political institutions in Latin American countries (see
Chapters 7 and 8). Since independence Latin America has seemed to the world a continent of
revolutions and caudillos, military coups and conspiracies, where the institutional order is permanently
under threat. So much so that important scholarship has been devoted to explain Latin Americas
systematic political instability (Huntington, 1968; Kling, 1970). The wave of military dictatorships in the
1970s and the 1980s included countries like Chile, which had had a reputation for institutional stability
36

The religious factor


Finally, religion is a crucial dimension of Latin American identity. There are at least three important
religious sources in Latin America: the African, the Indian and the Christian. The complexity of the
religious phenomenon and the variety of religious identities in Latin America are of such magnitude
that I cannot adequately deal with them here.Thus, I have chosen to concentrate on religious identities
of Christian origin, which are undoubtedly the most important ones since they affect the vast majority
of the Latin American population.
In colonial times a religious identity was constructed in Latin America which had authoritarian and
intolerant features, and opposed scientic endeavours and privileged external rites. The presence of
this Catholic element in Latin American identity was very deep and persistent and in many ways still
shows its strength in several respects. Given the centrality of Catholicism for Latin American identity,
it is not surprising that the process of secularization started much later and has been slower than in
Europe. Nevertheless, its advance can be noticed in the progressive displacement of Catholicism as
the central element of the regions cultural identity. From being the principal nucleus of all aspects of
culture, Catholicism became a particular identity, one cultural element among many others of various
kinds. In this sense, secularization has not meant the end of religion or religious sentiments in Latin
America, but rather the loss of centrality of a narrow Catholic religious world-view and the arrival of
pluralism.
The traditional Catholic identity in Latin America has been challenged not just by the process of
secularization but also by the construction of new religious identities. The most important has been
the Pentecostal movement in the 1980s and 1990s, which is rooted in the poorest sections of society.
It is politically more conservative and focuses upon personal conversion and a change of lifestyle. The
advance of the Pentecostal movement has been spectacular on all fronts, as much in the number of
pastors and new members as in the number of churches and the frequency of religious practices. The
biggest growth has occurred in Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Costa Rica.
Several explanations have been put forward for the extraordinary success of Pentecostalism in Latin
America. Many of them use the old Weberian scheme which sees Latin America as a region in
transition from traditional society to modernity. Lalive (1975: 86), for instance, has argued that
Pentecostalism offers a refuge to the poor by allowing them to recreate within the congregation a kind
of traditional society which gives them security and strength to bear the discriminatory features of the
new modern society in the making. David Martin (1990: 13) puts forward the thesis that
Pentecostalism in Latin America is the vanguard in the religious eld of a vaster penetration of AngloSaxon values which would allow its change towards modernity and development.The Weberian thesis
does not explain why it is Pentecostals and not historical Protestants who succeed in attracting the
poorest urban sectors. This suggests that there must be something special about Pentecostalism, a
37

Modernity and identity: cultural change in Latin America

since independence. True, Latin America now has returned to democracy, but the symptoms of
institutional weakness remain quite evident, especially in Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and
most of Central America (apart from Costa Rica).
Although since the beginning of the 1990s there has been a marked revaluation of formal
democracy and of respect for human rights in Latin America, there has been also a simultaneous loss
of prestige by politicians and, more recently, an increasing distrust of traditional politics in general. In
some relatively stable and economically successful countries like Chile, this has led to a relative
depoliticization of society, in particular of the young. In other countries like Argentina, Peru, Brazil and
Venezuela, which are less stable and suffer enormous economic problems, there has been a process
of repoliticization directed against traditional politics and increasingly assuming a new populist slant.
The election of Lula da Silva in Brazil, Chavez in Venezuela and Gutierrez in Ecuador (the last two
without signicant party support), coupled with the close possibility of similar events in Argentina,
Paraguay and Peru, show this new trend which puts the political system under pressure and challenges
the neoliberal policies of the 1990s.

Latin America Transformed

particular ability to translate the Protestant message into the forms of expression of popular culture
(Seplveda, 1996: 957).

CONCLUSION
Looking at the Latin American trajectory to modernity, it is possible to afrm that it has been an
important part of the process of identity construction: it does not oppose an already-made-in-thepast, essential and immovable cultural identity, nor does it entail the acquisition of an alien identity
(Anglo-Saxon, for instance). Modernity and cultural identity are both processes which are being
historically constructed and which do not necessarily entail a radical disjunction even if there are
tensions between them. The features of Latin American modernity which I have explored constitute,
for better or worse, important elements of Latin American cultural identity today. But of course,
nothing prevents their critical appraisal or their change in the future. Nevertheless, there has been a
manifest tendency among Latin American intellectuals to consider modernity as something external
and in opposition to identity. This never entirely resolved dialectic between modernity and identity is
ultimately a major feature of Latin American culture.

FURTHER READING
Larran, J. 2000 Identity and modernity in Latin America. Polity Press, Cambridge. This book further
develops the views on identity and modernity in Latin America expressed in this chapter. It maintains
the thesis that cultural identity is being permanently constructed and that it has done so not in
opposition to but inextricably linked to the processes of modernization.
Miller, N. 1999 In the shadow of the state intellectuals and the quest for national identity in
twentieth-century Spanish America. Verso, London.This book seeks to explore the role of intellectuals
in the construction of national identities in the twentieth century, especially in Chile, Cuba,
Argentina, Mexico and Peru.
Paz, O. 1967 The labrynth of solitude. Allen Lane, London.This is a Latin American classic which deals
with Mexican identity but could be extended to the rest of Latin America.
Vliz, C. 1994 The new world of the Gothic fox. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. This
proposes the thesis that the arrival of modernity in Latin America means the necessary dismantling
of its old baroque cultural identity.

WEBSITE
Latin American Network Information Center, www.lanic.utexas.edu, an initiative of the
University of Texas at Austin, facilitates access to Internet-based information on Latin American
culture and literature.

38

3
Structural reform in South America and
Mexico: economic and regional
perspectives
Robert N. Gwynne

In the past 20 years, Latin America has undergone the most signicant transformation of economic
policy since the 1930s. A series of structural reforms has changed the economies of South America
and Mexico from being closed and state-dominated to being more market-oriented and more open
to the rest of the world. National economies have become more closely integrated into the world
economy particularly through cross-border ows of trade, investment, nancial capital and
technology.These reforms have often been labelled neoliberal due to their emphasis on increasing the
inuence of markets and decreasing the signicance of government in economic decision-making.
Reform has caused economies to become more closely inserted into the process of globalization, a
process which has brought very varied results to the peoples of Latin America (Stiglitz, 2002).
The nature and impact of these economic reforms in South America and Mexico are the central
questions being addressed in this chapter. In this book, South America and Mexico are examined
separately from the smaller countries of Central America and the Caribbean. These latter countries
have traditionally been much more closely integrated into the global economy. In Chapter 4, Tom
Klak argues that the close global integration of these small countries provides the key to their
historical and present vulnerability and can thus be seen as a colonial and neo-colonial vestige.
Meanwhile, South America is characterized by one very large economy (Brazil) and by a large
number of medium-sized economies (see Table 3.1); Mexico constitutes the second largest Latin
American economy after Brazil.
There are, of course, themes which link the smaller to the larger countries of Latin America and the
Caribbean and, in turn, connect them both to countries in the global economic core of North
America. One theme is that of hemispheric integration, which is set to start off ofcially in 2005 with
the signing of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This is due to link up ve major schemes
of regional integration:
1 The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) started 1993 Canada, USA, Mexico.
2 The Central American Common Market (CACM) started 1960 Guatemala, El Salvador,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica (see Chapter 4).
3 Caricom (Caribbean Community) Caricoms precursor, Carifta, began in 1965 and laid the
foundations for Caricoms establishment in 1973 members include Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica,
Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago and others (see Chapter 4).
4 The Andean Community (formerly the Andean Group) started 1969 Venezuela, Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia.
5 Common Market of the Southern Cone (Mercosur) started 1990 full members are
Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay; associate members are Chile and Bolivia.
Figure 3.1 shows the schemes of economic integration.
39

Latin America Transformed

CANADA

UNITED STATES

ATLANTIC
OCEAN
MEXICO

CUBA
HAITI
DOMINICAN REP.

JAMAICA
BELIZE
HONDURAS

Caricom

NICARAGUA

GUATEMALA

GUYANA

EL SALVADOR
COSTA RICA

VENEZUELA

SURINAM
FRENCH
GUIANA

PANAMA
COLOMBIA
ECUADOR

PERU

PACIFIC
OCEAN

BRAZIL

BOLIVIA

Trade Areas
Central American
Common Market

PARAGUAY

Andean
Community
Mercosur

CHILE

Mercosur
associates

ARGENTINA

URUGUAY

North American
Free Trade Agreement
Caricom
Nonmembers
0

km

FALKLAND
ISLANDS

2000

Figure 3.1 Schemes of economic integration in Latin America.

40

TABLE 3.1 Population and production in North and South America, 19652001
Country

Population
(millions)

GDP ($bn) GDP, average annual per cent growth Purchasing power
parity of GNI
per capita

2001

2001

196580

198089

19902001

2001

USA
284.0
Canada
31.0
Mexico
99.4
North America 414.4

10,171.4
677.2
617.8
11,466.4

2.7
4.8
6.5
4.7*

3.3
3.4
0.7
2.5*

3.5
3.0
3.1
3.2*

34,870
27,870
8,770
23,837*

Brazil
172.6
Argentina
37.5
Venezuela
24.6
Colombia
43.0
Chile
15.4
Peru
26.1
Uruguay
3.4
Ecuador
12.9
Bolivia
8.5
Paraguay
5.6
South America 349.6

502.5
268.8
124.9
83.4
63.5
54.0
18.4
18.0
8.0
6.9
1,148.4

9.0
3.4
3.7
5.7
1.9
3.9
2.4
8.8
4.4
7.0
5.0*

3.0
0.3
1.0
3.5
2.7
0.4
0.1
1.9
0.9
2.2
1.4*

2.8
3.7
1.5
2.7
6.4
4.3
2.9
1.7
3.8
2.0
3.2*

7,450
11,690
5,890
5,980
9,420
4,680
8,710
3,070
2,380
4,400
6,367*

Ranked by GDP within each region


* unweighted average
Source: World Bank (1991; 2002a).
41

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

NAFTA is the only example so far of a scheme of economic integration involving two advanced
economies and one emerging or developing economy.The differences in income and standard of living
are substantial; in 2001, purchasing power parity per capita in the USA was four times that in Mexico
(see Table 3.1). Such differences have limited the focus of NAFTA very much to trade rather than to
deeper forms of economic integration; for example, there are no future provisions for labour mobility
within NAFTA (particularly from Mexico to the USA and Canada) in contrast to the nature of
economic integration in the European Union as it has expanded southwards and eastwards.
The promised FTAA will replicate in many different ways the Mexican relationship with North
America since 1993 for all other countries in the western hemisphere. In 2001, the sheer size of the
US economy not only made it 16 times the size of the Mexican economy but virtually nine times the
size of all ten South American countries combined (see Table 3.1). Further economic integration in the
Americas will inevitably be framed by very strong asymmetries, particularly in trade and ows of
capital, technology and people. These asymmetries will be replicated in the relationships between the
trade groupings that become part of the FTAA.The combined GDP of NAFTAs three countries is 13
times greater than that of the four countries of Mercosur and Chile and an emphatic 40 times greater
than that of the ve countries of the Andean Group; there are even greater differences with the
countries of Central America and the Caribbean.
However, in terms of population, the relationship between North America and South America
looks much more balanced (see Figure 3.2). The population total of North America (excluding
Mexico) is in fact lower than that of the ten countries of South America (see Table 3.1). Nevertheless,
inequalities in standard of living between those countries are already remarkable, and distinct
hierarchies of living standards are being created. In terms of per capita purchasing power parity (see

Latin America Transformed

Canada

USA

Dominican
Republic
Cuba

Mexico

Haiti
Guatemala

Jamaica

Honduras

El Salvador
Nicaragua
Costa Rica

Puerto
Rico

World Bank classification of Economies


by Income and Region 2001

ez

ue

Low income
Lower middle income

Ve
n

Co

lom

bia

la

Panama

Upper middle income


Ecuador

High income
Brazil

Peru

Countries shares of
World Population
Uruguay
Argentina

Chile

Bolivia

Paraguay

1%
0.1%

Figure 3.2 Hemispheric representation according to income and population size (includes all countries with a
population of over two million). Source:World Bank (2003)

Table 3.1), the average Chilean had an average income nearly one-quarter that of the average US
citizen in 2001, while inhabitants of Bolivia had an average income only one-quarter of those of Chile.
Such data hide signicant variations in income distribution within countries, but we will return to this
issue later in the chapter.
In order to contextualize and explore the impacts of neoliberal reform, both in terms of national
economies and of economic spaces within those economies, this chapter will be divided into four
sections:
42

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The neoliberal paradigm replaced a previous economic paradigm that had been in place in Latin
America since the 1930s. The previous paradigm was based more on inward orientation and the
greater intervention of the state in economic matters. It is worth briey reviewing this previous
paradigm before analysing the distinctive characteristics of the present one. The origins of inward
orientation lie in the continents reactions to the crisis of the Great Depression of 192933. Before
then, Latin American governments had generally supported free trade and close integration with the
world economy (Bulmer-Thomas, 1994; Thorp, 1998). Economic growth in Latin America in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been closely linked to the rapid expansion in world
trade and to the increasing ow of investment capital from such core economies as Britain. Latin
American countries became inserted into an international economy in which they exported raw
materials (mineral and agricultural) and imported manufactured goods. The First World War and its
aftermath, in which European countries engaged in protectionism, dampened the enthusiasm for
outward-oriented policies in Latin America. However, it was not until the Depression and the more
than halving of world trade that Latin American governments reacted with dramatic changes in their
economic policies.
Between 1928 and 1933, the value of Latin American exports declined from about $5 billion to
$1.5 billion (Bulmer-Thomas, 1994). This was partly due to a decline in volume. Export volumes
declined by 22 per cent in Latin America as a whole between 1928 and 1932, although some
countries fared much worse; the volume of Chiles exports (dominated by copper) fell by nearly 70
per cent. In addition, export prices were in free fall, declining by two-thirds between 1928 and 1932.
The severe crisis in the world economy and the high dependency of Latin American countries on
that economy suddenly demonstrated the extreme vulnerability of their economies. Through the
1930s and subsequent decades, Latin America tried to restrict interaction with the world economy,
particularly in terms of trade, investment and the transfer of technology. Tariffs, quotas and exchange
controls provided protection from foreign competitors by making the entry of foreign goods
expensive or impossible. Latin American entrepreneurs reacted to the scarcity of goods and the level
of protection by producing goods that had previously been imported. As a result, industrial production
and employment grew rapidly in most South American countries.
Industrialization was seen as a key to future economic development within this inward-oriented
framework. Policy leaders argued that all developed countries had industrialized behind high
protective tariffs and that it was only after a country had developed a more mature industrial structure
that it could become involved in the freer trading of goods (Prebisch, 1950). In order for South
American countries to achieve a more mature industrial structure, the political consensus was that
governments should actively intervene not only through the elaboration of industrial policy but also
through the creation of state-owned development corporations. Governments drew up strategic
plans for industrial sectors and facilitated investment in key industries, such as steel, where it was
thought that national private investors might be unwilling to venture.
The modernization of the state through industrialization became a key theme of the inwardoriented period. In Brazil, for example, the crucial role of industrialization in the rapid accumulation of
43

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

1 The historical context of the shift to economic reform.


2 The nature of economic policy change, with particular reference to the power of the multilateral
institutions, theoretical justications for neoliberalism and the opening up of Latin America.
3 The impacts and problems of neoliberal reform, particularly in terms of economic growth,
investment, employment, income distribution and poverty.
4 The impact of neoliberalism on economic spaces within Latin American countries and on the
private sector rms that should be the key actors in the process of economic growth under the
market-oriented models.

Latin America Transformed

capital and in improving national technological capabilities, and the pivotal role of the state in facilitating
such development, were central tenets of contrasting governments stretching from the 1930s to the
1970s such as the regimes of Presidents Vargas, Kubitschek and Geisel. Between 1950 and 1978,
manufacturing GDP in Brazil expanded ten times in real terms (Gwynne, 1985: 36) equivalent to an
average annual growth rate of 8.5 per cent over the three decades. These rates were unprecedented
globally until the growth of East Asian NICs after 1960 and China after 1980. Although Brazil proved
the most successful at industrializing, manufacturing GDP also expanded signicantly in the other
South American countries and Mexico (ibid.: 368). It is misleading to characterize the inwardoriented phase as one of low economic growth. Indeed, growth rates in the 1960s were higher than
those of the 1990s for many countries in Latin America.
Governments also became more actively involved in economic development because of the way in
which the world economic crisis had so seriously affected their economies. Governments were forced
to make some response to the two pressures that the world crisis inicted on the economies of their
countries. First of all, there was the external imbalance, the collapse of national earnings from exports
and the drying-up of capital inows from international sources. Second, and even more serious for
governments, was the internal imbalance the decline in government revenues due to the critical falls
in the volume of export and import taxes. In this sense, state intervention in the economy and the
increased rate of import taxes (through tariffs) can be seen as part of governments attempts to solve
their own huge nancial problems. Questionable policies, such as multiple exchange rates and the
printing of excess money, can often be attributed to governments reacting to serious nancial crises.
These policies tended to become embedded in the history of inward orientation. Between 1971 and
1982, Edwards (1995: 83) found that in some countries money creation accounted, on average, for
almost one-fourth of government revenues.
This leads us to note the economic problems that came to characterize the paradigm of inward
orientation, most notably that of ination. Ination can be divided into two categories high ination
(annual price rises of between 10 and 50 per cent) and hyperination (above 50 per cent). Table 3.2
shows that only two countries (Paraguay and Colombia) in South America did not suffer from
hyperination between 1970 and 1993 in the latter stages of inward orientation. Four countries had
recorded annual ination levels of over 1000 per cent, with two countries (Bolivia and Peru) recording
TABLE 3.2 South America and Mexico: peak ination years between 1970 and 1993 and

ination average, 198493


Country

Peak ination
and year, 197093

Ination average, 198493

Bolivia
Peru
Argentina
Brazil

8,170.5 (1985)
7,649.6 (1990)
4,923.6 (1989)
2,500.0 (1993)

1,051.6
1,283.7
1,811.5
1,944.8

Chile
Mexico
Uruguay
Ecuador
Venezuela

2,650.0 (1973)
2,159.2 (1987)
2,129.0 (1990)
1,185.7 (1988)
1,181.0 (1989)

1,119.5
1,152.9
1,175.5
1,144.5
1,134.0

Paraguay
Colombia

1,144.1 (1990)
1,132.4 (1990)

1,124.5
1,124.8

Sources: Edwards (1995); Gwynne (1976).


44

1 Increasing uncertainty. Uncertainty increased for consumers and producers alike as major shortages
of basic products could occur. Producers linked to international markets, such as through
component supply, faced problems as national prices rose much faster than international ones.
2 Low investment. Entrepreneurs had to adapt to a chronological pattern of boom and bust in which
low investment became a key problem. In boom periods of inationary growth, there was little
incentive for entrepreneurs to make long-term investments in expanding capacity as in the
downturn they would be left with spare capacity. Instead, in the boom periods, producers charged
high prices (adding to ination) in order to dampen demand and make high prots. These high
prots during the boom period compensated for the poor returns during the downturn when
sales declined and prices had to be kept low to encourage demand.
3 Low savings and capital ight. During this period, ination rates could be higher than interest rates.
Individuals therefore saw themselves as effectively losing money if they decided to save as
opposed to spend (and even borrow) money. Because of the predilection to spend rather than
save, periods of high ination became associated with very low national savings ratios. There was
also the problem of capital ight (Mahon, 1996). This was because the afuent wished to
conserve their savings against high rates of national ination and found ways of sending these
savings overseas, preferably to US or offshore dollar bank accounts. By the 1980s, the more
afuent Argentines, Mexicans and Venezuelans held dollar deposits and other deposits abroad
worth nearly as much as their countries debt (ibid.).
The legacy of ination within inward orientation left countries short on national savings and
increasingly reliant on external nance. Indeed, the 1970s and early 1980s became a notorious period
of what could be termed debt-led (and inationary) growth in Latin America. The end of this period
came in another dramatic crisis for the continent the debt crisis that started in August 1982 after
Mexico declared a moratorium on its debt repayments. The confused and messy aftermath of this
crisis was instrumental in causing Latin America as a whole to suffer a decade of stagnation and policy
turmoil in the 1980s. The global capital markets that had appeared so benign during the 1970s turned
against Latin America in the 1980s. The reliance of Latin American countries on external nance
became the Achilles heel of their efforts for economic growth in the 1980s.
Since the 1930s, Latin American governments had tried to protect their economies from the
vagaries of the global trading system and from the economic inuence of resource and manufacturing
TNCs in their economies. They thought that the dependence of their countries on the global
economy would thereby be reduced. However, during the 1970s policies of inward orientation and
strict controls on inward investment survived only due to the huge inow of capital from international
banks, recycling the capital surpluses of the oil-rich countries. These ows peaked at nearly $22 billion
in 1978, more than ten times larger than at the beginning of the decade. Latin American governments
favoured these borrowings as there were no strings attached, such as macro-economic policy
recommendations, as normally came with loans from the IMF and other multilateral organizations.
In retrospect, the Latin American economies were becoming more closely linked to the global
economy albeit in new ways. Governments did not realize that international bank lending, although
not strongly regulated at that time, was intimately linked to business condence. When business
condence in Latin America collapsed after August 1982, bank lending, the lubricator of Latin
American economies for nearly a decade, dried up virtually immediately. International banks tried to
drastically reduce their exposure in Latin America, with policies of no new lending, tight renegotiations
and even insistence on the socialization of private debt where Latin American governments were
45

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

gures around the 8000 per cent mark when prices increase by over one-fth each day of the year!
It becomes very difcult for both producers and consumers to live through such periods. Speculation
takes hold of the economy and savings rapidly become worthless.Very high price rises not only create
economic but also political instability.
There are three signicant areas in which high ination and hyperination cause economic damage:

Latin America Transformed

forced to take responsibility for bad private debts in their country (for which they were not legally
bound) as well as the bad public debts for which they were legally answerable (Congdon, 1988).
In similar ways to the Great Depression, Latin American governments faced severe imbalances both
on the external and internal front. Their external accounts were characterized by large current
account decits, partly because of high interest payments and partly because of the drying up of new
funds. Interest payments increased because of high world interest rates in the early 1980s and the fact
that most international bank lending in Latin America utilized oating interests rates. In this way the
risks of interest-rate movements had been passed on to the Latin American borrower, whether a rm
or a government. Internally, Latin American Treasury departments were having to deal not only with
big increases in interest payments on their loans and extreme difculty in nding new funds, but also
with the problems of increased expenditure as economic activity declined, state rms declared
increasing losses and welfare costs rose.
Latin American governments tried to negotiate with the US government for a 1980s version of the
Marshall Aid Plan, but US government nances in the 1980s were themselves in decit and weak
compared with their huge strength after the Second World War. With opportunities for bilateral loans
limited, the only possible way to receive some external nancing was through loans from multilateral
agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank. However, this came with strings attached; in other
words, Latin American governments would have to impose major economic reforms, even if they
were only short term, in order to receive external nancing from these organizations. Most Latin
American countries had little alternative but to impose these economic reforms in return for
assistance to alleviate their serious nancial dilemmas.
However, there was also a general lack of effective regulation and surveillance of foreign nance,
which led to greater possibilities for fraud, mismanagement and corruption. These nancial dilemmas
demonstrated that Latin America still had a dependent relationship with the world economy; no
longer was this just in relation to trade but also to foreign nance, where shifts in bank condence and
interest rates could have such a huge impact on the management of national economies. Between
1980 and 1986, net capital ows into the continent declined by around 40 per cent, but private net
ows from international banks declined by an astonishing 80 per cent, demonstrating the impact of
the change in perception of Latin America of the international banks.
Crises often reveal the true nature of economic and social relations. In Latin America, they have
revealed that economic performance in Latin America is highly dependent on the relationships of
trade and nance with international rms based in the advanced economies. Furthermore, crises have
been important in changing the nature of the prevailing economic paradigm. Paradigmatic shifts have
not necessarily been guided by ideology. Rather, the aftermath of crises could be represented as Latin
American governments deciding (with different chronologies) to respond in highly pragmatic ways to
the contingencies of global economic crises.

ECONOMIC POLICY CHANGE


By placing the current paradigm of neoliberal economic reform in a historical perspective, it can be
argued that the paradigm shift was as much to do with pragmatic considerations of coming to terms
with economic crisis and the deciencies of inward orientation as with the theoretical benets and
ideological justications of closer integration with the world economy and market-led economics.
During the aftermath of the debt crisis in the 1980s, Latin American countries suffered a severe lack
of capital, which exacerbated the inherited problems of inward orientation low domestic savings,
reliance on external nancing, high ination, low investment rates and stagnant trade. This section will
thus examine the nature of this paradigmatic shift in terms of:
1 the power of the multilateral institutions;
2 theoretical and ideological elements of the new consensus;
3 the opening up of Latin America.
46

Multilateral institutions exerted considerable inuence in this search for ways out of the debt crisis. As
the IMF and the World Bank became the main source of new funds for the debt-laden countries of
Latin America, they had the leverage to release funds on condition that each country implemented
basic reforms. These conditions covered highly diverse areas, and sometimes the package included
contradictory recommendations. However, the emphasis was on achieving export-led growth
(through trade liberalization and exchange rate action), improved domestic capital formation (through
tax and nancial reforms) and reduction in government intervention in the economy. During the
1980s, many governments resisted the implementation of conditional reforms, but others moved
faster than was required by the multilateral agencies (Chile and Mexico, for example).
The IMF and the World Bank were thus attempting to coordinate the international response to
Latin Americas debt crisis and introduce their own outward-oriented and market-led solutions to the
problem. The international banking community endorsed this view and strongly urged for the burden
of new nancing to be placed on multilateral institutions. Debt-restructuring operations, IMFsponsored programmes, and World Bank structural adjustment loans were the most important
elements of this strategy; between 1983 and 1988, Latin American countries engaged in 29 debtrestructuring operations with the private banks. Nevertheless, Latin American countries remained
starved of nance as international banks insisted on debt repayments without new money. It was not
until 1989 that a breakthrough occurred in the approach to the debt crisis when the international
creditors and the multilateral institutions recognized that providing some debt forgiveness could be in
everyones interest.
The outcome was the Brady Plan, which encouraged creditors to enter into voluntary debt
agreements with the debtor countries. There were two basic mechanisms for alleviating the debt
burden. First, the use of debt-reduction schemes based on secondary market operations was actively
encouraged. This technique acquired special momentum after 1988, when, in a number of countries,
debt-equity swaps became an important mode for attracting new investment from TNCs and
privatizing state-owned enterprises. Second, direct debt-reduction agreements between the
international creditor banks and individual countries became more common after the introduction of
the Brady Plan. Nevertheless, despite this window of debt restructuring, Latin America has remained
heavily weighed down by debt. Total Latin American debt was about US$ 480 billion in 1990 and had
risen to US$ 780 billion by 2000, equivalent to nearly 50 per cent of continental GDP.
Theoretical and ideological elements of the new consensus
Washington-based multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF and the IDB (InterAmerican Development Bank) were highly inuential as both lenders and policy reform advisers in the
1980s and 1990s in Latin America. The so-called Washington consensus had three main ideological
thrusts in terms of economic policy:
1 The opening up of Latin American markets to the world economy through trade liberalization
(mainly focusing on imports) and easier foreign direct investment.
2 Reduction of direct government intervention in the economy through privatization as well as
increasing the technocratic role of economic ministries through imposing scal discipline,
balanced budgets and tax reform.
3 Increasing the signicance of the market in the allocation of resources and making the private
sector the main instrument of economic growth through deregulation, secure property rights
and nancial liberalization.
Such ideological principles were not too different from those of the liberal economists of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo hence they have also
been termed the neoliberal manifesto and are associated with conservative political forces.There are,
47

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

The power of the multilateral institutions

Latin America Transformed

of course, some crucial differences.The liberal economists favoured mobility of all economic factors of
production, including labour. Free international movement of labour has not been part of the
neoliberal agenda.
These rst-generation reforms were not adopted in a uniform fashion throughout Latin America.
Indeed, Stallings and Peres (2000: 20) identify a set of countries that were aggressive reformers
(Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru) as opposed to others who were more cautious (Brazil, Colombia,
Costa Rica, Jamaica and Mexico) on the basis of the speed and scope of the reforms. Some statistical
background may be useful here (see Table 3.1). The four aggressive reformers had experienced
signicant crises during the 1980s but then experienced rapid growth (an overall average of 4.6 per
cent per annum) between 1990 and 2001. This pattern will have subsequently changed due to
Argentinas severe economic crisis which began at the end of 2001. In contrast, the cautious
reformers had grown rapidly under inward orientation (average growth rate of 7.1 per cent per
annum between 1965 and 1980 for Brazil, Colombia and Mexico) and had recorded signicant levels
of growth during the debt crisis (see Table 3.1). Their record under neoliberalism between 1990 and
2001 (average annual growth rate of 2.9 per cent) was therefore quite poor in comparison to their
previous record.
No rm conclusions can be drawn from this comparison between aggressive and cautious
reformers. Aggressive reformers were undoubtedly affected by their miserable performance during
the debt crisis of the 1980s. Economic growth under neoliberalism was much improved for a decade
but grave doubts over the long-term sustainability of growth for this group of countries have arisen
since the onset of the Argentine crisis. Overall, the main aim was to achieve macro-economic stability.
Neoliberalism became associated with a narrow focus on lowering ination to the one-digit level.
Fiscal policy emphasized shrinking government decits, mainly by cutting expenditure rather than by
raising taxes or other revenues. Monetary policy was geared toward stabilization and characterized by
high interest rates (much higher than ination rates).
It should be pointed out that policy agreement did not stretch as far as exchange rate policy. In
some countries, the exchange rate was xed at a high (or over-valued) rate in order to lower ination.
In other countries, it was allowed to oat downwards in order to maintain international
competitiveness (thereby making exports cheaper) and stimulate economic growth. Stallings and
Peres (2000: 24) prophetically noted that the shift from the former to the latter approach usually
proved to be traumatic. The Argentine crisis of 2001 was partly caused by the unsustainability of
maintaining an over-valued exchange rate. Although it had reduced ination in the 1990s, it was
severely constraining both export and economic growth by the turn of the century.
The Washington consensus did evolve through the 1990s, incorporating social as well as economic
policies into its package of reforms.The second-generation of reforms emphasized institutional themes
in their economic policy recommendations. The need to build more solid and professional institutions
by government was stressed, such as the creation of independent central banks and stronger budget
ofces. As a reaction to nancial crises, the importance of strengthening bank supervision was
emphasized. Finally, there was the need to create more competitive economies not only through
privatization and deregulation but also through investment in institutions and human resources.
Social policy was supposed to be seen as an integral part of the reform process. As government
spending in productive activities was reduced, it was argued that this would free up public resources
for social expenditure. Improving the central governments delivery of services in education, health,
housing and social security would occur through better facilities, better training of personnel, and so
on. Education was seen as a high priority for increased spending as this would develop human
resources. It was hoped that increasing social expenditure would not only lead to higher
productivity and sustained economic growth but also to increasing equity and mobility in very
unequal societies. In reality, social spending has declined or stagnated in recent years in many Latin
American countries, mainly because debt payment obligations continue while government receipts
increase slowly.
48

The opening up of Latin America


Governments in Latin America see trade reform as benecial for their countries economies in a
period of rapid globalization. Firms are deemed to become both more efcient and more specialized
in terms of production for world markets. Increasing foreign trade (both exports and imports) is seen
to offer the engine for national economic growth, with the concomitant advantages of increasing
inward investment and improving the technological capability of rms through the import and
absorption of new technologies. Trade reform also distinguishes the neoliberal paradigm from that of
inward orientation. Throughout Latin America, tariff and non-tariff trade restrictions have been
reduced and controls on foreign exchange markets lifted, particularly in the smaller countries.
The impact of the debt crisis and its aftermath in the early 1980s provided the catalyst for this
fundamental change in policy. Trade reform offered the possibility for exchange rate devaluation,
increased exports and higher trade surpluses, the latter providing a valuable source of nance to start
balancing the current and capital accounts of the indebted Latin American nations. Practically all Latin
American countries under review began signicant programmes to liberalize their trade regimes
between 1985 and 1991 (see Table 3.3).
TABLE 3.3 Chronology of trade liberalization in Latin America,
198591
Year

Country

1985
1986
1988
1989
1990
1991

Chile, Mexico
Bolivia, Costa Rica
Guatemala
Argentina, El Salvador, Paraguay, Venezuela
Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru
Uruguay, Colombia

Source: IDB (1996).


49

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

In some countries, there was a focus on the decentralization of social services to municipal,
provincial and regional levels of government (Nickson, 1995; Angell et al., 2001). More closely linked
theoretically to the neoliberal model, shifts in social policy involved privatizing some aspects of the
delivery of social services. Some countries (such as Chile) encouraged the growth of private schools,
health care and pension systems for those who could afford to pay (Barrientos, 1998). A two-tier
system of social service delivery thus became more marked with private social services for the
afuent but with the majority of the population having to rely on the public system.
Nevertheless, some dramatic shifts in per capita social expenditure occurred. Between 199091
and 199697, per capita social expenditure more than doubled in Colombia and rose by 61 per cent
in Chile (Stallings and Peres, 2000: 30). In Chile, the shift from authoritarian to democratic rule
constituted the key political force. In so doing, Chile became a model for other Latin American
countries, initiating what Sheahan (1997: 11) called a competitive-plus-social combination of policies.
On the economic side, the aim was to build up the capacity of the countrys modern sectors so as to
compete better in open international markets. Meanwhile, social programmes aimed at reducing the
inequality of opportunities by improving education for the poor; by redistributing educational
expenditures to favour primary and secondary education; by providing training to increase job
exibility; and by promoting community projects and leadership.The Chilean model demonstrates that
poverty alleviation must involve sustained employment (and wage) growth along with targeted and
increasing social expenditure; unfortunately, Chile is not representative of Latin America as a whole in
its success at reducing the incidence of poverty.

Latin America Transformed

There was a sharp reduction in the levels of tariff protection on imports. Taking the region as a
whole, average tariffs declined from 44.6 per cent in the pre-reform years to 13.1 per cent in 1995
(IDB, 1996: 98). Another important feature of the liberalization process was the gradual adoption of
more uniform tariff structures.These provided advantages in terms of administration and transparency,
preventing tariff policy from being manipulated by interest groups capable of applying pressure on
government policy.
Trade reform was often associated with crucial changes in exchange rates. After the debt crisis, many
Latin American currencies were devalued, and subsequently many were classied as either effectively
valued (value of currency broadly in line with the real market rate) or under-valued (value of currency
lower than the real market rate).This change made exports from most Latin American countries much
more competitive and was one of the main causes of rapid export growth in many countries.

IMPACTS AND PROBLEMS OF NEOLIBERAL REFORM


What have been the impacts of neoliberal reform in Latin America? Have the theoretical arguments
that have developed in the past 15 years borne empirical fruit in terms of rapid economic growth and
reductions in inequality and poverty? At present, any overall evaluation of impacts is very difcult to
formulate. There are a large number of reforms and each has a different effect over time and on
potential investors. The chronology of reform can be an important theme, particularly as it relates to
the reaction of rms and their decision-makers who in the neoliberal model become the major
economic actors. For this reason, one could see the shift from closed to more open, market-driven
economies as a transition process with at least three phases:
1 The initial phase: dominated by negative factors centred on the great uncertainty generated by
the reforms themselves, often compounded by macro-economic disequilibria (such as high
ination) and profound economic restructuring. Faced with this uncertainty, investors reacted
defensively, rationalizing production processes and introducing disembodied technical change to
increase productivity (Stallings and Peres, 2000: 356).
2 The phase of positive transitory factors: linked to a period when uncertainty declines and
necessary investments begin to grow investments to reduce costs, upgrade products for export,
full privatization obligations, or support the entry of TNCs into new markets.
3 Phase where reforms have been consolidated: investment determined by the normal factors that
characterize all capitalist economies (for example, macro-economic stability, anticipated demand,
relative prices, technological upgrading, and so on). Perhaps, only Chile has reached this third
phase in which reforms have been consolidated.
Thus, all the other countries are still in the transitory phase. As one probes into individual cases, it
becomes apparent that the take-up of neoliberal reform in Latin America has been very
heterogeneous. The adoption of neoliberal policies has varied greatly in terms of both speed and
scope. There have been some countries (most notably Venezuela) that have avoided any intention of
adopting such policies. Other countries, as Stallings and Peres (2000) noted, have been cautious (or
slow) adopters of reform Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, according to their analysis. Meanwhile, there
have been countries that have adopted much of the neoliberal package aggressively, but avoided
addressing certain key elements of reform during the transition as with Argentina and its
problematic exchange rate policy. Other countries have adopted the full range of neoliberal economic
policies vigorously but have not addressed the subsequent institutional reform Peru and Bolivia
might be included here. This analysis of impacts will continue by focusing on how key economic and
social indicators have performed under neoliberalism.
Investment and growth
Edwards (1995), the World Banks chief economist for Latin America at the time, argued that the
package of market-oriented economic reforms introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s would
50

Trade liberalization
According to the econometric and qualitative evidence of the Stallings and Peres (2000: 38) study, one
of the two key reforms that were most important for determining investment patterns was that of
import liberalization. This reform lowered costs for imported inputs and capital goods and increased
competitive pressures. Meanwhile, for export growth to be achieved, a oating exchange rate (that
does not become over-valued) is required.
It is interesting to note that trade reform did not bring increased rates of export growth in the
1990s (compared with the 1980s) for four countries Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Paraguay (see
Table 3.4). Increasing export growth was, however, recorded in the other countries, with Mexico and
Chile recording the two highest rates of export growth in the 1990s. Examining the record of these
two countries, it could be argued that trade reform, if successful, can bring at least four benets:
1 A sustained growth in exports. Both countries achieved high growth rates over two decades (see
Table 3.4). Export growth in Chile has slowed since the late 1990s. This may show the difculty of
maintaining export growth in countries where resources dominate the export prole.
2 An increasing and more diversied range of exports and less dependence on one or two
commodities. Under inward orientation, Mexico and Chile had relied heavily on oil and copper
respectively for their export trade. Mexican export growth has been dominated by manufactured
products, reducing oil to less than 10 per cent of exports. Meanwhile, in Chile, copper constituted
about 80 per cent of Chiles exports in 1974 by 2001, this proportion had declined to 37 per
cent. Four other specialized areas of export production have developed in Chile agriculture
(mainly fruit), agroindustry (wine, fruit products), sh products and forestry (particularly cellulose).
51

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

transform Latin America from a continent of economic despair to one of hope. Opening Latin
American economies to world markets and allowing more freedom to the private sector would
increase investment and productivity, and result in higher growth. However, according to the Stallings
and Peres (2000) study of nine Latin American countries, only Bolivia, Chile and Costa Rica were
successful in raising their investment rates. Of these three countries, only Chile was able to transfer
rising investment into high productivity growth. In contrast, in Latin Americas two largest economies,
Mexico and Brazil, investment and productivity growth lagged behind so that investment as a share of
GDP is still below 1980 levels. Meanwhile, Chiles record of investment growth has been impressive.
Gross xed capital formation as a percentage of GDP rose more or less steadily from 17.7 per cent
in 1985 to 32.2 per cent in 1998 before falling back to under 27 per cent in 2000 (Banco Central,
2002a: 77).
Changes in investment and productivity have been insufcient to achieve the rapid rates of economic
growth required for sustained development. ECLAC (2003b) has suggested that a 6 per cent growth
rate is needed to tackle the social issues pending in the region (poverty, unemployment, and others).
Referring back to Table 3.1, one can see that only Chile met this criteria for the period from 1990 to
2001 and only Peru achieved average growth above 4 per cent a year. Growth rates in the two largest
economies of Brazil and Mexico averaged less than 3 per cent, which was still higher than for most
other countries of South America. Economic growth, even in the relatively favoured 1990s, was
therefore considerably less than that expected by such World Bank economists as Edwards.
Economic growth of 6 per cent requires a high investment rate around 28 per cent of GDP
according to Stallings and Peres (2000: 34). In the peak year (1998) of investment in Latin America, an
investment rate of only 23 per cent was achieved, and again only Chile was able to achieve the higher
level. Thus, Latin America under neoliberalism has not produced either the investment rate or growth
rate required to make an impact on Latin Americas social debt unlike East Asia. Even Chile, which
has the best record of investment and productivity growth in Latin America since 1985, falls
considerably behind the investment and growth standards set in such East Asian economies as South
Korea and Taiwan.

Latin America Transformed

TABLE 3.4 Latin America: export growth during the 1980s and 1990s
Country

Average annual export growth


rate (%), 198089

Average annual export growth


(%), 199099

Argentina
Bolivia
Chile
Mexico
Peru
Uruguay
Venezuela

3.8
1.0
6.9
7.0
1.6
4.3
2.8

8.7
4.9
9.7
14.3
9.0
7.0
5.6

Brazil
Colombia
Ecuador
Paraguay

7.5
7.5
5.4
12.2

4.9
5.2
4.4
5.1

Source: World Bank (2000), pp. 2945.

3 Increasing and more diversied imports. Import growth should focus on capital goods for
investment purposes rather than consumer goods. Economic growth in both Mexico and Chile
since 1985 has been based on import growth being dominated by capital goods.
4 Trade with a more diversied range of countries. This applies much more to Chile than Mexico, as
Mexican trade has become dominated by one partner, the USA (see Figure 3.3). In the case of
Chile, trade was formerly dominated by the USA and the main industrial countries of Western
Europe. After trade reform, Chile came to develop additional and signicant trading links with
other Latin American countries (especially Brazil, Argentina and Mexico) and the industrialized
and industrializing countries of East Asia (Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China).
Trade reform, if successful, can therefore bring a more diversied conguration to Latin American
countries and their trading relationships with the global economy. Indeed, the international economic
downturn at the beginning of the twenty-rst century has demonstrated that economies which are
heavily dependent on export earnings from just a few products or markets are more vulnerable than
economies with more diversied exports (ECLAC, 2003b: 12).
Trade reform can bring problems that are sometimes overlooked by the many international
economists and advisers who actively promote it. Trade liberalization has brought at least three
problems to those formerly inward-oriented countries that have enthusiastically adopted it:
1 The transition starts with a severe short-term problem of restructuring in terms of investment,
production and employment. The reduction of tariffs and non-tariff barriers has a very negative
impact on investment, production and employment in the formerly protected sectors (such as
consumer-good manufacturing). Meanwhile, investment, production and employment expand only
slowly in those sectors in which national economies have a comparative advantage in world
trade.
2 In the smaller countries of Latin America, the growth of diversied or non-traditional exports has
tended to be concentrated in primary products. Increased reliance on primary product exports
brings problems related to the changing terms of international trade. The twentieth century was
characterized by the long-term deterioration of raw material prices. Price data for 24
commodities between 1900 and 2000 showed that the terms of trade for non-oil commodities
deteriorated to such an extent that by the beginning of the twenty-rst century they represented
52

Mexico

Brazil
Latin America
23%

Other
23%

Latin America
3%

Other
4%

Chile

Japan
0% Asia
1%

EU
3%

Other
21%

Latin America
21%

Asia
8%

US
25%

Japan
3%
EU
22%

US
89%

Andean Community
Latin America
26%

Other
12%

Asia
11%

US
16%

EU
20%

Japan
11%

MERCOSUR (excluding Brazil)


Asia
3%
Japan
2%

Other
16%

Latin America
47%

Asia
9%

EU
10%

Japan
1%

US
11%

US
47%

EU
16%

Figure 3.3 Latin America: export markets, 2001 (in percentages of total exports in current dollars, 2001)
Source: ECLAC (2003b: 5)

53

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

Latin America Transformed

less than a third of their pre-1920 levels (ECLAC, 2003b: 38). In addition, there is the problem of
high price volatility raw material prices rising and falling with world economic cycles (Maddison,
2001).
3 The increasing importance of transnational actors in Latin American economies (Clark, 1997), not
only in terms of TNCs but also in terms of aid agencies and multilateral organizations. TNCs are
becoming increasingly prominent in the marketing of primary product and manufacturing exports,
partly because they have the expertise in international marketing, access to capital and relevant
technological innovation. This indicates a distinct decline in national control over production in the
increasingly crucial export sector.
Trade liberalization is certainly not a panacea for the economic problems of Latin America. It has
brought greater advantages to the larger, more industrialized middle-income countries of Latin
America than to the smaller, less industrialized and lower-income countries of Latin America (see
Chapter 4).
Reforms and employment
The economic reforms were expected to have a positive impact on employment through both faster
growth of output and a shift towards export-oriented production based on intensive use of labour.
Some countries did achieve signicant growth in employment levels during the 1990s (see Table 3.5).
All these countries had enjoyed rapid export growth during the 1990s Mexico, Chile, Peru and
Bolivia (see Table 3.4). However, some crucial countries (Brazil, Argentina and Colombia) recorded
slow-growing or static employment levels, particularly for wage earners (see Table 3.5). Brazils formal
sector jobs actually fell in absolute terms during the 1990s (Stallings and Peres, 2000: 46).
Employment growth was to be reinforced by labour market reforms. According to Thomas (1996:
86), neoliberal policies targeted labour market distortions by introducing legislation to reduce the
power of trade unions and to reduce the level of legislated minimum wages. Later, however, the
architects of the Washington consensus viewed the growth of unemployment differently (see Table
3.6) and argued that labour reforms had been generally weak in both formulation and execution
(Williamson and Kuczynski, 2003).

TABLE 3.5 Latin America: changes in labour market indicators during the 1990s
Country

Occupation
level

Unemployment

Wage
employment

Real wage

Labour
productivity

Chile
Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Colombia
Mexico
Peru

=
+
+

+
+

+
=
+
+
+
+
+

+
+

+
+
=
+

+ conditions improved, they deteriorated, = they remained relatively constant.


Occupation level per cent change in the rate of employment
Unemployment per cent change in unemployment rate
Wage employment growth of wage employment with respect to total employment
Real wage per cent change in real average wages in the formal sector
Labour productivity per cent change in average labour productivity
Source: Adapted from Stallings and Peres (2000: 47).
54

Country

1985

1990

1995

2000

Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Mexico
Paraguay
Peru
Uruguay
Venezuela
Weighted Average for Latin America
(includes other countries)

6.1
5.7
5.3
17.0
13.8
10.4
4.4
5.1
10.1
13.1
14.3
8.3

7.5
7.2
4.3
7.4
10.5
6.1
2.8
6.6
8.3
9.2
11.0
5.7

17.5
3.6
4.6
6.6
8.8
7.7
6.2
5.3
7.9
10.8
10.3
7.2

15.4
7.5*
7.5
9.2
20.4
14.9
2.3
9.4*
10.3
13.3
14.6
8.9

*1999 data
Source: ILO (2000).

Labour markets in Latin America are dominated by the distinction between the formal and informal
sectors (see Chapter 11). The International Labour Ofce (ILO) denes the informal sector as
consisting of low-productivity jobs for which workers receive low wages and no benets. The ILO
measures the informal sector by combining jobs of the self-employed, domestic service and microenterprises (less than ve workers). According to the ILO, nearly 60 per cent of new jobs during the
1990s in Latin America were created in the informal sector.Table 3.7 eshes out this trend by country.
Only Chile and Argentina recorded a declining informal sector during the 1990s. In all other countries
it was on the increase. By 1999, the informal sector was greater than the formal sector in Peru and
Ecuador (and most probably Paraguay and Bolivia for which there is no ILO data), and in all other
countries outside Chile it employed more than 40 per cent of the workforce. The economic crises of
the early twenty-rst century have undoubtedly increased the size of the informal sector, most notably
in Argentina and Uruguay. Thus, alongside slow employment growth in many countries, there have
been increasing problems in job quality.
In Latin Americas bi-modal labour market, the growth of employment in the informal sector is
associated with the relative fall in the formal sector. Meanwhile, real wages have increased in the formal
sector in virtually all countries and been associated in some cases with increases in labour productivity
(see Table 3.5). However, this was associated with the decline or stagnation of wage employment in
most countries.
Slow employment growth raised the unemployment rate in the 1990s in most Latin American
countries. Table 3.6 demonstrates the change in the urban unemployment rate from 1985 (the heart
of the debt crisis) to 2000 (marking a decade and a half of neoliberal transition).The weighted average
of urban unemployment in Latin America did decline between 1985 and 1990 but then started to rise
again, so that by the year 2000 its level was higher than that of 1985. Unemployment increased over
this period in all countries apart from Chile and Mexico (see Table 3.6). Urban unemployment data
does not include under-employment and tends to be based on survey data but, in 2000, six countries
had unemployment levels over 10 per cent. Thus, the neoliberal model has not provided the jobs
required to reduce unemployment and has not generated the growth in waged employment required
as a precondition to reduce inequality and poverty.
Explanations for this poor record of employment growth need to focus on rms and
government. In the early stage of transition, there was a severe short-term problem of increased
55

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

TABLE 3.6 Latin America: open urban unemployment, 19852000

Latin America Transformed

TABLE 3.7 Latin American labour markets, 199099


Country

Chile
Mexico
Uruguay
Brazil
Argentina
Colombia
Venezuela
Peru
Ecuador
Latin America (includes other countries)

Informal sector (%)

Formal sector (%)

1990

1999

1990

1999

37.9
38.4
39.1
40.6
52.0
45.7
38.6
52.7
55.6
42.8

37.5*
40.1
43.1
47.1
48.0*
49.0*
49.1
53.7*
58.6*
46.4

62.1
61.6
60.9
59.4
48.0
54.3
61.4
47.3
44.4
57.2

62.5*
59.9
56.9
52.9
52.0*
51.0*
50.9
46.3*
41.4*
53.6

*1998
Source: ILO (2000).

unemployment due to the massive restructuring of the economy that the neoliberal reform created.
The formal sector was considerably restructured as the economy opened up to overseas markets and
foreign competition.Those companies used to producing for protected national markets normally had
to dramatically reduce employment levels. Furthermore, after decades of inward orientation, national
entrepreneurs were not used to the demands of highly competitive world markets and were wary of
governments long-term commitment to outward orientation. Thus, as employment declined
substantially in formerly protected sectors, it rose only slowly in more export-oriented rms. When
Thomas (1996: 89) focused on labour market restructuring in the early phase of neoliberalism
between 1980 and 1992, he noted that the main increases in employment were in small rms and
own-account workers and that employment in large rms stayed broadly similar.
A second explanation concerns government employment which has declined under the new
economic model, both through the privatization of state rms and the reductions in the number of
public employees. This changed the historic pattern of the state becoming more and more signicant
as a direct employer. During inward orientation, the state had often been the most important
generator of formal jobs in the country (Roberts, 1995: 115). Between 1990 and 1999, the percentage
of the urban workforce in the formal public sector declined from 15.5 to 13.0 per cent in Latin
America as a whole (ILO, 2000).
Income distribution and poverty
Poverty and inequality have long been distinctive features of Latin American economies. Decades of
government intervention, inward orientation and protected markets did little to reduce inequality.
Latin America was the only region in the world where the share of income going to the poorest 20
per cent of the population consistently declined between 1950 and the late 1970s (Sheahan, 1987).
In the late 1970s, the percentage of income (2.9 per cent) received by the poorest 20 per cent was
lower in Latin America than in any other part of the developing world and much lower than that in
East Asia (6.2 per cent). Edwards (1995) argues that liberalization programmes and their effects on
poverty and income distribution must be placed in this context.
Nevertheless, he emphasizes that only to the extent that poverty is reduced and living conditions
of the poor are improved will the structural reforms implemented during the last decade be sustained
(Edwards, 1995: 252). What has been the record of the neoliberal period in terms of reducing poverty
56

NEOLIBERALISM AND ECONOMIC SPACES


The second half of this book seeks to examine how neoliberalism has affected the livelihoods of
individuals and households in very local spaces. However, there is another route to the analysis of how
changes in macro-economic policies can affect spaces within Latin American countries.That is through
the vehicle of evaluating how rms and enterprises react to and are affected by such shifts to marketbased and outward-oriented economics; and then how changing rm behaviour impacts upon
economic spaces on a variety of scales.
Firm responses to neoliberalism
Although the neoliberal reforms did not aim at promoting specic rms, neither were they meant to
be neutral. For example, export-oriented rms were supposed to perform better than those geared
to domestic markets. Firms within certain sectors were also favoured by much greater investment in
57

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

and inequality? The evolution of labour markets has an important impact on income distribution
(Sheahan, 1997). However, we have already noted that the neoliberal model did not generate a good
balance between the demand for labour and the growth of the labour force. Put simply, the nature of
economic production under neoliberalism has not been sufciently labour-intensive (outside certain
regional spaces see below).
Another link between the labour market and income distribution is the wage differential. Stallings
and Peres (2000: 489) demonstrate that this differential increased in the 1990s.Their data pointed to
a widening gap in wages based on skill level. The wage gap between university graduates and those
with 79 years of education rose from virtually three to four times during the 1990s in Latin America
as a whole. The neoliberal model was rewarding those with longer and more specialized education
and acquired skills.
Within the context of the great inequality already characteristic of Latin America, changes in income
distribution during the 1990s took three forms according to Stallings and Peres (2000: 512). First, in
Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, inequality continued to increase. Second, there was a pattern of decline
in inequality in the early phase of the neoliberal model (attributed to conquering ination) followed
by the reassertion of rising inequality; Argentina, Bolivia and Peru tted broadly into this pattern. A
sustained pattern of declining inequality was found only in Chile.
For those who have investigated the Chilean model more closely, the evidence points to signicant
reductions in poverty rather than in inequality. The work of Larranaga and Sanhueza (1994)
investigated the transmission mechanisms between economic growth (based on the neoliberal
model) and poverty incidence. They used data from national household surveys in order to
decompose the change in the poverty headcount ratio between 1987 and 1992 into a growth and
distributive component. According to their analysis, about 80 per cent of the reduction in poverty
from 1987 to 1992 was accounted for by the effect of economic growth. Scott (1996: 175) thus
suggested that in Chile, trickle-down was the major source of poverty alleviation over the period with
a tightened labour market acting as the most likely transmission mechanism. Reductions in rural
poverty were more impressive than that of urban poverty in Chile due to the effects of exportoriented agriculture (Scott, 1996: 171).
Finally, one should consider the role of government social expenditure, which increased in the 1990s
in comparison with the previous decade. This helped to lower the very high levels of inequality in the
region (Stallings and Peres, 2000: 56). The principal instrument was the provision of so-called basic
services, especially primary education and health as a high proportion of these services go to poor
families. Social expenditure thus had a positive impact on income distribution, reducing the huge gap
between the income of the highest and lowest income quintiles. However, due to scal constraints,
increases in social expenditure have been severely constrained in most Latin American countries and
have become more so in the early twenty-rst century.

Latin America Transformed

the post-reform period. Thus, in all Latin American countries rms within the telecommunications
sector needed to invest massively in order to modernize during the neoliberal period. Investment by
rms in capital-intensive manufacturing sectors also tended to be dynamic for example in rms
specializing in cement, steel, petrochemicals and chemicals. This was particularly the case in Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico (Stallings and Peres, 2000: 60). Investment by rms in electricity and
transportation was more variable.
Before neoliberal reform, the process of industrial expansion in Latin America had been engineered
through a distinctive institutional structure of rms, often known as the triple alliance (Gwynne, 1985).
This was because key rms involved in industrialization could be divided into three state rms,
national private companies and transnational corporations (TNCs). Neoliberal reform was to have a
signicant impact on this framework. First of all, widespread privatization was to massively reduce the
number of state rms in most countries particularly those involved in feedstock industries, such as
steel and petrochemicals. Many strategic oil and mining companies would still remain in state hands after
reform, such as the copper-producing CODELCO in Chile or the oil-producing PEMEX in Mexico.
Furthermore, among large private rms, TNC subsidiaries gained ground in relation to large
domestic corporations. TNC subsidiaries were responsible for much of the investment growth, not
only in the more dynamic areas of manufacturing, but also in mining and telecommunications. One
example is that of the Spanish rm, Telefonica, which by 2003 had invested 32.7 billion euros in
telecommunication systems in Latin America, most notably in Brazil and Argentina (El Pas, 2003).
Privatizations, the liberalization of regulations that prevented foreign rms from investing in many
sectors, and the globalization of important industries combined to strengthen the position of TNCs
after neoliberal reform.
Productivity gains were evenly spread across enterprises in agriculture, manufacturing and services.
However, heterogeneity increased within subsectors, such as the contrasts between commercial and
family farming enterprises. Labour productivity in manufacturing gained ground in certain key
countries during the 1990s, such as in Argentina and Brazil (Stallings and Peres, 2000: 62). However,
in other countries productivity declined. As a result, Latin American labour productivity in
manufacturing rms was much lower than for equivalent rms in the United States in 1996 ranging
from as low as 15 per cent of US levels in Peru to as high as 67 per cent in Argentina. Within some
Latin American countries, the gap between the productivity of large rms and that of small- and
medium-sized enterprises narrowed, but performance between countries continued to be
extremely dissimilar.
Rapid technological advance occurred mainly among larger rms.The importance of external factors
in the incorporation of new technologies increased in tandem with the investment process. The
growing signicance of imported capital goods, the substitution for domestic inputs, and the
construction of technologically advanced plants by foreign rms all resulted in a greater presence of
foreign components in the regions sectoral innovation systems (Stallings and Peres, 2000: 612). In line
with the neoliberal model, the state reduced its involvement in improving technological capability at the
national level and local private enterprises have not always stepped in to ll the void (Pietrobelli, 1998).
Reforms did not solve, and quite probably increased, two problems associated with the nature of
rms in Latin America. First, investment continued to be concentrated among large enterprises that
have not shown the capacity to develop backward and forward linkages with smaller rms. This has
made the development of localized clusters of technologically dynamic rms (so important in
peripheral economic spaces in Europe) much more difcult to achieve (Casaburi, 1999). Second,
supplier chains were destroyed by the quest for competitiveness through increasing imported inputs.
Agroindustry may be an exception here (Casaburi, 1999) but it was characteristic of rms in other
export-oriented industries, particularly in the north Mexican border area (Kenney and Florida, 1994;
Vellinga, 2000). Although these processes have led to greater localized specialization and higher
efciency, they have not become vehicles for deepening local economic growth and thus have led to
the persistence of the external constraint on manufacturing growth.
58

TABLE 3.8 Contribution to total manufacturing employment by size of rm, 1990s


Country (period)

Wage earners
Microenterprises

Argentina (199197)
Bolivia (198996)
Brazil (199396)
Chile (199096)
Mexico (199197)

1.1
11.6
106.1
27.6
26.4

Other

Total

26.2
65.0
32.1
16.3
28.4

100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0

Small
Medium-size Unspecied
enterprises
and large
enterprises
8.1
13.8
53.6
122.8
6.7

11.6
9.6
265.0
67.8
42.2

71.4
n.a.
17.7
1.1
3.7

Micro-enterprises contain up to 5 workers


Small enterprises contain 10 or under in Brazil, 49 or under in Chile, and 50 or under in Argentina, Mexico and
Peru.
Source: Stallings and Peres (2000: 64).

However, employment growth under neoliberalism has occurred mainly in service rather than
manufacturing or agricultural enterprises (see Table 3.9). Service rms had a heterogeneous
performance. High quality jobs were created in telecommunications rms, banks and nance
companies, but the bulk of employment growth was in low-skill enterprises. Micro-enterprises offered
the greatest number of jobs, with most of them operating on an informal basis (Stallings and Peres,
2000: 66). The low rate of job creation by large, modern service rms that offered higher wages led
to a widening wage gap between service rms.
Changes to economic spaces
With the consolidation of the neoliberal model in much of Latin America, localities and regions within
countries have become more and more integrated into global (rather than just national) markets. The
shift from inward to outward orientation has meant that spaces within Latin American countries have
begun to specialize in producing goods and services in which they have comparative advantages at the
global scale. The decisions of individual rms and enterprises become crucial in terms of the nature of
the insertion of these economic spaces into the wider global economy.
Outward orientation in Latin America along with decisions of rms to invest have led to at least two
different patterns of export growth in the larger Latin American countries in the 1990s:
1 Firms investing in renewable resources for subsequent export (and occasionally adding extra
value) in the smaller countries of South America.
59

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

This lack of links between large enterprises and small local rms in export-oriented activities has not
only led to limited cooperation and information exchange between rms at the local level but has also
produced negative impacts on local employment growth, given that small rms and microenterprises
have accounted for more than 100 per cent of net job creation in most Latin American countries
during the 1990s (see Table 3.8). It is interesting to note the contrast between Mexico and Chile. In
Mexico, the growth in TNC assembly rms in the northern border area meant that it provided the
exception in that medium and large enterprises were the main providers of manufacturing
employment. In contrast, in Chile, where agroindustry and sh products have been two key exportoriented sectors (and in which small-scale suppliers have been important), small enterprises provided
the huge contribution to employment growth.

Latin America Transformed

TABLE 3.9 Latin America: employment growth by sector, 199097


Sector

Agriculture
Manufacturing industry
Construction
Commerce, restaurants and hotels
Electricity, gas and water, transportation, storage and communications
Financial services, insurance, real estate and business services
Social, communal and personal services
Other
TOTAL

Employment
growth

Contribution
to total

0.9
1.2
2.8
3.5
4.9
6.8
2.8
3.2

11.1
9.0
8.4
30.9
12.0
14.0
40.3
3.5

2.0

100.0

Source: Stallings and Peres (2000: 67).

2 Firms investing in export-oriented manufacturing. One key example is that of the north Mexican
border area. Here, TNCs have invested in order to take advantage of closer integration with the
huge North American market.
It should be pointed out that the Brazilian model does not really t into either of these categories.
Here investing rms are still strongly geared to the large Brazilian market but there are nevertheless
signicant exports coming from both manufacturing and resource-based rms.
Economic spaces and resource exports
The shift to outward orientation in the smaller countries of Latin America has normally been
associated with the growth of non-traditional exports. These are distinguished from traditional
exports that were able to be traded internationally under the inward-oriented model. These
traditional exports were normally raw materials that were traded on world markets despite suffering
from overvalued exchange rates in their country of origin. They tended to be non-renewable
resources (oil and minerals in particular) whose international price reected the global balance of
supply and demand in the commodity rather than the costs of production. In contrast, the growth of
non-traditional exports is very much inuenced by the costs of production of potential exports. The
growth of non-traditional exports in both manufacturing and primary product sectors has beneted
from trade liberalization and the shift to more effectively-valued exchange rates. Quality and reliability
of the export product are important considerations as well, but the relative cost of production has
been the crucial factor behind rms deciding to invest in the production and export of what are often
renewable resources.
Renewable resources include such sectors as agriculture (Gwynne, 1993b), shing (if extraction
rates are controlled), aquaculture and plantation forestry (Clapp, 1995; Gwynne, 1996b). With the shift
to neoliberal policies, these exports have become particularly important for the smaller countries of
Latin America (Barham et al., 1992; Gwynne, 1993a). Carter et al. (1996) point out that from their
early phases, non-traditional agricultural exports grew very rapidly in such countries as Chile,
Guatemala and Costa Rica. However, export growth in these sectors is still ultimately controlled by
TNCs (such as fruit TNCs or large corporate retailers from the core economies). As their product
supply is organized through contracts with large numbers of locally-based farming enterprises, TNCs
can have huge impacts on how local land and labour markets evolve (Gwynne, 1999; 2003).
The importance of primary resource exports in smaller countries is partly because these countries
have generally been unsuccessful in promoting manufacturing exports (Gwynne, 1985). For smaller
60

Economic spaces and manufacturing exports


The shift to neoliberal policies has also boosted manufacturing exports from the larger countries of
Latin America, particularly Mexico and Brazil. In these two countries, the inward-oriented phase of
development was much more successful in creating manufacturing sectors that came close to
international levels of competitiveness. In the shift to outward orientation, many rms have been
unable to compete in international markets and have closed down plants. Other rms, however, have
been able to restructure successfully and achieve international levels of competitiveness. Such rms
have required access to capital, new technology, best-practice in management and a range of labour
skills. However, the key factor in the international competitiveness of these rms has been low labour
costs. Wage levels in Mexican industrial plants have been as low as one-tenth of those in equivalent
plants north of the border in the United States (Shaiken, 1994). Such labour cost differentials have
attracted much investment from foreign rms, particularly since the signing of NAFTA in 1993 and the
privileged access of Mexico to the US market; labour markets, the gender division of labour and social
relations have dramatically changed in Mexicos northern border towns as a result (Kopinak, 1997).

BOX 3.1: New economic spaces on the Mexican border


The north Mexican border is probably the largest export processing zone in the world. On the
Mexican side, there are at least 11 towns directly adjacent to the border, from Tijuana in the far
Pacic west to Matamoros in the east (see Figure 3.4). Each has a direct partner town on the US
side of the border, which provides many of the high-order services. Mexican border towns have
had a special status ever since 1965 and the establishment of the Border Industrialization
Programme. Within these border towns assembly production has predominated in assembly
plants known as maquilas.
Since the decisions of the Mexican government to shift to outward orientation in the mid1970s and join NAFTA in 1993, this border region has been one of the fastest-growing economic
spaces in Latin America. Between 1990 and 2000 the population on the Mexican side grew by
more than 50 per cent and GDP growth (for the border states on both sides) averaged between
5 and 7 per cent a year (The Economist, 2001b: 27). Ciudad Juarez now has a population of over
one million inhabitants. Employment growth in the assembly industry was very high during the
1990s (see Figure 3.4), more than trebling in Tijuana and Mexicali and more than doubling in
Reynosa, Ciudad Acuna, Ciudad Juarez and Nogales.
However, this new economic space probably provides a special case, unlikely to be copied
elsewhere in Latin America. Virtually all its exports are sent to the US market. Manufacturing
investment in the border towns comes largely from TNCs rather than Mexican or local rms. The
industrial mix is a combination of export processing and component supply (Geref, 1996). In
export-processing rms, plants are labour-intensive and the majority of workers are female and
in unskilled jobs (Kopinak, 1997). Component supply rms are more capital-intensive, can use
high technology and require more skilled labour. Both types of industry are, however, controlled
by TNCs, mainly US but with signicant numbers from Japan and South Korea. Furthermore,
trade unions have much less power than in central Mexico as company-based unions negotiating
exible contracts prevail (Kopinak, 1997).
61

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

countries the previous inward-oriented phase based on manufacturing had been characterized by
high-cost and small-scale industrial plants that were weak in terms of industrial competitiveness on a
world scale. Firms found it difcult to lift their horizons from domestic to international markets.

Latin America Transformed


62

CALIFORNIA
ARIZONA

Los Angeles

Albuquerque
NEW MEXICO

San Diego
Tijuana
218.2

Calexico

Yuma
Mexicali
San Luis R.C.
209.9 n.a.
Douglas
Nogales
Agua
Prieta
13.2
SONORA

100.3

BA
JA

CA

Hermosillo

LIF
NI
A
Mexican border towns
Growth in 1000s of jobs in assembly industry
in each Mexican border town, 19902000.
US border towns
Other towns

Figure 3.4 Assembly industry and the Mexican border towns

TEXAS

El Paso
Ciudad Juarez
109.2

Austin
Ciudad
~
Acuna

CHIHUAHUA
Chihuahua

OR

209.9

Dallas

Phoenix

Del Rio

Houston

San Antonio

126.0

Eagle Pass
Piedras Negras
81.3
Corpus Christi
Laredo
Nuevo
COAHUILA Laredo
McAllen
37.5
Brownsville
NUEVO
Reynosa Matamoros
LEON
Monterrey
175.6
72.5
Saltillo
TAMAULIPAS

CONCLUSION
The history of neoliberal reform in Latin America has been both heterogeneous and volatile. Some
countries have undoubtedly beneted, most notably Chile, others have done to a much lesser extent
and some not at all. Meanwhile, the history of repeated but different crises and of varying signicance
in the key countries of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina makes overall generalizations difcult to make.
Meanwhile, the policy-makers call for the second-generation of institutional reforms to be
implemented in which the state takes a more professional and regulatory role in economic
development (Willamson and Kuczynski, 2003); these authors argue that the way forward is to
63

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

In broad terms, the outward-oriented nature of economic growth has had an impact on peripheral
regions according to the ability of producers in those regions to export successfully to international
markets. In those regions where producers have made the shift from supplying domestic to
international markets (normally with the assistance of international intermediaries), signicant
increases in regional investment and labour productivity have often followed. However, in regions
where producers remain geared to the domestic market, no such transformation has normally
occurred. Thus, in countries that have experienced outward-oriented growth, uneven development
has been the consequence although without unduly affecting the inherited coreperiphery
relationship (Scott, 1996; Uribe-Echevarria, 1996).
Neoliberal reform has tended to accentuate the economic importance of the core region or main
city of each country. According to de Mattos (1996), foreign investment in Chile (outside mining) has
been heavily concentrated in the metropolitan region of Santiago during the period of neoliberal
reform, and particularly during the late 1980s and 1990s. Between 1974 and 1993, nearly two-thirds
of foreign investment in manufacturing and services was concentrated in the Santiago region, causing
that region to receive the largest benets in terms of regional economic growth, employment,
construction and labour productivity. Figure 3.5 shows that in resource-rich countries such as Chile,
the economic effects of export-oriented resource growth are not necessarily concentrated in the
producing region. The GDP of the metropolitan region of Santiago completely overshadows the GDP
of other regions, including those with large mineral exports.
The primate city and its immediate environs can enjoy the highest rates of regional economic
growth within export-oriented resource development. There are some logical explanations as to why
a wide range of rms are attracted to locate in the primate city. The primate city offers rms
economies of scale in a range of services nance, manufacturing supply, business services, retailing,
production of knowledge and constitutes the nexus of communications between resource
production in the regions and the demands of rms in the wider world economy. Technologies of
timespace compression favour these large cities, such as access to international airports or hotels
offering video-conferencing. For example, Santiago is emerging as a second-tier global city for
advanced producer services and other elements of economic globalization (Sassen, 2000).
Away from the core metropolitan areas, a complex patchwork of regions and sub-regions has
evolved, reecting the comparative advantage and factor endowments of regions in world markets.
Prosperity has been linked to an areas ability to attract investment and produce for export markets.
In regions that did well under the inward-oriented model but found it difcult to attract export-led
capital and restructure production for global markets, economic stagnation and decline relative to
other regions have occurred, particularly in terms of labour productivity. The old reliance on supplying
domestic markets became more difcult as regional producers had to face competition from
imported goods. Thus, it is often at the regional and local scales of analysis that the impacts of
neoliberal reform can best be seen in terms of changing social relations for example, through
changing labour and land markets (Gwynne, 2003). However, one then has the methodological
problem of generalizing from the particular impacts of policy reform at one locality to that at other
localities.

Latin America Transformed

REGION 1

Regional GDP as percentage


o f n a t u r a l G D P, 1 9 9 8

3.2%

REGION 2

5.4%

REGION 3

2.1%
2.1%

REGION 4

10.2%
REGION 5
METROPOLITAN
REGION

41.5%
REGION 6
REGION 7
REGION 8
REGION 9

5.9%

REGION 10

4.0%
9.7%
3.2%
REGION 11

4.7%
0.5%
2.8%

REGION 12

Figure 3.5 The economic power of Chiles regions.


64

FURTHER READING
Bulmer-Thomas, V. 1994 The economic history of Latin America since independence. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge. Provides a very detailed survey of the evolution of Latin American
economies from the early nineteenth century and is particularly useful on the role of resources in
Latin American development.
Casaburi, G. C. 1999 Dynamic agroindustrial clusters: the political economy of competitive sectors in
Argentina and Chile. Macmillan, Basingstoke. Uses a commodity chain approach to study the regional
development of agroindustry in the Chilean Central Valley and Santa Fe region of Argentina. One of
the few studies to explore the links between resource growth and local development in Latin
America.
Edwards, S. 1995 Crisis and reform in Latin America: from despair to hope. Oxford University Press,
Oxford. A World Bank insider from Chile (and former Chief Economist for Latin America) analyses
economic transformations in Latin America in an optimistic but also critical way. Edwards clearly
expresses the reasoning behind policy changes and decisions and, unlike many economists, seems
aware of the political backdrop to economic crises and attempts to resolve them. Less ideological
than other writers from within the Washington consensus.
Geref, G., Spener, D. and Bair, J. 2002 Free trade and uneven development: the North American
apparel industry after NAFTA. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. Uses the commodity chain
approach (itself derived from dependency theory) to explore the evolving relationships between the
United States, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean after the greater economic integration
between the USA and Mexico in the past decade. Targets the clothing industry and provides a useful
65

Structural reform in South America and Mexico: economic and regional perspectives

complete, correct, and complement the reforms of a decade ago and not to reverse them. However,
references to selective capital controls, a greater role for the state, and income distribution point to
the reform agenda moving towards the centre of the political spectrum and away from the application
of free-market economics (The Economist, 2003b: 52).
In terms of activating economic growth at the local level, new government policies are needed to
assist rms, particularly small rms. Small rms need special support to be able to access factor
markets (technology, skilled labour and capital). While the costs of accessing international markets are
relevant for all kinds of rms, they are particularly heavy in relative terms for the smallest companies.
Reducing these costs for small rms is most efcient when the rms are clustered in particular regions
(Perez-Aleman, 2000). As we saw in the case of North Mexico, much investment is concentrated
among large TNCs that have not shown the capacity to develop backward and forward linkages with
small local rms. Instead they prefer to link into global supply chains linked to corporate control rather
than develop local supplier networks.
Thus, changing inter-rm relations and the promotion of more locally-based and cooperative
clusters of rms will be difcult to achieve. However, if some shifts do not occur in this direction,
economic spaces in Latin America will be increasingly at the mercy of decisions taken by TNCs. These
will have the priority of furthering corporate protability rather than local development (Gwynne,
2003).This applies as much to the new economic spaces specializing in the development of renewable
resources as to those characterized by product and component manufacturing oriented to core
economy markets. Overall, the patterns of uneven spatial development, so characteristic of previous
economic phases (Morris, 1981), has continued and seems set to continue under neoliberalism.
Peripheral regions within Latin America have become new economic spaces in the sense of
generating new export-oriented activities. However, they have not become new in the sense of
developing new forms of locally-based enterprise and related organizations that can compete
effectively with transnational capital.

Latin America Transformed

spatial approach by focusing on how the changing commodity chain impacts (both positively and
negatively) on different producing regions. Useful source for Chapter 4 as well.
Stiglitz, J. 2002 Globalization and its discontents. Allen Lane, London. A former Chief Economist of
the World Bank who is now very critical of the role of the IMF and the World Bank in Latin America
and other developing regions. Points to some of the key contradictions of contemporary capitalism
and argues that globalization is not working for many of the worlds poor.
Thorp, R. 1998 Progress, poverty and exclusion: an economic history of Latin America in the 20th
Century. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, MD. An excellent resource for those wishing to explore the
economic evolution of Latin American capitalism during the past century. Manages to successfully
link themes of political economy, economic theory, country studies and even livelihoods in a
readable, data-rich and illuminating form.

WEBSITES
Inter American Development Bank, www.iadb.org, less comprehensive economic coverage
than the ECLAC website but there is more material on issues of poverty, inequality and social policy,
such as related to education or pension systems.
International Monetary Fund, www.imf.org, provides data and IMF analysis (through speeches
and reports of IMF economists) on Latin American economic conditions. Useful to know the
thinking behind the decisions of this very powerful multilateral economic organization.
United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean,
www.eclac.org, a good source for contemporary economic data on Latin America, and some
contemporary studies on development issues can be accessed.
World Bank, www.worldbank.org, a source of data on individual countries (and groups of
countries) as well as providing links to many relevant topics (such as aid and globalization).
World Forum, www.worldforum.org, provides a critical perspective on the arguments provided
by the multilateral institutions.

66

4
Globalization, neoliberalism and
economic change in Central America and
the Caribbean
Thomas Klak

Central America and the Caribbean (CA/C) is a region of small, economically vulnerable, and tradedependent countries surrounded by larger and more industrialized and economically diversied
countries (Figure 4.1). This chapter surveys the ramications of neoliberalisms outward-oriented
strategies that contrast with the approaches common in the decades prior to the 1980s debt crisis
that were relatively inward-looking.
Central America and the Caribbean each have their own scholarly literatures, and it is uncommon
to unite and compare them as in this chapter (for a historical comparison, see Grugel, 1995).
Analysing Central America and the Caribbean as a single region is increasingly appropriate, however,
as events unfold around it. NAFTAs designation of Mexico as part of North America, South
Americas organization into Mercosur and the Andean Group (see Chapter 3), and Reagans
Caribbean Basin Initiative (a trade policy for designated friendly countries) have all increased the
usefulness of analysing Central America and the Caribbean as a region (Figure 4.1). Unfortunately it
is a region anxious about, and reacting somewhat defensively to, hemispheric movements towards
trade alliances and increased capital ows to its north and south. Spurred on by the international
climate favouring regional trading blocs, the region has recently formed the Association of Caribbean
States, but beyond several regional summits, has taken no rm steps towards region-wide economic
integration (ACS, 2003).
Much of what was said in Chapter 3 about economic policies and problems during the twentieth
century in South America and Mexico applies to a considerable extent to these smaller countries.The
decades prior to 1980 witnessed in this region the emergence of an array of state economic
interventions, including the promotion of domestic manufacturing of consumer goods. In that era of
import substitution industrialization (ISI), a notion gaining widespread acceptance was that the state
should control the commanding heights of Caribbean economies, and that the private sector should
slot in under the states guidelines for development. For both the Caribbean and Central America, the
version of ISI adopted, to a large extent involved US transnational corporations (TNCs) relocating
production facilities within the region to serve customers there, rather than a dramatic expansion of
domestically owned industries.
In Central America and the Caribbean, as in South America, the 1980s debt crisis ushered in a new
development paradigm associated with representatives of the multilateral aid agencies, who have
frequently visited regional capitals to move the neoliberal transition slowly but irreversibly along (Hey
and Klak, 1999). Since the 1980s policy-makers have placed great emphasis on attracting foreign
investors to produce for export. The states role has shifted away from direct ownership, production
and the provision of social services, towards subsidizing export-oriented investors. While the
states new role under neoliberalism is often portrayed as one of downsizing, it is more accurately
viewed as a qualitatively different relation between the state, investors and workers. For some
67

Latin America Transformed


68

90 O

75O

80O

85O

65O

70O

55O

60O

50 O

FLORIDA

GULF OF MEXICO

25 O

30 O
65 O BERMUDA
THE
BAHAMAS

A T L A N T I C
O C E A N

TURKS AND
CAICOS
ISLANDS

CUBA

20 O
MEXICO

DOMINICAN
REPUBLIC

CAYMAN
ISLANDS

U.S./BRITISH
VIRGIN
ISLANDS

HAITI

JAMAICA

PUERTO
RICO

BELIZE

ST. KITTS
NEVIS
MONTSERRAT

GUATEMALA

ANTIGUA
GUADELOUPE

15 O

DOMINICA

HONDURAS

C A R I B B E A N

MARTINIQUE

S E A
ST. LUCIA

BARBADOS

ST.VINCENT
EL
SALVADOR

NICARAGUA

ARUBA

CURACAO
BONAIRE

GRENADA
TOBAGO

10 O

TRINIDAD
COSTA
RICA

PANAMA

VENEZUELA

5O

GUYANA

200 Km

COLOMBIA

200 Mi.

Figure 4.1 The small countries of Central America and the Caribbean

SURINAME

FRENCH
GUIANA

A REGION OF SMALL AND DEPENDENT STATES


Central America and the Caribbean is a region of small states (Table 4.1), but by international
standards, what is meant by small? These countries are certainly tiny compared with the regional giants
of Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico. The population of Central America and of the Caribbean
in 2002 was 38 and 39 million, respectively, when combined only three-quarters that of Mexico. But
our perception of the regions size and signicance is tainted by the emphasis in the media and in
scholarship on huge countries. Note that when size is measured by population, the mean for all of
worlds countries (33.6 million people) is much larger than the median (6.7 million people). This is
because the mean population is positively skewed by a few huge countries such as the United States,
Brazil and Mexico. In fact, one out of every four countries in the world is smaller than Jamaica. By world
population standards, El Salvador (6.4 million people) and Haiti (7.1 million people) are actually
average-sized. Similar conclusions would be reached if size were measured by area rather than
population. Comparisons of this sort suggest the importance of examining unexceptional countries
such as those of Central America and the Caribbean if we are to grasp the possibilities for and
obstacles to development throughout the Third World (Table 4.1).
Central America and the Caribbean is also a region of economically vulnerable countries. The rst
column of data in Table 4.2 expresses trade dependence as a ratio of exports and imports divided by
GDP. The lower the value, the greater the share of a countrys economic activity that involves
domestic suppliers, producers and consumers. In other words, lower values mean more economic
autonomy. The data indicate that, by and large, Central America and the Caribbean countries are
considerably more trade-dependent than the larger and more industrialized countries represented in
Table 4.2. Values of well over 100 for three of the countries indicate extreme trade dependence.
Note the exceptions to the above generalization. Guatemala is the least trade-dependent of the
Central America and the Caribbean countries with a value similar to that of Chile, the most tradedependent of the South American countries shown. Indeed, Chiles pronounced primary productbased export-orientation has been the subject of considerable attention and debate in scholarly and
policy circles (see Chapter 3). But Chile distinguishes itself from Guatemala regarding the diversity of
trading partners. Chile is not only considerably less dependent on imports from and exports to the
United States, but its exports there are now surpassed by those going to the EU (and to Japan).
The patterns just described for trade dependency in Central America and the Caribbean are
extended by the data for imports to and exports from the USA in Table 4.2. For virtually every
country shown, the United States is both the largest importer and exporter. At the same time, note
that the USA is the least trade-dependent country in Table 4.2. This is testimony to the profound
economic power of the USA in the American hemisphere.The only exception to the rule of US trade
dependency in the region is St. Lucia, whose banana shipments to a guaranteed UK (and now EU)
market dominate its exports. Dominica and St.Vincent display similar trade patterns. Unfortunately for
these eastern Caribbean islands, their lack of trade dependency on the United States has only created
a bigger problem. The USA has successfully argued to the World Trade Organization that the
guaranteed market in the EU is illegal and must be terminated (this issue is discussed further below).
69

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

neoliberal activities, such as promoting exports and competing to attract investment, the states role
has actually considerably expanded (Klak, 1996; 1998).
This chapter relies on Chapter 3 for an extended discussion of the evolution of macro-economic
policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, and aims primarily to note ways in which the experience
in the smaller countries differs from that of the larger countries. Because it can build on the previous
chapters economic policy groundwork, this chapter is able to devote considerable attention to the
social, political and sectoral dimensions of development in Central America and the Caribbean. Its
focus on the forces behind and impacts of macro-level development policy is complemented by the
chapters in Part 3 that are pitched at the ground level of peoples creative struggles to adapt to
adversity, make ends meet, organize themselves and defend their interests.

Latin America Transformed


70

TABLE 4.1 Basic indicators for Central American and Caribbean countries and territories

Country
and territory

Area
(square
miles)

Population
2002
(PPP)

Infant
mortality
rate, 2002

External debt
(most recent year)

Per capita
GDP, (PPP US$)
(most recent year)

Human
development
Index, 2000**

Central America
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
Nicaragua
Panama

51,100
21,040
108,890
112,090
129,494
78,200

3,835
6,354
13,314
6,651
5,024
2,882

11
28
45
30
33
20

4,600 (01)
4,900 (01)
4,500 (01)
5,600 (01)
6,100 (01)
7,600 (01)

8,500 (01)
4,600 (01)
3,700 (01)
2,600 (01)
2,500 (01)
5,900 (01)

43
104
120
116
118
57

The Caribbean
Anguilla
Antigua and Barbuda
Aruba
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Islands
Cuba

, 35
,171
, 75
5,382
,166
8,867
, 59
,102
42,804

, 12
, 66
, 70
, 300
, 276
, 262
, 21
, 36
11,224

24
21
6
17
12
24
20
10
7

8,600 (01)
10,000 (01)
28,000 (01)
16,000 (00)
14,500 (01)
3,250 (01)
16,000 (01)
30,000 (99)
2,300 (01)

na
52
na
41
31
58
na
na
55

Dominica
Dominican Republic
French Guiana

,290
18,704
33,399

, 70
8,721
, 182

16
33
13

, 9 (98)
,231 (99)
,285 (99)
,382 (00)
,425 (00)
,500 (00)
, 36 (97)
, 70 (96)
11,000 (00)
*20,000 (01)1
,150 (00)
, 5 (01)
1,200 (88)

3,700 (98)
5,800 (01)
6,000 (98)

61
94
na

Country
and territory

Grenada
Guadeloupe
Guyana
Haiti
Jamaica
Martinique
Monserrat
Netherlands Antilles
Puerto Rico
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Suriname
Trinidad and Tobago
Turks and Caicos Islands
US Virgin Islands

Area
(square
miles)

Population
2002

Infant
mortality
rate, 2002

External Debt
(most recent year)

Per Capita
GDP, (PPP US$)
(most recent year)

Human
Development
Index, 2000**

,133
,687
83,000
10,597
4,244
,421
, 40
,308
3,515
,104
,238
,150
63,251
1,978
,193
,136

, 89
, 436
, 698
7,064
2,680
, 422
, 8
, 214
3,958
, 39
, 160
, 116
, 436
1,164
, 19
, 123

15
9
38
93
14
8
8
11
9
16
15
16
23
24
17
9

,196 (00)
na
1,100 (00)
1,200 (99)
5,200 (01)
,180 (94)
, 9 (97)
1,350 (96)
na
,140 (00)
,214 (00)
,167 (00)
,512 (00)
2,200 (00)
na
na

4,750 (01)
9,000 (97)
3,600 (99)
1,700 (01)
3,700 (01)
11,000 (97)
2,400 (99)
11,400 (00)
11,200 (01)
8,700 (01)
4,400 (01)
2,900 (01)
3,500 (00)
9,000 (01)
7,300 (99)
15,000 (00)

83
na
103
146
86
na
na
na
na
44
66
91
74
50
na
na

Population gures are in thousands; IMR is an estimate of the infant mortality rate; external debt is measured in millions of US dollars; GDP per capita is measured in
purchasing power parity.
* Russian Debt
** Rank out of 173 Countries, lower being better
Sources: The Human Development Report, http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2002/en/pdf/backone.pdf
The World Factbook 2002, http://www.cia.gov/cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/countrylisting.html

71

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

Latin America Transformed

TABLE 4.2 Trade dependency: selected Central American and Caribbean countries in comparative perspective
Region

Exports + imports/
GDP

Exports
to US
(%)

Imports
from US
(%)

130
117
48
35
59
82
77
166
96

51
13
48
30
53
47
39
22*
48

55
36
60
44
50
54
40
34
48

South America and Mexico


Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Mexico

20
15
38
28
22

9
17*
15*
39
85

21
23
25
36
69

Industrialized countries
United States
United Kingdom

13
48

NA
13*

NA
12*

Central America and the Caribbean


Bahamas
Barbados
Dominican Republic
Guatemala
Honduras
Jamaica
Panama
St. Lucia
Trinidad and Tobago

* The US is the largest export outlet and import source for all countries listed except those marked with asterisk.
For St. Lucia, 56 percent of exports go to the UK; for Brazil, 28 percent of exports go to the EU; for Chile, 25
percent of exports go to the EU; for the UK, 13 percent of exports go to Germany and 15 percent of imports
come from Germany.
Sources: For exports, imports, GDP: Baumol and Wolff (1996: 877); data are for 195090 with slight differences for
Bahamas, Barbados, and Jamaica; Exports to and imports from the US: The World Factbook http://www.cia.gov/cia/
publications/factbook/; data are for 1993, 1994, or 1995 depending on the country.

Trade dependence is a key economic characteristic of all of Central America and the Caribbean, but
countries differ in terms of level (Table 4.2). The smaller islands of the Eastern Caribbean are more
trade-dependent than the larger islands and mainland countries. Regional diversity is also suggested by
the ranks of CA/C countries on the Human Development Index (HDI), a combined measure of life
expectancy, literacy, access to education, and per capita purchasing power. As Table 4.1 shows, Central
America and the Caribbean countries are distributed among the top two-thirds of the worlds
countries on the HDI index (i.e. ranking 117 or lower out of 174 countries). Only Haiti, Guatemala
and Nicaragua fall in the bottom third of the distribution along with most of sub-Saharan Africa. More
troubling, however, is that if we gauge social development progress by the simple measure of whether
the region has moved up or down on the HDI ranking since 1993, we nd more descenders (13) than
gainers (7), with two staying the same. All of Central America except El Salvador fell in rank.
Despite the variations noted above, there is much regional commonality. On average, CA/C is more
dependent on trade, and is less industrialized, than South America and Mexico. The regions economic
dependence on the United States is also an important element of regional commonality, as distinct
from the situation in South America. Central Americas and the Caribbeans relatively high levels of
72

DEVELOPMENT POLICIES PRIOR TO NEOLIBERALISM


The Caribbean was, from the outset of European colonialism, wholly outwardly oriented and
economically dependent on a few primary product exports. In Central America, on the other hand,
the haciendas which historically dominated were never as thoroughly focused on serving export
markets as the plantations of the Caribbean (West and Augelli, 1989). The legacy of this historical
difference is somewhat more agricultural diversity in Central America than the Caribbean, laid on top
of the greater amount of arable land in the much larger mainland territories (Table 4.1). However, both
regions have inherited highly unequal distributions of agricultural land. Rural peasants and small
farmers have been unable to signicantly expand production and income levels because the colonial
or post-independence state has been unable or unwilling to implement serious land reform
accompanied by appropriate infrastructure and extension services (de Janvry, 1981; Barry, 1987;
Mandle, 1996).
Since the Second World War, Caribbean states and large landowners have tried to reinvigorate the
protability of the monocrop plantation systems and associated export sectors by replacing an
outmoded crop with another that appeared to have more promise. For example, various Caribbean
countries substituted bananas for sugar, arrowroot, or cocoa, coffee for cocoa, or citrus for sugar.
However, such limited adjustments to the countries agrarian production did not bring back the
protability of the colonial economies (Conway, 1998). Compared with the islands, there has been
somewhat more diversity to Central Americas agrarian exports, of which the ve most important are
coffee, bananas, cotton, sugar, and meat. Still, these commodities have suffered since the early 1970s
from deteriorating terms of trade. Further, they do little to support the basic needs of the vast
majority of Central Americans who are not large landowners. Local protein consumption has actually
fallen with the increase in land devoted to the production of meat for export (Barry, 1987).
The regions development policy experiments since the 1950s divide geopolitically into two camps
socialist and dependent capitalist each with distinctive risks (Klak, 1998). The rst set of policies
pursued development through socialist routes and emphasized redistribution, equity, social welfare
and prioritization of workers needs. This route purposefully attempted to turn away from
dependence on the United States, which emerged as the regions political and economic hegemon
around 1900 with the taking of Cuba and Puerto Rico from Spain and the Panama Canal Zone from
Colombia. As the regional hegemon, the United States interpreted the socialist experiments as threats
and confronted them. Thanks in large part to pressure by the USA and its allies, the list of CA/C
countries that failed in their attempts to construct alternatives to mainstream capitalist development
73

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

trade dependency distinguish how neoliberalism is applied there compared to most of South America.
Neoliberalism puts pressure on an already highly trade-dependent CA/C to export more.The regions
relatively low levels of output and industrialization also contribute to its peripheral status in the world
system (Gwynne et al. 2003).
The economic power of the United States in the region also allows it to express its geopolitical
power. Within the last few decades, direct or covert intervention by the United States throughout the
region (e.g. in Guatemala, Cuba, Guyana, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama,
Grenada and Haiti) attests to the importance the superpower places on pursuing and maintaining its
interests in the region (Blum, 1986; Dupuy, 1997; Walker, 1997). The US economic embargo against
Cuba is now four decades old and was only strengthened with the passage of the Helms-Burton
Amendment in 1996 (LeoGrande and Thomas, 2002).
Central Americas and the Caribbeans economic and geopolitical dependency on the United States
is a constant factor weighing on the regions development policies, in contrast with the relative
decision-making autonomy enjoyed by South American countries, especially the larger ones. CA/C
countries must always take account of how the United States will react to their policy proposals. For
Cubas socialist regime, US animosity has been a constant preoccupation since the 1959 revolution.

Latin America Transformed

reads like an epitaph to Third World socialism: Guatemala 194554 under Juan Jose Arevalo and
Jacobo Arbenz, Guyana 196164 under Cheddi Jagan, Jamaica 197280 under Michael Manley,
Grenada 197983 under Maurice Bishop, and Nicaragua 197990 under Daniel Ortega. Enemies
from within and outside (mainly the USA) worked to capitalize on any of the inevitable errors in
leadership, and to sabotage these experiments before their developmental capabilities could be
ascertained (Blum, 1986; Booth and Walker, 1993). Only Cuba retains elements of socialism, but even
Cuba is following the rest of the Caribbean region by relying on international tourism as its economic
mainstay (Pattullo, 1996), and by courting foreign capital with special labour codes and incentives, as
discussed further below.
The essential challenge for the regions socialist regimes has been to harness an under-industrialized
and highly unequal peripheral economy and to rapidly expand the productive forces and redistribute
resources more fairly. This is in itself a tall order, made more difcult because it runs against the tide of
global capitalism and US hegemony. Such departures raise broad questions such as, How can a
country in Central America or the Caribbean, in the US backyard, pursue a noncapitalist path without
the trade, capital, and blessing of the United States and the rest of the largely capitalist world? or How
can internal resources be progressively redistributed when there are few to go around, and when
societies are poor and unequal and therefore prone to internal divisions, unrealizable pent-up popular
expectations, and patronage systems? The challenges are many and the successes, not surprisingly, are
few.
A second, contrary and far more common development policy has reinforced and extended ties
with the North Atlantic region. It is represented by Puerto Ricos Operation Bootstrap
industrialization commencing in the 1950s, by Europes Banana Protocols dating back to 1957 with the
granting of special market access to 12 former colonies, including eight in the Caribbean, by Reagans
Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) of the 1980s, and by the present neoliberal transformation.
The Caribbean Basin Initiative
As an economic development policy, CBI has two main components (it was initially a disguised US
military aid policy against leftists in Central America). CBI primarily involved a further opening of the
regions markets to US products, and a relocation of US garment factories there to take advantage of
cheap labour and subsidized factory space (Deere et al., 1990).The United States now has a large and
growing export surplus with the CA/C region which, along with the rest of Latin America, is the only
part of the world with which the USA has a trade surplus. CBI should therefore be seen as a vanguard
policy for a reconstituted US regional hegemony under neoliberalism. In general, CA/Cs dependent
capitalist paths to development avoid US hostility and instead aim to exploit opportunities availed by
strong trade and policy ties to advanced capitalist countries. The risk is that the results will replicate
history whereby the region has gained relatively little in subordinate relationships with core countries.
Operation Bootstrap
This has long been viewed by political leaders in the region as an industrial development model,
although upon closer inspection it can be seen as non-replicable and domestically exclusive. Puerto
Rican industrialization derives from its unique Commonwealth relationship with the United States.
Operation Bootstrap began in 1947 when US tax law amendments gave corporations multi-year tax
exemptions on any net income deposited in banks on the island. For their part, Puerto Rican ofcials
promised industrial infrastructure and low-wage, non-union and, by Caribbean standards, skilled labour
(Thomas, 1988; Cordero-Guzman, 1993). First to relocate to Puerto Rico were light industries such as
clothing, shoes and glassware, then came the heavier and more environmentally damaging industries
of petroleum rening, petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals. They contributed to impressive annual
economic growth rates of 6 per cent in the 1950s, 5 per cent in the 1960s, and 4 per cent in the
1970s. In total, Puerto Ricos real GDP growth rate between 1950 and 1990 was the eighth highest of
the 74 countries world-wide for which data are available, and the highest in the hemisphere (Baumol
74

Europes Banana Protocols


These began in 1957 and were followed in 1975 by a succession of four Lom Conventions.They have
provided special market access to more than 70 Third World nationstates that were once European
colonies and which are now called the Africa-Caribbean-Pacic (ACP) countries. The special market
access applies mainly to primary sector commodities such as coffee, sugar and bananas. Only 12 of the
ACP countries export bananas to Europe through Lom, and eight of these are members of
CARICOM (Figure 4.2). Measured by volume traded, bananas are the worlds most important fruit or
vegetable, the EU is the bananas largest market, and the EUs banana subsidies have been estimated
to be worth $2 billion annually (Wiley, 1998). Like Puerto Ricos Operation Bootstrap, banana farming

Figure 4.2 The weekly banana shipment from Dominica to Britain.The World Trade Organization has ruled that the
Eastern Caribbeans preferential market access is illegal and must be eliminated. Photograph by James Wiley
75

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

and Wolff, 1996). In 1979 Puerto Rico had the worlds highest per capita level of US imports, modern
transportation facilities, and 34 per cent of all US foreign direct investment.The 22 US drug companies
manufacturing in Puerto Rico during the 1980s saved $8.5 billion in income tax exemptions
(Freudenheim, 1992). The subsidies from the various sources described above from the US mainland
to Puerto Rico have amounted to around $9 billion annually, almost as much as all of the US aid to
the rest of the world combined (de Blij and Muller, 1998).
The geopolitical price of Operation Bootstrap is great dependency on US subsidies, capital and
trade. Few local manufacturers have emerged or have networked with those from the mainland. In
1996 the US Congress began a ten-year phase-out of Puerto Ricos corporate tax exemption, leaving
the island entrenched in a bankrupt model of dependent industrialization (Pantojas-Garca, 1990).
Puerto Rican people have made the most of their special political status by migrating to and circulating
back from the US mainland in great numbers, and by relying on the federally mandated social welfare
net (Conway, 1998). The human face of Puerto Ricos industrial expansion includes the fact that real
per capita income has not grown relative to that of the mainland USA during Operation Bootstrap,
and that unemployment has often been in excess of 20 per cent since the 1970s (Cordero-Guzman,
1993; Grugel, 1995).

Latin America Transformed

in the Eastern Caribbean provides an example of the double-edged sword of growth/prosperity and
dependency/vulnerability associated with relying on special trade preferences from the core capitalist
countries.
In the 1950s British public authorities and private shipping rms encouraged its Caribbean colonies
to shift from sugar cane to bananas. Britain offered a guaranteed market and good prices for all the
bananas that these islands could grow. Farmers in St. Lucia, Dominica, St.Vincent, and to a lesser extent
Grenada and elsewhere in the Caribbean, responded wholeheartedly, digging up or abandoning many
other crops to specialize in bananas (Welch, 1994; Wiley, 1998). In St. Lucia, for example, the growing
reliance on bananas continued through to the late 1980s as thousands of additional acres were
converted or deforested to grow them (Barrow, 1992). As a result, Dominica, St. Lucia and St. Vincent
have each earned more than half of all their foreign exchange from bananas, which has placed them
among the countries of the world most dependent on the export of a single cash-crop.
Dependence on a guaranteed overseas market for a single cash-crop has had its positive side. It
fuelled a growth of prosperity on the islands and especially for their many small family farmers, whose
prominence and vitality are unusual in a region dominated by large land holdings (Barrow, 1992). Banana
exports helped Dominica, St. Vincent and St. Lucia climb to the top half of countries ranked by the
Human Development Index (Table 4.1). Additionally, only the smaller Caribbean territories with special
access to European markets, primarily for bananas, were able to avoid the uctuations and decline in
the regions traditional agricultural exports during the 1980s (Schoepe and Prez-Lpez, 1992).
EU rulings in recent years, however, began a gradual phase-out of the ACP countries special market
access (de Cordoba, 1993). A 1997 World Trade Organization decision completed the phase-out for
bananas by ruling that the preferential access to the British market was illegal. The United States
brought the case to court after extensive lobbying by Chiquitas CEO Carl Linder who exports
bananas from Central America and wanted a larger share of the EU market. The EUs preferential
banana market is being phased out and many banana farmers will be forced to nd new sources of
income (Herbert, 1996; CBEA, 2003).
Bananas grown on small family farms in the Eastern Caribbean cannot compete with the volume,
size, and price of bananas from Ecuador and Central America grown on mechanized plantations
where wages are 5075 per cent lower and unions are repressed (Barry, 1987; The Economist, 1998).
As The Economist (1998) drew the comparison: If islands like St. Lucia are the corner stores of the
banana business chaotic, friendly, and unreliable the Latin American plantations are the Wal-Mart
at the edge of town. The future is clearly with the mainland banana, but the fruit has become too
central to and entrenched in the rural societies of the Eastern Caribbean for farmers to replace it with
another crop. In St. Lucia, for example, more than two-thirds of agricultural land was still devoted to
bananas in 1997. Public policy devoted to the promotion of non-traditional exports has therefore
needed to concentrate on the industrial and tourism sectors, while continuing to work towards
diversifying agriculture (Pattullo, 1996; Klak, 1998). The monumental task for the Eastern Caribbean,
and for CA/C more broadly, is to replace traditional sources of income with revenue from sources
suitable to the present era of more open trade relationships, and to avoid the vulnerability associated
with relying on a single product and the North Atlantic market.

THE DEBT CRISIS AND THE NEOLIBERAL REMEDY


Latin America [had no] desire to aunt free trade, but . . . was forced to do so. [In this period,]
most of Latin America followed the liberal doctrine of free trade. Advocates of protection in
Latin America found little favor in government circles which were beholden both literally and
intellectually to creditors in the developed world. (Skidmore, 1995: 228)
This prole could well apply to Latin America from the 1980s to the present when in fact it was
written to characterize the period 18801914.The point to stress is that now is not the rst time that
76

THE MEANING AND IMPACTS OF GLOBALIZATION


Over recent years, globalization has become one of the most commonly used terms in corporate,
political and academic discussions. Despite its ubiquity, it is unusual to nd a clear denition of
globalization, and even rarer to see it interrogated against evidence. Some writers on the political
left disparagingly dismiss globalization as a corporate takeover scheme (Rieff, 1993), but many other
inuential commentators are more optimistic about its impacts (Reich, 1991; World Bank, 2002b).
Of particular concern here are some of the positive spins given to globalization trends that suggest
that there are many new opportunities for peripheral countries such as those of CA/C. Many (but
not all) of these positive interpretations of globalization in the academic literature fall under the
umbrella notion of a global village. Global village ideas suggest that in various ways the world is
coming together and balancing out. Such global village ideas are misleading, however, when
77

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

Latin America has been lectured on the benets of free trade. Within Latin America, CA/C countries
have over time remained especially vulnerable owing to their distorted, under-developed, and
peripheral economies. As the example of bananas illustrated, they have over-emphasized a few
export-oriented primary products, particularly agricultural. They have also relied on imported
industrial and commercial goods and on foreign capital and expertise to feed people, service industry,
and nance internal capital expansion (Grugel, 1995). Even Trinidad, the regions wealthiest country
owing to its petroleum deposits, has made only modest progress towards indigenous industrial
diversication while at the same time it has accumulated $2.2 billion in foreign debt (Mandle, 1996;
Klak, 1998).
The current development policies in Central America and the Caribbean focus on attracting foreign
investors to generate new exports, and date back to the debt crisis of the 1980s. The foreign debt
situation for CA/C countries parallels that of the hemispheres larger countries, as outlined in Chapter
3. In the 1970s international banks were awash with deposits and therefore eager to make loans to
public and private interests in Latin America and the Caribbean (Corbridge, 1993). When interest
rates rose in 198081, the world economy sank into recession and the vulnerable primary product
and tourism sectors of CA/C lost many of their customers. Economic decline was precipitous
regionwide. By the end of 1983, the economies of Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti,
Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago had shrunk an average of 17 per cent in real terms compared to
1980 (Conway, 1998). The interest rate hike also contributed to making the foreign debts of most
CA/C countries unserviceable. In sum, an array of related factors, from poor agricultural yields and
prices, to wasted windfall loans and political thinking that seeks industrialization through TNC
investment, led to governmental insolvency by the 1980s (Mandle, 1996).
The many interrelated problems outlined above have provided strong motivation for governments
across the region to approach the international development agencies seeking debt rescheduling,
additional loans, and in the words of its leaders, the IMFs blessing (McBain, 1990; Killick and Malik,
1992). Central America and the Caribbean governments one after another, conservative and socialist
alike, have had to sign up for a series of austerity agreements with the IMF and World Bank in
exchange for nancial bailout. The international agencies demands of scal conservatism, privatization,
economic opening, and aggressive promotion of TNC investment have the effect of homogenizing
government policies across CA/C so that distinctive development strategies are history.They are likely
to continue along the homogeneous neoliberal track in the future, in part because of the on-going
constraints of foreign debt.
Measured against population size or various economic indicators, the foreign debts of Jamaica,
Guyana, Honduras and Nicaragua are the hemispheres worst. The World Bank (2003a) classies all of
these countries except Jamaica among the worlds 42 most indebted poor countries. The newcomer
to this group is Honduras which, along with Nicaragua, suffered 11,000 deaths and $5.3 billion in
damage from Hurricane Mitch in October 1998.

Latin America Transformed

considered in light of the history and contemporary situation in CA/C; the regional situation is
unfortunately less balanced and promising than global village ideas suggest. Further, current political
and economic transformations, impacts and responses must be specied at the local level, rather
than subsumed by overgeneralized notions of globalization (a point Bebbington discusses in Chapter
9). There are six components of the global village concept that are worth addressing with respect to
contemporary trends in CA/C.
First, it is claimed that the world is shrinking as a result of greater international connectivity
(Giddens, 1990: 64; World Bank, 1995a; Watts, 1996: 645). Central America and the Caribbean,
however, have long been heavily integrated into the global economy. The Caribbean is historically
perhaps the most globalized of world regions. Since the 1500s it has been controlled by outside
powers, based economically on imported labour, cleared to create monocrop landscapes of
sugarcane or bananas, and reliant on the import of virtually everything else needed to sustain local
populations (Richardson, 1992; Mandle, 1996). In Central America, export-oriented production of
sugar, bananas, beef, and other agricultural commodities has been dominant since before the
twentieth century. So for Central America and the Caribbean, current globalizing trends represent
another round of powerful external inuences for a region historically shaped by exogenous
decisions and events.
Second, traditional distinctions between core and peripheral regions of the world are said to be
blurring (McMichael, 1996). Kearney (1995: 548) claims that globalization implies a decay in [the]
distinction between core and periphery. This structure of inequality is still highly relevant to an
understanding of USCA/C relations, however (Klak, 1998).The fact that production (of certain items)
is more geographically dispersed across nationstates does not indicate an accompanying fundamental
redistribution of control over and benets from production. The constraints imposed on Central
American and Caribbean workers by their own capitalist classes and states, and the constraints
imposed on Caribbean countries by core states, especially the regional hegemon, the United States,
produce vast international gaps in income and living standards.
Third, it is said that foreign investment, trade, and opportunities for development are more widely
distributed across world regions and nationstates (Qureshi, 1996). However, global economic
integration is highly selective in favour of developed countries and a few developing countries, none of
which are in Central America and the Caribbean. Fully 80 per cent of all world trade is within the core
triad, although it comprises less than 20 per cent of world population (Hirst and Thompson, 1999;
Dicken, 1998). Of the world stock of direct foreign investment, 81 per cent was located in the
European Union, North America, and Japan as of 1991, up from 69 per cent in 1967 (Koechlin, 1995:
98). There has been an increase in the share of direct foreign investment ows to certain developing
countries, but none of the major recipients (headed by China, Mexico, and Brazil) are in CA/C
(Gwynne et al., 2003). There is indeed a global integration apace with regard to the basic ideas about
development and neoliberal policy, and there are pressures and incentives to increase trade, but the
material rewards are enormously unequal.
Fourth, it is claimed that there is now a convergence into one world economy, to which all places
and people can, and generally do, nd export market niches (McMichael, 1996). But for peripheral
regions such as Central America and the Caribbean, market niches are narrow, highly competitive, and
fraught with obstacles. They are largely outlets for selling non-traditional goods and services, i.e. fruits,
vegetables, owers, garments, electronic products, processed data and tourism, to wealthy Western
consumers (Figure 4.3;Thrupp, 1995). However, CA/C as a whole has thus far had only limited success
in lling new export market niches (Klak, 1998).
Fifth, media and cultural inuences are supposedly more widespread and multilateral (Patterson,
1994; Kearney, 1995). It is a stretch, however, to compare the northward inuence of such artifacts as
reggae music, Mayan handicrafts, or merengue music to the multitude of cultural impacts in the
opposite direction. US afuence and opportunity, often romanticized, are especially well known, deeply
ingrained and alluring to Central America and Caribbean people. They are prone to set their living
78

political stability and environmental quality, Costa Rica has been the most successful CA/C country at attracting
foreign investment in an array of export sectors paying reasonable wages. Photograph by Thomas Klak

standard goals in accordance with what the US media ascribe to the United States. And the imbalance
in media ows is increasing with CA/Cs economic crisis and neoliberalism, as local media have been
slashed. And the imbalance in the ows of inuence between the USA and CA/C is greater for
economic and geopolitical issues than for cultural ones.
Finally, people themselves are said to be more integrated through immigration and communications.
However, the increasing international ows of people and information should not obscure the regionand class-specic motives for and access to emigration and communication. In pursuit of opportunities
for economic development and also for social and cultural expression, Caribbean people have
engaged in more twentieth-century emigration than those of any other region. Central Americans
have also emigrated in vast numbers in recent decades, especially to ee civil war, oppression and the
associated lack of opportunities.The societal porousness and citizens coping strategies are not a global
phenomena, but are particular to the historical and geographical context of the region and its
inhabitants (Simmons and Guengant, 1992). The massive scale of contemporary emigration and
remittances results from the growing marginalization and pessimism about the economic prospects
back home. Most of Central America and the Caribbean is economically stagnant, and current
globalization trends present its people with few promising options.
The main point of these critical comments on globalization is to suggest that current economic and
political trends are not really globalized, but rather highly uneven geographically, in terms of both
impacts and control (Dicken et al., 1997). Peripheral regions are certainly shaped now, in the era of
globalization, as they have been under previous phases of capitalism, by the ideas and actions of
outside investors and political leaders. Currently, CA/C governments are under pressure to create
incentives that will attract investors in order to export a greater quantity and range of products (Klak,
1998). The following sections look more closely at these exogenously originating political and
economic transformations in the region.
79

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

Figure 4.3 Electronics assembly in Costa Rica. Owing to its international reputation for educational attainment,

Latin America Transformed

THE NEOLIBERAL DEVELOPMENT MODEL


At the level of people, the system isnt working. (World Bank President James Wolfensohn,
1999, quoted in Faux 2001)
Because the economies of Central America and the Caribbean are smaller, less diverse, and less
industrialized than their South American counterparts, the reform period since the 1980s has been
especially painful for its working people, and the new outward orientation has much less to build on.
While Latin America has long held the unfortunate distinction as the worlds most socially unequal
region, things have only worsened since the debt crisis and the neoliberal bailout. For Latin America
and the Caribbean as a whole, the share of population living in poverty increased from a historical low
of around 22 per cent in 1982 to over 30 per cent in the 1990s. With the exception of Costa Rica,
Central America is more unequal than the average Latin American country, helping to explain why
Central Americas poverty rate is almost 60 per cent (IDB, 1997: 41; Latin America Press, 1997). The
exception to Central Americas relatively high rates of inequality and poverty is Costa Rica, but even
there, a range of public service reductions have forced people to spend more for services from the
private sector or do without health care and other basic needs (see Chapter 9).
Caribbean countries, with the exception of Haiti (see Box 4.1), are more socially equal than both
Central American and Latin American averages. This helps to account for the Caribbeans lower
poverty rates and relatively good standing on social welfare indicators (Table 4.1). However, the
Caribbeans relative equity is canceled out by its relative economic weakness (Table 4.2). Small size,
limited industry, and a historical lack of international competitiveness leave the Caribbean in a
precarious position during the neoliberal transition.

BOX 4.1: World Bank recommendations for Haiti


Haiti has for many years been the poorest country in Latin America (Table 4.1). The vast majority
of the Haitian population must endure a high infant mortality rate, low life expectancy, low birth
weights, high maternal deaths, inadequate caloric intake, squalid housing conditions, and a lack of
basic services such as potable water and sewer lines. The country is also economically dependent,
importing around 70 per cent of all that it consumes. It is in this context that the World Bank in
1985 offered advice to the Haitian government in a report intended to have restricted
distribution, but which became public. The report, entitled Haiti: Policy Proposals for Growth,
suggests the following reorientation of national priorities:
The development strategy must be export-oriented . . . [Domestic] consumption . . . will have to be
markedly restrained in order to shift the required share of output increases to exports . . . More
emphasis will have to be put on development projects that support the expansion of private
enterprises in agriculture, industry and services. Private projects with high economic returns should
be strongly supported with accordingly less relative emphasis on public expenditures in the social
services. (quoted in Wilentz, 1989: 2723)
Given how reliant Haiti is on foreign assistance and investment, World Bank recommendations
such as these carry a lot of weight in government circles.

The international development agencies (chief among them, the World Bank the IMF and USAID)
are encouraging CA/C governments to promote production for export rather than domestic
markets, and to reduce social welfare spending. In most cases domestic production and social welfare
spending were already inadequate prior to the cuts. A comparative study of the public sector reforms
80

BOX 4.2 Nicaraguas Sandinistas and their successors (source: Walker,


1997)
In the 1970s, mounting society-wide disenchantment with the maacracy of Anastacio Somoza
helped the Sandinista rebel army depose him by the end of the decade. Over the next several
years the ruling leftist junta was able to demonstrate effective leadership. Accomplishments
included effective social policies such as a literacy campaign and agrarian reform, a mixed
economy which grew at 7 per cent annually per capita, and a clear electoral victory in 1984. For
the remainder of the 1980s, however, Ronald Reagan sought to make the Sandinistas cry uncle
(as he put it) by orchestrating a cut-off of its international loans and the Contra war. The latters
many costs included more than half of Nicaraguas public resources that were needed for
defence, the devastation of rural schools and clinics that the Contras viewed as targets, and
30,000 Nicaraguan lives. In 1990 Nicaraguas war-weary voters rejected the Sandinistas in favour
of the US preferred candidate, Violeta Chamorro. The country reversed policy direction and
began what William Robinson characterized as a close U.S. tutelage in the process of reinsertion
into the global system. Nicaraguas USAID programme leapt to become the worlds largest, and
included funds to replace Sandinista textbooks with ones beginning with the Ten Commandments
that AIDs director believed would help reestablish the civics and morals lacking in the last eleven
years. By the late 1990s, more than half of all Nicaraguan workers were un- or under-employed.
And the half billion dollars worth of international aid keeping the Nicaraguan economy aoat
made President Arnoldo Alemn subordinate to the wishes of core capitalist countries. Despite
Nicaraguas economic straitjacket, it has managed to retain some meaningful vestiges of the
Sandinista period. These include vibrant grassroots activism, politically-aware citizens, gender
equality laws, and autonomy laws protecting its culturally distinct Atlantic Coast people.

Central American and Caribbean governments are aggressively promoting and subsidizing nontraditional exports (Klak, 1996; 1998). These efforts can be likened to a shatter-shot approach to
searching out export market niches. Even in the smallest countries, policy-makers are actively
promoting investment in a host of non-traditional activities. In tiny Dominica, for example, these range
from tourism, assembly operations, and data processing, to vegetables, fruits, seafood and cut owers
(Figure 4.4; Wiley, 1998). Such experimentation raises the essential question of whether product
niches with considerable promise can be secured or whether they are replacing monocrop and single
market dependence with a new form of vulnerability. In other words, are exporters trying to do many
things at once while not doing any of them well?
81

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

under neoliberalism in three countries (Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Jamaica) echoed these
observations (Evans et al., 1995: 445). The study identied two important commonalities in the new
role of the state in these countries. Internationally, the relationships of these countries are increasingly
neocolonial in nature. As the authors put it, The countries themselves are able to exercise less control
over their economic policy than was the case in many former colonial regimes. Domestically, policies
have turned noticeably more hostile to the interests of the working class. This has occurred directly
through policies that have dramatically cut public services, employment and wages, and indirectly
through increased unemployment. In addition, governments have weakened trade unions through
repression and division. In particular, the abject dependency of emasculated Nicaragua stands in acute
contrast to the widespread hope in the early 1980s among most of its people for a socially just society
(see Box 4.2).

Latin America Transformed


Figure 4.4 Dominicas non-traditional industrial exports, on display at the Dominica Export Import Agency (DEXIA).
Is the Caribbean successfully lling a neoliberal export niche or undergoing a new round of dependency?
Photograph by James Wiley

During the 1990s, the non-traditional export activity that employed most people and was most
widespread was the assembly factories. Virtually every state created export processing zones (also
known as free zones) and took loans to build and service their factory shells. Garments were by far
the most common product because of their low entry requirements, although electronics, plastic
goods, and shoes were also represented. Tens of thousands of mainly young females are employed in
such factories in Jamaica, Haiti, and each Central American country. Most of the Eastern Caribbean
countries had more than a thousand workers each. The Dominican Republic attracted the most
assembly activity and had over 160,000 factory workers. But even there, the assembly plants were
low-wage economic enclaves with minimal positive impact on the local economy (Willmore, 1994;
Kaplinsky, 1995). And although it is widely claimed that the assembly plants are net economic gains for
the host country, that assertion would need to be validated through a thorough cost accounting
which, to my knowledge, has never been undertaken. The gross income from low factory wages and
subsidized rents and utilities would need to be weighed against the public costs of promoting the
country as an investment site, building, operating, and maintaining the factories and related
infrastructure, and training workers (Klak, 1996; 1998).The main beneciaries of the low cost products
made in the assembly plants are the corporate brand names they carry, the department stores where
they are sold, and US consumers who buy the low-priced products (Ross, 1997a).
NAFTA shifted the growth in Free Zone employment and exports to Mexico where employment
reached over 1.5 million in 2000 (see Box 3.1 for a discussion of the Mexican assembly industry).
Meanwhile, many garment producers have left the Caribbean, leaving tens of thousands of square feet
of vacant publicly owned factory shells. Governments have had to admit that The move to diversify
the economy to include export-oriented services (and increasing tourism), as well as non-traditional
exports such as apparel manufacturing has not yielded the economic development gains expected
(Government of Jamaica, 2002: 18).
82

markets are highly competitive, require connections to complex international commodity chains
(Geref and Korzeniewicz, 1994), continually draw new entries from countries world-wide, and
risk saturation;
products are highly perishable, require expensive transportation, are subject to wide-ranging price
uctuations, and entail risk for producers;
the vast majority of NTAEs are native to temperate rather than tropical climates; this
disadvantages Caribbean farmers whose knowledge is of local crops;
crops are usually planted continuously and intensively in monocultures, and buyers demand
perfect-looking produce;
the above features often lead to the problem of a pesticide treadmill, and related problems of
human and ecological health and unsustainability, and residues on crops entering the United
States (Conroy et al., 1996);
the above features, combined with the need for large capital investments, contribute to
dominance by large foreign rms, for which local people mainly serve as low-wage labour.
These factors have meant that small-scale farmers have generally not been competitive (Thrupp,
1995). The NTAE sector is characterized by the dominance of rms from the USA and elsewhere in
the core triad, inadequate state support to develop the sector, shaky performance and low to no
growth for small-scale local producers, and poor working conditions for the employees. In essence,
coreperiphery relations are maintained despite shifts in economic sectors.
Neoliberalisms market niche strategy may have its conceptual appeal, but the regions experience
with it shows that it is fraught with difculties, as the data processing sector further illustrates. The
development prospect of this sector entails incorporating local labour and nurturing local rms to
take advantage of expanding opportunities in the global data processing industry that earns $1 trillion
yearly, of which information processing services is a component. Mullings (1995; 1998) draws on a
detailed analysis of the rise and fall of information services in Jamaica to explain why this industry,
which has real potential for growth in employment, wages, managerial expertise, and backward
83

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

Before examining the prospects for non-traditional agriculture, it is worth noting the continued
signicance of traditional primary product exports. While the regions traditional exports such as
sugar, bananas, coffee, cotton and bauxite have lost value in recent years, it is premature to deem them
irrelevant to the regions role in the global economy. In 1990, primary products (mostly traditional
ones but including a steadily growing share of non-traditional exports) were still 46.5 percent of the
exports sent to the United States by CBI countries. By then, manufactured products had surpassed
primary products as a share of the total, but this reversal is attributable more to primary export
decline than to manufacturing growth (Deere and Melendez, 1992). As noted above, new exports
were mainly from the assembly plants. As those close down, the regions trade decit increases.
The export of fruits, vegetables, and owers, labeled NTAEs (non-traditional agricultural exports),
by denition have high value by volume and area under cultivation. Central America has been more
successful than the Caribbean in meeting the demand for NTAEs in the US and other northern
markets. By 1991 Central Americas NTAE earnings exceeded $175 million, while those of the
Caribbean were under $90 million (Thrupp, 1995). The Caribbeans limited success is especially
notable given its more desperate need for new sources of foreign exchange. One indicator of this
need is that Caribbean earnings from traditional agricultural exports have fallen faster than those of
Central America.
A more general problem with NTAEs is that the neoliberal image of a small-scale
farmer/entrepreneur rising up to meet new export market niches perhaps substituting snow peas
or strawberries for bananas does not match the reality. Although the experience varies across
contexts and products (and therefore leaves hope for greater small-scale sustainable production), the
following general characteristics of NTAEs in Central America and the Caribbean restrict benets to
smaller-scale farmers:

Latin America Transformed

linkages into the local economy, has stagnated on all these criteria. She identies the problem in terms
of inadequate state support for local rms; continued policy steering and dampening by a traditional
and complacent private elite; investment fear on the part of foreigners; and an extremely narrow role
allotted to Jamaican rms and workers by US outsourcing rms. Rather than propelling Jamaica to a
heightened position in the international division of labour as the neoliberal model predicts, the
information services sector has slumped and entrenched the gender, class and international
inequalities that have long characterized this peripheral capitalist country.
Another relatively new and globally oriented economic activity that Caribbean political leaders have
eagerly pursued by offering investment incentives is offshore nance. The islands that are winners and
losers in the casino capitalism associated with the quest for highly mobile international nance capital
have their own set of pre-existing attributes and consequent problems. Islands that have been most
successful at attracting offshore banking and related activities are relatively small territories, even by
Caribbean standards, that continue to y the Union Jack: the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands,
the Turks and Caicos Islands and, until volcanoes made two-thirds of the island uninhabitable in 1997,
Montserrat. The British dependencies confer the highest level of political stability and investor
condence. Besides the British dependencies, the Netherlands Antilles and the Bahamas (which is
closely tied to the US economy; see Table 4.2) are also notable for their ability to attract nancial
holdings from thousands of foreign rms. In some places such as the Caymans and the British Virgin
Islands, offshore nance has become such a major economic component that real estate prices have
skyrocketed while other economic sectors have atrophied (Hampton and Christensen, 2002). But most
islands have seen relatively little of the sought-after mobile capital or, in fact, capital of any kind. In fact,
an islands ability to attract furtive capital into an offshore nance sector is negatively correlated with its
need for new sources of foreign exchange earnings. Most islands are now independent countries with
many features viewed as unattractive to nance capital, including weak and unstable economies,
poverty, high unemployment, and social tensions. Since 9/11, the US government, in concert with the
OECD, has sought and achieved greater regulatory oversight of offshore nancial centres. It is probable
that a longer-term result will be a reduction of capital ows through, and therefore revenues going to,
the offshore centres, particularly the smaller, poorer and less regulated ones (Klak, 2002).

CUBA: ISLAND SOCIALISM AMID GLOBAL CAPITALISM


The above examples of non-traditional sources of foreign exchange earnings indicate that
neoliberalism is wholly based on the hegemony of global capitalism and the associated international
system of states. But even socialist Cuba has needed to turn to a development policy that offers
incentives to foreign investors. Cubas crisis is not unrelated to that of the capitalist countries of the
region. Since the nineteenth century Cuba has essentially had a one-crop (sugar cane) exporting
economy with the concomitant vulnerabilities of output and price uctuations and deteriorating
terms of trade. In part, Cubas crisis is unique to its experience in CMEA (Council for Mutual
Economic Assistance), the now defunct trade alliance among state socialist countries led by the USSR.
Rather than embarking on a major post-revolutionary economic diversication effort from the 1960s
through the 1980s, Moscow encouraged Cuba to specialize primarily in sugar exports and to import
most other requirements from other CMEA members. A one-for-one trading deal with Russia, sugar
in exchange for petroleum, encouraged Cubas specialization and yielded a $5 billion annual subsidy
compared to open market prices (note, however, that little sugar actually trades on the open market).
The USSR also offered Cuba a generous line of credit that has grown to an outstanding debt of $20
billion in addition to the islands $11 billion of debt to western and Japanese creditors (Table 4.1).
Cubas CMEA trade relationship delivered a reasonable assortment of industrial inputs and
consumer goods until the unexpected events of the late 1980s. The collapse of the Soviet bloc in
198991 meant that Cuba lost 75 per cent of its trade ows and imports, and aid worth 22 per cent
of national income (Marshall, 1998). Cuban imports fell from $8.1 billion dollars in 1989 to only $2
84

10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2

PERCENTAGE

1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
1985

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93 94
YEARS

95

96

97

98

9 9 2000 20012002

Figure 4.5 Cuban economic growth rates, 19852002


85

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

billion in 1993. Cubas economy went into a free fall (Figure 4.5). Independent of a countrys politicaleconomic organization, it is hard to imagine any nation enduring such vast economic losses and
weathering through the necessary transitions without a major internal upheaval.
Castro coined the euphemism The Special Period in the Time of Peace to describe the post-Soviet
era of massive shortages, daily hardships, and new policies that encourage private initiative and court
foreign investors. Domestic policies now include farmers markets selling directly to consumers, parallel
(black) market activity for many consumer goods, legalized use of the US dollar, and a process of
converting the entire currency to a dollar equivalent. Production policies include encouraging foreign
investment by allowing (at least partial) foreign ownership of enterprises in Cuba, promoting tourism,
reorienting state investment to enhance product development for global markets, and reconguring
large state farms into autonomous and productive cooperatives (LeoGrande and Thomas, 2002).
Obtaining food and other daily necessities now preoccupies many citizens, especially Habaneros
who are most isolated from rural food production. Urbanites who considered kerbside gardening or
bicycling beneath their sophisticated lifestyles grudgingly adapted to necessity. Faced with a crisis of
shortages of basic needs, theft of state resources, and black marketeering, Cuban ofcials have been
forced to legalize a range of capitalistic practices. In a rare public opinion poll, most Cubans pointed to
the farmers markets legalized in 1994 as the most important post-Soviet reform, well ahead of selfemployment and legalization of the dollar (Marshall, 1998: 287).To compensate for the agricultural bias
against the capital city, farmers market vendors in Havana are taxed at a rate of 5 per cent of the value
of their goods, while everywhere else the rate is 15 per cent (Marshall, 1998). The farmers markets
have expanded to offer prepared food, and many Habaneros have made their homes into informal
restaurants, called paladares. Further, the foreign tourism sector has acted like a vacuum drawing
Cubans of all stripes away from skilled professions and toward the dollar-earning possibilities. A highly
trained professional earns much more driving a taxi cab for tourists (Segre et al., 2002). Besides turning
to tourists as a source of income, Cubans have needed to become very imaginative in order to obtain
enough income or in-kind transfers to make ends meet (Box 4.3).

Latin America Transformed

BOX 4.3 How people survive during economic crises: a comparison of


Cuba and Jamaica
Cubas economic difculties have forced its citizens to resort to survival tactics, adding new
meaning to the verbs to invent and to resolve. Cubans regularly use the phrase hay que
inventar, or one has to invent, to explain their alternative ways to sustain themselves. In most
cases inventar involves stealing or committing a crime against the state, as in the following
example. One young man in the colonial city of Trinidad in south-central Cuba describes his own
creative adaptation this way:
To resolve my economic difculties, Ive begun to collect used packages of Popular, a state brandname for cigarettes. My friend [socio], who works at the tobacco farm, sells me tobacco and
paper. With a handmade rolling machine, I roll cigarettes and repackage them for sale on the
black market. That is what hay que inventar means to me.
Using the tobacco and paper that his friend steals from the farm, this man is able to sell his handrolled version of a pack of Populares, which sell for 1011 pesos in state stores, for 5 pesos. Those
purchasing the black market cigarettes are well aware of their illegal origins and accept them as
part of the current survival strategies. Cuban authorities admit that nearly 30 per cent of all
tobacco is stolen for illegal sale. (Source: Brandon J. Cabezas, Latin American Studies Programme,
Ohio University, based on eld work in August, 1997; and Chauvin (1998: 5).)
In Jamaica, the great majority of adult residents of poor communities in Kingston and other
cities are unemployed. They need to come up with many different strategies to earn money in
order to meet their basic needs. These strategies range from legal ones, such as temporary
employment, to illegal ones, such as robbery or selling drugs, and include many others in the grey
area in-between, as in this example:
In the gray area, residents developed innovative income-raising strategies, often centered on
hustling (ad hoc buying and selling, using begged or borrowed money). A sophisticated hustling
system had grown up around the nearby prison, with women buying food for the prisoners,
arranging for visitors food parcels to get to the prisoners, buying goods from prison warders to sell
outside, and begging/negotiating for money from prison guards on the paydays in exchange for
sex. (Source: Moser and Holland, 1997: 24)

The Cuban economy bottomed out in 1993 and has since haltingly recovered, although in the
classic Caribbean fashion of booms and busts (Figure 4.2). Food and other basic necessities are now
more available than in the early 1990s when the average Cuba is said to have lost 30 pounds. About
60 per cent of the population regularly have access to dollars from income or remittances from
relatives in the USA which are estimated to have reached $1 billion, second only to tourism in foreign
exchange value (LeoGrande and Thomas, 2002). Sugar, without the benet of Soviet fertilizer and
other inputs, has fallen to third place. Recent harvests were below 1960 levels. Cuba has joined the
Caribbean Tourism Association and tourist receipts reached $1.97 billion in 2000, eight times higher
than in 1990. While the United States continues to try to isolate Cuba, other countries such as
Canada, Mexico, and Spain and China are taking advantage of the protable opportunities in tourism,
as well as in mining, utilities, and consumer goods availed by the lack of competition from US rms.The
falling growth rates since 2000 stem from falling sugar and nickel prices, the global recession which
began before 9/11, and stagnation in tourism after 9/11. As of late 2003, tourism seems to be
rebounding, boosting hope for an upturn in economic growth.
86

Prolonged crises and hardship have required that Central American and Caribbean people be very
creative both at home and abroad. In reaction to neoliberalism, a growing number of people have tried
to emigrate to the USA, where over 2.5 million Caribbean islanders (more than 8 per cent of the
population) have gone since 1965 (Potter et al., 2003). Emigration to Europe and Canada considerably
expands those numbers. Central Americans migrants have been fewer but have also increased in
recent decades. In recent years, the enticing messages from relatives, friends, and the ubiquitous mass
media from the north have conveyed that there is a better life abroad.The resulting diaspora is indeed
large.To cite an extreme example, for every ve people born in St. Kitts and Nevis and alive today, two
of them now reside in the USA. For Jamaica, a more typical Caribbean case, the ratio is 6 to 1. In total,
Jamaica sent 480,600 legal immigrants to the USA between 1970 and 1996, while Cuba and the
Dominican Republic sent 547,300 and 668,700 each (de Souza, 1998). A poll conducted in the
Dominican Republic found that half the population now has relatives in the United States, and more
than two-thirds would emigrate if given the chance (Klak, 1998).
Not all people leave for good, however. Many see opportunities for employment and education in
North Atlantic countries as part of a multidimensional international strategy to make ends meet and
advance economically. Many send remittances home to immediate family members. How much is sent
home varies greatly per household and over time. Macro-economic statistics for remittances
understate their signicance because they principally record bank transfers, leaving unrecorded money
and goods sent through the mail or with travelling relatives and acquaintances. Nonetheless, ofcial
data on remittances reveal they contribute between 5 and 7 per cent to the GDPs of Jamaica, the
Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Belize (Latin America Press, 1997).
Earnings from the north are used back home to meet basic needs, acquire a plot of land, build a
home, nance the childrens education, or start a small business (Chevannes and Ricketts, 1996; Portes
and Guarnizo, 1991). For Mexico and Central America, the positive impacts of migradollars on living
standards, investments, and overall economic conditions are clear (Durand et al., 1996). Male garment
factory workers from the Dominican Republic have been notably successful in transferring skills
acquired on the job in the New York metropolitan area back to ownership and management positions
on the island (Portes and Guarnizo, 1991). Jamaicans now refer commonly to a local phenomenon
called barrel children, the parents of whom work in North America and who largely survive on the
contents of the overstuffed containers that regularly turn up at customs.The combined effect of these
growing trends towards emigration, remittances, and circulation is a deterritorialization of the regions
societies (Olwig, 1993: 206).

REGIONAL TRADING BLOCS


It is said that Central America and the Caribbean belong to two different cultural universes (Grugel,
1995: 155). It follows that they have had negligible economic ties historically and have developed their
own regional trading blocs recently. The Central American Common Market (CACM) consists of ve
countries with a long history of linkages: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
For centuries Spain administered them as one colony, and for 15 years after independence in 1823
they were a united republic. The obvious Central American outlier from this group is Panama, which
was a province of Colombia until its independence in 1903 (Barton, 1997a). Panama now participates
in Central American presidential summits without commitment to implementing CACMs common
external tariff, an important component of any trading bloc.
The Caribbean region is less economically united than Central America, a reection of the islands
greater physical fragmentation (Figure 4.1), and greater historical fragmentation by European colonial
powers (Richardson, 1992). Because most Caribbean countries are now English-speaking, they
dominate the regions trading bloc created in 1973 and called CARICOM (the Caribbean Common
Market). The 15 full members of CARICOM as of 2003 are 12 English-speaking countries of the
87

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

MIGRATION AND TRANSNATIONALISM

Latin America Transformed

Caribbean region, one British colony (Montserrat), Surinam, and most recently Haiti. CARICOM
accepted Haitis membership in 1997 contingent on it moving more aggressively in the neoliberal
direction, i.e. privatization, public spending reduction, and promotion of foreign investment; it passed
these stipulations in 2002. Haiti had already undergone many neoliberal reforms. For example, it
reduced tariffs on imported rice from 50 to 3 per cent in 10 years, causing the local market to be
ooded with US rice and local production to fall by almost 50 per cent (CPT, 1998). The Caribbean
trading bloc reinforces the IMF/World Bank/USAID dictates; CARICOM views these neoliberal
reforms as necessary prerequisites for all of its members if the bloc is be globally competitive and
eventually enter the FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas).
The Bahamas is the only other English-speaking Caribbean country choosing not to belong to
CARICOM, although it does participate in the Caribbean Community. In this regard, the Bahamas
position is similar to Panamas relative to the CACM; it participates in regional summits of Heads of
State but not in Trade or Finance Ministers meetings, and is not committed to CARICOMs plan for a
common external tariff and economic integration. In the 1990s the Netherlands Antilles and several
of the regions Spanish-speaking countries have attained observer status in CARICOM. CACM and
CARICOM countries, together with Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, the Dominican Republic
and France, have recently united under the Association of Caribbean States (ACS). The rst ACS
summit was held in 1995. Thus far ACS has not functioned as a trading bloc, but rather as a forum for
discussion of common economic concerns and possible future linkages for trade, transport and
tourism (Demas, 1997).
The ve-member CACM took effect in 1960 two years after the establishment of the original sixmember European Economic Community. The parallel and precocious origins of CACM and the EEC
in a world economy led observers to wonder if they would develop and strengthen in tandem. CACM
got off to a brisk start during its rst decade when intraregional exports grew from 7 to 26 per cent
of the total (Table 4.3). Central Americas policies that emphasized economic opening, scal
conservatism and regional trade integration generated economic growth rates of around 5 per cent
between 1965 and 1975. Since then the CACM has faltered. Intra-CACM trade has levelled out at
about 22 per cent of total exports (Table 4.3). Why did CACM show such early promise and then
stagnate?
The core of CACMs impressive growth in the 1960s was the states successful cultivation of ISI
rms, which to a large extent involved TNCs from the United States establishing factories in the region
and exporting within the CACM (Grugel, 1995). The internal market for these industrial goods was
TABLE 4.3 Central American and Caribbean trading blocs: intraregional exports as a percentage of total exports, selected years
Year

CACM

CARICOM

1960
1970
1980
1985
1990
1992
1994
1996
2001

7.0
26.0
24.2
15.5
15.2
23.2
22.7
21.5
21.8

na*
na*
8.9
13.0
12.3
11.8
15.6
na
15.9

*CARICOM was created in 1973.


Source: Demas (1997); Bulmer-Thomas (1998); ACS (2003).
88

89

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

quickly saturated, however, given that a large share of the regions 11 million people at that time lived
in poverty. While economic growth and regional trade statistics looked impressive, the disruption of
peasant economies and the inequities of state policies were fomenting guerilla wars in three of the
ve countries Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador (Walker, 1997). Trade also proved to be highly
imbalanced across CACM countries. On the one hand, the mutual geographical accessibility of the
main urban-economic regions of El Salvador and Guatemala helps to explain why their trade has
dominated the CACM. On the other hand, Honduras, the least developed member country,
accumulated a large trade decit in the 1960s.This, along with its infamous soccer war with El Salvador
in 1969, led to Honduras withdrawal from the CACM in 1970. Regional relations worsened in the
1970s from the regions civil wars, and then in the 1980s from Reagans efforts to isolate the Sandinista
government of Nicaragua. World recession and the debt crisis in the 1980s further dampened
CACMs trading prospects. The neoliberal bailout offered by the World Bank and the IMF since then
has discouraged ISI and intraregional trade, while it has emphasized extraregional exports of nontraditional agricultural and manufactured goods (Bulmer-Thomas, 1998). As a result, the ve CACM
countries sustained annual export growth rates of between 11 and 31 per cent from 1992 to 1995
(Colburn, 1998).
The CACM rebounded in the 1990s, although not to its peak trade level of around 1970 (Table
4.3). Many of the early shortcomings have again surfaced. Honduras rejoined the group in 1990 but
has once again accumulated large trade decits. Trade between CACM countries continues to be
predominantly stand-alone industrial products, rather than components of an integrated commodity
chain or agricultural products. The lack of the former suggests the shallow development of regional
trade and economic integration. The latter were legally restricted until the 1990s. Even since their
inclusion, however, agricultural exports have not diversied, and comprised only about 4 per cent of
intra-CACM trade in the late 1990s (Rueda-Junquera, 1998). Throughout CACMs existence, trade
restrictions have diverted more imports from third countries away from the region than they have
increased production within the region. In economists parlance, CACM has caused more trade
diversion than trade creation (Nicholls, 1998) when more expensive products from within the trade
bloc replace cheaper ones from outside. Finally, while capital and products now move more freely
across Central American borders, political leaders have been unwilling to consider facilitating labour
mobility in the same way (Bulmer-Thomas, 1998).
In comparison, CARICOM has never approached CACMs regional trade levels, suggesting the
formers lower levels of commitment to trade integration and its limited economic complementarity.
Intra-CARICOM trade as a share of total exports has uctuated between 8 and 16 per cent since
1980 (Table 4.3). Further, whereas intra-CARICOM exports were worth $5.9 billion in 1980, they fell
to $4 billion in 1994 and only $1.3 billion in 2001 (Demas, 1997; ACS, 2003). CARICOMs market is
also more limited. Whereas CACMs population is 35 million, CARICOMs is just 6.3 million plus Haitis
7.1 million people (mostly impoverished rural peasants). By the end of 2002, CARICOM had not yet
implemented a common external tariff, while internal economic integration had been placed on the
back burner (Gibbings, 2002). Skilled labour has been able to move within CARICOM but not
unskilled labour (Demas, 1997; CARICOM, 2003). CARICOM recently eliminated the visa (but not
the passport) requirement for travel among member countries, although North Americans or
Europeans have long been able to enter member countries with only a drivers licence.
As has typically been the case historically, exogenous factors have overwhelmed the regions
progress toward regional economic development. Both CACM and Caricom have suffered as regional
integration involving outside countries has become a higher priority. For example, in 1994 Costa Rica
entered a bi-lateral trade agreement with Mexico, a move that impedes further progress toward a
common external tariff for CACM because it blurs the distinction between countries that are internal
and external to the trading bloc. CARICOM has similarly signed free trade agreements with Colombia
and Venezuela (Demas, 1997). NAFTA and potentially a future FTAA create even larger obstacles, as
Bulmer-Thomas has suggested. His critical observation on how CACM countries attention has been

Latin America Transformed

diverted toward NAFTA applies equally well to CARICOM countries: Unrestricted access to the US
market, however implausible, has been seen as more desirable then the less exciting, but more realistic,
goal of regional integration (Bulmer-Thomas, 1998: 320).
More broadly, NAFTA has decreased Central America and the Caribbeans economic importance
in the global economy and has relocated manufacturing investment to Mexico. Mexicos foreign
investment and exports have grown relative to the regions small countries since 1994. Policy-makers
have seen Mexico as a major threat to their efforts to develop by attracting foreign investment into
assembly operations. CACM and CARICOM have been pressing the United States for trade
concessions. The most urgent aim is parity with Mexico within NAFTA, so that the region will no
longer be comparatively disadvantaged as an export platform. Caribbean and Central American
countries seek NAFTA membership despite their competitiveness vis--vis the USA for little beyond
low wage labour.
Unfortunately, the economic marginality of CA/C described above breeds political marginality. As
Demas (1997: 20) laments for CARICOM, We have already conceded far too much, far too quickly,
by way of trade liberalisation. But the US government has offered CA/C little more than rhetoric on
the subject of deeper economic ties and regional cooperation toward mutual and complementary
development. The regions developmental concerns have been an especially low priority for the Bush
Administration since 2001 (Grifth, 2003). It is difcult not to conclude that Washingtons policy
toward the region if such scattered actions and mostly inactions deserves to be called policy is
self-serving, narrow and short-sighted.

THE GROWING DRUG ECONOMY


With so few opportunities for growth through neoliberalism materializing, the production, and
especially the transhipment of drugs through Central America and the Caribbean, have become
widespread. Individuals have taken to growing and exporting marijuana and to trafcking cocaine and
increasingly heroin from the Andean region on the way to the worlds largest market in the United
States. They seek even a small share of the vast transnational income: Colombian cocaine, heroin and
marijuana alone have an estimated retail value of $46 billion (NACLA, 2002). The growing number of
tourists moving in and out of the region facilitates the movement of drugs to US by air and by boat.
A Guatemalan researcher Edgar Celada characterizes Central Americas increased drug trafcking
as geographic fatalism the region is sandwiched between South American producers and North
American consumers. The same study found Central America expanding its drug activities beyond
trafcking to production and consumption (Jeffrey, 1998). Problems are similar in the Caribbean.
Puerto Rico had the highest per capita murder rate in the USA in 1995, with two-thirds of the deaths
associated with drugs. A growing number of Caribbean people are being deported from the USA, and
the most common cause is drug activity. At the same time Caribbean jails are already overcrowded
and have been judged to be unsafe and unhealthy (Grifth, 1997).
Expansion of drug activity in Central America and the Caribbean is also occurring with respect to
social classes. The democratization of drug activity now includes growing numbers of politicians,
judges, businesspeople, and ordinary citizens. Military personnel are involved in both drug running and
enforcement. Following the conclusion of Central Americas civil wars and peace accords, there is now
a remilitarization of the region through US funding for antidrug efforts. Neoliberalisms open
economies and non-traditional exports are also entangled with the drug trade. Another Guatemalan
researcher, Mario Maldonado, laments the growing number of local businessmen who earn their
wealth hiding cocaine in shipments of broccoli and cut owers (Jeffrey, 1998). Guatemala joins other
countries in the region where residents now assume, often quite accurately, that sudden increases of
expenditure among locals on gold jewellery or a new car, home or restaurant are attributable to drug
trafcking. The exception is Cuba which, according to US authorities, plays little role in the
hemispheres drug trade (NACLA, 2002).
90

Central America and the Caribbean have traditionally been studied separately. Today, the
homogenizing impacts of US regional hegemony, economic globalization and neoliberalism suggest the
fruitfulness of analysing them together. Over recent decades the region has learned that US
dominance and intervention make developing local interpretations of democracy and development
extremely difcult. The regions hurried experiments with various democratic socialist paths to
development are history. Instead, Central America and the Caribbean have converged on a set of
policies that pursues dependent capitalist development under the tutelage of the United States.
The current global political economy presents these small, under-industrialized, and tradedependent countries with many risks of further vulnerability and marginality, but also some narrow
options and opportunities. The greater economic openness associated with neoliberalism is exposing
domestic rms to competition from larger and more competitive ones from abroad. Such
competition has been erce for both old and new producers. The few survivors from the region have
been able to ll the market niches that neoliberalism trumpets, although too often such
competitiveness is attained primarily at the expense of labour and the environment.
However, international economic integration can potentially have other positive impacts if it helps to
expose and dislodge internal obstacles to development and human rights. Economic exposure brings
pressure to confront internal problems such as economic stagnation under the weight of local
mercantilist capital, and inefcient local production methods from which only a few have benetted.
Global integration and openness can also help to expose government mismanagement, graft and
nepotism that have long plagued much of the region. Non-traditional export production means that
there are now more external interests connected to the region that can expose (but also potentially
benet from) illegal or inhumane practices. Issues of human rights can be brought to international
attention through greater global connections. For example, the international campaigns in recent years
against Nike, Reebok, Kathie Lee Gifford apparel, and Disney (and their subcontractors) for their Third
World employment practices demonstrate these trends (Ross, 1997a). The campaigns are making
internationally known employment and living conditions that have long been sequestered by distance,
undemocratic states, foreign cultures and closed societies. In some cases such campaigns helped to
create openings for workers to mobilize and struggle for better wages, benets, and conditions.
Economic globalization is primarily a top-down, elite-driven, and externally-based process shaping
the lives of Central America and the Caribbean people. However, globalization has many dimensions,
and it can also open opportunities for progressive transnational networking and for confronting
conditions of domination, exclusion, and exploitation, as later chapters explore.

FURTHER READING
Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. 1999 Globalization in question: the international economy and the
possibilities of governance. Polity, Cambridge, second edition. This is the most thorough and careful
interrogation of the ideas and evidence behind economic globalization to date. It refutes many
truisms about globalization and offers empirical evidence to document the extent and the precise
ways in which global economic integration is actually occurring.
Klak, T. (ed.) 1998 Globalization and neoliberalism: the Caribbean context. Rowman and Littleeld,
Lanham, MD. Through the analytical lens of political economy, the book examines the impacts,
adjustments, and coping strategies found in the Caribbean as it undergoes a rapid and profound
transformation. Issues addressed include development policies, non-traditional exports, external
relations, the environment, tourism, class and gender relations, and human migration.
Potter, R., Barker, D., Conway, D. and Klak, T. 2003 The contemporary Caribbean. AddisonWesley Longman and Prentice Hall, Harlow. Broad, geographical overview of the Caribbean region,
including its environmental, economic, political, and social issues.
91

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic change in Central America and the Caribbean

CONCLUSION

Latin America Transformed

Thomas, C. Y. 1988 The poor and the powerless: economic policy and change in the Caribbean.
Monthly Review Press, New York. The most thorough and insightful account of the various models
of state-promoted noncapitalist paths toward development of Caribbean countries since World
War II.

WEBSITES
Association of Caribbean States (ACS), http://www.acs-aec.org, the only Pan-Caribbean
Basin political organization that includes island, Central American and South American countries,
devoted to fostering regional unity, coordinating development policies and negotiating from a
position of unied strength.
Campaign for Labor Rights, http://campaignforlaborrights.org, mobilizes and informs
sweatshop workers, consumers and advocates to promote worker rights in assembly plants and
export processing zones anywhere in the world.
CARICOM, http://www.caricom.org, the website for the Caribbeans free trade organization; note
that the Central American Common Market had no website as of January 2003.
CIA, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook, the CIAs excellent and up-to-date collection of
facts and gures for all of the worlds countries.
World Development Movement, http://www.wdm.org.uk, a website for a British organization
focused on confronting global poverty and reporting on resistance in all corners of the world to
top-down globalization.

92

5
The urban revolution
Alan Gilbert

Urbanization affected Latin America profoundly during the twentieth century. Less than one person in
ten lived in towns and cities in 1900, compared with three-quarters at the turn of the millennium. An
urban population of perhaps 10 million in 1900 had grown to around 375 million by 2000.
Urbanization constituted much more than a numerical shift; it transformed peoples lives. It changed
the locus of work from the fields to offices, shops, factories and urban streets. It changed the form of
their housing from unserviced, rustic shacks to semi-serviced tenements and self-help properties. It
helped modify the way they thought about religion and about society. Politics was gradually
transformed from a matter dictated by rural landlords to one where urban people not infrequently
voted and sometimes even influenced major decisions. In the cities, the power calculus gradually
changed, shifting from populism, through military rule to something vaguely approximating to
democracy. In this sense, urbanization was arguably the most revolutionary change to have occurred
in Latin American life during the twentieth century. It was surely far more important than political
revolution, real cases of which were very rare, or land reform, which was neither frequent nor often
very effective, or globalization, the effects of which are usually greatly exaggerated.
Given such a fundamental change in economic and social organization, it might be assumed that
academia would respond by placing urbanization at the centre of their research agendas. In practice,
rather few did so. A glance at most of the great historical tomes of twentieth-century Latin America
reveals an almost eerie silence about towns and cities; Hardoy (1975), Morse (1958; 1971), Davis
(1994) and Scobie (1964; 1974) are among the relatively few exceptions. Economics as a discipline
was even more silent on the issue, although Currie (1971) must be exempted from this criticism. Of
course, much has been written but outside the disciplines of anthropology, geography, planning and
sociology, the city was sadly neglected.
When urbanization did emerge as a theme, it was frequently discussed in an over-generalized way.
Of course, there were many similarities between Latin American cities but, apart from the growth of
shanty towns, informal employment, social segregation and motorized transport, do Barranquilla,
Belm, Braslia and Buenos Aires really have that much in common? Research also tended to focus on
the largest cities, even though most Latin Americans still live in other urban places. At least capital citycum-large city bias is understandable in the sense that twentieth-century Latin America was incubating
some of the largest cities in the world and those cities tended to dominate national life. Neglecting
cities with less than 100,000 or so people was not all that surprising, but what about those with more
than a million people? Very few books have ever been written about Belo Horizonte, Barranquilla,
Guayaquil or Manaus.
If the process of urbanization has too often been neglected, or studied selectively, some of its
elements have been given too much importance. The fear that the cities would suffer from some kind
of social breakdown has been a recurrent theme for decades. The economic failure of Latin Americas
cities to provide enough work or adequate housing has been another.
93

Latin America Transformed

This chapter argues that during the twentieth century the growth of the city constitutes one of the
essential elements in understanding the nature of life of most people in Latin America. And, despite
the very real problems associated with the process, urbanization should be regarded as a major
success story. Despite the widespread poverty, people live longer and fuller lives than they did when
there were so many fewer of them. This could not have been achieved without urbanization.
The chapter also discusses the relationship between urbanization and globalization. However, it
does not conne the term to discussing events since 1980 because, whatever that ill-dened concept
actually means, life in Latin America has always been affected by the outside world and Latin
Americans have always sought to play a part in the world economy. In Latin America, the process of
globalization goes back at least to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the fteenth century. Are
not Catholicism, the ubiquity of the Spanish and Portuguese languages, slavery, the urban settlement
pattern, and bull-ghting adequate testimony that globalization in Latin America is less than recent?
Even that cultural obsession, soccer, had arrived from England and was well established in the Southern
Cone by the beginning of the twentieth century. When the World Bank, one of the leading supporters
of world economic integration, recognizes that signicant globalization occurred in Latin America
between 1870 and 1914, when foreign investment and immigration in the Southern Cone was
relatively far more important than it has ever been since, it is welcome recognition that Latin America
did not start to globalize in 1980.
In discussing globalization, both in the past and in the present, it is vital to understand how
different parts of Latin America have always inter-reacted with the outside world in highly variable
ways (Palma, 1978; Cardoso and Faletto, 1979). Certain cities and regions have always been closely
linked to the worlds metropoles (Frank, 1966), whereas the ebb and ow of international trade
passed around and beyond the vast majority. Even in the past 20 years, when globalization has
triumphed (ILO, 1995: 68), many cities have been touched only lightly by whatever it is that
constitutes globalization. The obvious exceptions, most notably the cities of northern Mexico and
the larger national capitals, are to be regarded as just that, exceptions. The impact of globalization on
most people in urban Latin America has been highly variable. Social class, location of the city and the
level of development are the keys to understanding how globalization has impacted on ordinary
lives. Perhaps that geographical rallying call, place matters, forms another of the essential arguments
of this chapter.

URBAN GROWTH DURING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY


Urbanization in the Americas did not begin with Christopher Columbus accidental landing on
Hispaniola. The Aztec, Inca and Mayan civilizations had already established great cities before the
Iberian Conquest (Hardoy, 1975). In that sense urban life is a very old phenomenon, at least in certain
parts of Latin America.
Of course, the Spanish quickly dismantled the pre-Columbian civilization and established a new
urban tradition in its place. The Spanish and Portuguese used urbanization as a major weapon in the
conquest of the Americas (Morse, 1971; Cardoso, 1975). They founded most of the cities in existence
today. With the exception of Braslia, Ciudad Guayana, Belo Horizonte, Goas and a few others, most
cities had been founded before 1700 and well before independence. The phase of globalization that
began in 1492 brought a new form of urban civilisation. Iberian squares, churches and rectilinear street
patterns were established through administrative diktat in areas where they had never been before.
Latin American urbanization therefore is centuries old. It is also, in a very important sense, very recent.
Indeed, it might almost be argued that in most of the region urban growth is really a phenomenon of
the past 70 years (Table 5.1). In the Latin America of 1930, ve out of every six people lived in the
countryside; in 2000 three-quarters were urbanites. In 1900, only one city, Buenos Aires, had anywhere
near one million inhabitants. In 1950, the number of million cities had reached seven. By 1990, there
were 40 (UNECLAC/UNCHS, 2000: table 12).
94

The urban revolution

TABLE 5.1 Latin America: urban share of population in selected countries, 19302000
Country

1930

1950

1970

1990

2000

Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Guatemala
Mexico
Peru
Venezuela

38
14
14
32
10
14
na
14
11
14

63
34
37
61
43
29
25
43
35
54

79
42
56
75
59
41
36
59
60
77

87
58
78
84
71
55
35
71
70
84

90
62
81
86
74
65
40
74
73
87

Source: UNECLAC/UNCHS (2000: Table 4); Cunha (2002: Table 1).

The extent and speed of urban growth in Latin America during the twentieth century have been
impressive and, for many governments, profoundly worrying. During the 1950s, most major cities were
growing annually at over 4 per cent per annum and many were expanding much faster: Lima, Mexico
City and So Paulo at over 5 per cent, Caracas at over 6 per cent and Bogot at more than 7 per cent.
Such rates of growth quickly turned relatively small cities into what were often described as urban
monsters. Today, Mexico City and So Paulo both contain around 18 million inhabitants, Buenos Aires
almost 13 million, Rio 11 million and Lima more than 8 million (CEPAL, 2001b).
Urbanization deeply inuenced the lives of Latin Americans. However, it did not change Latin
America uniformly, affecting particular areas in very distinctive ways and at different times. For
example, Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil experienced rapid urbanization in the late
nineteenth century. Successful export production generated economic growth and attracted migrants
to the region from southern Europe. In the process, Argentina became a nation of immigrants and its
capital the regions rst million city. But in most of the region, urbanization came much later. By 1940,
when two-thirds of the Argentine population was living in urban areas, less than one in three Brazilians,
Colombians or Venezuelans lived in towns or cities (Wilkie et al., 1994: 141). In Central America, the
supposed tranquillity of rural life remained largely undisturbed.
Over the century, urbanization transformed the nature of life. Despite the frequent chaos, urban
living generally enhanced the quality of most rural migrants lives, especially as the quality of public
services and sometimes the housing gradually improved. Certainly, urbanization never brought the
disaster that was so often predicted and sparked few social revolutions, unfortunately nor has it
managed to remove poverty. Indeed, experience in the past two decades suggests that poverty in
Latin America became both entrenched and increasingly urbanized. The continued arrival of rural
people, the debt crisis and the nature of the neoliberal economic development model have
established poverty as a permanent feature of urban life.

EXPLANATIONS FOR URBAN GROWTH


Urbanization in the Southern Cone was initiated by economic expansion. The growth of the coffee
economy in Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo and the boom in meat, wool and cereal exports in Argentina
and Uruguay created a measure of afuence and generated a huge demand for labour (Morse, 1958;
Scobie, 1974). People crossed the Atlantic from Spain, Portugal and Italy, and many stayed in the ports
where they landed. Over three million people migrated to Brazil between 1872 and 1940 and 3.4 million
95

Latin America Transformed

moved to Argentina in the half century after 1881. Cuba also beneted from a wave of immigrants in
the years following independence. Between 1902 and 1930, 1.2 million foreigners arrived, mostly from
Spain. In most of the region, however, foreign migrants either came much later or never came at all.
Economic growth was insignicant in most of Latin America until industrialization began in the
1940s. In 1950, the degree of urbanization was closely linked to the level of economic development:
relatively afuent Argentina, Chile and Uruguay had a majority of their populations living in urban
areas; relatively poor Ecuador, Guatemala and Honduras less than one-third.
Economic growth, however, was not the only ingredient in urban development. By the 1940s
another fundamental factor had emerged national population growth. During the 1930s and 1940s,
most Latin American countries had begun to enter the second phase of the demographic transition,
death rates fell while fertility rates remained high. Table 5.2 shows how population growth began to
accelerate in some of the largest countries of the region during the 1930s. With the exception of
Argentina, which had already passed onto a later stage of the demographic transition, every country
was setting new records for natural increase.
Falling death rates combined with high birth rates had a double impact on urban areas. First, their
own populations began to grow more quickly and, second, there were potentially many more urban
migrants. Given the inequality in land holding and the poverty of most rural people, life in the
countryside was increasingly problematic. Migration offered an escape valve that was welcome,
especially when economic development created new opportunities for a better life in the cities. The
period 195080 is the climax of urban growth in most Latin American countries. Young people
ooded to the cities, set up home and produced urban offspring. Later, the pace of urban growth
slowed. Migration continued to be an important source of growth in many places but increasingly the
seeds of urban growth lay in the cities. After 1960, urban growth was fuelled mainly by natural increase
(Merrick, 1986).
By 1980, national populations were growing much more slowly. From 1950 until 1980, Latin
Americas population increased annually by 2.8 per cent; from 1980 until 1995, the annual growth rate
had fallen to 1.8 per cent. Fertility decline was a signicant factor in that change. After 1970, most
women in the region bore fewer children. In 1970, the average Nicaraguan woman gave birth to 7.2
children during her lifetime, in 2000 the gure had fallen to 3.7 (UNDP, 1997; table 22; World Bank,
2000: 2867). Over the same period, the gross fertility of Mexican women fell from 6.5 to 2.8. The
decline in fertility helped greatly to slow the pace of urban growth.
In places, emigration also reduced national population growth. The combination of local poverty
and proximity to the Great Society encouraged millions to move to the United States. By 2000,
the Hispanic population in the USA numbered 35.3 million (Logan, 2002: 1). That year, approximately

TABLE 5.2 Latin America: annual population growth, 190095


Country

190030

193050

195070

197095

Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Guatemala
Mexico
Peru
Venezuela

3.1
2.1
1.3
2.2
2.3
0.8
1.0
0.9

1.8
2.4
1.7
2.0
2.4
2.4
1.6
2.2

1.7
3.0
2.3
3.1
3.2
3.1
2.5
3.8

1.5
2.1
1.6
2.5
2.7
3.1
2.6
2.9

Source: Thorp (1998: 23).


96

97

The urban revolution

19 per cent of all Mexicans, 16 per cent of all Salvadoreans, and 11 per cent of all Cubans and
Dominicans were living in the United States. Of course, this underestimates the impact in the sending
countries because so many migrants are undocumented and because increasing numbers are now
migrating to Europe and other international destinations (Jokisch and Pribilisky, 2002; Gilbert, 2002).
The exodus had a major impact on urbanization in Latin America. Had the emigrants not moved
abroad, most cities in their home countries would have grown much faster.
If the 1980s heralded a decline in the pace of urbanization, the decade was seared into
Latin American memories for another reason the debt crisis. Between 1981 and 1989, per capita
incomes in Latin America declined by approximately 8 per cent. With the exception of Cuba, and to
some extent Chile and Colombia, every country was affected badly by economic recession. But if
most countries suffered during the lost decade, the brunt of the crisis was borne by those living in the
cities. For the rst time in generations, poverty in the cities increased faster than that in the
countryside.
While the absolute number of rural poor increased by 8 per cent between 1980 and 1990, the
number of urban poor virtually doubled (see Tables 5.5 and 5.6). Of course, the urban sector had gained
most of the benets from the old model so it was not unreasonable that it reaped the withered crops
from the ill-invested seeds. The only problem with that interpretation is that those who gained most
during the prosperous years did not suffer greatly during the urban debt crisis. Most of the burden was
thrust upon the poor and even the middle class; the rich had already converted their funds into dollars
and often invested abroad (Portes, 1989; Gilbert, 1992; Tardanico and Menjvar-Larn, 1997).
The debt crisis hit the urban areas hard for several reasons. First, the debt crisis unleashed an unholy
combination of economic recession, rapid ination and balance of payments decits. To help reestablish some degree of economic normality, stabilization programmes were introduced in virtually
every country. Some claim that IMF loans were made conditional on governments accepting the
Washington consensus view of economic management, although many Latin American economics
ministers, very often themselves graduates of US economics faculties, argue that they devised the
policies for themselves there was no alternative. Whatever the cause, the medicine of opening up
the economy, controlling government expenditure, increasing taxation and privatizing as many
government-owned companies as possible was taken in many countries. The early 1980s, and in some
places the later 1980s as well, saw a necessary slowing in the ination rate but far too little in the way
of faster economic growth.
Second, stabilization programmes made unemployment and under-employment worse. Economic
recession and cheap imports from the United States and the Far East forced many Latin America
manufacturers out of business. New labour reforms encouraged those that remained to shed
workers. Many of those who lost their jobs sought refuge in the informal sector; some in the better
paid parts, like taxi driving, many in the worst paid, like peddling goods on the street. In addition, the
poorest families were forced to put more people into the labour force (Escobar and Gonzlez de la
Rocha, 1995). Older children left school both to save expenditure on books and uniforms and to earn
something from casual employment. The Latin American labour force in the 1980s increased in size at
the same time as unemployment and informal sector rose. Needless to say, the average real wage fell
in most countries.
Third, the New Economic Model (NEM), based on encouraging exports, displaced the old import
substituting industrialization (ISI) template (Edwards, 1995). In theory, the old industries could redirect
their production toward export markets, something that would be helped by another key element of
structural adjustment, devaluation. In practice, few manufacturing companies were sufciently
competitive to do so. With some exceptions, notably Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, most of the new
exports actually came from the countryside. In certain areas, devaluation encouraged agricultural
production because for the rst time in years farmers could make a prot on their export sales (but
see Chapter 4). In terms of urban growth, devaluation effectively shifted the terms of trade against the
city. In areas of export expansion, agricultural incomes sometimes rose.

Latin America Transformed

Fourth, cuts in government budgets impacted heavily on social expenditure and particularly on
heavily subsidized urban sectors like transport, water and electricity. Newly privatized utilities started
to charge the commercial rate for the service and the higher tariffs cut into the wage packets of even
those who had retained their jobs. As most subsidies had previously only reached the cities, the debt
crisis hit the urban poor particularly hard. The impoverished in the countryside were protected in the
sense that they had never received much in the rst place.
Structural adjustment in the 1980s was meant to have improved the macro-economic structures of
Latin American countries and the benets would be felt in the 1990s. Table 5.3 shows there is some
justication for that view but also demonstrates that the results were not all that impressive.Things did
not improve greatly during the early years of the new millennium when the regions economy declined
and countries like Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela faced real crises. Whatever the promise held up
by the combination of globalization, free trade and structural reform, Table 5.3 suggests that Latin
America has so far reaped few of the benets. The growth record of the 1990s was far worse than in
the much-derided days of ISI (see Chapter 3). The slow pace of economic growth continues to have
an effect on urban development and, particularly on the urbanization of poverty (see below).
TABLE 5.3 Economic growth in selected Latin American countries since 1950 (annual growth in GDP)
Country
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Guatemala
Mexico
Peru
Venezuela
Latin America

195059

196069

197079

198089

199099

20002

2.4
6.5
3.8
4.7
4.0
5.9
4.9
8.3
4.9

4.4
6.2
4.5
5.0
5.2
7.1
5.6
5.4
5.7

3.0
8.6
2.0
5.7
5.9
6.5
4.0
3.2
5.6

0.6
2.9
3.2
3.7
0.9
2.1
0.2
0.8
1.7

4.9
2.9
7.2
3.3
4.2
2.7
5.4
1.7
3.4

5.5
2.4
3.1
1.8
2.6
2.5
2.6
0.2
1.2

Source: ECLAC (1998), World Bank (2000), CEPAL (2003).

RURALURBAN MIGRATION
For centuries Latin Americans have migrated to nd work. The Spanish forced many to move to
mining areas to produce silver and gold. Slave ships brought millions of Africans across the Atlantic. For
generations, rural labour moved seasonally in search of work on the plantations of Brazil and Peru, to
harvest the coffee in Brazil and the northern Andes and to pick bananas in Central America (Arizpe,
1982; Skeldon, 1990; Chant, 1992; Radcliffe, 1992; Bailey and Hane, 1995). In this sense the rural to
urban movement that increased so markedly after the 1930s was merely a variation on a longestablished theme of labour mobility.
In another sense, however, it was a revolutionary change. It was different from earlier patterns of
seasonal migration because most migrants began to stay permanently in the cities. In this respect Latin
Americans were unlike the majority of Africans who tended to retain their homes and rights to land
in the countryside and to move only for short periods (Gilbert and Gugler, 1992). In Latin America,
whole families gradually gave up rural life to seek their fortunes, or at least a better chance of survival,
in the cities. Urban migration was also different from most kinds of rural migration insofar as it directly
involved women. Indeed, more women tended to move to the cities than men (de Oliveira, 1991;
Chant, 1992; Radcliffe, 1992; Gilbert, 1998). Permanent migration meant that cities increasingly became
the central focus of Latin American life.
98

99

The urban revolution

People moved to the cities because urban conditions, for all of their horrors, were better than those
in the rural areas. Access to public services like electricity and drinking water was problematic in the
cities but innitely superior to that in the countryside. In Colombia, 97 per cent of urban households
had access to electricity in 1993 compared to 35 per cent of rural families. Surprisingly, even
malnutrition was less severe in the cities; in the late 1970s, for example, 62 per cent of rural families in
Latin America were malnourished compared to 26 per cent of urban families (Pfeffermann and Grifn,
1989).
If conditions were better in most cities than in most rural areas, most migrants were presumably
making a sensible choice in moving. However, many contemporary observers thought that the
migrants were choosing an erroneous path and had been tempted to move by a hopelessly optimistic
view of the city. The migrants believed that the streets of the city were paved with gold, when urban
life actually offered them little in the way of work or housing. Many city folk even regarded the new
migrants as gures of fun, particularly when they wore ponchos and spoke Indian languages. How could
these uneducated and unsophisticated natives possibly cope in the city?
Occasionally, the negative stereotype of the migrant was correct. Rural conict and violence
sometimes forced people to move to the cities in search of safety. Although they might wish to return,
they could not because their elds had been damaged or stolen. Natural disasters might also make
rural ight inevitable. Hurricanes, drought, earthquakes and oods regularly hit many areas of the
region and forced many families to leave their homes. At certain times, such refugees could well
constitute a majority of migrants although in most countries they were normally a minority.
When serious studies of the migration process began to be conducted in the 1960s, reality was
shown to be very different from the stereotype (Mangin, 1970; Portes, 1972; Peattie, 1974; Cornelius,
1975; Perlman, 1976). Most migrants were not ill adapted to urban life. And, when country folk had
time to make up their own minds and to calculate their life chances, they seemed to make rather
sensible choices.
The decision to migrate was often taken not by an individual but by the whole family. Migration was
considered to form part of the households survival strategy. How could the movement of one or
several individuals help the household survive in difcult circumstances? Was it sensible for the whole
household to move to the city or for one person to move, set up home and act as the base for others
to move later? Remittances from those in the city might even be the way in which the rest of the family
could survive in the countryside.
Migration to the city was generally rational, people moved from poorer to more prosperous places
and tended to move short distances to the nearest city. Critically, the migration process was selective.
Those who moved were not the poorest of the poor but those with a decent chance of making their
way in the city. It was those aged between 15 and 35 years of age who were most likely to move, those
who could read and write, and those with suitable skills. Women were more likely to move than men
because their labour was less in demand in the elds but they stood a better chance of getting
employment in the city, as maids, cleaners, shop assistants or even as sex workers.
Moving to the city was a real challenge but one to which most Latin Americans responded very well.
The natives of the Andes, Central America and Mexico, had a much harder task but adapted
nonetheless. Many studies reported that the migrants were so anxious to adapt to their new lives in
the city that they changed their life styles, their dress, and even their language (Andrews and Phillips,
1970; Doughty, 1970; Roberts, 1973; Lomnitz, 1977).
Of course, because most migrants have been rational, the nature of migration has changed over the
years in response to changes in the socio-economic environment. After all, large-scale urbanward
migration has now been occurring for at least 60 years and so migration now takes place in
circumstances very different from those of the early years. For example, most rural people today have
friends and relations in the city. It no longer constitutes much of a risk to move because they have
someone with whom to stay and who can help them survive. Improvements in transportation mean
that they have already been to the city on visits. One consequence is that more people without the

Latin America Transformed

ability to cope in the city on their own have been able to move. The old and the inrm can come to
the city knowing that they will be cared for. Parents will bring their young to benet from the superior
education facilities of the city. In short, the migration process has probably become less selective over
the years.
The process of migration has also changed in the sense that the stark differences in living standards
between urban and rural areas have become much less obvious since 1980. When the debt crisis hit
the cities, Latin Americans soon realized that the normal route out of poverty was no longer available.
The slow pace of urban growth in the 1980s suggests that potential migrants picked up the message
very quickly; continued residence in the countryside was now a more sensible option. With structural
adjustment and agricultural modernization, the ruralurban calculus changed. For those living in areas
of export agriculture, new opportunities were being created. Pay rates might be desperately low, but
rising unemployment and falling living standards in the cities offered nothing better.
Improving transport and communications systems were also changing the ruralurban balance.
Better roads, faster buses and lorries, and the spread of telephones allowed rural people to sell goods
in the city and return home. Better transport encouraged some urban people to work in the
countryside; the boas frias (cold lunches) of So Paulo and the agricultural workers of Santiago are
well-known examples (see Chapter 12). Similarly, many of the women who work in the cut-ower
business on the fringes of Bogot, live in the city. As Roberts (1995: 112) puts it:
the legacy of past movements and the commercialisation of most rural areas mean that the
distinction between rural and urban is often not a great one. Economic enterprise spans rural and
urban locations. The patterns of consumption of the village may be different in scale to those of the
town, but they are not different in kind.
In many places the city has absorbed the countryside (Gilbert, 1998).
As Latin America has become increasingly and predominantly urban, the nature of migration and of
the migrant has changed. Questions like Who moves and why? and, Where do they move from and
to? have always been determined by local circumstances but now urban and rural conditions in the
region have become more diverse. As such, it is much harder to generalize usefully about the process
of migration.
One other change is also critical, the way that migration has increasingly become an international
phenomenon. Rural workers from Mexico and Central America have long moved to rural jobs in
California but they now move in huge numbers to US cities as well. Half a million Mexicans now live
in Chicago and many more in other cities of the Mid-West (The Economist, 2003a). Who moves, to or
from where, is often difcult to predict; for example, why do Colombian migrants to London come
predominantly from three departments of the country rather than from the other 29 (Gilbert and
Koser, 2002)? What is certain is that international migration increases during periods of national
economic decline (Cornelius, 1991; Roberts, 1995; Gledhill, 1995). Current crises in Argentina,
Colombia and Ecuador are producing increasing ows of migrants not only to the United States but
to Spain and Italy as well (Jokisch and Pribilsky, 2002). Increasingly, the money sent back by those living
abroad are sufcient to keep the family alive at home and even to build a decent house (Durand and
Massey, 1992; Jokisch, 2002). In 2001, Salvadorans sent US$2 billion dollars back home, a contribution
equivalent to 16 per cent of the countrys GDP (BID, 2002).
All that we can say about migration today is that it is still motivated principally by economic realities
and that most migrants continue to make sensible decisions about where to live and work (see
Chapter 9). The only real exceptions come when people have little or no choice. Current experience
in Colombia where more than two million people have been displaced by rural violence, suggests that
some people do not have the luxury of choosing who in the household should move (Rojas, 2001).
Perhaps only in such circumstances does that highly simplistic explanation of migration, push and pull,
really prove helpful. When people in the countryside are being threatened with death, they are most
certainly being pushed to the cities.
100

During the days of import substituting industrialization some broad generalizations could be made
about its impact on the geography of urban growth (Gilbert, 1974; Gwynne, 1990). Since ISI aimed to
replace imports, and most of the market was concentrated in major cities, manufacturing companies
favoured the larger cities. When those cities also happened to be national capitals or ports, the
advantages of locating there multiplied. The choice facing industrialists in Argentina in 1960, when 56
per cent of the urban population lived in Buenos Aires, or in Peru when 57 per cent lived in Lima was
seemingly obvious (Fox, 1975: 206). Between 1940 and 1961, Limas share of industrial employment
in Peru increased from 14 per cent to 38 per cent (Gilbert, 1974: 61). Of course, some provincial cities
also prospered, for example, Medelln, Cali and Guadalajara, but even these cities tended to lose out
relative to the national capitals.
Important though manufacturing industry was under ISI, most of the gross domestic product was
generated by commerce, nance and services. Here the largest cities, and particularly the capital cities,
had the greatest advantage. With the economy oriented towards the domestic market, the cities with
the greatest concentrations of higher-income people tended to do best. Table 5.4 shows that during
the 1950s and 1960s, the populations of the largest cities in each of the major countries, bar Argentina,
grew more quickly than the total urban population.
During the 1970s, population growth slowed in some of the largest cities as a result of further falls
in the birth rate and because of economic de-concentration. With land prices and, sometimes, labour
costs in the major cities rising rapidly, with transport systems becoming increasingly congested and
with environmental controls beginning to bite, industrial managers began to rethink their location
strategy. Many decided to postpone expansion in the major cities and locate new facilities somewhere
else. Not infrequently, this meant establishing a new plant in a small city relatively close to the existing
facilities. Any town or city with good communications to the major market and within 200 kilometres
of the existing plant was a likely candidate for selection. Around Mexico City, Puebla and Toluca were
major beneciaries (Gilbert, 1993; Aguilar, 1999). In the state of So Paulo, the main metropolitan area

TABLE 5.4 Urban growth in major cities and countries of Latin America, 19502000 (annual rates)
Country/city
Argentina
Buenos Aires
Brazil
So Paulo
Chile
Santiago
Colombia
Bogot
Mexico
Mexico City
Peru
Lima
Venezuela
Caracas

195060

196070

197080

198090

19902000

3.0
2.9
5.0
5.3
3.9
4.3
4.4
7.2
4.8
5.0
3.6
5.0
6.1
6.6

2.2
2.0
5.1
6.7
3.0
3.2
4.3
5.9
4.7
5.6
4.9
5.3
4.6
4.5

2.3
1.6
4.3
4.4
2.8
2.8
2.7
3.0
4.5
4.2
3.5
3.7
3.9
2.0

1.9
1.1
2.7
2.0
1.8
1.9
2.8
3.3
2.7
0.9
2.8
2.8
2.5
1.4

1.7
1.2
2.2
1.7
1.8
1.6
2.5
2.5
2.0
1.6
2.3
2.6
2.5
na

Source: 195090, UNECLAC/UNCHS (2000); 19902000 are mainly estimates from UN Population Division (2001).
101

The urban revolution

THE GEOGRAPHY OF URBAN GROWTH UNDER THE NEW


ECONOMIC MODEL

Latin America Transformed

lost industrial plants to nearby cities like Campinas, Guarulhos, Santo Andr and Osasco during the
1970s and 1980s (Townroe and Keen, 1984; Diniz, 1994; Bhr and Wehrhahn, 1997).
But it was the debt crisis that really slowed the pace of growth in the major cities. As mentioned
above, manufacturing industry suffered badly under the dual impact of domestic recession and rising
competition from imports. The largest cities lost their favoured status and economic restructuring
created new opportunities for other places to attract manufacturing investment. The New Economic
Model aimed to stimulate manufacturing exports. Insofar as these exports were linked to natural
resources, for example, the production of cellulose or wine, this gave an opportunity to regions where
the raw material was produced. Export orientation also favoured cities that were close to ports or
major communication routes. Whereas ISI favoured the major cities, in places the New Economic
Model changed the balance of regional advantage. In Mexico, industrial production in the northern
states boomed (see below) and, in Chile, some of the cities in natural resource areas did well. Of
course, some of the major cities suffered little from the change in strategy because they were also in
an excellent position to produce manufactured exports. But, in general, the New Economic Model
gave much more opportunity for certain provincial cities to industrialize than previously.
Table 5.4 shows that most of the large cities lost out badly after 1982. As unemployment rose and
living conditions deteriorated, the word went back to potential migrants in the countryside and small
towns that now was not a good time to move. Indeed, the fact that Mexico City was growing more
slowly than the Mexican population generally strongly suggests that more people were actually leaving
than were arriving. For the rst time in decades, the growth rates of most of the largest cities were
lower than the respective national urban growth rates.
By the 1990s, the worst of the economic pain had seemingly passed and Latin Americas largest
cities seemed poised to expand once again. But conditions in the 1990s were different from those in
the 1960s or 1970s. Structural adjustment had opened up the region to the brave new world of global
competition. Dependent on how they performed, cities could ourish or suffer (Friedmann and Wolff,
1982; Dornbusch and Edwards, 1991; Sassen, 1991; Iglesias, 1992; Green, 1995; World Bank, 1995b;
Gilbert, 1998). Furthermore, location in a successful country did not mean that every city would
benet. In the new world order, every city was in competition with every other. Some cities did well
and others badly as the case studies below demonstrate.

THE URBANIZATION OF POVERTY


According to modernization theory, economic growth was supposed to rid Latin America, and indeed
the world, of poverty (Rostow, 1960; Kuznets, 1966). At the very least, economic growth was
supposed to reduce levels of inequality and to reduce the relative numbers of people living in poverty.
Arguably, it managed to do this in Latin America under ISI. Of course, the process was interrupted by
the debt crisis, but once the lost decade was over, economic growth would continue to reduce
poverty and make the region more equal.
There is limited evidence to suggest that this is what happened during the 1990s. While there are
signs that the incidence of poverty declined in countries, like Chile and Mexico, where economic
growth was more rapid, the population in countries like Argentina and Venezuela experienced growing
economic hardship. Indeed, for every country where there has been a fall in the incidence of poverty,
there is another where it has increased (Table 5.5). In many, the absolute numbers of people living in
poverty have actually increased.
Table 5.5 provides even less evidence to support the idea that economic growth has brought
greater equality. Indeed, many argue that the New Economic Model is highly awed in this regard.
Although the World Bank (2002b: 1) recognizes that globalization produces winners and losers and
that growing integration does not usually heighten inequality within countries (ibid.: 5), Latin America
is a major exception. In Latin America, due to prior extreme inequalities in educational attainment,
global integration has further widened wage inequalities.
102

The urban revolution

TABLE 5.5 Poverty and inequality in Latin America during the 1990s
Country

Year

Gini
coefficient

% persons below 50% of


mean per capita income
Total

Urban

Rural

Brazil

1990
1999

.501
.542

39
44

52
54

46
47

Chile

1990
2000

.554
.559

54
55

45
46

48
39

Colombia

1994
1999

.601
.572

49
46

48
46

46
40

Costa Rica

1990
1999

.438
.473

32
36

30
35

28
33

Guatemala

1989
1998

.582
.582

48
50

46
43

38
44

Mexico

1989
2000

.536
.542

44
44

43
39

34
46

Venezuela

1990
1999

.471
.498

36
39

34

31

Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador have been excluded because data are only
available for urban areas, Peru because data are only available for 1997 and 1999.
Source: CEPAL (2003: Table 24).

How has this general worsening of inequality and the increase of poverty in certain Latin American
countries affected poverty in urban and rural areas? Table 5.5 suggests that in many the urban areas
have seen a major rise in poverty. Insofar as several Latin American countries are predominantly urban,
this is hardly surprising. In Argentina or Uruguay, where 90 per cent live in urban areas, it is inevitable
that rising levels of poverty nationally will badly affect conditions in the cities. But, even in the less
urbanized countries, it seems as though urban poverty may well have increased, at least on the
measure used in Table 5.5.
Table 5.6 presents data computed on a different basis; poverty measured in terms of the proportion
of the population living below a poverty line. According to Table 5.6, the last decade of ISI saw some
increase in the numbers of people living in poverty although the incidence of poverty hardly changed.
With rural people continuing to move to the urban areas, urban poverty rose while that in the rural
areas declined. Migration was equalizing per capita income, as classical economic theory would suggest
it should, but making urban poverty worse in the process.
However, the debt crisis created millions more poor people in both the cities and the countryside.
And because the debt crisis impacted far more severely on the cities than on the countryside, the
incidence of poverty rose by 11 percentage points in urban areas compared with ve in the rural
areas. Indeed, the number of urban poor more or less doubled during the lost decade.
Since 1990, the incidence of poverty in Latin America has fallen but the absolute number of people
living in poverty has continued to increase, albeit at a much slower pace. What is interesting is that all
103

Latin America Transformed

TABLE 5.6 The incidence of poverty in Latin America, 197099


Total

1970
1980
1990
1994
1997
1999

Urban

Rural

Millions

(%)

Millions

(%)

Millions

(%)

116
136
200
202
204
211

40
41
48
46
44
44

41
63
122
126
126
134

25
30
41
39
37
37

75
73
79
76
78
77

62
60
65
65
63
64

Source: UNDIESA (1989: 39), Altimir (1994: 11) and CEPAL (2001b).

of the increase has been concentrated in the cities and the number of rural poor has diminished
slightly.
The new model of development, therefore, is not only failing to cut poverty in the region in any
signicant way but is tending to urbanize poverty. In part, this is because people continue to move to
the cities from the more impoverished rural areas. But it is also because rising rates of unemployment
and burgeoning casual employment are creating new forms of poverty in the urban areas.

DIFFERENTIAL PATTERNS OF URBAN CHANGE


The 1990s have thrust Latin America into a highly competitive market situation and some places have
fared much better than others. For this reason the following section considers the experiences of
urban growth in three different countries. Mexico represents the classic case of a country that grew
rapidly under ISI, suffered very badly during the debt crisis, and then introduced IMF-approved forms
of stabilization and adjustment. All seemed to be going well until 1994 when a major economic and
political crisis hit the country just as it entered the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA). Mexico
exemplies both the strengths and the weaknesses of the new approach to development.
Chile, by contrast, is the darling of neoliberal thinking. After the traumas of three years of democratic
socialist government and its overthrow by a military junta in 1973, the government of Augusto
Pinochet anticipated IMF policies by some years and reformed the Chilean economy along neoliberal
lines. Despite many criticisms of the social record, many argue that Chile represents the best face of
the new form of capitalism and note that it has now graduated into the category of high-income
countries in the World Bank league table (World Bank, 2002a).
Colombia presents a much more complicated picture. The country has opened up its formal
economy successfully, but there is a more covert side to economic opening. Arguably, the latter is the
principal cause of the countrys current political and social crisis. Without drugs, Colombia would not
now be suffering from civil war. Arguably, Colombia represents the worst-case scenario of
neoliberalism gone wrong.
All three countries managed to attract foreign investment during the 1990s and did better than
Latin America as a whole (Table 5.7). However, the data for 2001 are a necessary antidote to excessive
optimism, and the gures for 2002 seem still worse. One of the problems with economic integration
is that investment ows uctuate considerably (Fernndez-Arias and Hausmann, 1999).
Improved export production is one of the new criteria for judging economic performance (Table
5.8). On this criterion, Chile and Mexico have done much better than Colombia, although only Chile
has increased its share of exports since 1990.
104

The urban revolution

TABLE 5.7 Foreign direct investment: Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 19902001
Country

% of gross domestic product


1990

1997

2001

0.8
0.5
1.0
0.8

7.0
6.2
3.1
1.4

4.5
2.9
4.6
na

Chile
Colombia
Mexico
Latin America and Caribbean

Source: World Bank (1999: Table 5.1); CEPAL (2003).


TABLE 5.8 Chile, Colombia and Mexico: export performance, 19652001
Country/region

Chile
Colombia
Mexico
Latin America

Exports as % of GDP
1965

1980

1983

1990

2001

14
11
8
9

23
16
11
13

24
10
20
na

26
15
31
15

28
15
26
18

Source: World Bank, World Development Report, various years.

Mexico has outperformed the other two markedly in terms of growth in manufactured exports
(Table 5.9). On this particular indicator, the Chilean economy has done rather poorly and continued
to rely mainly on agricultural and mineral exports. Colombia is not dissimilar, with coffee, oil, and other
primary products constituting the majority of its export revenues.
One of the less desirable, and less publicized, aspects of restructuring in Latin America has been its
effect on the manufacturing sector. Whereas manufacturings share of GDP generally increased under
ISI (Table 5.10), the debt crisis and neoliberal reform have cut it. During the 1980s and 1990s, both
Chile and Colombia experienced a major relative decline in manufacturing production and Mexico
only avoided this problem because of the growth of export plants along the northern border.
Since 1980, the overall economic performance of each country differs considerably (Table 5.11).
While all struggled during the 1980s, the 1990s saw Chile surge ahead. Both Colombia and Mexico
TABLE 5.9 Chile, Colombia and Mexico: development of manufacturing exports, 19652001
Manufactures as % of total merchandise exports

Chile
Colombia
Mexico
Latin America

1965

1980

1990

2001

4
7
16
8

10
20
12
20

11
25
43
34

16
34
83
48

Source: World Bank, World Development Report, various years.


105

Latin America Transformed

TABLE 5.10 Chile, Colombia and Mexico: manufacturing value added, 195099 (% GDP)
Country

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

1999

Chile
Colombia
Mexico

23
13
19

26
16
20

28
18
23

20
21
20

21
20
21

16
12
21

Source: Adapted from Thorp (1998: 162) and World Bank (2001c: 2967).
TABLE 5.11 Chile, Colombia and Mexico: economic growth by decade since
1980 (annual growth in GDP)
Country
Chile
Colombia
Mexico
Latin America

198089

19901999

20002

3.2
3.7
2.1
1.7

7.2
3.3
2.7
3.4

3.1
1.8
2.5
1.2

Source: Inter-American Development Bank (2003).

have struggled. The rst three years of the new millennium show that, along with most of the region,
all three countries face a complicated future.
The urban consequences
Mexico
Mexico is almost a classic case of how ISI and subsequent restructuring should affect the urban system.
During the years of ISI, the populations of the three largest cities, Mexico City, Guadalajara and
Monterrey, grew rapidly and only cities on the northern border, like Tijuana, Mexicali, and Matamoros,
and major tourist centres, like Acapulco, grew faster (Table 5.12). The big three received the bulk of
the increase in industrial and commercial investment. The pace of urban expansion slowed in the
1970s, but the real change in their fortunes came with the debt crisis. All three grew more slowly than
the countrys urban population as a whole and Mexico City was affected particularly badly. It is
possible that the slowdown was exaggerated by the 1990 census, which was much criticized in Mexico
City at the time. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the growth rate of Mexico City was very much
slower than in earlier years. Mexico City lost some 6,000 companies and one-quarter of a million
manufacturing jobs between 1981 and 1988 (Rowland and Gordon, 1996; Garza, 1999).
Economic restructuring favoured the cities along the US-Mexico border as regular devaluations of
the peso made them increasingly attractive to foreign investors. Their growth was also stimulated by
migration across the international border and the series of agreements made with the United States,
beginning with the bracero programme in 1942, continuing with the establishment of the Border
Industrialization Programme in 1965, and culminating in Mexicos entry into NAFTA in 1994 (PerlCohen, 1987; South, 1990; Sklair, 1992; Kopinak, 1996). Starting from humble beginnings, the border
cities boomed in the 1940s and 1950s before growing at more reasonable rates during the period
after 1970. However, unlike Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, the border cities continued to
grow rapidly during the debt crisis. Devaluation of the peso made Mexican labour very cheap and
proved very attractive to US and Japanese companies (see Table 5.13). By 1999, maquiladoras
accounted for 27 per cent of all manufacturing employment in Mexico. After 2000, NAFTA rules
106

The urban revolution

TABLE 5.12 Mexico: population growth rates in the major cities, 19502000
195060

196070

197080

198090

19902000

5.0
6.4
6.3
2.3
5.0
2.2
7.2
9.3
3.1
1.8
5.5
5.7
4.8
3.0

5.2
5.5
5.7
5.5
5.0
3.8
5.0
7.7
1.4
2.2
5.6
13.1
4.9
3.3

4.2
4.0
4.6
4.3
4.3
4.5
2.8
2.6
4.5
6.1
3.9
5.3
4.3
3.2

0.4
2.6
2.5
2.5
2.9
3.4
3.8
5.0
2.8
2.7
3.0
5.3
2.8
2.0

1.6
2.5
2.2
2.6
2.7
2.6
4.4
5.7
3.1
3.0
2.7
3.4
2.0
1.8

Mexico City
Guadalajara
Monterrey
Puebla
Len
San Lus Potos
Ciudad Jurez
Tijuana
Torren
Mrida
Chihuahua
Acapulco
Urban population
Total population

Source: CEPAL (2002), INEGI (2002) and Demographia (2001).


TABLE 5.13 Mexico: growth of the maquiladoras, 19662002
Year

Companies

Employees (000s)

Foreign exchange earnings (US$m)

1966
1975
1980
1985
1987
1991
1994
1997
2000
2002*

1,157
1,454
1,620
1,760
1,125
1,914
2,085
2,661
3,590
na

1,114
1,167
1,120
1,212
1,305
1,467
1,583
1,888
1,285
1,066

na
11,454
11,773
1,450
1,598
4,134
5,803
7,593
13,523
na

*JanuaryApril
Source: Gilbert (2002: 221).

removed customs duties so the advantages of the maquilas have been less marked and employment
fell between 2000 and 2002 (see Box 3.1).
Other cities also beneted under the New Economic Model. Tourist centres prospered during the
1980s and 1990s as the cost of travel for North Americans became progressively cheaper. Acapulco
grew rapidly along with newer tourist cities like Cancn and Puerto Vallarta. The downside of
restructuring is that many areas did not nd much of a niche in the world economy. Areas in the south
of the country and in parts of northern central Mexico were hit particularly badly, for example, the
states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Zacatecas. Far from the US border, and unlike Yucatn, not even close
to Florida, these areas attracted little in the way of foreign investment. As they also produced
agricultural or mining products with little economic potential, cities in these states declined relative to
most other parts of the country.
107

Latin America Transformed

The unequal outcome of restructuring is reected in the available gures on per income by state.
For while the gap in terms of per capita income between the richest state, the Federal District, and
poorest, Oaxaca, increased from 19.4 to 29.5 between 1980 and 1999, some states in north and
central Mexico improved their relative position (Hernndez-Laos, 2000; Arroyo, 2001; Tamayo-Flores,
2001). What is more worrying is that the partial reduction in regional disparities has led to very little
reduction in poverty (Table 5.14). In 1999, two out of ve Mexicans were still living in poverty. The
debt crisis increased poverty, which was partially redressed by the restructuring between 1988 and
1994. However, the Tequila crisis of 1994 hit the poor very hard and subsequent improvements have
only put the incidence of poverty back to the level it was before the debt crisis hit. The improvements
since 1995 are welcome, but whether they are wholly the outcome of restructuring is doubtful. More
important, perhaps, is that millions of Mexicans have left the country for the United States. Poverty in
Mexico has been reduced both by their physical departure and by their remittances. In 1995, Mexican
migrants sent back US$4 billion of their earnings to their families in Mexico (Castro and Tuirn, 2000)
and in 2001, a staggering US$9.2 billion (The Economist, 2003a).
TABLE 5.14 Mexico: poverty and inequality, 19632001
Year

1963
1977
1984
1989
1994
1996
1998
2000
2001

Gini
coefficient

.536
.539

.542

% population
below poverty line
45.1 (77.5)
45.1 (58.0)
45.1 (58.5)
47.8 (59.0*)
45.1 (73.7)
52.1 (79.5)
46.9 (79.5)
41.1 (79.5)
42.3 (79.5)

% urban population
below poverty line

% rural population
below poverty line

42.1
36.8
45.1
38.9
32.3

57.0
56.5
62.5
58.5
54.7

* 1988
Source: CEPAL (2002: Tables 14 and 26); bracketed figures are from Hernndez-Laos (2000: 871).

Insofar as there has been any reduction in poverty levels since 1989, it seems to have favoured
urban Mexico.The incidence of poverty in the rural areas is not much better today than it was in 1989.
Despite the continued departure of people to the cities and even across the northern border, few
rural areas have beneted from restructuring or from growing integration with the United States and
Canada. The rural states of the far south have certainly gained little and it was the fears of farmers in
the southern state of Chiapas about the effects of NAFTA that was one of the factors behind the
Zapatista rebellion (see Chapter 12).
The more urbanized states have done relatively better and all the northern states increased their
per capita GDP between 1980 and 1999 (Arroyo, 2001). However, this has done little to improve
living conditions along the border where between 60 and 75 percent of the population lives in
poverty (Kelly, 2002: 6). It could be argued that life in the border cities is the best illustration possible
of the urbanization of poverty under the New Economic Model.
But, what of Mexico City? For years, the capital dominated the Mexican economy but since 1982
that dominance has been under threat. The citys share of national manufacturing employment
plummeted from 49.5 per cent in 1980 to a mere 23.5 per cent in 1998; despite the latter gure
including every industrial centre in the State of Mexico (INEGI, 2001). It has lost public sector jobs, the
number of public servants declining by 28,000 between 1987 and 1995. Surprisingly, too, it has even
108

Chile
During the 1950s ISI helped both Santiago and Concepcin, although its impact was less marked
during the 1960s. The city that beneted most from industrialization during the 1960s was Arica,
mainly because it was given special import tax status in 1958. And, when a bizarre political decision
banned car production in Santiago and virtually forced vehicle manufacturers to locate in the countrys
northernmost port, the citys population exploded (Gilbert, 1974; Gwynne, 1978).
None of the major cities grew very quickly after 1970 because Chiles population was increasing
rather slowly and most Chileans already lived in urban areas. But the liberalization strategy of the new
military government meant that during the 1970s, the most dynamic cities were those that were
linked to export production. Antofagasta, Arica,Talca, La Serena-Coquimbo and Temuco all grew faster
than the largest three cities (Table 5.15). By the 1980s, it was the cities in the south that were
prospering most, a consequence of the major boom in agricultural and timber exports.
TABLE 5.15 Chile: annual population growth of the largest cities, 195292

Santiago
Valparaiso-Via del Mar
Concepcin-Talcahuano
Antofagasta
La Serena-Coquimbo
Temuco
Rancagua
Arica
Talca
16 largest cities
Total national population

195260

196070

197082

198292

4.2
2.7
3.5
4.0
2.7
3.2
3.0
0.8
2.8
3.7
2.5

3.3
2.0
3.0
3.7
3.4
4.3
5.1
15.2
3.1
3.3
2.0

2.7
2.0
2.4
3.3
3.1
3.0
4.0
3.9
3.1
2.7
2.0

1.9
1.2
1.9
2.0
3.0
2.9
2.6
1.5
1.4
1.9
1.6

Cities with more than 150,000 people in 1992.


Source: CEPAL (2001b).
109

The urban revolution

been losing a few headquarters of major companies to Greater Monterrey; in 1980 Mexico City
hosted 19 of the countrys 25 largest companies; in 2000 only 17. The citys relative decline is
underlined by the fact between 1980 and 1999 the Federal Districts contribution to the countrys
GDP fell by 2.7 percentage points and that the State of Mexico by 0.3 (Arroyo, 2001).
Despite this decline, the per capita income of the Federal District, which now contains only 47 per
cent of Mexico Citys population, actually rose between 1980 and 1999 and the capital maintained its
position at the top of the league table of per capita income in 1999. Although it lost many
manufacturing jobs, service employment has grown rapidly. While many of these service jobs have
been in low-income activities, like street trading, there has also been a major expansion in production
services. Like most Latin American capitals a series of major hotel chains, accountancy rms and
advertising agencies have established branches in the city. After all, Mexico City is still by far and away
the major centre of decision-making in the country.
But, if the central core of the city has become more afuent, the rest of the greater metropolitan
area has not. Most of the citys poor live outside the Federal District in the State of Mexico, an area
where per capita income declined between 1980 and 1999. Arguably, Mexico City is experiencing the
full social impact of global city status, growing polarization (Sassen, 1991). People with skills and capital
have prospered; those without have done badly. Mexico City reects the new reality under Latin
American neoliberalism of a polarization of incomes (Dussel, 2000). The urbanization of poverty is
accompanied by the urbanization of afuence.

Latin America Transformed

Santiago grew slowly after 1970 when the combination of fertility decline, structural adjustment and
economic de-concentration began to sap its vitality. Indeed, the population of Santiago relative to that
of the largest 16 cities remained constant from 1960 to 1992 58 per cent.The national capital initially
fared badly under Pinochets neoliberal reforms because they allowed imports to ood into the
country putting many local manufacturing companies out of business. As the largest manufacturing
centre, industrial production in Santiago was badly affected and its share of the countrys industrial
value added fell from 52.1 per cent in 1970 to 43.5 per cent 15 years later (de Mattos, 1996; 1999:
37). Since the mid-1980s, much of Santiagos dynamism has returned and it has re-established its
former dominance over the Chilean economy; in 1991 51 per cent of Chiles industrial value added
and some 47 per cent of its gross domestic product were produced in the city.
Chilean experience is similar to that of Mexico insofar as the neoliberal model has increasingly
favoured cities that are linked to the production of exports. However, unlike Mexico, and indeed most
of the rest of the region, poverty has been in decline since 1975. Since 1990 the combination of
healthy economic growth, the return of democracy, a tendency for unemployment to fall and the
establishment of a fairly effective social safety net has cut poverty in both urban and rural areas. Where
Chile differs from Mexico is that the incidence of urban and rural poverty is very similar (Table 5.16).
The rural poor have gained, to a degree, from the boom in export agriculture.
The worrying feature of the Chilean experience is that after so many years of relatively rapid
economic growth, one in ve Chileans is still living in poverty. Many observers blame this situation on
the nature of the development model. First, given the labour reforms and the ability to hire and re
relatively easily, many urban and rural jobs pay very low wages. Second, there has been no change in
the distribution of income (Table 5.16) and in Chile, as in the rest of Latin America, inequality is
increasingly being blamed for slowing the pace of economic growth (Morley, 1995; Berry, 1998; IDB,
1998; World Bank, 2002b).
Many commentators have criticized the Chilean economic miracle because it has failed to reduce
inequality nationwide and has created increasingly polarized cities. This is most obvious in Santiago
where globalization has allowed highly educated Chileans to capitalize on their skills and the inow of
cheap imports has improved their life style while sustaining unemployment and low wages among the
less skilled.The nature of urban management has also divided the city (CED, 1990; Dockerndorff et al.,
2000; Sabatini, 2000). The military regime demolished squatter settlements located in high-income
areas and moved the population to the poorest municipalities (Rodrguez and Icaza, 1993; Scarpaci et
al., 1988). What made the situation worse was that the authorities in these impoverished areas were
given little in the way of additional resources to cope with the inux. Spatial segregation was
TABLE 5.16 Chile: poverty and inequality, 19702001
Year

1970
1987
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2001

Gini
coefficient

0.554

0.553
0.559

% population
below poverty line
17.1 38.6
38.1 38.6
34.6 38.6
27.7 38.6
34.6 27.5
34.6 23.2
34.6 21.7
34.6 20.6
34.6 20.0

Source: CEPAL (2002: Table 14); Feres (2001); Scott (1996).


110

% urban population
below poverty line

% rural population
below poverty line

38.4

39.5

26.9
21.8
20.7
20.1

30.9
30.6
27.6
23.8

Colombia
If liberalization and globalization have produced some benets for the poor of Chile and even Mexico,
the balance of advantage in Colombia is currently much more debatable. Colombia went through a
period of moderately successful import substituting industrialization in the 1950s and 1960s which,
assisted by the discovery of oil, coal, emeralds and nickel, produced steady if unspectacular rates of
economic growth. The country suffered some economic and nancial problems during the debt crisis,
but many fewer than most countries in the region (Edwards, 1995; Green, 1995).
Unfortunately, this history of seemingly admirable economic management failed to produce a
peaceful society. Not only was Colombia as unequal as most of its neighbours but it had far more than
its share of political and social violence. During the 1980s, the number of violent deaths grew rapidly
as the drug gangs, police, guerrillas and paramilitary forces came increasingly into conict.
Increasing levels of violence and slower economic growth convinced the economic and political elite
that it was essential to change its economic model. A new government in 1986 promised to make
Colombia more like an Asian Tiger and the country took a major step along this path in 1990. The
neoliberal agenda of the government of Csar Gaviria (199094) was to make the economy more
efcient, cut the responsibilities of the state, open up the economy and keep ination under control
(Ramrez-Ocampo, 1998). Colombia also sought to follow Chiles example by reforming its pension,
social security, health and housing systems, reducing the power of organized labour and privatizing
many state enterprises (Hommes et al., 1994: 49).
The country also introduced political reforms in an effort to reduce the level of political conict and
civil violence. A new constitution in 1991 attempted to liberalize the countrys political institutions and
to devolve power to the cities and departments.The political equivalent of opening up the country to
foreign investment and imports was to make government more efcient, more democratic and more
responsive to ordinary Colombians.
If we are to believe the World Bank, which included Colombia in its list of 24 more-globalized
developing countries in 2001, the new model was highly successful (World Bank, 2001c: 51). Certainly,
the pace of economic growth was quite impressive during the mid-1990s and in cities like Bogot
levels of unemployment and poverty fell dramatically (Gilbert, 1997a). Unfortunately, the positive
picture changed in 1997 when an economic recession hit the country and when the country began
to reap the bitter fruits of the hidden side of globalization (Sarmiento, 1999).
Colombia, of course, has become famous for supplying drugs to the developed world. Marijuana,
cocaine and, most recently, opium exports have contributed to the economy even if the foreign
exchange generated has never been registered in ofcial statistics. Estimates of the value of drug
production vary, although the most commonly cited gure is around 2 per cent of GDP (Thoumi,
1995; Fernndez, 1996; Steiner, 1998; The Economist, 2001a).
The real problem with the drug trade for Colombia is that its illegality has stimulated increasing
levels of violence and corruption (Tirado, 1998). In 1989, no less than three presidential candidates
were assassinated during the electoral campaign and President Samper was accused in 1994 of
receiving campaign contributions from the Cali cartel a charge that severely weakened his
presidency and increasingly damaged the national economy. Gradually, too, the FARC and ELN
guerrillas were taking control of the rural areas and imposing taxes on drug producers; a business that
the World Bank (2002b: 127) estimates is worth US$500 million per year.
Although violence has been a feature of life in some cities for years, and particularly in Medelln
during the reign of Pablo Escobar, the worst problems lie in the countryside. In many areas violence
has reached such extreme levels that it has forced people to ee to the cities and it is estimated that
more than two million people have been displaced by the conict (Table 5.17).
111

The urban revolution

aggravated in the 1990s by the privatization of space. The creation of guarded residential complexes
has protected the better off and even the poor have begun to fence off public space in an effort to
cut crime and improve their living conditions (Ducci, 1997).

Latin America Transformed

TABLE 5.17 Colombia: the economy, murders and internal displacement, 19902001
Internally
displaced people
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002

Annual
murders

77,000
110,000
64,000
45,000
78,000
89,000
181,000
257,000
308,000
288,000
317,375
341,925
90,179 (Jan.Mar.)

Per capita income


(annual growth)

24,267
28,140
28,224
28,026
26,807
22,062
24,155
24,306
26,062
na
na
na
na

Urban
unemployment (%)

2.2
0.0
2.1
2.4
3.8
2.9
0.0
1.4
1.1
5.6
0.4
0.4
0.0 (Jan.Sept.)

10.6
9.4
9.8
7.8
8.0
9.5
11.3
12.0
15.6
18.0
19.5
16.8
15.7

Sources: Rojas (2001: 33); Sarmiento-Anzola (1999: 113); CODHES (2002); Banco de la Repblica (2002).

The drug trade, and the internal violence that it has released, have also brought the threat of
international intervention. Under Plan Colombia the US government is helping Colombia to control
the production of drugs by providing military assistance and European governments are providing aid
to improve social conditions in rural areas. However, the plan is very controversial and to date is
showing relatively little sign of success. It is difcult to believe that greater US involvement will not
accentuate the deadly cocktail of ofcial, paramilitary, guerrilla and drug-related conict. The plight of
Nicaragua in the 1980s is one possible future scenario for Colombia.
It is less than certain how Colombias unique combination of formal and informal globalization has
affected the recent geography of urban growth. Until 1973, the pattern was relatively clear, rapid urban
growth was occurring but was producing a pattern of urban development that was relatively balanced
by Latin American standards. Colombia was a country of medium-sized cities and each region had its
own urban hub. ISI had increased the level of industrial and urban concentration, and Bogot certainly
beneted considerably, but Table 5.18 shows that many other cities grew just as rapidly.
TABLE 5.18 Colombia: annual population growth of the largest cities, 195193
City
Bogot
Medelln
Cali
Barranquilla
Cartagena
Bucaramanga
Ccuta
Pereira
Total urban
Total population
Source: CEPAL (2001b).
112

195164

196473

197385

198593

7.0
8.0
7.2
4.4
5.1
5.5
5.6
5.0
4.4
2.9

5.8
1.8
4.9
4.0
3.8
5.3
5.0
4.6
4.3
2.9

3.0
2.4
2.6
3.0
3.8
3.0
4.5
3.0
2.7
1.6

2.0
1.2
1.8
1.3
1.9
2.3
1.6
3.2
1.9
1.4

113

The urban revolution

After 1973, fertility rates continued to decline rapidly. In the late 1960s the average Colombian
woman gave birth to 6.2 children, by the late 1970s this had fallen to 4.3 and by the late 1990s she
bore only 2.8 children (CELADE, 2001: 65). This helped to slow the pace of urbanization even if cityward migration continued to boost the populations of most of the larger cities, which continued to
grow much faster than the national population and slightly faster than the total urban population. The
country was much less affected by the debt crisis than most of its neighbours so that the pace of
urban growth did not fall dramatically.
Traditionally, Colombia has had a more even pattern of urbanization than most other Latin
American countries. In 1951 Bogot had approximately the same population as that of the next two
cities, Medelln and Cali, combined. However, import substitution tended to favour Bogots expansion
because of its larger market and because it was the administrative centre of the country (Gilbert,
1975; Dvila, 1996) and its population grew more rapidly than those of its two main rivals after 1964.
Since 1985, the liberalization of imports has brought major problems for the textile and clothing
industry of Medelln, a situation made worse by the tendency for drug trafckers to bring in very
cheap imported goods as a means of laundering drug monies. Colombia has recently postponed the
date of its census so we will not know what happened to urban growth in the 1990s for some time.
Export production has no doubt had some effect and insofar as most of Colombias exports come
from agriculture and mining, export production has stimulated growth in a number of provincial cities.
The growth of petroleum production in the llanos, nickel in northern Antioquia and coal from the
Guajira have all had some local impact on urban growth although the recent decline in the world
coffee price had badly affected the central area of the country. The other clear urban outcome is that
the ood of displaced people has impacted heavily on cities located in the areas of conict and
increasingly even on major cities like Bogot. Many rural areas have suffered badly since 1990 and
currently as much as 40 per cent of Colombias total area is effectively beyond the control of the
state.
Bogot has continued to grow despite these problems and indeed has ourished as its
administration has become more streamlined and major projects like the Transmilenio bus system
have been completed. Indeed, Bogot is now regarded as the new Curitiba, a Latin American example
of how cities ought to be run (Gilbert and Dvila, 2002). Criminal activity is declining, the streets are
relatively clean and the parks are well kept. The globalization of Bogot has produced a World Trade
Centre, a glut of BMWs and a series of new exclusive hotels. The main problems come from the high
level of unemployment and the citys inability to generate much in the way of exports beyond cut
owers and leather. The recent decision of the guerrillas to take the war to the cities is also a major
concern and the wave of bomb and rocket attacks do not encourage too much optimism. This
confused situation means that any effort to predict the urban future is difcult. The situation is as likely
to get worse as it is to get better.
Has Colombia suffered from the urbanization of poverty? Table 5.19 suggests that Colombia ts the
traditional theory that economic growth is effective in reducing poverty. Poverty diminished between
1978 and 1995, before rising rapidly during the economic crisis of the late 1990s. The extent to which
poverty has increased since 1997, however, is in dispute; CEPAL (2002) reports that 55 per cent of
Colombians were living in poverty in 2001, whereas the Colombian government has recently admitted
to a gure of 68 per cent (El Tiempo, 2002; Sarmiento-Palacio, 2002). Similar disputes revolve around
the reliability of gures on the distribution of income (Londoo, 1995; Sarmiento-Anzola, 1999).
The incidence of poverty continues to be much higher in rural areas than in the cities and Nez
and Ramrez (2003: 19) estimate that in 2000, 84 per cent of rural Colombians were living in poverty
compared with 50 per cent of their urban compatriots. However, since 1995 poverty seems to have
increased more rapidly in the cities than in the countryside (ibid.). There are two fundamental causes.
First, unemployment has affected the major cities badly and, second, the arrival of so many displaced
people from the countryside has contributed further to urban poverty. In the late 1990s that was the
urbanization of poverty, Colombian style.

Latin America Transformed

TABLE 5.19 Colombia: poverty and inequality, 197899


1978

1988

1995

1999

80
46
33
112

65
29
19
183

60
21
13
216

64
23
16
210

Urban
Poverty rate
Extreme poverty rate
US$2 per day poverty

70
27
34

55
17
5

48
10
3

55
14
5

Rural
Poverty rate
Extreme poverty rate
US$2 per day poverty

94
68
59

80
48
38

79
37
29

79
37
30

National
Poverty rate
Extreme poverty rate
US$2 per day poverty
Mean income per capita ($000)

Gini coefficient

0.54*

0.55**

0.56

0.59

*1980 ** 1991
Source: World Bank (1994) and Sarmiento-Anzola (1999: 79).

AN UNPREDICTABLE FUTURE
Urbanization has brought revolutionary change to Latin America insofar as it has changed the nature
of most peoples lives.The cities have provided the safety valve for people to escape from rural penury
and over the years the quality of life has improved in certain very important ways. Today, people live
to a much greater age than ever before, women bear many fewer children, lives are more complex
and arguably more interesting and most homes now have a television set. What urbanization has failed
to bring is greater equality, justice or even peace of mind.
The process of urbanization was fairly similar in most parts of the region during much of the
twentieth century. Of course, the pace of change varied, as did the timing of urban growth, but the
similarities were undeniable. Ruralurban migration, metropolitan expansion, industrialization, and the
proliferation of informal settlement and employment transformed the cities from 1950 until 1980.
Urban poverty increased as the cities absorbed large numbers of impoverished rural people, but only
moderately. The migration process was surprisingly orderly as the rural people best equipped to
survive in the cities moved, leaving the less able and adaptable behind.The new urbanites were broadly
conservative; they sought integration into an unequal society rather than striving to change it (Portes,
1972).
Urbanization during the latest phase of globalization has continued to be profoundly unequal.
Indeed, the cities have arguably become increasingly polarized both socially and spatially. Under
neoliberalism, those with skills have generally prospered while the unskilled have encountered a more
difcult economic environment. During periods of economic expansion the living conditions of the
poor have sometimes improved but during downturns, they have generally suffered. However, if the
cities have become more segregated and polarized, the gulf between incomes in urban and rural areas
has frequently got smaller. Indeed, today, although the incidence of poverty is still higher in rural areas,
the gap between urban and rural living conditions in parts of Latin America has been reduced.
The equalization of urban and rural living conditions has sometimes been encouraged by
agricultural modernization and the growth of exports. In this respect, liberalization has been a positive
114

FURTHER READING
Blouet, B. and Blouet, O. (eds) (2004) Latin America and the Caribbean, John Wiley, New York,
4th edition. An introductory survey of Latin America which includes both systematic chapters and
descriptions of individual regions. There is a chapter on the Latin American city.
De Soto, H. (2000) The mystery of capital, Basic Books, New York. A highly inuential book
providing a rather persuasive if terribly simplistic explanation of why poor people remain poor. The
book addresses urban problems in most poor countries but as it is written by a Peruvian has a
strong Latin American avour.
Gilbert, A.G. (1998) The Latin American city, Latin America Bureau, London, second edition.
Considers the causes of urban growth, the diverse nature of Latin American cities and the problems
that they face.
115

The urban revolution

force. The downside of the shift from ISI to the neoliberal model is that the debt crisis urbanized
poverty. Economic stabilization programmes slowed urban growth particularly in the largest cities and
economic recession cut both jobs and wages. The gap in incomes between urban and rural areas was
reduced in large part because the urban areas got poorer while the rural areas stayed the same.
Of course, the New Economic Model created new opportunities and challenges. Some cities have
been able to respond while others have not. In the past, it was obvious that the largest cities would
prosper; today, they may or may not it all depends. The past 20 years have ushered in a phase of
global competition that ensures that some cities will succeed but usually only at the expense of others.
The case studies of Chile, Colombia and Mexico show that cities able to generate exports are likely
to do much better than the average. Most national capitals will also fare reasonably well, but as the
experience of Mexico City suggests, that is not always the case.
Whatever the urban impact of globalization, local conditions are always likely to change, and
sometimes extremely rapidly. One of the least desirable features of globalization is that local economic
conditions are so unstable. The economy of a city that was doing well last year may plunge into
difculty this. Since 1990, most countries in Latin America have experienced periods of growth
interrupted by sudden downturns. The causes of recession have generally originated outside the
country, for example, the Tequila, Russian and Asian crises, although inappropriate domestic policies
have often made the local impact much worse. In an increasingly integrated world, events thousands
of miles away can hit a country or a city suddenly and profoundly. Bogots economy was booming in
the mid-1990s and then, suddenly, it was not. In the early 1990s Mexicos economy was recovering
well from the debt crisis, was about to join NAFTA, when suddenly everything went awry. More recent
examples are the severe recessions experienced in Argentina and Uruguay.
If one of the features of poverty is that people lack a feeling of economic security, then the instability
of global processes may well have increased poverty in Latin America. If people feel poorer because
their neighbours have become markedly richer than themselves, then the polarization unleashed by
globalization has worsened poverty in the cities. And, if the absolute numbers of people living in
poverty in cities is greater than ever before, then perhaps we can speak of the urbanization of poverty
in Latin America.
During the twentieth century, the process of urbanization in Latin America was revolutionary; it
transformed peoples lives in unimaginable ways. The danger is that in the twenty-rst century, it may
become revolutionary in a more political way. Of course, given the unpredictable nature of this
globalizing world, this is less a prediction than the expression of a feeling of foreboding. In any case,
what happens in one Latin American city or country most certainly will not happen in another. The
urbanization process in that sense has become both more unpredictable and uneven and also
become inherently more geographical.

Latin America Transformed

World Bank (2002) Globalization, growth, and poverty: building an inclusive world economy, Oxford
University Press, Oxford. Concerned only in part with Latin America but is useful insofar as it
provides a concise and fairly convincing case in favour of globalization. While it errs on the side of
optimism, it does point out the special problems that seem to be holding back so many Latin
American countries.

WEBSITES
Inter-American Development Bank, www.iadb.org, with up-to-date statistics on economic
and social matters. Latin American newspapers (some in English) can be accessed through this web
page.
World Bank, www.worldbank.org, a very extensive set of web pages, many of which deal with
urban matters.

116

6
The political economy of sustainable
development
Warwick E. Murray and Eduardo Silva

Sustainable development became an increasingly popular paradigm, both in academic and policy
circles, in the last two decades of the twentieth century, as it was realized that environment and
development are not separate challenges: they are inexorably linked (Brundtland, 1987: 37). In this
chapter, sustainable development is dened in a broad sense. To be sustainable, development must be
viable in the long run in a number of closely interlinked ways. Thus, sustainability refers to more than
purely ecological/environmental sustainability. In particular, political, economic and social sustainability
are considered equally important. Sustainable development is the product of combining
environmental and developmental concerns and although it is subject to disciplinary biases it usually
refers to decisions affecting the sustainability of consumption, production, the resource base and
livelihoods obtained from the resource base (Redclift, 1987). It has been dened as development that
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs (Brundtland, 1987: 43). Meanwhile contemporary development studies envisages a
political economy framework as one which studies the relationships between market-based
economics and democratically-based politics.The study of political economy attempts to push enquiry
past the purely economic to uncover the root causes of the political and social characteristics of
capitalist production.
Part of the limitations of the sustainable development thinking and the reformist technical guidelines
is their failure to address political economy. Without a theory of how the world economy works,
and without theories about the relations between people, capital and state power, sustainable
development thinking is locked within a limited compass. (Goldin and Winters, 1995: 200)
This chapter seeks to span this divide, presenting discussion on the political-economic and
environmental dimensions of the sustainability of natural resource use in Latin America and the links
between these two areas of analysis.
It is certainly true that the globalization and population growth of Latin American countries is
radically affecting natural resource use. The globalization of Latin American economies has been
closely linked to the political and economic objectives of higher economic growth and the policies of
economic reform that have been introduced since the mid-1980s in order to achieve it (see Chapters
3 and 4). As a result, trade and investment have expanded, particularly in terms of non-traditional
exports. In Latin America (as opposed to East Asia), non-traditional exports have tended to be
concentrated more in natural resource areas than in manufacturing.
Thus, recent export growth has been particularly evident in the agricultural, shing, forestry and, to
a lesser extent, mining sectors. The emphasis on trade has meant clearing more forest for timber
exports and to make more land available for export agriculture and ranching. Such was the case with
soya production in Bolivia in the 1990s, and cattle ranching in Costa Rica in the 1980s. The emphasis
on trade also produces pressure for more prospecting for and development of mining (oil in Ecuador;
gold and gems in Venezuela; iron in Brazil), as well as heightened industrial use of water, and more
117

Latin America Transformed

intensive shing (World Resources Institute, 1994). International capital markets reinforce the pattern.
Latin American nations are saddled with the heavy burden of a debt overhang the legacy of the debt
crisis of the 1980s. Servicing those debts is a key condition of continued creditworthiness in
international capital markets. Doing so requires generating even more exports, or else too much
precious foreign exchange will go to pay the creditors and not enough will remain for development
needs (Miller, 1991).
This increased resource extraction has brought into focus the question of the long-term politicaleconomic and environmental sustainability of such economic policies. Environmental factors in
particular cannot be omitted from the question of contemporary development in Latin America. If
Latin American countries achieve further economic growth in future years, their use of non-renewable
resources and their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions will increase, particularly if the level of
heavy industry increases.Thus, provisions must be made to promote the efcient use of resources and
the minimization of wastes. In urban areas, policies must be formulated to ensure that the
development needs of the poor are met without imposing unsustainable levels of resource use and
waste creation (WHO, 1992).
The interdependence between the environment and society ensures that ecological possibilities are
inextricably linked to social and economic policies.Thus, the aim of Latin American societies, within the
scope of sustainable development, should be to achieve social, economic, political and ecological
targets, while simultaneously minimizing the level of local, regional and global environmental damage
(see Figure 6.1). Sustainable development must be concerned with the rational use of resources
minimizing the use of non-renewable resources and ensuring that renewable resources can be used
for the long rather than short term. However, the essential point about sustainable development (and
one that can be ignored by environmentalists) is that it must aim to meet basic human needs access
to an adequate livelihood, access to adequate shelter and a healthy environment and some form of
participation in decision-making that affects those basic human needs (see Figure 6.1).
The question of environmental sustainability, then, must be rmly set within the framework of social
and political relations. Virtually all national governments in Latin America have declared aims of
achieving high economic growth, greater equity and environmental sustainability. However, at present,
there are signicant trade-offs between these declared aims. With this in mind, this chapter is divided
into a number of sections. First, the political economy of resource use will examine the conicts in
resource use between the aims of economic growth and environmental sustainability in general at the
continental scale, with reference to particular national and regional scale case studies. It will review the
extent of the reliance on natural resource exports that currently characterizes the continent. Then, it
deals with questions concerning sustainability given the contemporary focus on primary product
exploitation and export. There are essentially two controversies: the political-economic threats to
sustainability yielded by current economic policy and the environmental impacts of primary product
orientation. In the next section, two policy models for sustainable development are outlined the
large-scale project and the grassroots approaches. Finally, we attempt to complete the historical
framework underlying these concerns and suggest where debate and policy might go from here.

NATURAL RESOURCE USE ECONOMY OR ENVIRONMENT?


Economies use natural resources in ever-increasing quantities to produce the goods and services we
consume. Until the past two decades, it was widely assumed that natural resources were free, in the
sense that their extraction need not consider environmental side effects. This view has changed. It is
now generally recognized that the unrestrained extraction of natural resources all too often results in
their rapid depletion and environmental degradation. The consequences include the health hazards
inherent in water and air pollution and the poisoning of land with agrochemicals and pesticides. Local
and global climate change threaten. Species extinction contributes to the loss of biodiversity, sapping
the vitality of the gene pool life relies on for its creation; it also robs us of economically useful species,
118

MINIMIZING USE OF NONR E N E WA B L E R E S O U R C E S


( Fo s s i l f u e l s, m i n e ra l s,
l o s s o f b i o d i ve r s i t y )

S U S TA I N A B L E
DEVELOPMENT

S U S TA I N A B L E U S E O F
R E N E WA B L E R E S O U R C E S
( e. g . a q u i fe r s a n d f r e s h wa t e r
r u n o f f, s o i l s, b i o m a s s )

KEEPING WITH ABSORPTIVE


C A PAC I T Y O F L O C A L A N D
G L O BA L S I N K S F O R WA S T E
( e. g . fo r gr e e n h o u s e g a s e s,
s t ra t o s p h e r i c o zo n e d e p l e t i n g
c h e m i c a l s, p e r s i s t e n t c h e m i c a l s,
fo r l i q u i d wa s t e s a n d s u r fa c e
r u n o f f, ke e p i n g w i t h i n a b s o r p t i ve
c a p a c i t i e s o f wa t e r b o d i e s , e t c . )

Access to adequate livelihood


(often implies access to
n a t u ra l r e s o u r c e s )

MEETING
HUMAN
NEEDS

Choice
Pa r t i c i p a t i o n i n n a t i o n a l
and local politics and
respect of human rights

Access to adequate
s h e l t e r a n d h e a l t hy
e nv i ro n m e n t
(including basic ser vices)

The political economy of sustainable development

119

Figure 6.1 Components of sustainable development. Source: adapted from Mitlin (1992: 3)

Latin America Transformed

thus jeopardizing food sources and depriving us of potential medicinal and other uses. Unrestrained
mining of minerals raises the spectre of scarcity of the basic inputs our economies depend on (Pearce
and Turner, 1990; Daly and Townsend, 1993).
There are two categories of natural resources: renewable and non-renewable. Renewable natural
resources, as the name suggests, are those replaced by nature at rates in proportion to human life
cycles, such as forests, water, and animals (including sheries). Non-renewable natural resources largely
refer to minerals. Once extracted, natural regeneration occurs in geological time, which is far too slow
a process to be useful to humans; some resources can be re-used through the use of scrap (such as
copper and aluminium). Land suitable for agriculture and ranching falls somewhere in between.
Growing recognition exists that these resources are interconnected (Commoner, 1990; Pearce and
Turner, 1990). This is especially true for renewable natural resources. For example, forests are crucial
for watersheds. They maintain rainfall patterns that feed them. Furthermore, they x soil at the banks
and on slopes, thus reducing erosion, siltation and maintaining oxygenation of the water for river life.
The watersheds feed rivers and lakes that agriculture, energy creation, and other economic activities
rely upon. Clear-cutting the forests that watersheds depend upon affects the entire chain (Myers,
1992).
The extraction of non-renewable resources, however, also has effects on surrounding ecosystems
and the interconnections inherent in them. Mining operations frequently have devastating impacts on
local ecosystems. Oil exploration in tropical forests can pollute land and water to the detriment of
local human and animal populations; in Ecuadors Amazon, an environmental crisis has occurred from
the poisoning caused by oil mining by-products not being reinjected back into the wells, but instead
left in open pits. Placer gold mining in Amazonia has poisoned water supplies and sheries with
mercury, posing potentially daunting health risks, particularly for children (Schmink and Wood, 1992).
In northern Chile, the open cast mining of porphyry copper ores has released large amounts of
arsenic into the atmosphere; the mining towns of Chuquicamata and Calama both have high rates of
arsenic poisoning and cancer among their inhabitants (Comisin Nacional del Medio Ambiente, 1992;
World Resources Institute, 1994).
Latin Americas resource export dependency a paradox of plenty?
As our awareness and knowledge grow, all nations face the problem of how to balance natural
resource use with sensitivity to related environmental issues. The question, however, is particularly
pressing for developing nations. On average, they rely on unprocessed natural resources for their
economic growth to a much greater extent than advanced economies. Exports of mineral and
agricultural commodities supply a greater proportion of the savings and investment necessary for their
economic development. Latin American countries depend on the hard currency generated by
commodity exports to trade for food, technology, and research and development key to their
economic growth (Furtado, 1976; Cardoso and Faletto, 1979). Thus, a push for economic expansion,
or a drive for a development leap, usually requires an increase in the rate of natural resource
extraction to sell more on international markets.
Latin America has served as a resource periphery for the global economy since colonial times. It is
a region extremely rich in natural resources. Given the abundance of gifts of nature one might
intuitively expect Latin American countries to be among the most developed in the world. This is
clearly not the case and we are faced with a paradox of plenty. Since the theorizations of the
structuralist school, an increasing array of commentators have touted the idea that resource
abundance may actually operate as a curse which, under certain conditions, can prejudice long-run
sustainable development (Auty, 1993). Various policy initiatives based on such ideas, which have aimed
at breaking the continents dependence on resource-based development, have not been fully
successful. Thus, at a general level, the countries of the region remain on the periphery of the global
economy largely dependent upon the global core for consumer goods and for markets for their
primary products.
120

TABLE 6.1 Export specialization in Latin America, proportional values, 2000


Major export

per
cent

Next two
major exports

per
cent

per
cent
Top 3

Venezuela
Belize
Ecuador
T. and Tobago
Nicaragua
Paraguay
Panama
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Peru
Guatemala
Honduras
Bolivia
El Salvador
Uruguay
Barbados
Argentina
Mexico
Brazil

crude petroleum
raw sugar
crude petroleum
petroleum products
coffee
soya beans
bananas
rened copper
crude petroleum
ofce machinery
gold
coffee
coffee
zinc ore
coffee
meat
raw sugar
crude petroleum
motor vehicles
aircraft

58.9
25.7
43.5
38.9
27.1
32.8
19.3
25.6
30.6
29.7
16.7
21.3
23.8
11.7
22.2
15.5
14.0
10.8
9.9
6.3

petroleum products, aluminium


fruit juice, shell sh
bananas, shell sh
crude petroleum, natural gas
shell sh, meat
raw cotton, vegetable oil
fresh sh, shell sh
copper ores, fresh sh
coal, coffee
bananas, coffee
sh meal fodder, rened copper
raw sugar, bananas
soaps, lumber
vegetable oil, aircraft
petroleum products, medicines
leather, rice
petroleum products, food preps.
vegetable oils, petroleum products
crude petroleum, statistical mach.
iron ore, soya beans

28.6
43.8
22.5
26.4
27.1
17.8
28.2
19.6
14.6
15.4
23.5
15.7
11.1
20.0
8.4
14.3
15.4
13.5
13.8
9.5

87.5
69.5
66.0
65.3
54.2
50.6
47.5
45.2
45.2
45.1
40.2
37.0
34.9
31.7
30.6
29.8
29.4
24.3
23.7
15.8

Latin
America

crude petroleum

12.5

motor vehicles, petroleum


prods.

9.2

21.7

Source: Calculated from CEPAL (2001a).


121

The political economy of sustainable development

Aggregate economic gures suggest that exports of both renewable and non-renewable primary
products have become of less importance over time. In 1970, such exports accounted for 89.2 per
cent of the value of total regional exports. By 2000, this had fallen to 42 per cent. In nominal terms,
primary product export values and volumes continue to rise. Industrial exports have risen
substantially in a number of Latin American countries most notably Mexico and Brazil (see Chapter
3) which together account for close to 64 per cent of the value of all Latin American exports. Given
this, aggregate data underestimate the continued importance of primary product exports in the
remaining majority of countries. In 2000, in 16 countries, primary products accounted for over 50 per
cent of the value of total exports. In Nicaragua and Venezuela, the proportional role of primary
product exports stood at over 90 per cent. Although reliance on primary products for valuable export
earnings has declined in the past 30 years in most Latin American countries, it has not fallen greatly in
the smaller countries.
If the major export goods for each country are considered, compelling evidence for overspecialization is revealed. In 2000, in 17 of the 20 countries selected in Table 6.1 the major export item
in terms of value was a primary product, with only Mexico, Brazil and Costa Rica bucking that trend
(CEPAL, 2001a). In many cases, the next two most important exports were also primary products,
illustrating the general point that a dangerous reliance on a non-diversied range of such exports
exists. In some countries this reliance is troubling; in Venezuela, for example, the top three exports
account for around 88 per cent of the total, being comprised mainly of crude and rened petroleum.
In general, in 2000, there were ten countries in which the top three, mainly primary product, exports

Latin America Transformed

accounted for over 40 per cent of total values. Formal trade data actually under-estimate the
importance of primary product exports as, in some countries, illegal items such as coca in Bolivia,
Colombia and Peru make important contributions to the informal economy and livelihoods (Weeks,
1995). It is possible that the role of the non-formal economy and some of its illegal components has
risen during and after the recent economic crises of Argentina and Venezuela in particular although
data for this is not yet available.
Recently, the importance of agricultural exports has been compounded by neoliberal policy in a
number of countries seeking to promote the export of counter-seasonal non-traditional agricultural
items including, for example, fresh fruits from Chile (see later case study), winter vegetables from
Guatemala, and cut owers from Colombia. Foreign investment has played an important role in the
rise of non-traditional exports (NTAX) as transnational companies have set up packing and, in some
cases, production facilities in order to supply exotic products for the global market (Barham et al.,
1992; Murray, 1998; Murray 2002a). The process of the globalization of agriculture has facilitated this
growing trend (Le Heron, 1993; Friedland, 1994). In some countries the general global and continental
trend towards the declining importance of agriculture has been reversed through such processes; in
Chile, Bolivia and Peru the proportional role of agricultural exports has risen markedly in the past 20
years, for example.

POLITICAL-ECONOMIC ISSUES AND IMPLICATIONS


The preceding empirical review has made it clear that, in general, Latin American countries are heavily
reliant on primary product exports. In the future, if neoliberal policies persist, it is probable that this
specialization, based on comparative advantage, will continue. How can resource abundance operate
as a curse? What are the prospects for political and economic development based on resource export
specialization? What are the major problems associated with reliance on primary product exports? In
this section, we look at some of the economic, social and political threats to sustainability and illustrate
some of our arguments utilizing evidence from a case study of a renewable primary product export
sector in Chile.
The terms of trade constraint
Considerable evidence exists which maintains that the original structuralists concern with the secular
decline of primary product prices is of contemporary relevance (Grilli and Yang, 1988; Barham et al.,
1992; Ocampo, 1993).This general trend had a negative impact on the evolution of the terms of trade
for most Latin American countries during the past century and especially in the 1980s (Weeks, 1995).
Naturally, the trend is affected by the exact mix of exports/imports. For example, in the case of
countries exporting coffee and cocoa, the effect has not been so pronounced. However, in countries
showing a relative specialization in metal production, cereals or the production of agricultural inputs
(e.g. nitrates), the decline has been especially marked (e.g. in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay among others)
(Ocampo, 1993). Oil-exporting countries, which initially experienced a rise in their terms of trade in
the 1970s, suffered as prices bottomed out towards the late 1980s (Weeks, 1995). Given the
continued relevance of this problem, the original structuralist calls for the organization of commodity
price support systems, regional cooperation and fair trade deals in Latin America are as relevant today
as they have ever been (Ocampo, 1993; Sunkel, 1993).
Price volatility
Within the broad decline of primary product prices, it is often the case that world market prices
uctuate considerably. This is particularly the case in energy, metals and minerals markets, which have
been subject to rapid changes in economic fortunes (Gwynne, 1990). It is widely argued that windfall
prots such as those conferred on the oil-exporting economies after the rst oil-hike have not
been utilized in ways which engender sustainable development. In particular, funds have also been used
122

Dutch disease
For commentators such as Auty (1993), the phenomenon of Dutch disease explains why energy,
metal and mineral exporting economies have performed so badly despite their signicant resource
endowments. Dutch disease results from the appreciation of the exchange rate brought about by a
rapid rise in inows of rents (dened as surplus above normal prots) in selected sectors. When
mineral commodity price booms occur, appreciation of the exchange rate can make manufacturing
and agricultural sectors uncompetitive internationally. The major problem arises during periods of
recession, when it may prove difcult to diversify exports into manufacturing and agriculture because
the sectors have stagnated. This situation was observed in the Latin American oil and mineral
exporting economies during the global recession of the mid-1980s.
Protectionism and regionalism in the global core
The high level of protectionism existent in many developed countries and trading-blocs has
aggravated secular decline, most notoriously, in the case of the agricultural sector (McMichael, 1993;
Apey, 1995). Guoymer et al. (1993: 231) claim that nearly all of the industrial countries hold resources
in agriculture behind a panoply of protectionist barriers that insulate the primary sector from
competition (ibid.: 231). This has had the effect of distorting patterns of world trade enormously
leading to a situation where; production, specialisation and trade in agriculture are determined by the
comparative strength of policies not by comparative advantage (Hitiris, 1989: 67). Thus, most of the
worlds food exports are grown in industrial countries where the costs of food production are high,
and consumed in developing ones where costs are lower (World Bank, 1986: 154). In the Uruguay
round of GATT negotiations agriculture was afforded a high prole. Although certain concessions
were achieved, no great breakthroughs with regard to the prospects for developing countries were
made (Grant, 1993). Latin American countries are attempting to overcome the potential ill-effects of
regionalism in the economic core by vying for membership of free-trade agreements and
organizations. For example, Mexico is a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), and Chile has been particularly aggressive and successful in winning free-trade agreements
with major trading partners including the EU and the USA and plays a proactive role in APEC.
Regional integration within Latin America, most notably MERCOSUR, was of growing importance until
the economic crisis of 2001 (Gwynne, 1995).
Enclave economies
The problem of enclave economies, which tend to characterize primary product export sectors, has
received attention in the Latin American development literature since structuralist writings, and took
on extra importance in dependency analysis. This problem is most associated with energy, minerals
and metals mining, but is also relevant to certain types of agricultural, forestry and shing operations
(especially large-scale ones). Mining and energy operations may operate as enclaves in two main ways.
First, activities are generally capital-intensive and large-scale. This means that they may generate large
revenues, but little in terms of employment and other linkages into local, regional and national
economies. In the past, given high levels of foreign ownership in the Latin American mining sector, a
good deal of surplus was expropriated back to service high levels of foreign investment. More recently,
123

The political economy of sustainable development

for large-scale projects and showpieces as was the case in Venezuela (Gilbert, 1997b). During global
recessions mineral economies have often been hit very hard. There have been some efforts to offset
this boombust process. For example, the Chilean copper-stabilization fund, founded in 1987, saved
windfall receipts during times of rising copper prices and used them to augment government
expenditure in periods of low world prices (Gwynne, 1996a). In general, however, short-term political
and institutional interests are such that it is often difcult to escape the negative implications of
windfall rents and price uctuations.

Latin America Transformed

higher levels of domestic ownership have partly reduced this problem, although the trend towards
privatization is reviving some concerns (Gilbert, 1997b). Second, mining and energy operations are
often geographically isolated, located at some distance from major cities. As such, these areas often
form distinctive geographical economic zones which can lead to the exacerbation of social and
economic inequalities at the regional scale.
Foreign ownership and control
Foreign ownership in Latin American resource sectors has traditionally been high. This is especially the
case in energy and other mineral sectors, given the high levels of capital and technology required to
set up production. The controversy of foreign ownership has inspired a number of expropriations and
nationalization of sectors where foreign control was high, including Mexican oil (1938), Peruvian oil
(1968), and Venezuelan oil (1976), Bolivian tin (1952), and Chilean copper (1973). In the neoliberal
1990s, the benets of foreign investment were given greater weight, which has led to number of
privatizations including Bolivian tin and silver mines, and Mexican copper (Gilbert, 1997b).
Currently, high levels of foreign ownership are evident in NTAX sectors that are most explicitly
geared towards export for luxury markets in the developed world (Barham et al., 1992; Gwynne,
1993a; Sunkel, 1993; Barton, 1997b). Such ownership can precipitate a number of problems. First, it can
lead to technological and nancial dependence as transnational companies (TNCs) act as the major,
and sometimes only, importers and diffusers of the relevant capital and technology. Second, it can lead
to an outow of prots which could be captured if national potential were developed. Finally, in
general there is little incentive for the companies to behave in a way which is explicitly benecial for
the long-run development of a particular country or producing space. For example, rms involved in
NTAX production/distribution will actively search for a variety of locations with low labour costs and
natural resource abundance. This may compound the locking-in of countries into low-skill, lowproductivity activities.
Food security
In the agricultural sector, recent re-structuring towards agro-exports has reduced food security as
traditional staples have been replaced by export cash crops. Furthermore, the protectionist policies of
industrialized countries, dumping of surpluses, internal controls on food prices in Latin America and
over-valued domestic currencies have all contributed to the rising import of food into the continent
(Kay, 1995).
Inequality and social conict
Often, growth in primary product sectors has had the effect of exacerbating social, economic and
geographical inequalities. In the case of the agricultural sector, there is considerable evidence to
suggest that re-structuring towards NTAX and the associated modernization of agriculture are
distributionally regressive (Cornia, 1987; Barham et al., 1992; Figueroa, 1993; Kay, 1995). Capital
constraints faced by peasant and small farmers mean that, in general, they have not been able to
participate fully in the system. The negative impact for most small farmers during the structural
adjustment period was aggravated by the withdrawal of social expenditure which accompanied
austere scal/monetary stabilization (Sunkel, 1993; Vergara, 1994; Kay, 1995). Tensions created by
growing social and economic differentiation are creating political conict, as witnessed in the recent
Chiapas uprising and continuing unrest in Peru and elsewhere. For some of these it raises the potential
for revolution (Vergara, 1994).

WHOSE SUSTAINABILITY? THE CHILEAN FRUIT EXPORT BOOM


The example of Chilean non-traditional fruit exports (NTFX) is considered the most notable and, for
some, most successful example of neoliberal re-structuring. However, the Chilean case study also
124

Figure 6.2 The slogan on the board translates as This valley is under control.While in actual fact the advertising
refers to the pisco (grape-based spirit) producing company Control and is a play on words, it is symbolic of the power
of the companies involved in the export grape economy in the areas surrounding El Palqui in Chiles Norte Chico
region (Region IV). Photograph: Warwick E Murray
125

The political economy of sustainable development

highlights a number of problems associated with attaining sustainable social, political and economic
development based on NTAX.
The neoliberal model was implemented in Chile some years before its neighbours, subsequent to
the military coup of 1973. The General Pinochet regime, under the advice of the Milton Friedmaninspired Chicago Boys, implemented a range of free market reforms which intended to reverse the
structuralist-informed inward-oriented model of development prescribed by previous governments
(see Barton and Murray, 2002). One of the central objectives of such reform was to stimulate exports.
This was achieved with considerable success and had the effect of stimulating an enormous increase
in non-traditional fruit exports, as the various comparative advantages that Chile possessed in this
activity were allowed to operate in global space.
Between 1974 and 2001, the nominal value of Chilean fruit exports rose from US$30 million to
US$1,481 million (Banco Central de Chile, 2002b). Growth was especially high in the 1980s as a
number of peso devaluations and export incentives took effect (Murray, 1997b). Grapes and apples
have been the most important species and have represented over 60 per cent of NTFX earnings
since 1974. The fruit boom initiated deep social and economic change in certain localities, such as
the Norte Chico and the Northern Central Valley, where the economic base has been transformed
rapidly from relatively diversied production for national markets to specialized (in some localities
monocultural) export-oriented production (Figure 6.2). In the country as a whole, land planted
under fruit rose from approximately 65,000 hectares in 1977 to around 210,000 hectares in 2000
(ODEPA, 1996; 2001).

Latin America Transformed

The heady rise in Chilean NTFX can be explained partly in terms of the large comparative
advantage such products enjoy on global markets. These advantages are both natural and
institutionally induced. Natural advantages include the counter-seasonality of production with
respect to the major markets in the northern hemisphere, especially the timing of harvests for
Christmas markets in the USA and Europe; the existence of ample supplies of fertile land and water
supply in certain areas; and a most favourable range of climates (from sub-tropical to temperate) ideal
for the production of a wide range of fruits. Institutionally induced comparative advantages include
state-led investment in the fruit sector during the 1960s; various episodes of land reform in the 1960s
and early 1970s which divided up the inefcient latifundio (large estates); and the signicant lowering
of labour costs through regressive post-coup reforms (Murray, 1997a). Further to these advantages,
external conditions were conducive to NTFX growth. In particular, the 1970s and 1980s witnessed the
acceleration of the globalization of agriculture especially in the fruit sector. This involved sharp
increases in the consumption of exotic fruits in industrialized markets, sourced largely by investments
in a range of Latin American and other Third World countries by transnational fruit companies
(Whatmore, 1995; Murray, 1998).
Transnational investment in the Chilean fruit sector
The role of transnational investment in the Chilean NTFX sector has been central. Although the
earliest exporters were domestic companies (such as David Del Curto and Copefrut), during the
1980s foreign (especially US) capital rose to dominate the sector. Important examples include
Unifrutti, Dole, United Trading Company and Chiquita-Frupac. By 1994, three of the top four
companies (accounting for over 40 per cent of exports) were foreign-owned and only four in the top
ten were Chilean-owned. Foreign rms were critical in the introduction of the organizational system
which dominates the industry and links domestic producers to the global market. This system has
three basic components. First, companies are responsible for marketing, providing facilities for the
packing and storage of fruit and gathering produce in sufcient quantities to justify large-scale
investments and obtain bargaining power. Second, companies undertake research and development in
the adoption and adaptation of fruit varieties and technologies and are largely responsible for
transferring these to the growers. Third, and crucially, rms provide nance for growers, acting,
effectively, as banks. The vast majority of growers are linked into the system through contracts with
such companies. These contracts are extremely exacting, and have become increasingly tight in the
1990s leading to high levels of economic and technological dependence upon export companies
among growers. For some commentators, however, one of the main advantages of this organizational
system is that it has permitted the participation of many small-scale growers who would otherwise
have been unable to gain access to the system. Others argue that the system has evolved into one
which exploits such growers and has led to increasing levels of indebtedness, landlessness and
marginalization (Murray, 1997b).
The costs of macro-economic success
At the macro-economic scale of analysis, the restructuring towards NTFX has proved a resounding
success. It has helped lay a rm foundation for the high average levels of economic growth and
trade surpluses generally recorded since the debt crisis of the early 1980s. Perhaps most
importantly, it has helped diversify the Chilean economy away from reliance on copper exports
which by 2000 had fallen to a proportional value of 40 per cent of total exports from 85 per
cent in 1971. However, despite this success, when one reduces the geographical scale of analysis, it
becomes apparent that the distributional impacts of NTFX growth have been highly regressive
(Murray, 1998). The fruit boom has exacerbated both spatial and social inequalities. In terms of the
former, many rural localities and a number of regions have been unable to participate in the
system. In particular, in rural regions where environmental and economic conditions are not
conducive to fruit cultivation (in parts of the arid North and south of the Central Valley), farmers
126

The sustainability of Chilean fruit exports


Doubts are increasingly being raised concerning the sustainability of the Chilean fruit export sector.
Given the importance of the sector within the national economy and almost complete reliance on the
sector in certain regions and localities, this should be an issue of great concern. First, sustainability is
being threatened in an environmental sense. The rapid expansion of fruit cultivation, especially in
marginal environments is placing stress on ecosystems. In particular, water shortages, water
contamination due to pesticide and fertilizer leakage, and soil salinity due to excessive irrigation are
rising. Problems of decline in soil fertility are accentuated on small-scale fruit farms where
monocultural practice has become dominant.
Second, economic sustainability is threatened. Since the early 1990s, the volume and value (in
real terms) of Chilean NTFX have levelled out. This has been due to a range of interacting
internal and external factors. Externally, rising global competition from southern hemisphere
producers; protectionism; technological change allowing other fruit producers to increasingly
impinge upon the Chilean counter-seasonal market; and shifting consumption patterns towards
higher quality and new types of exotic fruit in the industrialized countries have caused a decline in
the real price of Chilean fruit on world markets (Murray, 1998). Internally, problems in the sector
have been accentuated by the Chilean states reluctance to intervene in order to offset mounting
economic threats. Thus, there have been only limited efforts from the state to invest in quality,
127

The political economy of sustainable development

continue to rely upon traditional, low-margin products for the national market. Such farmers have
faced a range of deep problems in recent years (Kay, 1997). These spatial inequalities are causing
political tension, recently exemplied by protest marches by traditional farmers in the Central
region. Free market ideology, which has continued under the three democratic governments since
1990, has been characterized by the absence of an explicit regional policy to reduce the growing
spatial imbalances (Murray 2002c).
Differentiation between socio-economic groups has also been exacerbated through the workings
of the boom. In particular, non-land owners, temporary workers (especially women) and small farmers
have seen a decline in their relative socio-economic position in rural society. One of the major impacts
of the boom has been to raise the demand for labour to pick and pack fruit. A signicant proportion
of the increased demand is temporary in nature, leading to economic insecurity in the workforce and
to a range of problems associated with the ow of migrants to fruit-producing areas during the
harvest season (Gwynne and Ortiz, 1997). Female labour has formed a central part of the labour
force employed in the packing houses. Some argue that this process is positive in that it has provided
many women with their rst opportunity to engage in paid employment outside of the home (Bee
and Vogel, 1997). However, women generally receive less than the men in the elds for a days work,
often having to return home to work a double day (Barrientos, 1997).
NTFX growth has also had a differential impact on farmers of different scales of operation.
Medium (2050 hectares) and large-scale (50 hectares plus) farmers and an increasing amount of
urban suitcase-farmers, have prospered enormously from the boom. In contrast, very small-scale
farmers (minifundistas) have been precluded from participation due to the high costs of setting up
an orchard (up to US$35,000 per hectare). Small-scale farmers (520 hectares) initially entered the
system in large quantities. However, they have found it very difcult to survive in the market
particularly since the 1990s. Sales of land are rising as larger-scale farmers and export rms move
in to take over the parcelas of heavily indebted small-scale farmers. Part of the problem in this
context are nancially demanding contracts with export rms which allow a signicant passing on
of costs to politically disorganized growers. Failed growers often fall back on low-paid temporary
labour or informal activities. Thus, marginalization, landlessness and proletarianization are becoming
increasing realities in export-oriented regions. Again, given the neoliberal model favoured by
government, little more than marginal efforts have been made to address the above problems
(Murray, 2002b).

Latin America Transformed

diversify the export range, diversify markets, develop value-added production, and invest in
infrastructure. These have been left to individual rms who have met with variable levels of
success. Ultimately, the easy phase of Chilean fruit exports is over and in order to grow, the
sector must face the challenges of an increasingly sophisticated global market. Attempts to further
increase the sector, however, are likely to have deleterious environmental impacts unless regulated
effectively. The neoliberal model is not capable of reconciling the often competing imperatives of
economy and environment and is likely to continue to fail as a means of promoting sustainable
development in Chiles fruit complex.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AND IMPLICATIONS


The environmental impact of primary product exploitation in Latin America has received increasing
attention in recent years (Figueroa, 1993; Furley, 1996). Studies have tended to emphasize threats to
ecological sustainability created by environmentally insensitive activities. Among other things, relevant
concerns have included the pollution of river systems and air due to large-scale mining activities; the
impact of pollution created by petroleum and petrochemical sectors; the ecological impacts of large
hydroelectric power schemes in a number of countries (Furley, 1996); the over-exploitation and
depletion of natural resource stocks, for example, the depletion of the shery stock in Chile (Barton,
1997b) and the deforestation of Brazil within the imperative of expansion of the agricultural frontier
(Gligo, 1993); the intensive use of inputs and the effects on both ecosystems and human health
(Murray and Hoppin, 1990); issues of water supply and the effects of irrigation-intensive production
(Gwynne and Meneses, 1994); and issues of increased run-off and ooding due to clear-cutting and
soil erosion (Leonard, 1987).
The leaders of Latin American nations frequently protest that growing environmental sensitivity in
developed nations forces unacceptable trade-offs upon them. For example, they bridle at demands
from developed nations for the preservation of large tracts of land (usually forests) in the interest of
biodiversity. Latin American leaders argue such demands are unjust. Developed nations became great
by exploiting their natural resources not by preserving them; now they seek to prevent developing
nations from enjoying the same benets (White, 1993).
Policy-makers in developed countries, and their allies in developing countries, respond that this is
a false characterization of the problem. Preservation (non-use of nature) does not stand at the
core of policy demands; conservation commercial use with (as much as possible) the
maintenance of the natural setting is the goal. The issue, then, is not whether to use natural
resources. It is how to use them while minimizing environmental damage (Pearce and Turner, 1990;
Rosenberg, 1994).
According to economists, the problem is one of formulating discrete choices over how to use
resources and minimize the environmental impact (Pearce and Turner, 1990; Carley and Christie,
1993; Goldin and Winters, 1995). For renewable resources the choice is over competing sustainable
uses, by which economists usually mean sustained-yield harvest: the point at which the rate of
renewal is at least equal to the rate of extraction. Thus, the resource is never exhausted. For nonrenewable resources the choice is over acceptable rates of depletion, allowing time for technological
advances and substitution to reduce the need for the mineral. Choices may also include the means
by which non-renewable resources are extracted to minimize their impact on surrounding
ecosystems.
Of course, the formulation is deceptively simple. First, there are many difculties in calculating those
points. Second, and more signicantly, decisions over minimizing the environmental consequences of
natural resource use involve more than discrete calculations of public choice; they also encompass
political and social processes (Goldsworthy, 1988; Hurrell, 1991; Hurrell and Kingsbury, 1992). These
are most acute in the distributional issues inherent in natural resource extraction: who will benet
from its use? In short, how natural resource extraction and sensitivity to the environment are
128

Large-scale sustainable development


One policy response favours the utilization of large-scale private enterprise to foster economic
growth, a posture well anchored in the free-market tenets underlying globalization, although public
enterprise may also participate in such ventures (see Box 6.1 for example).These companies have the
nancial wherewithal to invest in both development and environment, thus relieving responsibility
from scally strapped governments. With respect to natural resource extraction and the environment,
the task is to persuade such rms to engage in sustained-yield practices, to adopt pollution abatement
technology, to avoid disguring and degrading surrounding ecosystems, to respect autochthonous
cultures when present. It is assumed that project requirements (when funding is largely by multilateral
development banks) and environmental regulations will accomplish those goals. Moreover, private
sector projects and their wider economic effects provide employment for the local population. This
addresses the link between poverty and environmental degradation. A focus on creating national parks
and protected area systems to ensure biodiversity preservation (supported with international
funding) complements the approach (World Bank, 1992).
129

The political economy of sustainable development

combined also entails struggle between social groups for control of the resource and the benets of
its exploitation.
In the drive for economic growth, dominant domestic and foreign socio-economic groups linked to
agricultural, industrial, and service corporations benet the most from the extraction and sale of
resources. When it comes to settling frontiers, as occurred in Brazilian Amazonia, they may demand or
prot from road building and other large-scale projects (such as mining and urbanization). Moreover,
colonization programmes may accompany such ventures to provide (in the absence of land reform)
land to landless peasants or new settlements and jobs for the unemployed in more established urban
areas (Bunker, 1985; Cockburn and Hecht, 1988).
In the planning stages, these schema may include environmental protection in resource extraction,
as well as extension services to colonists for successful farming. But these good intentions may be
abandoned during policy implementation. Such was the case in Brazil. The government institutions
charged with administration and oversight of the plans lacked the capacity to carry out their mandates
(Bunker, 1985). Centralized bureaucracies and scal crises prevented effective follow-through.
Moreover, in the Amazonian states of Brazil, those institutions were captured by large-scale ranchers
and mine owners. They siphoned off meagre credit appropriations from the colonists. As a result,
colonists cleared land, and lacking access to credit and know-how to successfully farm their fragile
tropical parcels, then sold to ranch owners. Ranch owners bought land as a hedge against ination and
to capture state subsidies for beef produced in Amazonia. Colonists cleared more land for subsistence
and the cycle was repeated (Hecht, 1985; Schmink and Wood, 1992).
In addition to global and national-level development strategies, the plight of the colonists on the
Brazilian frontier highlights a second, oft cited source of environmental degradation in natural resource
use: poverty. Extreme necessity forces people to abuse natural resources, especially renewable ones.
Dense populations of poor people are forced to continually clear forests for fuel and land in slash and
burn cycles.They also overgraze pasture, are unaware of the fragile character of most tropical soils, and
use primitive, polluting technologies in small-scale mining. Poor economic performance in any given
country exacerbates the problem. It increases the number of desperate, impoverished people (Ascher
and Healy, 1990; IDB, 1991; Annis, 1992).
Awareness of the above problems led analysts to formulate the concept of sustainable
development. The Brundtland Commissions Our Common Future (1987) rst popularized the idea,
recognizing the interrelation of economic development, overcoming poverty, and safeguarding the
environment. However, formulating policies for natural resource use that effectively link these three
overlapping systems is no easy matter. In addition to technical difculties, funding for programmes are
scarce. As a result, policy-makers are faced with signicant trade-offs between different policy
alternatives (Redclift, 1987; 1992).

Latin America Transformed

BOX 6.1 Industrial-scale sustainable development


The Greater Carajs Programme: The Greater Carajs Programme spearheaded the Brazilian
governments Amazonian policy in the 1980s. It focused on export-oriented mineral projects,
which allowed this regional development programme to address major national economic
problems. The programme covers a wide area in three north-eastern Amazonian states: Par,
Maranhao and Amap. This vast development project involves state-owned mining companies,
local capital, and European and Japanese transnational corporations. After the completion of
environmental impact reports, it has also received funding from the World Bank. Extraction and
smelting of iron ore have been developed in Carajs; two aluminum complexes have been
established, one near Belm and another on the Atlantic coast near So Luis; a hydroelectric plant
at Tocurui was also part of the plan. Port facilities near these industrial projects have also been
expanded (Neto 1990).
Tree plantations in Chile: Chile boasts a timber industry that is the envy of Latin America (Silva,
1997a). In response to the military governments free-market economic policies (197390), and
with the aid of substantial government subsidies, a number of powerful Chilean conglomerates
invested heavily in mainly-for-export timber plantations (Gwynne, 1993a) (Figure 6.3). Joint
ventures with international corporations or wholly-owned subsidiaries of foreign companies also
entered the market (Gwynne, 1996a). The bulk of the wood was from radiata pine (Clapp, 1998).
In 1994, forest sector exports topped US$1.5 billion, making it one of the leading export
industries. It also employed about 95,000 people, roughly 2 per cent of the economically active
population.

Figure 6.3 The output of plantation forestry in Southern Chile. Logs are being transported to the local cellulose
plant. Both plantations and cellulose plant were owned in the early 1990s by a multinational consortium of Royal
Dutch Shell (60 per cent), Scott Paper (20 per cent) and Citibank (20 per cent)

130

The grassroots development approach


Given these problems, dealing with the livelihood, or social justice, component of sustainable
development calls for complementary efforts or, as some argue, a completely different approach to
natural resource use. We call this the grassroots development approach, which focuses on
strengthening local communities and fomenting small-scale economic activity rooted in sustained131

The political economy of sustainable development

Latin American nations drive for economic advancement requires some large-scale development of
natural resource extraction. The scal weakness of Latin American states and the decline in
development funding from multilateral development banks certainly open space for more private
sector involvement in the process. However, excessive reliance on large-scale development, private
corporations, and national parks (viewed as set-asides) presents serious obstacles for achieving
sustainable development. There are at least three difculties with the approach.
First, no matter what the rhetoric, the environment is not high on the hierarchy of issues confronting
Latin American states, but economic growth is. The scal debility of the state itself compounds the
problem. As a result, the ministries and agencies charged with regulating, overseeing, co-ordinating, and
enforcing environmental policy are weak and lack the capacity to carry out their mandates. Indeed,
sometimes the mandates themselves are deliberately narrowly circumscribed, as was the case in Chile
(Silva, 199697). Supporters argue that market incentives help circumvent these shortcomings.
Markets for pollution vouchers and opportunities for companies to pay for forest preservation and
plantations to offset greenhouse gas emissions joint implementation ventures are often cited. This
amounts to the browning of the environment (Nielson and Stern, 1997). Such approaches rest on the
uncertain assumption that we can calculate acceptable levels of pollution. They also ignore the fact
that we do not know the cumulative effects of many chemicals acting together. What may be an
acceptable level for one pollutant may turn out to be quite hazardous to public health when
combined with the acceptable levels of many others. In the nal analysis, irrespective of ideological
posturing, government action has been the most effective source of corporate sensitivity to the
environment.
Second, large-scale, corporate-oriented resource extraction does not adequately address the
livelihood needs of impoverished rural populations. Nor does it sufciently protect native peoples and
their cultures from the ravages of modernization. Large-scale agribusiness and mining do provide
some employment, albeit at very low wages and frequently in substandard working conditions.
Moreover, the capital-intensive ventures throw many more peasants off the land than are employed,
driving them further onto the frontier to clear more forest for land or into urban shantytowns putting
more pressure on already woefully inadequate services (Montbiot, 1993; Painter and Durham, 1995).
The pattern is aggravated by the inux of desperately poor people from other regions of the country
into the area where the new concerns are being set up. These migrants compete with local
communities, often disrupting and displacing them. The resulting social tension frequently erupts in
rural violence (Schmink and Wood, 1992.)
Third, the land hunger of these poor and displaced people places great pressure on a countrys
protected areas, making unworkable the dream of nature preservation. Land invasions into national
parks are common both for the purpose of subsistence agriculture and for placer (small-scale) mining.
Again, social tension between migrants and native peoples frequently erupts; it is often exacerbated
by the inux of entrepreneurs who follow them to buy cleared land or to forcibly wrestle it from them
(Barraclough and Ghimire, 1995). This pattern has repeated itself several times in Brazilian Amazonia
(Schmink and Wood, 1992; Ozrio and Campari, 1995).
As the Brazilian case exemplies, the problem is aggravated by the weakness of the responsible state
institutions: the extension services of ministries of agriculture, environmental ministries, and parks and
forest services. Bureaucratic rivalry may also intervene. Agriculture and mining ministries may (at least
implicitly) support invasions. Since they are higher on the hierarchy of ministries (and better
organized) than agencies of the environment, they often nullify the latters mandate.

Latin America Transformed

yield practices (Schumacher, 1973; Ghai and Vivian, 1992; Friedmann and Rangan, 1993; Utting, 1993;
Ghai, 1994). It privileges the values of local autonomy, solidarity, self-regulation, and citizen
participation in decision-making over the penetration of market forces, community disintegration,
and the reduction of participation to the implementation of a few projects. By organizing
communities and building small-scale enterprises, more of the income generated stays in the
community in the form of higher wages, social benets, and capitalization. Economic sustainability
also depends on the formation of cooperatives to pool resources and know-how, and of linking
them to local, regional, national, and world markets. By the same token, environmental sustainability
is better served by small-scale use, because, together with appropriate technology, it offers a better
opportunity to mimic natural processes (Hartshorn, 1989). Because of the interconnectedness of
nature, excessive human intervention in any one area (as occurs with large-scale development)
damages the whole web of life.
The Plan Piloto Forestal of Quintana Roo, Mexico, is a good example of the grassroots development
approach. An alliance of forest peasant communities (Ejidos) wrested control of their forests from
private interests and government corporations. The Plan Piloto, with help from the government and
international aid agencies, began to market its own timber (mahogany). Member communities
received better prices for the timber than before, employed more personnel at higher wages, trained
personnel in management, began to add industrial value to the timber instead of just selling whole logs,
and redistributed portions of the prots to member communities. There are many such cooperatives
in Mexico for an introduction, see Par et al. (1997).
A signicant strand of the grassroots development perspective takes a different stance from current
neoliberal trends with respect to the role of the state and social participation. The state has an
important role to play in the crafting of industrial and extension policies favouring grassroots
development (Lipschutz and Conca, 1993). Thus, the strengthening of state institutions is vital to carry
out increased functions. Otherwise, community enterprises, networks of cooperatives, and links to
markets are not likely to ourish beyond a few individual instances. Non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) are considered central to this process, as well as the inclusion of social groups in the policymaking process. By contrast, a more civil society-centred strand of the grassroots development
approach argues against deeper involvement of state institutions. Instead, it emphasizes the nexus
between NGOs and organized communities (Browder, 1989; Leonard, 1989; Ekins, 1992).
Regardless of the position versus the state, at its irreducible core, participation is about a focus on
organized communities as a vehicle for the self-determination of subordinate class and ethnic-based
social groups (Ghai and Vivian, 1992: 119; Friedmann and Rangan, 1993: 110; Ghai, 1994: 112).
Moreover, participation is about more than just helping to implement policy. It extends to broad
deliberation by organized civil society in dening policy agendas, prescribing solutions, and formulating
policy. Costa Rican forestry NGOs have a rich experience in these political activities (Brockett and
Gottfried, 2002; Silva, 2003).
Both critics and supporters of the grassroots development approach to sustainable development
recognize several difculties with its implementation. First, in relation to its emphasis on small-scale
development it is capital-intensive, especially in terms of human capital. Where will the nancing
come from, given that the private sector will not invest in such efforts? Up-front costs are signicant:
from planning stages involving the leadership of local communities, to the assignation of experts in
the eld, to coordination with government ofces, and to the purchase of equipment. Second, the
ideal time line for such projects is a long one: ve to ten years. The learning curve to use technology
and to learn organizational skills can be a long one. Many programmes are shorter than this. Third,
such projects are plagued by potential collective action problems within the community or between
the governmental, international, NGO, and community components of a project. These difculties
may be exacerbated by participant state agencies, which frequently lack the personnel, equipment,
training, and authority to full their role adequately. Fourth, the techniques themselves may be
experimental and unproven.
132

Ideally, a well-rounded policy framework for sustainable development would integrate both the largescale, market-oriented and the grassroots development approaches (Silva, E. 1999). Too much
emphasis on the former does not solve the problem of rural poverty and associated environmental
degradation. By the same token, an over-emphasis on grassroots development would probably
deprive a nation of necessary resources for healthy economic growth.
But the world is not ideal. Moreover, selecting the trade-offs between the two models for
sustainable development is especially difcult to achieve in one of the most popular approaches to
decision-making: the rational actor model, where policy-makers are appraised of a problem and
offered a list of options best suited to solve it. The principal obstacles for the effective use of this
technique are the scarcity of nancing and the logic of globalization. They ensure that politics the
authoritative allocation of value plays a signicant role in determining policy outcomes: whether the
market and grassroots approaches will be integrated or whether one will dominate the other (usually
market over grassroots). In other words, politics will inuence the agenda from which the choices
offered to policy-makers will be drawn. Whether effective grassroots development solutions are put
on that agenda is not guaranteed.
A political economy approach to public policy offers a good starting point to understand the politics
of reforming policies for the sustainable development of natural resources. It helps us to identify the
main actors, interests, and power as dened by their location in international and domestic economic
and state structures. Such approaches also emphasize the role of knowledge and coalitional behaviour
among actors as key to understanding outcomes (see Box 6.2).

BOX 6.2 Extractive reserves in Brazil


The creation of extractive reserves in Brazilian Amazonia constitutes the most famous example
that runs the gamut of actors: international, state, private sector, peasant, and indigenous peoples
(Schwartzman, 1991). In the 1970s and early 1980s, the establishment of large ranches ignited a
struggle over land between large-scale ranchers, on the one hand, and smallholders, rubber
tappers, and indigenous peoples, on the other. Initially, large-scale landowners easily prevailed
because traditional rivalries divided these subordinate social groups. Ideas, however, brought them
together. A Brazilian NGO came up with the concept of the extractive reserve: areas of land that
would be set aside for low-impact extraction of natural resources. With this idea environment
became a new issue capable of uniting social groups that had been in conict with each other. All
could identify with the need for land and the preservation of the resources necessary for their
livelihood and/or cultural survival (Keck, 1995). However, even when local peoples formed
alliances, they could not prevail. Local and state governments (Brazil has a federal form of
government) generally backed large-scale landowners. Moreover, alliances between organized
local peoples and Brazilian national unions and political parties were also ineffective. The federal
government was adamantly in favour of large-scale development. This was when international
actors tipped the balance in favour of local peoples. First, the Brazilian NGOs were in contact
with powerful US-based international NGOs. These took the ght to the US Congress, which
brought pressure to bear on the World Bank to postpone loans to Brazil. At that point, the
Brazilian federal government took note and decreed the establishment of extractive reserves.
Unfortunately, this heroic effort has not had the success it deserved, for the policy of extractive
reserves has run into many economic problems (Assies, 1997; Hall, 1997).

133

The political economy of sustainable development

THE POLITICS OF NATURAL RESOURCE EXTRACTION

Latin America Transformed

International actors include governments, especially their development aid agencies; transnational
corporations; multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank; and international organizations
like the United Nations (Haggard, 1990).Their interests regarding environment and development vary
widely. Depending on the circumstance, these actors especially when they are from developed
countries possess signicant political and economic power, which they can bring to bear in national
policy debates.
The domestic side includes state and social actors. The most important state actors are the
presidency, relevant ministries and agencies, and political parties represented in the legislature. Social
actors run the gamut from large-scale economic interests to peasants, smallholders, and native
peoples. In this schema the structure of state institutions (their cohesion, the tightness of policy-making
teams, the hierarchy of ministries, and their porosity to social forces) is crucial for shaping the power
resources of state actors and social groups (Skocpol, 1979). By the same token, the economic and
organizational capabilities of social actors affect their strength or weakness in relation to state actors
(Migdal et al., 1994).
Environmental NGOs are signicant social forces in their own right (Porter et al., 2000). They can
be important advocates of market-friendly or grassroots development approaches to forest policy in
the policy formulation process. When they are professional organizations, their policy stances generally
derive from the intellectual and scientic ideas of their middle-class staff. When they have a peasant
base, their economic interest often leads them to advocate grassroots development ideas about
combining environment and development (Keck, 1995). Some of the large NGOs of the developed
world are also important international actors. Domestic NGOs can also be signicant actors in the
policy process. Their power often depends on their nancial and organizational capabilities and the
quality of the expertise available to them.
Understanding actors and interests backed by ideas that inform policy stances and power offers a
good starting point for analysing the politics of environmental policy-making (Hurrell and Kingsbury,
1992). However, a number of studies have shown that actual policy outcomes depend on the
interaction between them (Ross, 1996; Silva, E. 1999). Frequently, policy outcomes depend on the
dynamics of coalition formation between social groups, state institutions, international actors, and
NGOs. These alliances dene the sum of power that competing coalitions can muster in support of
alternative policy stances (Gourevitch, 1986; Frieden, 1991; Rueschemeyer et al., 1992).
Reforming natural resources policy
Reforming natural resource policy along sustainable development lines poses a signicant challenge.
The range of policy options is well known and broad. It includes infusing large-scale resource use with
an environmental component to ensure either sustained-yield practices or a sharp reduction in
pollution or both. But it is also recognized that these practices alone will not provide conditions
sufcient to alleviate pressure from impoverished rural populations. Nor will they protect the welfare,
cultural heritage or survival of native peoples. This is why reform of large-scale resource use must be
accompanied by efforts to promote grassroots development. Integrating both approaches to the
sustainable development of natural resource use, however, is not an easy task (Silva, 1994). Strong
political conicts may stand in the way of including grassroots development components to policy
reform. Nevertheless, these can be overcome. What it takes to do depends on the initial disposition
of state and dominant class actors towards such programmes, the degree of local social conict,
whether or not local groups were organized, and the role of international actors.
Where government and dominant social classes are cohesive in their resistance to grassroots
development, it takes high levels of social conict and very broad alliances of local, national and
international actors to force their inclusion. As the case of extractive reserves in Brazil suggests (see
Box 6.2), high levels of social conict fused a strong coalition between well-organized regional
subordinate social groups with national political and institutional afliations. This brought the issue to
the national political arena. However, domestic groups by themselves are usually not strong enough to
134

CONCLUSION
In many ways, at the dawn of the new millennium, the countries of Latin America face the same
problem which has existed since colonial times. Certainly, there have been advances in diversication
135

The political economy of sustainable development

prevail. They may agitate but cannot win. Greater pressure from international sources is required.
Here, international NGOs, linked with those of the developing country in question, can begin an
awareness campaign in developed countries and lobby their government and international institutions
to take action. Threatening to suspend loans and other sanctions usually gets that attention of policymakers in developing countries.
Where some key sectors of government actors and dominant social classes support sustainable
development at the grassroots for one reason or another, local actors may succeed largely on their
own, but international actors and local NGOs can make important contributions to policy-making.
Tension between dominant and subordinate social groups is often a catalyst for organization in rural
communities, which provides the drive from within to demand policies favourable for grassroots
development. Knowing they cannot act alone, communities often actively seek allies. When they nd
them, and especially if they are government actors, the organized community will strive to infuse policy
content with its interests. International actors, often the development agencies of more social
democratic governments, provide critical support for local communities in their efforts to shape
policies emanating from relatively sympathetic government ofces. They legitimize the demands of
radicalized communities and help with project design and management.
Where most relevant government actors are largely indifferent or weak, international actors may be
the most important catalysts for the inclusion of grassroots development dimensions to resource use
reform. The efforts will be project-oriented and the specics of the grassroots development
orientation will depend on the goals of the lead international agency involved. It cannot be sufciently
stressed that success demands involvement of local communities and a very long-term presence.
Moreover, one must always keep in mind that scaling up projects expanding their application to
other areas requires active government assistance. International presence or pressure alone cannot
do the job.
Including a grassroots development component to natural resource use never has been an easy
task, and globalization makes it even more difcult. The emphasis on free markets by international
agencies and governments impedes consideration of the non-market special needs of rural
populations in developing countries. Those needs centre on the redistribution of national wealth via
subsidies (credit, inputs, price supports) and involve the promotion of an industrial policy to create
markets for their products. Globalization, however, favours large-scale industry and concentration of
wealth rather than small-scale production and more equitable distribution of wealth. As a result, many
international agencies now focus on strengthening institutions for environmental management of
pollution and parks for preservation only. They also advocate payment for the environmental services
rendered by ecosystems, such as carbon sinks, gene banks, biodiversity and scenic beauty (Heal, 2000).
None of these proposed solutions threaten the large-scale market development perspective.
Nevertheless, social tension in the countryside and lack of employment in cities to absorb displaced
rural populations still provide a fulcrum with which to apply pressure for the inclusion of the
grassroots development dimension of sustainable development. The rural poor continue to organize
and increasingly frame their demands with reference to environmental problems and conservation.
This provides social and political allies among environmentalists domestically and internationally. It also
supplies a cadre of professionals capable of working together with organized communities to devise
plans for attaching a grassroots development component to carbon offset agreements, pollution tax
credits, energy taxes and effective parks management. Equally important, although it is not clear that
this is occurring, new international institutions must build in participation and support for grassroots
development (Haas et al., 1993; Young, 1994).

Latin America Transformed

and, crucially, industrialization in a number of places. Countries such as Brazil and Mexico are, to a
certain extent, breaking away from resource export dependency. However, the majority of countries
remain dangerously reliant on primary products for income generation. In this way, they remain highly
vulnerable to external conditions and the whims of the global market place, and face considerable
internal problems in managing rentier, enclave and, sometimes, foreign-dominated export sectors.
Furthermore, ecosystems and local environments are placed under stress, given the continued
premium on resource exploitation. Although this situation is not a consequence of recent
neoliberalism, its emphasis on the short-term logic of comparative advantage has compounded the
problem. Furthermore, non-interventionist logic has augmented the distributionally regressive impacts
and negative environmental implications associated with resource export development. As this
chapter has shown, neoliberalism has largely failed as a remedy for primary product-dependent
economies as it clearly prejudices sustainable development on a number of intricately interwoven
fronts.
Population growth in Latin America and the drive for renewed economic growth in the context of
globalization and free-market economics have signicantly increased pressure on natural resources.
These problems have been augmented by the rising concentration of wealth among the rich. This has
swelled the ranks of the poor whose migration patterns overwhelm the carrying capacity of fragile
marginal lands and shantytowns lacking basic services.Taken together, these events deplete vital natural
resources, expand pollution, and, in general, degrade the environment. In short, the quality of life of
people in rural and urban settings declines.
The concept of sustainable development struggling to become a paradigm was born to address
these trends. It recognizes the connections between economic development, poverty, and
environmental degradation. As a result, it does not ask policy-makers to give up the goal of economic
growth for the sake of the environment. From this perspective to do so would be to destroy it. But it
does urge them not to ignore the livelihood needs of the poor and the integrity of the environment
as they pursue their economic ends.
Accomplishing these aims is a difcult proposition. Scarce funding and the divergent interests of
experts who advise policy-makers have generated many competing policy prescriptions to advance
towards the goal of sustainable development. Virtually all of them call attention to trade-offs between
the major components of the concept. A number of key questions policy-makers must ask frame the
trade-offs they face. The emerging environmental agenda in Latin America and among multilateral
lending banks reects the choices made to date.
At what scale do projects deliver the most efciency? Proponents of large-scale projects argue they
reach the most people or largest area with the least chance of implementation chaos. Attention to
large-scale business, farms, water treatment, mining complexes, and the like has immediate effects.
Their implementation is easier to monitor (fewer rms to control). Since fewer organizations are
involved, there is less opportunity for project failure due to miscommunication or conicts of interest.
Proponents of smaller-scale projects argue that large-scale ones frequently break down due to
equipment failure, unforeseen side-effects (e.g. siltation of water plants), or scal problems in the
agencies involved. Smaller-scale projects have lower start-up costs, use more inexpensive and
environmentally-friendly inputs (e.g. recyclable materials and compost). Moreover, simpler technology,
such as more efcient ovens and modest plantation groves in rural areas, can relieve pressure on fuel
wood collection, a major source of deforestation. Active participation by local peoples with clear
benets fosters a stakeholder outlook crucial for project success.
By the same token, the question of how to address the livelihood needs of the impoverished is also
linked to the issue of scale. At a very basic level, one camp argues that relatively unfettered market
forces spearheaded by large-scale domestic and foreign enterprises will drive economic growth. This
will increase employment, which is what people need. Others maintain employment alone is not
sufcient. Market forces in Latin America may generate employment, but at low wages which makes it
impossible to access necessary services health, education, sanitation. In many cases, penetration of
136

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Bob Gwynne for essential input into this work.

FURTHER READING
Auty, R. 1993 Sustaining development in mineral economies: the resource curse thesis, Routledge,
London. This is the most detailed and thorough discussion of the resource curse.
Barham, B., Clark, M., Katz, E. and Schurman, R. 1992 Nontraditional Agricultural Exports
in Latin America, Latin American Research Review, 27(2): 4382. This is the best introduction to the
non-traditional agricultural export debate, is clear on denitions, provides a useful reference list, and
introduces a number of country case studies (including Chile).
Cleuren, H. 2001 Paving the road for forest destruction: key actors and driving forces of tropical
deforestation in Brazil, Ecuador, and Cameroon. Leiden University Press, Leiden. This provides a
contemporary comparative analysis of the political economy of forest destruction.
Gibson, C., McKean, M. and Ostrom, E. 2000 People and forests: communities, institutions, and
governance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. This book provides a wide overview of the
forest issue at the global scale, and a discussion of the role of institutions and governance,
Karl,T. L. 1997 The paradox of plenty: oil booms and petro-states, University of California Press, Los
Angeles, CA. This is the most contemporary and, arguably, most sophisticated, analysis of the socalled paradox which is explored through the Venezuelan case but is also of general relevance to
primary product exporting countries.
137

The political economy of sustainable development

market forces increases poverty. As a result, additional policies are required that focus on small-scale
economic projects with the active participation of local peoples.
Additional questions suggesting trade-offs between economic growth, social justice, and
environmental quality abound. What relationship between public sector and private sector institutions
best serves policy formulation and implementation? Are market incentives or regulation the most
effective way to ensure results? How to protect fragile lands, forests, and remaining wilderness from
the onslaught of economic development and the migrant poor? Do national systems of protected
areas work best under a strict preservationist regime? Or, in the absence of concern for the livelihood
needs of the rural poor, do these systems succumb to land invasions and environmental degradation?
The answer to these questions, as expressed in policy, must necessarily involve politics: the process
of authoritatively allocating value. Exhortations of the need for political will do not sufce. Existing
socio-economic systems, the manner and beneciaries of natural resource extraction, who receives
benets and who does not, are all sustained by coalitions of private interests, government actors and
international agencies. Change requires the construction of countervailing coalitions. How much
change and in what direction how the questions raised above are answered depends on the exact
nature of such coalitions and the compromises they entail. At the core of the problem, however,
signicant structural impediments to development including, most notably, the regions continued
role as a global resource periphery continue to retard meaningful progress. Free-market economics
is incapable of resolving this condition simply rolling back the state can make matters far worse. In
order to transcend the paradox of plenty, the time is ripe for the re-incorporation of a number of the
ideas of dependency and structuralist thinking which, as this chapter has endeavoured to show, remain
relevant. Such ideas must be altered to reect changing global realities and past weaknesses (Kay, 1989;
Dietz, 1995). However, at the centre of such an endeavour should be an attempt to foster the creation
of an effective, economic permanence-minded, environmentally conscious and politically inclusive state
which can regulate the less fortunate impacts of resource exploitation and implement long-term plans
to foster broad-based sustainable development.

Latin America Transformed

Sunkel, O. (ed.) 1993 Development from within: towards a neostructuralist approach for Latin America,
Lynne Rienner, Boulder and London.Those who are interested in new or neo-structuralist ideas this
is an excellent collection of essays exploring a range of themes relevant to this chapter including;
agriculture, environment, development theory, and secular decline, from a revised structuralist point
of view.
World Bank 2003 World development report 2003: sustainable development in a dynamic world:
transforming institutions, growth, and quality of life. Oxford University Press, New York. This illustrates
the incorporation of the environmental agenda into mainstream lending institution policy, and offers
a fascinating read, not least because it is packed with useful statistics.

WEBSITES
World Bank, www.worldbank.org, focuses on economic and social development and promotes
market-friendly approaches to sustainable development.
World Conservation Union, www.iucn.org, this is an environmental organization whose
members include states, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and individual
scientists. It focuses on biodiversity conservation projects.
Forest Stewardship Council, www.fscoax.org, this promotes socially and environmentally
responsible forest management.
International Institute for Environment and Development, www.iied.org, this is a
member-based environmental nongovernmental organization that promotes sustainable
development and seeks to inuence public policy. It attempts to integrate both market-friendly and
grassroots development approaches.
United Nations Environmental Programme, www.unep.org, this is an international
organization that promotes research and projects in sustainable development.

138

2
POLITICAL
TRANSFORMATIONS

This page intentionally left blank

7
Authoritarianism, democracy and
development
Eduardo Silva

The challenge of economic modernization often places the states of developing countries under great
pressures, to which democracies seem particularly vulnerable. Democracy implies broad societal
representation in policy-making, accountability of executive branches to legislatures, deliberation,
compromise and tolerance. Yet economic development frequently requires harsh trade-offs between
savings for investment and redistribution for social needs. Recurring economic crises demand swift,
decisive, comprehensive responses and impose steep costs on losers. Between 1964 and 1976, those
dilemmas generated political tensions that caused many Latin American democracies to give way to
authoritarianism. With few exceptions, the military governments that followed proved equally
incapable of managing the political economy of their nations. A wave of democratization which
crested in the 1980s ensued.Today, most of the states in the region are democratic.Yet despite much
congratulatory rhetoric, uncertainty over the deepening, consolidation and permanence of those new
democracies persists as Latin America confronts the demands of globalization.
These cyclical bouts of authoritarianism and fragile democracies raise enduring questions about the
relationship between economic modernization in the age of globalization and the state. Is there a
fundamental incompatibility between economic development and democracy? Will the current trend
toward democracy in Latin America persist? What are the chances for the consolidation of emerging
democracies?
There are no hard and fast answers. Competing theories about the relationship between economic
development, dictatorship and democracy fuel a diversity of opinion. Theorists diverge in their
underlying assumptions, in what they mean by democracy and authoritarianism, and in what they
believe to be the causes for the outcomes. Because their ideas shape public policy prescriptions,
examining contending theories can shed signicant light on public affairs debates and policy.

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE STATE


Understanding the relationship between economic development and the problem of democracy rst
requires a brief excursion into the relationship between economics and politics. Because the state is
the ultimate repository of power and authority, it lies at the centre of this question. How well or
poorly state ofcials perform the functions of this key political institution has everything to do with
democratic stability. However, it must be recognized that state ofcials are, unfortunately, too
frequently placed on the horns of all but unsolvable dilemmas.
States are long-term expressions of a societys political power through which some social groups
and individuals dominate others within a given territory (Poggi, 1990). Max Weber (in Gerth and Mills,
1958) stressed that the state exercises a monopoly over the legitimate sources of coercion and that
social domination is based on unequal access to them. The modern state is organized in a coherent
set of bureaucratic institutions based on impartial, rational rule-making which differentiates it from the
individual, charismatic style of earlier states (Gerth and Mills, 1958; Nettl, 1968; Poggi, 1990). Moreover,
141

Latin America Transformed

although the state is embedded in society, it must be differentiated from society. State managers may
have their own interests, over and above those of the social groups they control in areas such as
economic policy, the states organization, taxation and territorial expansion through war (Tilly, 1975;
Skocpol, 1979). Their capacity to impose those interests depends on the porosity of state institutions
to social groups the less porous a state is to social forces the more it is autonomous from them
(Evans et al., 1985). Finally, the form of the state depends on how it is connected to society. Modern
states can be classied as liberal democratic, social democratic, monist (one party state), authoritarian
and totalitarian, just to name the most commonly mentioned forms.
Our concern is with understanding the establishment, consolidation and stability of democratic
states. Political economy approaches are very useful for uncovering the strains states are subjected to.
Political economy focuses on the effects of economic and social tensions on the state by examining
relationships between (a) economic structure; (b) class-based social groups; and (c) politics. Jeffry
Frieden (1991:16) argues that all modern political economists study how rational, self-interested
actors combine to affect economic and social policy and to inuence the form of the state. Those
actors pursue their political aims both within and outside of established institutional settings.
Venezuela offers an example of these interactions. This country has been aficted with a prolonged
period of economic crisis and instability that began in 1984. Between 2000 and January 2003, conict
escalated between (1) politically marginal underprivileged social actors who wanted to change the
countrys political institutions and channel more wealth to the nations poor; and (2) propertied actors
who resisted such changes. The former, led by Hugo Chavez, won the presidency through legitimate
elections in the late 1990s and pursued their goals through state institutions. Those goals included
efforts to change those institutions so that they would be biased in their favour. Meanwhile, they also
organized popular brigades, frequently resorted to violent demonstrations, and made questionable
use of the military. Upper- and middle-class opposition forces resisted and attempted to oust
President Chavez. They used established institutions, such as the courts and electoral tribunals. But
they also organized marches and demonstrations. This mobilization culminated in a long national
general strike to pressure the authorities to call a referendum on the presidents rule. After more than
two months the strike failed. Notice how political economy focuses attention on actors, interests and
power. This allows clearer analysis of a situation and its likely outcome than approaches that focus on
legitimacy or moral right.
For political economists, the economic system itself, the structure of production, is a fundamental
starting point for the analysis of economic and social policy and political change. It is the principal
building block for dening actors and their interests; it shapes relations of domination and subordination
among social groups; and it determines some key functions of the state (Anglade and Fortn, 1985). In
market economies, capitalists (the owners or controllers of production and money) and labour are
usually considered to be the main social actors. Capitalists, in the rst instance, dominate labour by
virtue of their economic power. To simplify drastically, capitalists seek to maximize prots, which often
means paying less to labour in the form of wages and benets. It also means obstructing labours
attempts to organize to increase their share of the wealth generated by their work.
Many political economists argue that classes must be broken down into smaller units (or
disaggregated) to properly understand processes of economic and political change (Gourevitch, 1986;
Frieden, 1991). Thus, capitalists are most commonly subdivided by economic sector: nanciers,
commercial interests, industrialists, landowners, the construction sector, mine owners, etc. Economic
sectors can be subdivided further depending on the capacity of subsectors to compete in
international markets. Labour is frequently separated into urban industrial, service sector, government
employees, and peasants and/or rural labour. The middle classes usually professionals are also
treated as a distinct category; and they are especially important for political change in Latin America
(Rueschemeyer et al., 1992). Disaggregation along these lines permits analysis of how divisions within
classes or of alliances between specic sectors of capital, labour and the middle classes affect the
direction of economic and political change.
142

DEMOCRACY, AUTHORITARIANISM AND DEVELOPMENT


All capitalist states undertake these functions. However, how state managers full those functions
varies depending on state form, whether it is democratic or authoritarian. In democratic capitalist
states governments are elected by competition between two or more political parties with discernible
differences on major policy issues. Electoral participation voting should be by secret and universal
ballot. Sufcient civil liberties must be guaranteed to ensure full and fair contestation and electoral
participation (Dahl, 1971). Participation can also extend to the policy-making process through
negotiation between political parties in the congress with the executive or directly through access to
the executive by the organizations of labour, capital and other groups. In some instances, democratic
capitalist states may also exhibit a high degree of concern over the economic rights of subordinate
class-based groups. This effectively extends the egalitarian principle of democracy to the economic
sphere (Held, 1996).
Given these characteristics, in principle, democratic states protect subordinate social groups (the
middle classes and urban and rural labour) from excessive exploitation by business people and
landowners. Political parties may represent some of their interests and try to advance them from the
executive, the legislature, or both, depending on the partys electoral fortunes. Greater freedom to
organize may allow subordinate social groups to negotiate more directly with capital and state
managers. Less able to rely on repression, and in the interest of maintaining political order, state
managers have more of an incentive to give some concessions to subordinate groups. However, those
concessions cannot be allowed to upset the maintenance of a good business climate for investment
and economic growth; nor should they threaten the basic social order.
143

Authoritarianism, democracy and development

Politics and economics are intertwined in another way as well. A countrys economic fortunes have
an impact on political stability. Prosperity economic good times usually reduces tension between
class-based social groups. If economic policies are generating economic growth, and if most social
groups perceive a benet from that growth, social pressure for change will be slight. By the same
token, deep or recurrent economic crises exacerbate tensions between class-based social groups and
generate conict as they seek the establishment of alternative policies conducive to a resumption of
economic growth (Gourevitch, 1986; Haggard and Kaufman, 1995). If the crisis is severe enough, social
groups may perceive that a change in the form of state is the only solution.
What are the implications of these features of capitalist societies for theories of the state and the
problem of democracy, authoritarianism and development? They point to two essential functions that
the state whether democratic or authoritarian must perform if it is to remain stable. First, it is
compelled to maintain the overall conditions for capitalist economic development (Lindblom, 1977;
Przeworski and Wallerstein, 1988). Second, the state must maintain the social order in which capitalists
dominate and labour and the middle classes are subordinate to them (Poulantzas, 1973; Mandel,
1978).
How state managers approach the task of fullling those functions varies. In a synthesis of extensive
academic debates, Christin Anglade and Carlos Fortn (1985: 1923) have argued that state managers
intervene in several ways to mediate class tensions that could interfere in the accomplishment of those
functions. First, state managers have to maintain conditions to ensure that businesspeople generate
sufcient prots to maintain adequate investment levels. Naked repression, however, cannot accomplish
this in the long term. Thus, state managers also have to protect labour from excessive exploitation in
order to avoid rebellion and to keep up productivity. Second, state managers also intervene on behalf
of specic economic sectors of capital to ensure the economic health of the nation through economic
policies such as taxation, tariffs, subsidies, and monetary and scal policy. In this manner, the state may
promote industry over agriculture or export sectors over domestic market-oriented ones. Third, state
managers may involve the state directly in production through public enterprise if the private sector is
unwilling or incapable of signicant investment of its own.

Latin America Transformed

Authoritarian capitalist states, to some degree or another, restrict political competition and
participation. The most closed authoritarian political systems such as Chile and Argentina under
military rule in the 1970s and 1980s do not permit any. The leaders of authoritarian capitalist states
also rely heavily on repression of social groups, especially labour and other subordinate class-based
and ethnic groups. But middle classes and selected business groups may suffer as well. Given these
characteristics, it is widely assumed that the managers of authoritarian states possess the capability to
concentrate more exclusively on maintaining social order and a good business climate than those of
democratic states.They may formulate policy with far less encumbrance (or none) from socio-political
groups than the leaders of democratic capitalist states.
Development places great strain on the states of developing countries (Chilcote, 1981; Handelman,
1996). Development occurs when societies less economically advanced than the great industrial
powers of Europe, North America and Asia are drawn into political and economic relationships with
them. In other words, development is a process in which societies that had been peripheral to the
global market economy are pulled into it. Globalization may be thought of as the most recent and
some would argue qualitatively different stage of this trend. The economic changes that result from
the experience generate social change. Political tensions are as new class-based groups compete with
established ones, for example, new industrialists, middle classes and urban labour may clash with
traditional landed and commercial elites. A state that expressed the domination of the latter two
classes may nd itself under pressure to include the new social groups. Depending on how the conict
is resolved, the form of the state may suffer a more or less violent change. This occurred throughout
Latin America during the twentieth century, especially during the populist period of the 1920s to the
1960s.
As societies are drawn into the world economy, state managers may have great difculty devising
policies that promote economic growth. Shifts in the international economy have a strong effect on
the economies of under-developed nations. Because they depend on economically advanced nations
for capital and technological know-how, booms, depressions and technological breakthroughs upset
established patterns of production more deeply than in the advanced countries. Developing countries
must resort to drastic means to adjust their economies. This too places inordinate strains on states;
subsequent conicts over appropriate policy responses can lead to a change in state form.
In short, the process of development can generate situations in which state managers have difculty
fullling the functions of the state in market economies. They may not be able to generate policies
conducive to capitalist economic development. Moreover, they may be overwhelmed by social
tensions that make it hard to maintain a social order in which the private sector clearly dominates over
other class-based social groups, such as labour, peasants and the middle classes.
Because development is such a wrenching process, it poses difcult questions for political order in
general, and democracy in particular. As we shall see, approaches to answering these questions fall,
roughly, into two categories: political economy and US political sociology. We begin with the latter in
the form of modernization theory, contrast it with political economy approaches (dependency theory
and bureaucratic-authoritarianism) and conclude with an examination of contemporary
modernization theory and political economy. The intellectual history is key for understanding current
debates over what to do to strengthen democracy.
Modernization theory
In the rst 20 years following the Second World War, democracy surged in Latin America. It was an
optimistic era. Argentina and Colombia returned to the democratic fold after prolonged periods of
political instability. Brazil and Venezuela established new democratic regimes; Chile and Uruguays longstanding democracies seemed secure. Even a number of Central American countries, following in
Costa Ricas footsteps, established electoral forms of government.
This trend seemed to conrm the expectations of modernization theorists who took an optimistic,
and deterministic, view of the relationship between capitalist economic development and political
144

145

Authoritarianism, democracy and development

democracy. In their analysis, the causal arrows pointed in one direction only. As countries modernized
socio-economically, authoritarian and other traditional forms of government gave way to democracy.
Modernization theorists assumed that developing countries would follow the same evolutionary
patterns as the economically advanced nations. In the developed nations, they observed that
economic modernization had brought about a transition from traditional culture, social organization
and political authority to more modern ones. In advanced countries, economic progress produced
more rational, goal-oriented thinking, a far more diversied social structure (middle classes, urban
industrial and service labour, transformation of agrarian social relations), institutions to process
increased demands, and political democracy (Handelman, 1996: 1114).
This approach did not believe the state was a useful concept. Instead, it embraced David Eastons
(1965) concept of the political system, which drew heavily on the sociology of Talcott Parsons (1951).
In this view, government institutions (executive, legislative and judiciary) processed the demands of
social groups that cut across class lines. These demands constituted inputs into the policy process, and
in processing those demands the government mediated group conict. At the end of the process,
governments produced outputs in the form of decisions and actions.This was a thoroughly US-centric,
pluralist approach to the study of government.
Based on this schema, modernization theorists reasoned that changes in the socio-economic and
cultural environment produced changes in political systems due to shifts in policy demands and the
sources of support for government. As economically and politically advanced countries integrated
developing nations into the world economy, traditional agricultural societies would become modern
societies. In the process, traditional societies would go through a sequence of changes that mirrored
those of Western Europe (Rostow, 1960). Gabriel Almond and Bingham Powell (1966) argued that in
the twentieth century the development of capitalism in economically advanced European states
permitted the emergence of full political democracy with greater attention to economic equality
through welfare.
Almond and Powell (1978) also argued that economic and social modernization caused political
development, understood as a distinct concept. For them, political development consisted of two
dimensions. First, it encompassed the evolution of specialized political executive and bureaucratic
agencies capable of setting collective goals and implementing them (ibid.: 358). Second, it posited the
rise of broadly articulating and aggregating agencies [such as] political parties, interest groups, and
communication media that serve the purpose of relating groups in the population to these goalsetting and goal-implementing structures (ibid.: 358). New social groups created and used these
institutions to press their demands for greater welfare and inclusion in the political decision-making
process. This generated an opening of political competition and participation where traditional
authoritarian elites share power with new elites. Once a country reaches economic maturity, full
political democracy appears. With poverty vanquished, the question of liberty and distributive issues
no longer threaten elites.
Some Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,Venezuela, Uruguay and Mexico)
were thought to have reached economic take-off and to be on the brink of economic maturity and
consolidated democracy. Social scientists noted the expansion of the middle class, and, especially, the
emergence of party systems similar to those of the United States and Europe. Associational life also
seemed to be ourishing with the emergence of organized interest groups among the professions,
business and labour. Elected governments processed the demands of these socio-political institutions
and generated reformist policies that distributed some of the national wealth and life chances to the
traditionally less fortunate social groups of these countries.
Modernization theory strongly inuenced US policy towards Latin America in the Alliance for
Progress during the 1960s. Here, US development aid focused on economic infrastructure and the
promotion of US corporations in the region to spur rapid economic modernization. The attendant
expansion and strengthening of the middle class were accompanied by strong support for the
development of reformist centrist political parties, such as the Christian Democratic party in Chile.

Latin America Transformed

The Alliance for Progress also backed agrarian reform to speed up economic modernization of
agricultural production, the differentiation of an agrarian social structure and the distribution of socioeconomic benets to the countryside. Agrarian reform was also supposed to blunt the revolutionary
potential of peasants and, therefore, help to avoid another Cuban revolution.
Although modernization theory fell into disfavour during the 1970s and 1980s, its central tenets
were worth developing because it has enjoyed a vigorous resurgence. The emphasis on economic
modernization, the change in political culture, the importance of associational life and the
development of institutions such as political parties have been the focal points of widely applied policy
prescriptions for democratisation in the 1990s and 2000s.
Under-development, dependency theory, and state form
In contrast to modernization theory, in the 1960s, dependency theory took a non-determinist view of
the relationship between levels of development and state form. Economic modernization did not
necessarily foster political democracy. As the decade gave way to the 1970s, this approach seemed
more in tune with events as democracy gave way to military dictatorships in Brazil, Argentina, Chile,
and Uruguay. Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto (1979: 199212) expressed the theory
most forcefully. Although heavily critiqued by Marxists (Chilcote, 1982), their analysis was rooted in a
Marxist political economy. Thus, for them, states expressed the domination of the propertied classes
over the rest of society. Their primary functions were to maintain social order and the conditions for
capitalist development; democratic states were safe as long as they fullled those functions. Whether
or not they managed to accomplish those functions depended on a number of factors.These included
the composition of political alliances within and across class-based groups, their bases of power within
state institutions, the organizational capacity of subordinate classes and the nature of their demands,
and the presence or absence of internationally and domestically-induced economic crisis.
A fundamental insight was the argument that a developing nations domestic politics and the
prospects for development had to be analysed in the context of that countrys insertion in the
international economy. The economically developed nations of the world had pulled them into the
world economy.They dominated developing countries because of their superior investment capability,
technological advancement, and military capability (in the case of the United States). This condition
dened a situation of dependency. A countrys class structure and the economic and social problems
facing the state had to be understood in terms of the nations connection to economically advanced
countries. The situation of dependency was also the cause of persistent under-development due to
the assumption that the asymmetrical power relations between developed and developing nations
would perpetuate the condition. Development might occur, but it would always be lagging and
different in its social, political and cultural consequences. This was called associated dependent
development (Cardoso and Faletto, 1979; Evans, 1979).
Cardoso and Faletto argued that economic change lay at the root of the crises of the Latin
American state that began in the 1960s. They concluded that the globalization of the world economy
forced states and domestic capitalists to accommodate transnational corporations.This required a shift
in alliances between state actors, international capital, domestic capital and the middle and working
classes. The states of Brazil, Argentina and Chile, for example, collapsed under these tensions, ushering
in military government. In these countries labour had its own political party (or parties). In the 1960s
and 1970s those labour parties won presidential elections and used the states power and authority
to further include labour and peasants into the political system. Their governments heavily attacked
foreign capital. This did not contribute to the business climate necessary to attract transnational
corporations and to link domestic capitalists to them.
By contrast, the Colombian and Venezuelan states weathered the storm. Colombia was aided by its
party system, dominated by two multi-class, catch-all political parties. Neither felt beholden to a lowerclass constituency, thus they were in a better position to mediate between the external sector,
domestic entrepreneurs and the lower classes. The countrys system of power sharing between the
146

Bureaucratic-authoritarianism
The crisis of the Latin American state that began in the 1960s seriously challenged the core
assumptions of modernization theory. Modernization theorists had taken a benign view of the
147

Authoritarianism, democracy and development

two political parties (the Frente Nacional) also helped. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan state was aided by
oil money, which lubricated class tensions through redistribution of resources for all classes, upper and
lower. The larger integration of business into the major populist party, Accin Democrtica, also
helped.
Dependency theory was not only an analytical framework for interpreting Latin Americas political
economy. Leaders of populist, leftist and progressive political parties and movements drew on
dependency theory for their rhetoric, policy prescriptions and political strategies. In many countries,
dependency theory reinforced economic nationalism, culminating in the nationalization of
international and, sometimes, domestic companies in crucial sectors of their economies, such as oil in
Venezuela, copper and other enterprises in Chile, meat packinghouses in Argentina, and the oil and
sugar industries in Peru. This was deemed a key step to breaking the cycle of dependency. The state
would enjoy greater autonomy in determining the countrys economic destiny as it gained control of
major resources, especially those that generated foreign exchange. Dependency theory also shaped
class alliance strategies. Salvador Allendes government in Chile (197173) attempted to forge
coalitions between urban labour, the middle classes, medium and small business and the peasants to
counter alliances between large-scale domestic business and international companies and the middle
classes. Brazils Labour Party under Joao Goulart (196264) tried a similar tactic. Land reform in both
countries served as an important tool to cement alliances with peasants (a heretofore politically
marginalized social sector) and to break the economic power of a traditional socio-political actor: the
landed aristocracy.
Dependency theorists, however, were not primarily interested in explaining the relationship
between development and the prospects for democracy or authoritarianism. They wanted to
understand the socio-economic and political roots of under-development and the difculty of
overcoming it (Frank, 1966; Dos Santos, 1970). Nevertheless, dependency theory made useful, lasting
contributions to political economy studies of development and its politics.The concept of the situation
of dependency helped to rene our understanding of class structure, class relations and alliances, and
economic tendencies in Latin America. Analysis of these factors, in turn, promoted a greater
understanding of the functions the state had to perform to meet the challenge of under-development.
The choices and actions of national states and classes were conditioned by the preferences of the
foreign sector, understood as international capital and the governments of developed nations that
supported them. These foreign entities had to be accommodated.
In conclusion, dependency theory brought attention to what was different about the class structure
and state functions of developing countries in relation to more developed nations, whether capitalist
or socialist. The emphasis was on examining how different class alliances helped states to full the
functions of social dominance and economic growth in specic historical periods. This was an
important contribution, given the proliferation of competing theories that held that all countries went
through similar stages of economic, social and political development; what was adequate for explaining
European or North American history was also applicable to Latin America.
Perhaps more importantly, dependency theory differed from modernization theory in its policy
prescriptions and implications for political action. Modernization theory favoured private sector-led
economic development and emphasized strengthening political institutions (especially centre-right and
centre-left political parties) and changing political culture (education policy to promote tolerance,
moderation and rational goal-oriented thinking). Dependency theory prescribed nationalization and
state planning for economic development, redistribution of national wealth to lower class sectors of
society, effective political participation for lower classes, and the politics of class alliances to support
those objectives.

Latin America Transformed

effects that economic, social and political integration into the world economy had on developing
countries. Developing nations would follow the idealized sequence of economic, social and political
stages of advanced, developed nations. Yet two of the most economically advanced countries of
South America, Argentina and Brazil, succumbed to a new type of military dictatorship in the
1960s. Other economically advanced cases in the Southern Cone, Chile and Uruguay, followed suit
in the early 1970s. By the middle of the 1970s, most South American countries were ruled by
military governments. How to account for this disturbing trend? Dependency theory, as seen above,
offered some answers, but lacked sufcient elaboration to fully explain the turn to military
dictatorship.
Guillermo ODonnell (1973) took up the challenge. First, he stood modernization theory on its
head, proposing a reverse determinism. Developing nations were not destined to replicate the path of
advanced industrial countries. Greater levels of economic development did not lead to democracy;
instead, they were equated with a new form of military dictatorship, a new authoritarianism.
ODonnell dubbed them bureaucratic-authoritarian (BA) regimes. Second, drawing on a number of
sources (Moore, 1966; Organski, 1965; Gerschenkron, 1962; and dependency theory), he constructed
a political economy approach to explain the emergence of BA regimes.
For ODonnell, the state stood at the centre of the dilemma. In the 1960s, the prevailing economic
development model, import-substituting industrialization, had reached a crisis in Argentina, Brazil, and
later Chile and Uruguay. Economic growth was sluggish or non-existent and high ination prevailed.
Correcting these problems required substantial investment to go beyond light assemblies to the more
capital and technologically intensive stages of industrialization, which he called the deepening of
industrialization. The problem for the state lay in how to mobilize human and material resources to
accomplish this end, an end that fullled one of the key functions of the capitalist state: providing for
the growth and development of the economy.
Latin American states faced an additional problem. They were hard-pressed to full the function of
maintaining social order. The evolution of class conicts under democratic regimes threatened both
the dominance of propertied classes and the ability of states to maintain a good business climate. In
democracy, populist and Marxist social movements, unions and political parties strongly pressured
governments. In some cases, they won presidential elections and pushed their platforms even harder.
Their welfare policies, and at times revolutionary stances, threatened the established order. This threat
from below frightened the upper classes. Industrial, nancial and commercial classes allied with
landowning elites in defence against populists and would-be revolutionists. This coalition needed a
dictatorial state to impose economic and social order.
Enter the armed forces. The military in Latin America had developed the doctrine of national
security. This anti-communist doctrine held that without economic growth there could be no political
order. Thus, the military as an institution took it upon itself to provide political order through
repression and to undertake conservative economic modernization strategies. They alone, went the
argument, possessed the power and authority to mobilize material and human resources for national
development. The eventual success of economic strategies would ultimately recast the society and
polity and make democracy safe for capitalism. The military also believed that recreating a good
business climate would entice foreign investors back to their countries. And, given a situation of
dependency, foreign investment was key for economic success.
ODonnells theorizing not only challenged modernization theory, but it also refocused attention on
how the structural conditions of dependency affected class conict and political change. Whether
democracy survived in dependent capitalist economies in large measure hinged on the perception of
the upper classes, the military and the foreign sector of the states ability to perform its functions.
Given the acuteness of the crisis of economic development and the political strength of populist
forces in the more advanced stages of socio-economic modernization, ODonnell pessimistically
concluded that repressive military governments were Latin Americas political future, not democracy.
Higher levels of economic development produced political authoritarianism.
148

Modernization theory revisited


With few exceptions, between the end of the 1970s and the middle of the 1990s authoritarian
regimes gave way to democracy in Latin America. This democratizing trend underscored some of the
bureaucratic-authoritarianism literatures weaknesses, which were amply debated in a volume edited
by David Collier (1979). Principally, it invalidated the argument that higher levels of socio-economic
development had an elective afnity for military government. In addition, the literature on
bureaucratic-authoritarianism had difculty explaining the transitions themselves. Some scholars used
the BA framework to analyse tensions in military regimes (Cardoso, 1979; ODonnell, 1979; OBrien
and Cammack, 1985). However, these efforts could not account for the process by which transitions
to democracy from authoritarianism took place, nor could they prescribe policies to help the process
along and ensure the consolidation of democracy once it was established.
Instead, a literature that built on modernization theory emerged to describe and explain this new
wave of democracy and to prescribe policy options and strategies for democratic consolidation.
Samuel Huntington (1991) and Larry Diamond, Juan Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset (1989)
identied numerous preconditions for democracy drawn from modernization theory. They
emphasized the importance of adequate levels of socio-economic development and political culture.
Huntington argued that the midrange of economic development, measured as per capita income of
$1000 to $3000 (late 1980s dollars), correlated highly with countries experiencing transitions to
democracy. Diamond, Linz and Lipset added that steady growth and broad distribution of wealth
were more important than the fact of high levels of socio-economic development alone. In short,
socio-economic development promoted civic culture, raised education, increased access to media,
and provided resources for distribution that nurtured democratic values such as tolerance and
compromise.
However, unlike the original modernization theorists, they argued that socio-economic
development by itself does not produce democracy. Other factors mediate, such as the policies of
external actors whether they are supportive of dictatorship or democracy. Especially signicant for
Latin America was the shift in support from military government to democracy by the United States
with the demise of the Cold War. Huntington further argued that authoritarian regimes had to go
through a legitimacy crisis before democratization became possible. He also noted a Christian religious
culture was more propitious for democracy than other religions.
The consolidation of democracy and the quality of democracy became increasingly pressing issues
as the 1990s wore on. The governability of Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, and even Argentina,
Venezuela, and at times Mexico, not to mention Guatemala and Nicaragua, seemed questionable.
Building on these ideas, Linz and Stepan (1996) and Diamond (1999), among others, developed the
concept of democratic consolidation, understood as the conditions for the stability and persistence of
democracy. These scholars argued democracy was consolidated when most citizens and all politically
relevant elites considered the democratic state to be the only legitimate means to settle competition
for political ofce and to formulate policy.
With varying emphasis, these analysts agreed on ve conditions necessary for fully consolidated
democracies. Linz and Stepan (1996: 715) summarized them as follows: (1) a vibrant civil society
based on freedom of association and communication; (2) free and fair elections with universal citizen
participation; (3) the rule of law, understood as constitutionally established, broadly accepted and
obeyed legal culture; (4) a modern state apparatus with a monopoly of legitimate force based on
149

Authoritarianism, democracy and development

The theory helped to understand why Latin America was turning to authoritarianism in the 1960s
and 1970s. However, because it stressed structural factors, the theory did not address conditions
decision-makers could manipulate. Thus, it did not lend itself to policy analysis, especially prescriptions
for democratization. The actors interested in democracy or the extension of social and economic
rights to the urban and rural poor and otherwise disenfranchised were the objects of repression; they
had no role to play in BA regimes.

Latin America Transformed

rational-legal norms capable of regulating society and economy; and (5) a market economy in which
the state mediates social and economic needs.
Diamond (1999: 7793) added effective regime performance as a sixth condition crucial for building
the legitimacy necessary for democratic consolidation. This measure focused on two arenas: (1)
adequate economic performance, understood as sustained increases in GDP, was crucial for providing
improved living standards conducive to regime support; and (2) political performance, which largely
referred to upholding the rule of law, including protection from criminals and proper functioning of the
legal system, was also considered a crucial measure of regime effectiveness.
These conditions doubled as policy recommendations that have been the template for prescribed
reforms throughout Latin America. For example, the United States has emphasized strengthening the
rule of law, especially in the anti-drug crusade, which has centred on Mexico, Colombia and the
Andean countries. The United Nations and other international organizations, such as the European
Union, have worked tirelessly to ensure free and fair elections in countries where their exercise has
been questionable. The USA, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade
Organization have also steadfastly promoted neoliberal economic reforms, which they, as well as the
scholars discussed above, believe are the only means to improve economic performance.
Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, the World Bank, the globes pre-eminent multilateral
development bank, has constructed, articulated and implemented (through its loan conditionality) a
neoliberal agenda regarding economic reform, state reform, poverty alleviation and sustainable
development. Its free market economic reform measures reinforce those already prescribed by the
US government and the IMF. However, the World Bank also recognized that the state was a
necessary institution for societies to function effectively (World Bank, 1996). As a result, it has
advocated building effective states with reduced areas of responsibility. Those include the provision of
law and order (especially with respect to enforcement of private property rights and contracts, but
also for personal security) and providing the institutional support necessary for the market to function
correctly. Reducing state responsibilities, in this view, also promotes the emergence of civil society.
Poverty alleviation, putting a human face on capitalism, took on a neoliberal cast as well (World Bank,
2000). Universal coverage was changed to private insurance for those who could pay, such as the
middle and upper classes.The poor received targeted, preventative care on a means-tested basis from
the state, such as programmes for pregnant women and infants to strengthen them physically. This
reduced infant mortality rates without having to spend on expensive health care facilities. The
emphasis is on keeping the young healthy leaving sick poor adults to suffer inadequate public health
care. Education programmes were treated in a similar manner.
Some version of these policy prescriptions for the consolidation of neoliberal democratic capitalism
based on precepts drawn from revised modernization theory has been implemented almost
everywhere in Latin America. Domestic political, economic and social elites have promoted these
reforms too, at least sufciently to implement this agenda. Taking the lessons of the past to heart, the
moderation of political elites, especially of populist and leftist parties in Brazil, Chile, Argentina and
many Central American countries has been key for the wave of democratization that has swept the
region. For the moment they have withstood the temptation to make demands the state cannot
accommodate without jeopardizing its relations to large-scale domestic and international capital. They
have also resisted resorting to mass mobilization. In short, to protect democracy they have held in
check behaviour that in the past generated the threat from below central to ODonnells analysis of
the breakdown of democracy. Elite moderation and compromise also ameliorated conditions for
democratic breakdown emphasized by Linz (1978) and Crozier et al. (1975).They argued that leaders
from the left and centre of the political spectrum had made ill-advised choices.Too many demands had
overloaded governments ability to process them. This so reduced the effectiveness and efcacy of
government that it lost legitimacy and the military stepped in.
Despite improvements, the revised modernization-cum-neoliberal agenda for transitions to
democracy and democratic consolidation still suffered from some of modernization theorys original
150

Recent political economy theorizing


Recent theorizing in political economy concurs that economic development does not necessarily
produce either democratic or authoritarian state forms. For political economists, whether one or the
other prevails, as well as the stability of political regimes, depends, in the rst instance, on the resolution
of class-based social conicts. Otherwise, the fragile institutions stressed by modernization theorists
run the risk of being overwhelmed by struggles among antagonistic social groups. Accordingly,
contemporary political economists focus on the effects that economic conditions and the relative
autonomy of the state have on social conict and regime stability. As will be seen, these analyses also
have concrete policy implications. Because most Latin American countries have now experienced
some combination of neoliberal economic reform and democratization, political economy studies
frequently focus on the dual problem of economic and political change. They ask: what conditions
encourage free-market economic reforms and democratic states simultaneously?
Jeffry Frieden (1991) offers an elegant explanation for the connection between the Latin American
debt crisis, economic change and the recent wave of democratization. Frieden argues that
international pressure for free-market economic adjustment has been relatively constant over a long
151

Authoritarianism, democracy and development

shortcomings in addition to some new ones. One of the lingering problems was that the
preconditions such as socio-economic development and religious doctrine do not explain why a
country has a democratic or authoritarian form of government. They may be correlated with
democracy under the right circumstances, but the causal linkages are still missing and the right
combination of factors is not understood.
A second problem was the number of factors used to understand transitions to democracy and
democratic consolidation. Recognition of the complexity is welcome, but there was little theoretical
integration of the variables; the relationships between variables are not clearly specied. The emphasis
on the political culture of elites offers hope that leadership can forge democratic outcomes where
structural conditions may not be very favourable. But these studies offer no explanation why political
elites embrace democratic values. Are they voluntary decisions or the product of historical pressures
(Espinal, 1991)?
These analytic ambiguities are not just academic; they have real consequences for policy. For almost
20 years, Latin American policy-makers have emphasized free market economics and state reform
(also known as state modernization) to support the neoliberal economic agenda; imsy social safety
nets for the poor drift in and out of focus depending on scal conditions.The problem is that, with few
exceptions (notably Chile), neoliberal economic reform has not generated sustained economic
growth, a key condition for democratic consolidation stressed by neo-modernization theorists, and
nowhere has it made the distribution of income more equitable. Despite this lacklustre performance,
in the 1990s, political elites steadfastly suppressed demands for socio-economic policy change. Instead,
they pressed on with political-institutional reforms suggested by revised modernization theory. These
focused principally on modernizing the state and strengthening the rule of law (police) in the face of
mounting corruption and lawlessness.
It is questionable, however, whether this approach constitutes an adequate policy response to
protracted socio-economic crisis. Karl Polanyi (1957) argued that people naturally seek to protect
themselves from the insecurities of the market. The suppression of demands for relief has resulted in
peasant uprising in Southern Mexico in the mid-1990s and widespread political instability in Ecuador,
Peru and Venezuela in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the last three cases a new populism arose
that made signicant political inroads. It remains to be seen whether elites who support the
neoliberal agenda will tolerate them. The election in 2002 of a centre-left labour party coalition to
the presidency in Brazil raises similar questions about the moderation of elites and the limits of elite
consensus in economic hard times. A crucial issue for neo-modernization theorists is whether their
work can transcend policy prescriptions that currently only support a neoliberal democratic capitalist
state.

Latin America Transformed

period of time. Therefore, domestic class alliances, the extent of class conict and the degree of state
autonomy were more important than external factors in both economic and political change.
For Frieden, capitalists are the key class-based actors. Because they control the public functions of
investment and employment (also called structural power), their support for any particular state form
is crucial for political stability. Thus, in countries with moderate tension between labour and business
(low class conict), state managers should heed the policy preferences of dominant economic groups.
Otherwise, economic elites may turn against the government. This occurred in Argentina and Brazil,
where many important business sectors disagreed with the military governments economic policies.
Because the dictatorships ignored their demands, they supported democratization, thus strengthening
a multiclass coalition against military rule. Conversely, in situations of high class conict, state managers
may have more autonomy in policy decisions. The dominant sectors of the upper classes are more
willing to submit to economic policy changes because they need the state to keep social order. This
happened in Chile. The implication is that the absence of a multiclass alliance for democracy explains
why it was practically the last South American country to redemocratize. Moreover, when the
transition to democracy took place, it did in accordance with the militarys agenda.
Frieden conned his analysis of political change to the regime loyalties of capitalists, assuming that
their regime preferences weighed heavily in the process of transitions to democracy. This was a
signicant, if not unique, insight. The limitation was that by themselves the regime loyalties of upper
classes did not determine the outcome.
Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Stephens and John Stephens (1992) address this limitation.
Following Barrington Moore (1966), they argue that democracy or dictatorship is the result of broad
class alliances. The power of those alliances is mediated by state autonomy and international factors.
The authors stress that capitalist development weakens labour-repressive authoritarian classes,
especially traditional landowners. It strengthens classes that have an interest in democracy: the
bourgeoisie (capitalists), the middle classes and labour.
But the mere emergence of those classes is not enough to explain whether democracy or
dictatorship will prevail. In Latin America, as in Europe, the bourgeoisie had an interest in creating
protected, oligarchic, democracies that included them in policy-making but excluded subordinate
social classes/groups. Depending on the case, this characterized Latin American politics from the
nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth centuries. The struggles and organizational capacity of the
middle class, instead of labour as in Europe, turned the tide in favour of full democracy. Labour in Latin
America was simply organizationally too weak to perform the role. Thus, a middle class that did not
feel threatened by labour could ally with it, and some sectors of the bourgeoisie, to build democracy.
Conversely, when middle classes make common cause with upper classes, authoritarianism might
result. In other words, authoritarianism is likely to emerge in the presence of highly organized and
institutionally and ideologically cohesive autonomous states (independent of civil society) and severe
class tensions. In recent transitions to democracy, the foreign policy of the dominant external power
also makes a difference. Thus, US support for democracy as of the middle of the 1980s strengthened
the movement to democracy in the region.
Rueschemeyer et al. developed a framework for analysis based on the relationship between class
structure and organization, state institutions and transnational forces. They focused on how long-term
processes of capitalist development affected those variables and their impact on state form. Stephen
Haggard and Robert Kaufman (1995) developed a framework for analysis more suited to short-term
studies of transitions from authoritarianism to democracy and the prospects for democratic
consolidation. They also examined the socio-economic and institutional conditions under which elites
embrace democratic values; issues the new modernization theorists and the increasingly popular
strategic choice analysts (ODonnell and Schmitter, 1986) had ignored.
Haggard and Kaufman argued transitions to democracy were most likely in cases with poor
economic performance and lack of elite cohesion. Economic crises tended to undermine the state
managers ability to purchase the compliance of social groups. Elite fragmentation weakened the states
152

153

Authoritarianism, democracy and development

capacity to manage the crisis. Under these conditions of regime decomposition, the political
organizations of middle-class groups and labour could press for full political democracy and even ally
with some disgruntled upper-class groups; but only if they moderated their policy platforms. In cases
without economic crisis and where elites remained cohesive in support of military government,
authoritarians were able to hold out longer and impose more restrictions on the democratic regime
that was to follow them.
The prospects for the consolidation of democracy depend on two institutional factors, according to
Haggard and Kaufman. First, centralized executive structures are better because they facilitated the
initiation of economic reforms necessary to resume economic growth, without which there can be no
long-term political stability. Having initiated economic reforms, state managers must build support
coalitions for the implementation of those reforms in order to sustain them. Second, Haggard and
Kaufman suggest that the structure of the party system is key for constructing such support coalitions.
Specically, they advocate building two-party systems. These tend to reinforce compromise and
moderation.
None of these studies, however, argued that labour played a signicant role in democratization. Ruth
Berins Collier (1999) addresses this omission. Her work is ambitious. It links theories of
democratization based on class analysis with elite bargaining theories. Berins Collier carefully avoids
claiming labour played a determining role. She shows that in most cases organized labour consciously
developed strategies in support of democratization and that its actions affected the democratization
process. In concert with other social groups, it mobilized in the streets and also participated in
negotiation over regime change with opposition and government elites. Which strategies they
adopted, and the allies they chose, depended mainly on the degree to which they were included or
excluded from ofcial negotiations by the authoritarian regime. Although not strictly the subject of this
chapter, it is worth mentioning that Berins Collier develops a nely crafted model of class-based
actions to account for distinct modes of transition to democracy in South America and Southern
Europe.
These political economy analyses share a common assumption. Democratization involves a
complex process of constructing multiclass coalitions to support both democratic institution building
and a socioeconomic development model. Consequently, political economists offer the following
policy advice. Political leaders must forge social coalitions to support their policy initiatives and the
institutions they seek to build. The relevant coalition partners are urban based: different sectors of
business, the middle classes and labour.The urban bias is rooted in a tradition of assuming that agrarian
interests have a greater afnity for authoritarian regimes (albeit for different reasons depending on
whether they are large-scale landowners or peasants). Developments in Brazil during 2002 may call
those assumptions into question. The Brazilian Labour Party with strong ties to rural labour unions
and social movements won a presidential election there.
Another policy prescription ows from the recognition that class-based social groups have different
interests. Thus, political leaders that represent these diverse interests must exercise moderation and
compromise to achieve democracy. Many analysts interpret this as an admonition to labour groups
and strongly reformist middle-class groups who in the past pushed too many demands that
democratic regimes could not meet without destabilizing their countries economically and politically.
This was ODonnells threat from below, or Croziers (1975) excess of participation. However, the
recommendation also applies to upper-class elites and conservative middle-class leaders, as well as the
occasional right-wing labour organization. To ensure political stability, they must relent in their efforts
to uncompromisingly implement their neoliberal agenda. Excessive reliance on repression and other
forms of coercion will not ensure long-term political stability, as testied by events in Ecuador, Peru,
Argentina and Venezuela in the rst decade of this century.
The prescription to focus on social coalition building is a strong one. Political economists argue that
in the absence of such support coalitions, efforts to build legitimacy for democracy based on formalprocedural rules of the political game, such as the rule of law, will most likely collapse, especially during

Latin America Transformed

economic hard times. In other words, the institution-building focus of modernization theorists is
unlikely to prosper if social coalition building is ignored. Those institutions will most likely be
overwhelmed by social tensions generated from systematically excluding the demands of
socio-economic groups from the policy and institutional design agendas. Latin America is full of
historical examples of this process, especially in the rst half of the twentieth century and now at the
turn of the twenty-rst century.
This does not mean that advice to construct institutions to channel conict, such as Haggard and
Kaufmans suggestion to generate two-party systems, are without merit. It means that when these are
used to exclude the demands of broad social groups from political negotiation, such institutional
arrangements can be overwhelmed by social mobilization and conict. Even two-party systems have
been proved vulnerable in Latin America, as occurred in Uruguay in 1973, and as is occurring in
Colombia, Venezuela and Argentina at the beginning of the twenty-rst century.
Moreover, economic good times by themselves cannot generate social compliance; the
distribution of wealth is also crucial. Hence, political economists also need to address the conditions
under which social justice can be advanced without threatening elites to the point where they
withdraw their support for democracy. The same applies to efforts to increase social participation in
policy-making, which has been severely curtailed in many Latin American democracies. The various
efforts to protect democracy from the masses produced a burgeoning literature on Latin Americas
penchant for democracy with adjectives, such as tutelary democracy, protected democracy and
delegative democracy (ODonnell, 1992; Loveman, 1994; Smith et al., 1994; Collier and Levitsky,
1997).

CONCLUSION
In the 1980s, a consensus across methodological perspectives emerged that no lineal relationship
exists between economic development and the form of the state. Economic modernization does not
necessarily lead to either democracy or dictatorship. Perhaps the greatest value of modernization
theory, especially in its current incarnation, lies in its emphasis on elite strategies and the structure of
political institutions. We have the sense that we can control them; we believe they are a matter of
choice. Whether political elites value democracy, their tolerance, and their willingness to compromise
are clearly important. Whether political institutions mediate or exacerbate social and political conicts
is also crucial.
However, the modernization approach lacks a systematic view of the relationship between these
variables. It also does not provide the tools to understand the multiple tensions that tear at political
leaders, the wellsprings of social movements, or that institutions require social support.Thus, as argued
previously, policy prescriptions frequently ignore problems that require attention if political leaders are
to exercise the moderation necessary for successful institution-building. These problems have plagued
modernization theorists and the policy-makers who take their advice since the 1950s. They are very
much with us today.
Political economy approaches offer tools to address those problems. They shift the focus onto the
economic and political factors that inuence the demands and power relations among social groups.
These, in turn, shape the strategies of elites. Political economy also recognizes the existence of the
state and its role in society. Understanding the functions of the state in capitalist economies provides
a sound foundation for analysing the effects of economic and social tensions on political stability over
time. The addition of factors such as international variables and the structure of political institutions
further advance our understanding of the prospects for democracy and the danger of backsliding to
authoritarianism.
Moreover, there are two elements of heavily criticized dependency theory worth rescuing. One is
the analytical importance of the regions historical specicity. That is, understanding how the regions
unique economic, social and political history affects outcomes. Second, analysts should always bear in
154

FURTHER READING
Centeno, M. A and Lpez-Alves, F. (eds) 2001 The other mirror: grand theory through the lens
of Latin America. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. A collection of essays that bring universal
theory into dialogue with specic Latin American history.
Chalmers, D. A., Vilas, C. M., Hite, K., Martin, S. B., Piester, K. and Segarra, M. (eds)
1997 The new politics of inequality in Latin America: rethinking participation and representation. Oxford
University Press, Oxford. The essays in this volume explore the unfolding relationships among social
change, equity and the democratic representation of the poor in Latin America.
Dunkerley, J. (ed.) 2002 Studies in the formation of the nation state in Latin America. Institute of
Latin American Studies, London. A general historical and sociological exploration of complex and
contested issues around the character of the Latin American nationstate.
Eckstein, S. E. and Wickham-Crowley, T. P. (eds) 2003 Struggles for social rights in Latin
America. Routledge, New York. This volume addresses a broad span of social rights struggles in Latin
America. Topics covered include environment, citizenship, workers rights, womens movements,
AIDS and indigenous peoples rights.
Murillo, M.V. 2001 Labor unions, partisan coalitions, and market reforms in Latin America. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.This book address why labour unions resist economic restructuring and
adjustment policies in some countries and in some economic sectors while they submit to it in
other cases.
Stokes, S. C. 2001 Mandates and democracy: neoliberalism by surprise in Latin America. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge. An analysis of the reasons and effects of the betrayal of mandates by
155

Authoritarianism, democracy and development

mind how the regions particular insertion in the world economy inuences socioeconomic and
political tendencies (Stallings, 1992).
In short, political economy draws our attention to the economic and social challenges facing state
actors and how these affect institutions and socioeconomic groups. Political economy-based policy
prescriptions stress the need to build social coalitions (or support) for institutions. Constructing
that support requires broad inclusion of organized social groups in institutions, meaning that they
not exclude or skew power too much against signicant social groups, even if they belong to
subordinate classes. The same advice applies to the distribution of socioeconomic benets. For
example, if neoliberal reforms leave most citizens prey to private power and do not provide better
material conditions for masses of people, those masses will sooner or later demand protection
from private power. Political leaders will emerge to champion alternative agendas, challenge the
policy consensus of established elites, and eventually question the utility of a rule of law in which
their material interests are ignored or, worse, consistently repressed. In other words, moderation
among all elites is not always possible, and institutions, no matter how well designed, may be
overwhelmed by social mobilization and political strife. Current emphases on the rule of law and
institution-building simply may be perceived as instruments of exclusion and repression by a
number of social groups.
In the nal analysis, prudent political leaders, functioning political institutions, and support from
principal social groups are all necessary for democracy to thrive and to avoid authoritarian reversions.
While one would like to give a better report, Latin America at the beginning of the twenty-rst
century seems about the same it was in the previous one. Tensions ourish in a number of familiar
cases, such as Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, and in some of the formerly war-torn Central
American countries. Other cases, such as Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica, Uruguay and perhaps Brazil offer
hope, as they have in the past. Policies there seem to draw on a blend of modernization theory
inspired and political economy oriented prescriptions.

Latin America Transformed

democratically elected governments, meaning when politicians promise one thing to get elected and
do another once in office. This is a growing trend in Latin America.
Tokman, V. E. and ODonnell, G. (eds) 1998 Poverty and inequality in Latin America: issues and
new challenges. University of Notre Dame Press, South Bend, IN. This anthology introduces readers
to fundamental issues of poverty and inequality under neoliberalism. It explores strategies of job
creation and reconstruction, social welfare and social protection.

WEBSITES
Interamerican Development Bank, www.iadb.org, is the oldest regional multilateral
development bank established after the Second World War. It supports economic and social
development projects.
International Labour Office, www.ilo.org, this organization promotes social justice and
internationally recognized human and labour rights.
Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC), www.lanic.utexas.edu, is a
clearing house for sites about Latin America with many direct links to Latin American countries.
United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean,
www.eclac.cl, contributes research for economic and social development of Latin America and is
generally critical of unbridled neoliberalism.

156

8
The new political order: towards
technocratic democracies?
Patricio Silva

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Latin America is plagued by severe political and institutional
crises that in some countries have brought democratic rule almost to the point of collapse. As a result,
much of the hope and expectations that existed in the 1990s about the ability of the new democracies
to provide for higher levels of political stability and economic progress in the region have rapidly
evaporated. Today, pessimism, uncertainty and even despair have begun to typify the general mood
existing among many Latin Americans about the immediate future of their countries.
Whereas neoliberal economic and institutional reforms applied in the 1980s and 1990s profoundly
transformed Latin American societies, they clearly failed in most cases to create a firm basis for
economic growth, social prosperity and political stability. For almost two decades, the pro-market
agenda defended by the so-called Washington consensus represented an almost uncontested project
for the region. In recent years, however, increasing poverty and poor economic performance have
resulted in street riots against neoliberal policies and the re-emergence of populist political leaders
who promise an active pro-poor social agenda.
The election of leaders such as Hugo Chvez in Venezuela, Luiz Incio Lula da Silva in Brazil and
Lcio Gutirrez in Ecuador to just mention the most emblematic cases can be seen as expressions
of a marked discontent with neoliberalism and a desperate search for alternative policies. This has not
yet shown its capacity to provide an effective answer for the current economic and institutional crisis.
In contrast, countries such as Mexico, Chile and some Central American nations seems to have
definitively chosen a close commercial alignment with the United States and the acceptance of a clearcut market-oriented developmental strategy. This might indicate the gestation of a new schism in the
region between countries that have finally accepted the neoliberal developmental path and those
countries which are still attempting to pose some resistance to the Washington consensus and the
globalization agenda.
This chapter analyses the rise of the neoliberal project in the region and its current crisis by focusing
on its main socio-political and cultural effects on Latin American societies. It represents an attempt to
go beyond the transitional scope followed by most democratization studies during the last two
decades, which have focused on the specific ways in which the democratic transition process took
place. However, little effort has been made to assess both the main features of the new democratic
order and the factors that have generated the current crisis.

NEOLIBERALISM, MODERNIZATION AND DEMOCRACY


Since the restoration of democratic rule in the region in the early 1980s, the relationship between
neoliberalism, modernization and democracy has been constantly plagued by severe tensions. So, for
instance, most of the democratic governments have been unable to successfully legitimate both
economic neoliberalism and its related discourse of modernization. This, in my view, has been the
consequence of a series of factors.
157

Latin America Transformed

To begin with, we must not forget that both the neoliberal economic project as well as its
accompanying discourse of modernization were applied in countries such as Chile, Argentina and
Uruguay by military regimes, that is, by forces opposed to democracy. The modernization of society
constituted the ide force behind the application of the neoliberal policies during those authoritarian
regimes. This modernization project was translated in practical terms as the accomplishment of a
series of macro-economic goals such as the privatization of the economy, the reduction of state
bureaucracy, the liberalization of markets and the strengthening of the export-orientated economic
sectors. What we observe today is that, in fact, most of the current democratic governments have
largely continued to visualize modernity along the same macro-economic lines as did the former
military governments.
This element of continuity from the previous regime made it extremely difcult for the new
democratic authorities to legitimate neoliberal policies during the 1980s and 1990s.The fact is that the
implicit call of the democratic authorities to accept the neoliberal economic guidelines proved
unpalatable for the social and political forces who fought against the military regimes.They experience
this reality as an inadmissible legacy of the past, and consequently they resist accepting the neoliberal
model as being the economic engine sustaining the democratic fabric for the coming years. This
phenomenon is present even in Chile where neoliberal policies have been relatively successful. The
centre-left Concertacin coalition, which has ruled the country since democratic restoration in 1990,
has been constantly criticized from within by the so-called autoagelante faction. Although this sector
is part of the government, it has systematically rejected the continuation of neoliberal policies because
it represents a heritage of the Pinochet era (Brunner and Moulian, 2002).
Second, an important obstacle in the attempts to legitimate neoliberal policies in the region is that,
in many countries (such as Nicaragua, Venezuela and Ecuador), the adoption of neoliberal economic
policies and its correlated modernization discourse have been regarded by broad sectors of the
population as being externally imposed. International nancial institutions such as the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have been denounced by several Latin American political
forces and social movements for pressurizing Latin American governments to apply structural
adjustment policies (Petras and Morley, 1992). These dictates from the North have left almost no
room to manoeuvre for the new democratic governments in the formulation and implementation of
their own socio-economic agendas (Green, 1999). Paradoxically, this thesis (and the resulting rejection
of the neoliberal agenda) have found support in Latin America among quite heterogeneous political
and social groups; these include the left, certain religious groups, some nationalist sectors (both inside
and outside the army) and some entrepreneurial circles (afraid of free-market policies and especially
of foreign competition).
The lack of popularity and support for neoliberal policies in many countries of the region has led to
a quite peculiar situation. So while only very few political forces in Latin America dare openly to
express their unconditional support for neoliberalism, neoliberal economic policies have become de
facto dominant in the continent. In other words, almost no political force is seriously trying to
elaborate an ideological legitimation for the new neoliberal order. One of the few exceptions in this
respect can be found in Chile, where neoliberalism is not only enthusiastically defended by the rightwing parties and entrepreneurs but even, though in more implicit terms, by some sectors of the left
(Moulian, 1997; Tironi, 2002).
Finally, another major difculty faced by the new democratic governments in getting their neoliberal
economic policies accepted by the people is related to the great social expectations generated by the
restoration of democracy in the region. For many Latin Americans, democracy still means in the rst
place the existence of a government which really cares for the needs of the majority (that is, the
masses) and which has to be actively and genuinely engaged in the struggle against poverty and social
injustice. From this follows the expectation that in the new democratic era an active role for the state
is required to meet the consequence of the immense social debt left by the former authoritarian
regimes. What many people have experienced instead is that the restoration of democracy has been
158

THE DEPOLITICIZATION OF SOCIETY


Contrary to what was broadly expected, in most Latin American countries the restoration of
democratic rule was not followed by a strong and sustained political resurrection of civil society. On
the contrary, one of the most striking features of the new democracies has been the growing
depoliticization of society and the marked absence of national political debates. This phenomenon of
increasing depoliticization of Latin American societies has been the product of a complex blend of
past and current political experiences faced by the people, as well as a consequence of the neoliberal
modernization project and its ideological impact on the peoples political behaviour.
The origins of this process of political deactivation have to be sought during the former
authoritarian regimes, when systematic repression against any independent political expression
inaugurated a dark period of forced depoliticization. Paradoxically, state repression eventually led to
the emergence of a rm response from certain sectors of civil society. This was expressed in the
germination of active social movements and the creation of many NGOs that defended human rights
and attempted to ameliorate the social conditions of the rural and urban poor (Oxhorn, 2001).
At the same time as the use of physical repression, military governments in countries such as Chile,
Argentina and Uruguay attempted to convince the population that politics was synonymous with
subversion, chaos, decadence and corruption. For this purpose, the military simply exalted and
159

The new political order: towards technocratic democracies?

accompanied by a further abandonment by the state of its traditional social tasks, resulting during the
past decade in a dramatic deepening of the social inequalities in the majority of Latin American
countries. This lack of a social dimension in most of the neoliberal economic programmes applied in
the region has been severely criticized by leading intellectuals, as well as by the Church and nongovernmental organizations (cf. Oxhorn and Ducatenzeiler, 1998).
From the very beginning, the restoration of democratic rule in the early 1980s was strongly
conditioned by the implementation of structural adjustment programmes by an increasing number of
countries, following Mexicos dramatic announcement in August 1982 that the country was unable to
keep its international nancial commitments on the repayment of its foreign debt. This marked in the
entire region the initiation of a profound shift in development strategies. Following the outset of the
debt crisis the traditional pattern of import substitution industrialization (ISI) was strongly criticized by
domestic and international actors who demanded the adoption of market-orientated reforms. Initially,
many Latin American countries decided to apply non-orthodox stabilization programmes (for example,
the Austral Plan in Argentina, the Cruzado Plan in Brazil, the Inti Plan in Peru) in an attempt to reduce
the social costs of these austerity policies. By the late 1980s, however, it had became clear that these
and other stabilization programmes had failed to put an end to the crisis and to provide the expected
economic recovery. As Green (1995: 69) indicates, once easy heterodox solutions had been
discredited, neoliberalism spread rapidly across the region; these were the years when the long-term
structural adjustment of Latin Americas economy gathered pace. Trade liberalization, government
cutbacks, privatization and deregulation have since then become the norm in almost every country.
While a general consensus emerged among most of the Latin American governments about the
need to abandon the traditional pattern of state-led industrialization and to modernize their
economies by adopting neoliberal free-market policies, they have had immense difculties in
translating the goal of modernization into political terms. For instance, rarely has an attempt been
made to provide a clear explanation of how modernity is related to democracy or to indicate the
concrete differences existing between the modernization project of the former authoritarian regimes
and the new democratic authorities. Both the pre-eminent role of structural adjustment policies under
the new democracies and the lack of a clear political project have resulted in the insertion of
neoliberal economics into the political realm. In this manner, ofcial politics in contemporary Latin
America has tended to lose its own dynamic, having been in many cases reduced to a functional
mechanism for the implementation of the neoliberal economic project.

Latin America Transformed

manipulated the feelings of discontent with politics and politicians, which were already entrenched
among some parts of the population as a result of the general political and economic crisis which had
preceded the arrival of the military to power.
The extremely repressive nature of military governments also convinced many individuals that to
become involved in politics could lead to big problems, as one risked not only ones own life but also
the physical integrity of family members and friends. Other people, after so many years of ofcial antipolitical indoctrination (through mass media and education), became nally convinced that politics was
indeed intrinsically perverse. So, although at the end many people repudiated the systematic violation
of human rights by the military and demanded an immediate re-establishment of the rule of law in
these countries, the restoration of democracy did not completely eliminate the deep apprehensions
and mistrust that had been engendered in the previous decades against politics in general, and political
parties and politicians in particular (Silva, P. 1999).
Another factor contributing to the further depoliticization of Latin American societies has been the
negotiated nature of most transitions, as restoration of democratic rule was achieved following a
series of bargains between the democratic forces and the military authorities (Casper and Taylor,
1996). During these negotiations the opposition forces involved tacitly or explicitly agreed not to
actively encourage political effervescence among the people. Furthermore, several democratic
political leaders came to regard the continuation of the political demobilization of the masses as a
prerequisite for achieving an ordered and peaceful democratic transition and to guarantee
governability under the new democratic scenario.
Strong calls for political moderation also came from academic circles. A group of prestigious political
scientists, for instance, offered in an inuential four-volume study detailed practical advice to Latin
American civilian leaders about how to minimize the levels of political instability which usually
accompany transitional processes. In the last volume, ODonnell and Schmitter recommended, among
other things, providing the armed forces with an honourable role in accomplishing national goals.
Meanwhile, political parties were asked to abandon their traditional role as agents of mobilization to
become instruments of social and political control of the population (ODonnell et al., 1986: 32, 58).
They furthermore recommended that democratic leaders should not upset the interests of the
dominant groups, and not threaten the institutional existence, assets and hierarchy of the armed
forces. With respect to the left-wing forces, they advised them to accept the political restrictions of the
transition process, leaving them only to hope that somehow in the future more attractive
opportunities will open up (ibid.: 69).
The cupular or top-down nature of the democratization process, which has been often portrayed
as an elite settlement (Higley and Gunther, 1992), produced a deep disillusionment (and a subsequent
demobilization) among many people, such as supporters of left-wing parties and members of social
movements who had expected a more participatory process of democratic reconstruction. This,
together with the conscious decision of political leaders to maintain the legacy of political
demobilization, has certainly played an important role in the further depoliticization of society.
Following the restoration of democratic rule, the expectation among popular organizations was that
the new authorities would bring to justice those responsible for human rights abuses during the
military governments. However, the specic way in which the new democratic governments nally
dealt with the highly controversial question of human rights abuses also contributed to political
demobilization of the population, as a consequence of the considerable disappointment at the results.
In Brazil, for instance, there was an implicit agreement between politicians and the military not to make
the prosecution of human rights violators a political issue. In Argentina, the Alfonsin government
passed in 1987 a punto nal amnesty law by which prosecutions of most lower rank military for human
rights abuses were declared ended on the grounds that they had simply carried out orders.
In Chile, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established by the Aylwin government in 1990,
brought a detailed report about the human rights abuses during the Pinochet regime. However, the
existence of the self-decreed amnesty law of 1978 protected the military from possible trials.
160

Figure 8.1 Graffiti saying Death to the Guerrillas, Central Colombia, 2001. Photo by Laura Maynard
161

The new political order: towards technocratic democracies?

Following the arrest of Pinochet in London in October 1998 and his return to Chile in March 2000
expectations were aroused about his possible prosecution in his homeland. The Pinochet affair
reached a dening moment on 9 July 2001, when an appeals court in Santiago declared General
Pinochet to be mentally unt to stand trial. Although the court decision was qualied as temporary
implying that he could face a trial again if his health condition should improve in the future most
observers saw this as marking the end of the legal prosecution of Pinochet (cf. Silva, 2002).
A general amnesty law was passed in El Salvador in 1993 as part of the peace agreements between
the government and the guerrillas (Figure 8.1), and in Guatemala, the human rights issue remained
largely unresolved (Jelin and Hershberg, 1996).The practical impunity obtained by the military in most
of the countries produced deep disappointment among signicant sectors of society, resulting very
often in indifference towards the government and politics in general.
Another factor to reinforce apoliticism among the Latin American electorate has been the
traumatic effects of the hyper-politicization experienced in the past. The high degree of social and
political confrontation preceding the military coups in the Southern Cone countries, together with the
institutionalization of fear and repression during the military regimes, has now generated a kind of
political exhaustion among the generations who consciously and actively lived through those years
(Koonings and Kruijt, 1999). The same is true for people who for years have suffered from political
violence resulting from open or disguised civil wars such as in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and
Peru.The endless effervescence, the destabilization of daily life, produced in the long term a distressing
psychological situation and an unbearable (political) fatigue. Under these circumstances, the
disconnection with politics has become for many people a kind of personal survival strategy in both
psychological and emotional terms.
The increasing social democratization experienced during past years by broad sectors of the Latin
American left is certainly another factor in contributing to the political deactivation of civil society.
Most left-wing parties have explicitly abandoned the objective of revolution to replace it with the
search for gradual and consensual changes in the struggle against poverty and social inequalities (cf.
Vellinga, 1993). This has been the case with parties such as the Brazilian Social Democratic Party
(PSDB), Mexicos Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Chilean Socialist Party (PSCh), and
Venezuelas Movement to Socialism (MAS). As Castaeda concludes, As left-of-center reformism in

Latin America Transformed

Latin America is pushed to the fore and transformed into a meeting point for many other historical
currents of the Latin American left, it is also being driven to the center (1994: 174).
In the new democratic order, political parties have, in general, dramatically lost their appeal for the
population. This has been in part another aspect of the heritage from the authoritarian era, as
repression severely hit and dislocated political organizations. This resulted, in many countries, in the
establishment of a substantial distance and mutual alienation between political parties (most operating
clandestinely) and civil society, characteristics that continued after the restoration of democracy. The
rendezvous between parties and the electorate after so many years of disconnection has been full of
surprises. For instance, many parties had experienced dramatic ideological changes during the
authoritarian period and had become almost unrecognizable to the population in the democratic
transition. In contrast, other organizations maintained their pre-coup ideologies almost unaltered, and
hence became anachronistic in countries which in the meantime had experienced profound
transformations in their demographic, socioeconomic and cultural structures.
The depoliticization of society has led to the breakdown of historical party loyalties as during the
past years a signicant segment of the Latin American electorate has not voted for political parties or
political projects but for specic individuals. The presidential victories of political outsiders such as
Collor de Mello in Brazil and Alberto Fujimori in Peru, in 1989 and 1990 respectively, are cases in
point. As Little (1997: 191) points out:
both . . . came out of complete obscurity as self-proclaimed saviours of the nation and their promises
of a clean sweep of the political stables clearly struck a chord with the electorate. Collor . . . [and]
Fujimori . . . symbolize a popular distance from the old party politics.
Both politicians fully compensated for the lack of rm party structures with the effective use of
television. In current Latin American politics, television has replaced parties, unions and the streets as
the most important instrument for creating (and destroying) the public images of the members of the
political class. Political leaders no longer speak to the crowd, but address directly the atomized
community of millions of television spectators. Paradoxically, this modern medium could help to
generate a revisited version of old-fashioned personalistic politics. Fujimori, for instance, was able to
combine a smart use of the modern media (as he did during the hostage crisis of the Japanese
embassy in Lima in 1996) with old-fashioned populist methods (such as frequent visits to urban
shantytowns and rural communities, distributing presents and promising solutions for peoples
problems).
In the end, Fujimori lost the support of the masses following the accusations of fraud during the
2000 presidential elections which allowed him to run a third consecutive term in ofce. In addition, he
and his closest associate, the secret police chief Vladimir Montesinos, faced mounting accusations of
corruption, nepotism and gross abuses against human rights. In November 2000 Fujimori ed to Japan,
marking the end of his autocratic rule. His successor, Alejandro Toledo, has been so far unsuccessful in
delivering the promises of eliminating corruption, bringing more transparency to the way his
government rules the country, and improving the situation of millions of Peruvians who live in
conditions of extreme poverty.

POLITICAL LEGITIMATION AND CONSUMERISM


Most of the new democratic governments have attempted to counterbalance their lack of a political
project by putting special effort into expanding the level of consumption among certain segments of
the population. One of the main arguments used by the authorities in legitimating the application of
policies directed to market liberalization was the promise of full access to better and cheaper foreign
products. Indeed, after many years of applying neoliberal economic policies, the upper and middle
classes in countries such as Mexico and Chile have acquired very sophisticated patterns of
consumption which have resulted in the conguration of veritable consumer societies. The increasing
162

163

The new political order: towards technocratic democracies?

presence of foreign consumer goods in most Latin American capital cities has in many cases radically
transformed the physiognomy of the streets, as thousands of new cars have invaded the roads and a
large number of giant shopping centres (malls) sell products from all over the world.
Although the main beneciaries of this pattern of increasing consumption have certainly been the
high-income groups, one cannot under-estimate the extent to which the rest of the population has
also participated in the consumption of foreign goods. Many people who actually cannot afford these
products have obtained access to these goods by contracting consumer credits, or more often by
making use of payment facilities (in monthly terms) offered by most large shops and stores. While the
high-income sectors obtained access to modern European cars, to very sophisticated US or Japanese
electronic products and to tourism abroad, the poorer segments of the population acquired radios,
television sets, battery watches, foreign clothes and trainers, products to which they previously had less
access. As the current crisis in Argentina has shown, however, these consumer societies are built on
very fragile bases and they can disappear overnight due to the extreme pauperization of large sectors
of the middle classes in that country.
In fact, the idea of replacing politics by increasing consumption constituted, together with
repression, one of the central mechanisms used by the former military regimes to depoliticize society.
In the authoritarian conception of modernity liberty to consume was intended to replace political
liberty in an effort to deactivate civil society politically and to obtain the required civilian support for
the military rulers. Chile is a clear case in point.
The attempt by the military governments to redene Chileans as consumers instead of citizens was
mainly directed to privatize the nature of the social relations within civil society. For this purpose, the
regime tried to destroy all kinds of collective identities existing in Chilean society, such as party and
neighbourhood loyalties and social solidarity with the needy, which were ofcially seen as unwanted
heritages of a socialist past. As a substitute for the search for collective goals, the military government
offered a neoliberal ideology which was entirely directed to the achievement of individual ambitions.
In this manner individual freedom was redened as representing the free access to open markets,
while the pleasure of consumption was presented as an instrument to express social differentiation
and as a way to obtain personal rewards. From this perspective, the regimes ideologues pointed out
that social mobility was in fact mainly a question of personal achievement (cf. Lavin and Larran, 1989).
According to this conception of modernization, to be up-to-date in terms of the acquisition of
consumer goods represented the single most important criterion for modernity. Moreover, the
imitation of lifestyles and values imported from the industrial world as a result of the free-market
policies became the only way to participate in the experience of modernity; in other words to be
modern. As Brunner indicates, the market is unable by itself to produce normative consensus among
the population or to generate social identities. Together with this, the market does not accept the
constitution of solidarity bonds and rejects any behaviour that is not based on rational calculations. At
most, the market can only create lifestyles that are crystallized in the consumption of particular goods
(1988: 97, 119). In the end, the expansion of consumerist behaviour in Chile generated a kind of
passive conformism among the population, who eventually accepted the individualistic tenets of the
neoliberal economic model based on the search for private satisfactions (Silva, 1995; Halpern, 2002).
The increasing internationalization of Latin American economies has not only strengthened
consumerism in local cultures but has also led to the adoption of values, beliefs, ideas and even
patterns of behaviour and cultural orientation that resemble those of the core countries. Many
people have embraced a system of meritocratic and individualistic mobility, replacing the old system
in which one had to be part of a group (such as political parties) and in which mobility was
conditioned mainly by the capability of the group to exert political pressure on the state. More
generally, the discovery of this new world of consumption convinced several social forces that they
have a direct advantage in the continuation and deepening of the ongoing process of
transnationalization of their societies. In recent years, however, a growing discontent with
globalization has emerged among the masses and within certain intellectual and political circles, as

Latin America Transformed

the poor performance of most Latin American economies reduced the ability of the population to
maintain their previous levels of consumption.
Together with consumerism, the new democratic governments have also tried to secure the
political support of the population by attempting to obtain (and maintain) macro-economic stability.
Today in Latin America it is no longer rhetoric but real socio-economic and nancial achievements that
have become the main criteria to evaluate the quality of governments. After so many years of
neoliberal economic rationalism, many people in Latin America have learned to evaluate government
performances almost exclusively on the basis of economic success. Variables such as the level of
ination, the dollar rate, volume of exports and the balance of payments are the main evaluation
parameters. It seems that after many decades of over-ideologized discourses an increasing part of the
population has become extremely conscious of choosing tangible economic benets.
As the Argentine case has shown, the ability of the Menem government to defeat ination and to
achieve macro-economic stability became decisive for his re-election in 1995. By the same token, the
inability of the de la Rua government to deliver the goods led to its dramatic fall in December 2001.
Because of the increasing importance of economic stability in current Latin American politics, the
possession of a team of prestigious economists in charge of economic and nancial policies has
become a condition sine qua non not only for keeping the condence of the business community
(both national and international) but also that of the electorate. So, for instance, following the electoral
victory of Lula in Brazil, one of the most discussed matters by both the local and international press,
as well as by key nancial institutions, was the question of who was going to be appointed as the next
Minister of Finance.

THE TECHNOCRATIZATION OF POLICY-MAKING


Following the restoration of democratic rule, technocrats have acquired in many countries a clear
public presence and a higher degree of acceptance and legitimacy among the political class and the
population than in the recent past. Technocrats are dened here as individuals with a high level of
specialized academic training which serves as a principal criterion on the basis of which they are
selected to occupy key decisionmaking or advisory roles in large, complex organizations both public
and private (Collier, 1979: 403). This is reected among other things in the fact that the leaders of
technocratic-orientated economic teams, such as the Ministers of Finance Fernando Henrique
Cardoso in Brazil, Domingo Cavallo in Argentina and Alejandro Foxley in Chile, have gained signicant
popularity among the electorate (Domnguez, 1997); indeed, Cardoso was elected President of Brazil
after his stint at the Finance Ministry.This situation, however, cannot be solely explained by referring to
the technocrats central role in the application of the recent stabilization programmes or to the fact
that they are now operating in a legitimate democratic environment. An even more important factor
for the consolidation of technocratic politics has been the dramatic weakening and in some
countries a virtual disappearance of the forces which traditionally resisted technocracy in the past,
such as left-wing parties, trade unions, student movements, and so forth. It is the latter factor which
also helps to explain why, since the restoration of democratic rule, most countries have adopted (or
maintained) neoliberal economic policies (Silva, 1998).
One must remember that the existence of technocratic economic teams and the application of
neoliberal economic policies constituted one of the main features of the former military regimes.Thus,
it is remarkable that, following the democratic restoration, electoral campaigns which openly or
implicitly supported neoliberal policies (such as those of Fujimori in Peru, Flores in El Salvador, and
Menem in Argentina during his re-election) were successful. This was linked to the global hegemony
achieved by neoliberal ideology, the pressure of international nancial organizations, the perceived lack
of economic alternatives and the increasing apoliticism of the Latin American population (Espinal,
1992). The more profound reasons why large segments of civil society are beginning to accept this
new technocratic and neoliberal reality lie in the quite traumatic events of the recent political past.
164

technocrats who had long argued for more open economies and a bigger role for the private sectors
suddenly found increased backing from the outside. They could count on political support from the
United States and other advanced industrial countries, intellectual reinforcement from the IMF and
World Bank, and empirical evidence of successful performance from countries that had followed an
open-economy model.
These technocrats have also played a strategic role in conducting negotiations with industrialized
countries as a means to reschedule existing debts and to obtain new credits and nancial aid. As
Kaufman (1979: 189-90) indicated, these technocrats are
more than simply the principal architects of economic policy: they [are] the intellectual brokers
between their governments and international capital, and symbols of the governments determination
to rationalize its rule primarily in terms of economic objectives . . . Cooperation with international
business, a fuller integration into the world economy, and a strictly secular willingness to adopt the
prevailing tenets of international economic orthodoxy, all [form] a . . . set of intellectual parameters
within which the technocrats could then pragmatically pursue the requirements of stabilization and
expansion.
In this manner, local neoliberal technocrats have become the national counterparts of foreign nancial
experts from lending institutions who assess the performance of the Latin American economies that
are currently executing adjustment programmes. As Centeno (1993: 3256) points out, the
communication between the foreign nancial experts and the local technocrats has been clearly
facilitated by their common academic backgrounds:
[they] not only share the same economic perspectives, but perhaps most importantly, speak the
same language, both literally and metaphorically . . . The technocrats do not necessarily have to
represent one ideological niche or the other, they simply share a familiarity with a certain language
and rationale . . . The graduate degrees from U.S. universities . . . enable these persons to present
arguments that their fellow alumni at the World Bank . . . understand and consider legitimate.
Although the above-mentioned international political and economic factors have certainly played a
decisive role in legitimating and consolidating the position of technocrats within the political elite, any
attempt at explaining the technocratic ascendancy as being exclusively the result of external inuences
would be inaccurate. As the Chilean case shows, the ascendancy of neoliberal technocrats and the
adoption since the mid-1970s of severe economic stabilization policy reform in that country were
165

The new political order: towards technocratic democracies?

The military dictatorships inaugurated in the 1970s inicted a major blow to the politics of
populism, based on clientelistic relations between the state and civil society. Indeed, populism suffered
a signicant psychological defeat as many people, right or wrong, internalized the view that populism
had been one of the main causes of the economic and political crisis that had preceded the
breakdown of democracy. This is partly the reason why in most countries in the region the electorate
was initially not inclined to support the adoption of populistic policies after the departure of the
military.The recent strengthening of populism in Latin America has been mainly facilitated by the failure
of neoliberal policies and the dramatic expansion of poverty in the region.
The adoption of orthodox adjustment programmes has almost always been accompanied by the
appointment of technocratic-orientated neoliberal economists in strategic governmental positions
(ministries of economic affairs, nance, central banks, planning agencies, etc.) who have been
responsible for the formulation and application of these new economic guidelines. The extreme
visibility which many governments have consciously given to the economic teams is related to their
efforts to send the right signals both to the domestic and to the international business community
(Schneider, 1998). Moreover, Latin American technocrats have felt quite condent in the policies
adopted, as the policies encompass completely the neoliberal economic thinking which, since the
1980s, began to achieve an almost uncontested hegemony. As Stallings (1992: 84) pointed out:

Latin America Transformed

primarily a product of domestic political and ideological struggles resulting in a distinctive balance of
power in favour of neoliberalism (Valds, 1995).
The increasing technocratization of decision-making in most countries in the region has resulted in
a general trend of governments trying to technify social and political problems. The problem of
poverty has been mainly approached in technical terms, and its solution is posed in terms of adopting
the technically correct social policies. By doing this, poverty and social inequalities have been
consciously ltered of their political, economic and social dimensions. This has resulted in countries
such as Bolivia, Chile and Costa Rica adopting anti-poverty strategies with a strong asistencialista
orientation, intended to alleviate to some extent the hardship of the neoliberal policies. For this
purpose, Latin American governments have obtained technical and nancial assistance from regional
institutions such as the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), as well as from the World Bank and from developed nations.

DISENCHANTMENT
Today in Latin America, a generalized mood of disenchantment with the accomplishments of the new
democracies can be perceived. Some people are deeply disappointed by the inability of many
governments to improve the social conditions of the less privileged segments of the population.
Instead, and as a result of the application of neoliberal policies, the gap between rich and poor has
increased in most Latin American countries. The restoration of democracy has brought a clear
improvement in the human rights records in many countries and in the general macro-economic
situation. Nevertheless, time and again the great inequality existing in the distribution of the fruits of
modernization and economic growth between the different socio-economic and ethnic segments of
society becomes manifest. This is partly inherent in the nature of neoliberal policies as their emphasis
lies in generating economic growth and not in producing a better income distribution. Most
governments have abstained from playing an active role in the area of income distribution, as that
option has been regarded as a step back to the old interventionist state.
The increasing impact of the process of globalization on the national economic and political agendas
has also discouraged from many people believing in the real possibilities they have to inuence
decision-making in their countries. Today, an important part of what is happening to their economies
is the result of regional trade agreements (such as Mercosur) and other arrangements and processes
that go beyond the national borders. The adoption of neoliberal adjustment programmes has been
seen by many in countries such as Nicaragua, Venezuela and Costa Rica as a clear loss of national
sovereignty as they, rightly or wrongly, perceive these policies to be the result of foreign imposition.
This has negatively affected not only the degree of legitimacy of these policies but also the status of
democratic governments as they appear as weak vis--vis the international nancial institutions.
There is also a growing discontent among the indigenous people, as in many countries the
democratic authorities have not been able to satisfactorily protect their civil rights and to guarantee
respect for and acknowledgement of their cultural contribution to national identity (see Chapter 10).
In this respect, the commemoration in 1992 of the 500 years since the discovery of America was
chosen by the indigenous movement all over the continent to protest rmly against their status as
second-class citizens. In countries such as Ecuador, Bolivia and Guatemala signicant legal steps
(through amendments in the Constitution and the adoption of special indigenous legislation) have
been taken in recent years, directed at the elimination of formal discrimination and tutelage towards
the indigenous population. Notwithstanding the willingness of several governments to accomplish
some tangible improvements in the general condition of the indigenous people, very little yet has been
achieved (Van Scott, 1995; Daz Polanco, 1997).
Democracy has also experienced a loss of prestige through the high degree of political corruption
existing in many countries in the region. This has been the case in Peru where the initially very
promising government of President Alan Garca ended in 1983. Corruption had penetrated the entire
166

167

The new political order: towards technocratic democracies?

structure of power, including the president himself who nally ed the country. President Fujimoris
kleptomania was even more rapacious. Unfortunately, Peru has not been an isolated case. Presidents
Fernando Collor de Mello in Brazil and Carlos Andrs Prez in Venezuela were forced to abandon
power in 1992 and 1993, respectively, following accusations of corruption (Little and Posada-Carb,
1996). Political corruption and the spread of nepotism were also among the main causes that
provoked the fall of President Abdal Bucaram in Ecuador in 1996. In February 2003, the Paraguayan
President Gonzlez Macchi narrowly survived a parliamentary impeachment in which he was charged
with notorious misconduct and corruption.
In the past years, the growing inuence of capital coming from drug-trafcking activities has further
reduced the already low levels of probity characterizing state institutions in many Latin American
countries. In countries such as Honduras and Guatemala, corruption related to narcotrco has already
penetrated the judicial system, the army and the police forces, the mass media and almost all spheres
of public life.
Increasing poverty, drug-trafcking, corruption and the material and institutional weakness of police
forces have led in recent years to a dramatic increase in the levels of violence and delinquency in most
Latin American countries. As a result, there are even people who feel that the levels of security have
decreased under the new democracies rather than increased in comparison with the situation under
the former authoritarian regimes. Opinion polls of inhabitants of the largest Latin American cities
continually indicate criminality as the most urgent problem the government should resolve. The
question is, of course, whether the growing levels of delinquency are the direct result of the existence
of democracy per se. Most probably this phenomenon has more to do with the ongoing process of
modernization which has resulted in a gradual disintegration of traditional norms and values,
mechanisms of social control, and so forth.
Some people in Latin America constantly compare the current democracies with the former
military regimes, often being inclined to blame democracy for almost all the problems affecting their
societies. Nevertheless, the militaristic option is today not very appealing for most Latin Americans, so
the only viable alternative to the current democracy, they perceive, is not authoritarianism but an
improved democracy. This does not mean that the threat of a military takeover has been entirely
overcome in the region, as the failed coup dtat against Hugo Chvez in April 2002 has shown.
Paradoxically, the several deciencies of current Latin American democracies have stimulated
political indifference among the population, as has been the case in most Central American
countries. Not even Costa Rica has been able to escape from this general trend, as the turnout in
recent elections has been low, despite the fact that voting in that country is compulsory. In those
few countries in which the restoration of democratic rule has led to manifest improvements in the
general socio-economic and political conditions of the population, political apathy has become
generalized. Chile is a case in point. Since the restoration of democracy in 1990 this country has
achieved a relatively good performance in terms of socio-economic development, as the living
standards of the entire population have dramatically improved since then. The political situation in
this country has been very stable as the ruling Concertacin coalition has been able to arrange
workable agreements with the opposition, permitting a successful consolidation of democratic rule
in the country.
Nevertheless, strong apathy for politics has emerged among the population. During the
parliamentary elections of December 1997 (voting is compulsory), almost a third of the people who
attended voting stations did not vote for any candidate (by leaving their vote void or by invalidating it).
Moreover, there are more than 1.5 million youngsters, and 0.5 million adults who have not even
registered on the electoral roll. The Chilean political class has become alarmed by the increasing
political indifference among the electorate. However, the phenomenon can be explained as being the
consequence of the political and economic stability now achieved. Similar patterns occur in most
Western democracies. The disenchantment with democracy has not resulted in the adoption of antisystem attitudes, but has rather strengthened the general mood of apathy and depoliticism.

Latin America Transformed

THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN LATIN AMERICA


At the beginning of the process of democratic transition in the region several political scientists
expressed their doubts about the chances for rm consolidation of democratic rule in the continent.
Scholars such as Malloy and Seligson (1987) openly declared their scepticism about the prospects for
democracy. They referred to the historical inability shown by Latin American countries in the recent
past to maintain democratic rule for a long period. Until now, the presence of democracy in the region
has been characterized by a cyclical pattern in which democratic and authoritarian moments have
been constantly alternating. In other words, the current democratic period could simply be just
another democratic intermezzo that after a certain period of time could be followed by another wave
of authoritarian rule.
Nearly two decades after the publication of the volume edited by Malloy and Seligson one can say
that the new democratic governments have faced very serious social, economic and political problems,
and that generally their performance has not been very satisfactory. But despite all the difculties they
have faced so far, the probability of an authoritarian regression in the region has been substantially
reduced. The reasons for this, however, have not been always a direct accomplishment of the new
democracies themselves. So, for instance, the almost complete disappearance of the revolutionary left
has eliminated one of the main grounds on which the armed forces in the past attempted to legitimate
their military coups. While a large part of the left has adopted social democracy and showed a strong
commitment to the preservation of democratic rule, the military has consciously chosen to stay out
of contingent politics and to concentrate its attention on the further modernization of its institutions
(Millet and Gold-Biss, 1996). In addition, following the end of the Cold War the United States is no
longer disposed to support military coups in the region, as they made clear to the military who
deposed President Aristide in Haiti and to seditious ofcers threatening democratic rule in Paraguay
and Ecuador. Since the late 1980s US foreign policy towards Latin America has begun to emphasize
countries human rights performances, the achievement of good government and the consolidation of
democratic rule (Wiarda, 1990).
Nevertheless, it is still too early to say that the armed forces have fully accepted their institutional
subordination vis--vis the civilian authorities in their countries. In countries like Guatemala, Venezuela,
Peru and Chile the army still maintains a strong presence in national affairs. In short, most of the new
democracies have so far been unable to fully eliminate the authoritarian enclaves left by the former
authoritarian regimes (in the form of non-democratic legislation and special attributions for the armed
forces).
In the coming years, poor management of each countrys affairs by their government and
conspicuous corruption will remain serious threats for the Latin American democracies, as the falls in
Ecuador of Presidents Abdal Bucaram in February 1997 and Jamil Mahuad in January 2000 have
shown. In both cases, the army played a decisive role in forcing them to abandon power and, in that
critical moment, the constitution of a military government was clearly among the possible outcomes of
the crisis.The legitimacy provided by democratic procedures towards elected authorities is certainly not
enough to guarantee the support of the people under any circumstance as the fall in November 2000
of the Fujimori regime in Peru has shown. What many democracies still have to prove towards the
citizenry is that this form of government is more efcient and successful in economic terms, and more
sensible from a perspective of social justice than was the case during the previous authoritarian regimes.
In the years ahead, further technocratization of the democratic governments can be expected. In
my view, the current technocratization of decision-making in government circles does not represent a
temporary phenomenon, associated with the political and economic requirements of the democratic
transition and the application of structural adjustment programmes; it has rather become an integral
feature of many Latin American democracies. Even in countries like Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina
where governments have recently adopted a more nationalistic and populist rhetoric, one can nd
that the most strategic positions in charge of the economic policy-making continues to be in the hands
of technocrats.
168

FURTHER READING
Avritzer, L. 2002 Democracy and the public space in Latin America. Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ.This provocative study shows how citizens have made use of public spheres in the new
Latin American democracies, focusing on human rights movements, neighbourhood associations and
other local-level participatory experiences.
Camp, R. I. (ed.) 2001 Citizen view of democracy in Latin America. University of Pittsburgh Press,
Pittsburgh, PA. In this excellent book ten leading scholars on Latin American political culture analyse
and interpret the data provided by a large survey conducted among citizens in Costa Rica, Mexico,
and Chile on the ways they dene and understand present-day democracy.
Oxhorn, P. and Ducatenzeiler, G. (eds) 1998 What kind of democracy? What kind of market?
Latin America in the age of neoliberalism. Penn State University Press, University Park, Pennsylvania. A
critical study of the social and political consequences of the application of neoliberal reforms in Latin
America in the 1980s and 1990s. Problems such as high levels of poverty, income inequality, criminal
violence, and the growth of the informal sector are directly linked to these reforms.
Peeler, J. 1998 Building democracy in Latin America. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, and
London. A thoughtful analysis of the Latin American experiences with democratic rule from the
169

The new political order: towards technocratic democracies?

Since the restoration of democratic rule in the region one can argue that the concept of democracy
has lost much of its participatory implications in relation to the decision-making process. Instead, the
Schumpeterian view of democracy is beginning to be tacitly accepted in practice. In this way,
democracy is merely conceived as a method of reaching political decisions in which citizens reserve
the right to decide by whom they will be governed through elections in which various elites compete
for the electorates vote. Moreover, we see that today the use of traditional methods of civil pressure
and protest (such as property seizures, unauthorized street protests, politically motivated strikes) are
generally considered illegitimate acts by political elites.
Despite the fact that technocratically-orientated groups have become key actors in the new political
landscape of Latin America, in many cases local public opinion is not very aware of the existence of
this phenomenon. Negative collective memories about the populist past, profound changes in the
political culture of major left-wing sectors, together with the recent neoliberal transformations have
allowed the almost unchallenged ascendancy of technocrats in the continent.
Although it is quite probable that in the coming years a further depoliticization of Latin American
societies will take place, this certainly does not mean that the continent will be spared social
effervescence or even violent political confrontations. The crisis in Argentina has shown that
depoliticized masses are still able to mobilize themselves in the streets to show their total
condemnation of politicians and party politics. Until now, the modernization process in Latin America
has been mainly restricted to the nancial and economic spheres. Profound changes must also take
place in the social and cultural realms.
The goal of achieving the modernization of society as has been repeatedly stated by most
democratic governments in the region also demands huge efforts to obtain a substantial reduction
of the existing high levels of poverty among the population. Real efforts have to be made to expand
access to education, health and housing to those social and ethnic groups which are today
marginalized from the fruits of modernization. The existence of real tolerance on the part of the
political establishment towards people and political organizations who do not agree with neoliberal
policies and exercise their democratic rights to ght for a possible alternative social order still cannot
be guaranteed in most countries in the area. In short, the persistence of extreme poverty,
discrimination against the indigenous and black populations, political corruption and excessive isolation
of government technocracy will remain serious obstacles to the denitive consolidation of the
democratic order in Latin America.

Latin America Transformed

nineteenth century to the present. It provides a very useful introduction to basic issues of general
democratic theory and contrasts it to the Latin American reality. A strong plea is made for
deepening the current democratic systems by expanding popular participation.
Weyland, K. 2002 The politics of market reform in fragile democracies. Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ. A good study on a series of political and economic reforms implemented in Latin
America since the mid-1980s and their underlying logic.

WEBSITES
Latin American barometer, www.latinobarometro.org, provides very useful information on
public opinion in Latin America on issues related to support for democracy, authoritarian bias, and
political culture in general. This information is obtained through large opinion surveys which are
carried out in 17 Latin American countries.
Political Database of the Americas, http://www.georgetown.edu/pdba, is one of the best
resources of political data on Latin America on the internet, including information on electoral
systems, elections, political parties and civil society. This is an initiative of several institutions,
coordinated by the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

170

3
SPACE, SOCIETY
AND LIVELIHOODS

This page intentionally left blank

9
Livelihood transitions,
place transformations:
grounding globalization and modernity
Anthony Bebbington

There are many ways of talking about the transformations that have occurred in Latin America and
the Caribbean in the past few decades. Political economy provides one set of tools, as demonstrated
in the rst part of this book that uses a political economy approach in order to talk about the structural
changes that have (and have not) come to pass in the region over the last few decades. Such
interpretations typically cast their analysis at a macro level, telling general stories of national and
regional shifts and the broad forces that explain these changes. These macro-explanations are as
characteristic of radical dependency theory as they are of neoliberal interpretations of change, and
they are important in many ways: they are the stuff of general political debate; they inform those types
of economy and society wide interventions that typically underlie public and multilateral policies and
interventions; and they tell the general story.
Another option neither better, nor worse, but different is to focus on how people weave their
way through, make sense of, rework and live out these structural transformations. Again there are
many ways of doing this: analysis of literature, poetry, photography and life histories are just some such
approaches. Another approach that has been popular among some researchers perhaps especially
geographers and which holds open links with the concepts and techniques of political economy
analysis has been that which aims to understand the dynamics of peoples livelihoods. Again this focus
has taken many forms, and we will consider some of them in this chapter. Still, one strength common
to these different approaches is that adopting this point of entry can convey more sense of the
experience of, and responses to globalization and neoliberalism than do more structural
interpretations. It also tells more disaggregated and local stories of the nature of globalization in Latin
America a level of disaggregation that is arguably important material for thinking through the type
of (regionally and sectorally sensitive) neo-structuralist agenda traced in the rst chapter of this book.
Another potential quality of a concern for livelihoods is that it can though need not draw attention
to the creative responses that people craft and which might offer the seeds for reworking globalization
processes so that they are more inclusive, pro-poor and pro-environment. In each of these senses, if
macro-explanations are better placed to speak to the economy-wide policies of government and
inter-governmental actors, livelihood analyses are arguably somewhat more relevant for those actors
such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social movements and poor peoples
organizations that operate at a more local level.
With this opening gambit in mind, this chapter will unfold as follows. It begins by outlining three
(related) ways of conceptualizing livelihoods under conditions of globalization in Latin America.
Second, it discusses some core themes in the ways in which livelihoods have changed in the region
since the rise of neoliberalism. It then discusses some of the intersections between production and
other elements of social change that a focus on livelihoods can illuminate in particular those ways in
which a look at livelihoods can help understand political agency.The fourth section considers the ways
173

Latin America Transformed

in which organized actors in civil society have addressed questions of livelihood and development.
Finally, the chapter takes the livelihoods discussion back to a reection on globalization processes by
reecting on the extent to which livelihoods in the region are as much structured by transnational
processes and relationships as they are by local phenomena.

CONCEPTUALIZING LIVELIHOODS IN LATIN AMERICA


Notwithstanding the recent enthusiasm for the livelihoods approach to development among both
researchers and development agencies (such as, for instance, the Department for International
Development of the British government), a concern for livelihoods is nothing new in the literature on
Latin American development. Research informed by dependency and world systems theory (Kay and
Gwynne, 2000; see Chapters 1 and 4) often drew links between processes of under-development in
Latin America and the dependent nature of poor peoples livelihoods in the region. This work tended to
emphasize the extent to which the broader development model constrained and undermined
peoples livelihoods. Other approaches while not eschewing the ways in which broad processes of
capitalist development in the region exclude people and limit their livelihood options have taken a
different approach. They have argued that a careful analysis of how people compose livelihood strategies
can reveal many lessons for policy and can suggest ways in which openings, however small, in the
overall development model might be reworked and taken advantage of, both by poor people and
organizations that aim to work alongside them. Each of these approaches points to some of the ways
in which globalization is grounded in peoples livelihoods and particular locations, thus suggesting how
we might think of the links between place formation, livelihoods and globalization. Finally, some of
these approaches also point to the relationships between the materiality of social life, day-to-day
popular practices, and forms of political resistance and engagement: they thus suggest links between
livelihoods, culture and politics. These are, then, the four sub-themes for this section.
Dependent development, dependent livelihoods
As noted in the introductory chapters, various forms of dependency theory, world systems theory
and Marxian political economy dominated socio-economic research in Latin America up to the 1980s
(see also Kay, 1989). While research conducted under such theoretical rubrics often had a more
systemic and structural orientation, questions of livelihood were still often present. An important
concept in this regard was that of functional dualism (de Janvry, 1981), and the notion was often used
to analyse questions of income generation, shelter and organization among the urban and rural poor.
The notion of functional dualism asserted that it was unacceptable to analyse the modernizing sectors
of Latin American economies independently of the peasant economy in the countryside, or the urban
informal economy in the city. Instead, it was argued, these two economies (the modernizing and the
popular) were structurally linked: indeed, it was argued that the modern economy needed the popular
economy as a source of cheap labour, cheap foodstuffs and cheap goods and services. The two
economies were thus dual, but linked, and the one was absolutely functional to the other. However,
their relative power and resilience were quite different and as a result livelihood possibilities in the
popular economy were not only dependent on what was happening in the modernizing economy
they were also ultimately constrained. That is to say, the sense to emerge from much of this work was
that the structural need for cheap labour, food production and other products and services meant that
poor people would never (or hardly ever) be able to escape from their poverty. They would always
be sources of something cheap.
In the urban economy this concept led to fascinating work on urban employment, the informal
economy and petty commerce (Bromley and Gerry, 1979), as well as on the chronic problem of
shelter and housing provision (Burgess, 1978; Edwards, 1982; Gilbert and Ward, 1985; Gilbert and
Varley, 1991; Fernandes and Varley, 1998). The thrust of much of this work was to question more
populist notions of the possibility (and desirability) of self-help approaches to housing provision and
174

Development openings, livelihood strategies


Thus, even if dependency theory has become less popular in the last couple of decades, some of its
messages remain highly pertinent today, in particular those regarding the livelihoods constraints that
poor people face under current macro-economic conditions. While taking that recognition as a
starting point, livelihoods might nonetheless be conceived somewhat differently. That is to say, rather
than view livelihoods primarily in terms of their dependence, they might also be seen as creative
responses by poor people that might offer a basis for rethinking development strategies that can
enhance livelihood opportunities, albeit within a broader political economy that still presents many
obstacles and still favours the interests of elites.
Again, this is hardly an entirely new point. Indeed, de Sotos The Other Path referred to earlier might
be viewed as just such an approach. Based on work conducted in Lima during the 1980s, a period of
chronic economic decline in Peru, de Soto and his colleagues argued that people had devised any
number of remarkable strategies to make a living. However, rather than emphasize the extent to which
the economic system constrained these livelihoods, de Soto instead focused on the pernicious effects
of government bureaucracy and state intervention, illuminating the various and signicant costs that
175

Livelihood transitions, place transformations: grounding globalization and modernity

micro-enterprise development (Rokowski, 1994). Of course, such work did not intend to denigrate
the efforts and achievements of squatters or self-employed workers. Rather, the idea was to show that
in the end such initiatives would only go so far, and no further, because of the structure of the
dependent political economy. This structure would ultimately constrain the possibilities of
accumulation, and from time to time would deliver shocks of one sort or another which would
undermine peoples savings, investments (e.g. in housing) and subsequent possibilities. This meant that
efforts (as were increasingly popular in the 1980s) to support and develop the informal economy
were misconceived: the informal economy would only become a basis of viable livelihoods if there
were broader changes in the political economy. Such observations and analyses were directly relevant
to policy discussions of urban poverty, and, for instance, fed into the debates on strategies for
improving poor peoples livelihoods that raged after the publication of Hernando de Sotos (1989) The
Other Path (e.g. see Bromley, 1994).
While authors such as Bromley carried this argument forward for the urban sector, in rural areas
the touchstone for this type of interpretation was the work of economist Alain de Janvry (1981; de
Janvry and Garramn, 1977; Deere and de Janvry, 1978). Though there were many themes in this
research, two are of particular relevance here. First, the work aimed to understand the nature of the
peasant economy, emphasizing inter alia the ways in which Latin Americas insertion into the world
economy systematically worked to the disadvantage of the rural poor and reduced the possibility that
all but a few of them would escape from poverty. Second, and given this context, the work questioned
the extent to which land reform and rural development programmes could really do much to
improve rural livelihoods. Indeed, the realities of much Latin American politics of the 1960s and the
1970s led authors such as these to assume that national and international elites would never allow
policies that might do more to address the causes of rural poverty.
As Chapter 4 has shown, these debates continue to be relevant in contemporary Latin America,
where poverty rates and the overall quality of livelihoods at the start of the twenty-rst century often
seem little or no better than they did in the 1970s. Indeed, many analyses continue to emphasize
systemic constraints on livelihood improvement both academic analyses as well as analyses deriving
from certain social movements within Latin America. Edelman (1999), for instance, points to the
severe constraints that programmes of structural adjustment and economic liberalization have placed
on Costa Rican rural (agricultural) livelihoods since the early 1980s. Yet at the same time and here
Edelmans work reects one important difference between more recent approaches and those of the
1970s he also provides a vivid ethnographic sense of some of the ways in which rural people in
Costa Rica have lived through the neoliberal period, and ways in which they have mobilized in
organized form to contest the most damaging of neoliberal policies.

Latin America Transformed

bureaucratic requirements placed on small-scale entrepreneurs. De Soto argued that a reduction of


such bureaucracy would make it far easier for small- and medium-scale entrepreneurs to establish
businesses, create jobs, generate prot and thus contribute to the production of more viable
livelihoods. Indeed, unlike modern-day dependencistas, de Soto argued that liberalization was desirable
for livelihood improvement, and that the need was not to change overall economic relationships but
rather to reduce government presence in the economy (de Soto, 1989; Bromley, 1994).
At around the same time that de Soto was developing his argument, Robert Chambers (1987;
Chambers and Conway, 1992) was elaborating a somewhat different position on poor peoples
livelihoods: one that occupied an intermediate position between de Soto and the dependencistas
approaches to livelihood. In a disarmingly simple but very inuential working paper, Chambers (1987)
argued that any conception of sustainable development must be based upon the rationalities that
poor people manifest within their existing livelihoods (Chambers was writing in the context of the
Brundtland Commission (WCED, 1987) and then later of the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, 1992). Chambers analysis emphasized the
extent to which poor people struggle to compose livelihood strategies under conditions of constraint
that derive from overall lack of assets and structured disadvantage. While Chambers spent less time
theorizing the sources of this disadvantage (see discussion in Bebbington, 1994), his view was
apparently closer to that of the dependency theorists than de Sotos. Indeed, the implication of his
work has always been that institutional change can be a source of livelihood improvement that there
is, in other words, room for manoeuvre within the constraints of political economy. While not writing
specically on Latin America, this work has inuenced thinking in the region (as elsewhere).
Chambers work is important because it has been a point of departure for more recent approaches
to the relationships between livelihoods and development that aim to engage both with Chambers
deep respect for the validity of poor peoples own strategies, as well as with the real problems of
political economy. Here we comment in particular on one approach that focusing on assets to
studying livelihoods that falls into this vein and that has been elaborated over recent years in various
bodies of research, including work on Latin America (e.g. Moser, 1998; Bebbington, 1999; see also
Scoones, 1998). Asset-based frameworks focus on what the poor have, rather than what they do not
have (Moser, 1998: 1).These frameworks understand livelihood strategies as the ways in which people
gain access to these assets, combine them in particular ways and transform them into livelihood
outcomes (Bebbington, 1999; Figure 9.1). For further information, see Bebbington (1999), Scoones
(1998) and Moser (1998). In particular, the following types of asset are emphasized:
Human capital the assets that one has as a consequence of ones body: knowledge, health, skills,
time, etc. This can include labour, though some frameworks (e.g. Moser, 1998) prefer to identify
labour as an asset in and of itself.
Social capital the assets that one has as a consequence of ones relationships with others and
ones membership in organizations such relationships in turn facilitate access to other resources.
Produced capital this includes both physical assets (in the form of infrastructure, technology,
livestock, seeds, etc.) and nancial assets (in the form of money, working capital and physical assets
that are easily converted into money).
Natural capital in the form of the quality and quantity of the natural resources to which one has
access.
Cultural capital the resources and symbols that one has as a result of the culture of which one
is a part.
In addition to having a broad view of the assets upon which people draw, the framework also has a
wide view of what people pursue in their livelihoods or in other words, what they produce when
they transform these assets. In this sense, these frameworks work with a multi-dimensional view of
poverty (Moser, 1998). The framework portrayed in Figure 9.1 conveys the notion that people
produce not only material income (or income in kind) in their livelihoods, but also meaning and
176

INSTITUTIONS
SOCIAL STRUCTURES

DEVELOPMENT

Access

Material Meaning Capability


well-being

Natural
capital
Produced
Human
capital
capital
Social Cultural
capital capital

INSTITUTIONS
SOCIAL STRUCTURES
USE
TRANSFORMATION
REPRODUCTION
Figure 9.1 A livelihoods framework

capabilities.That is to say, there is an inherent relationship between livelihood and culture, and between
livelihood and political capacity: livelihoods are in and of themselves meaningful (Escobar, 2001a), and
a change or loss of livelihood possibilities necessarily implies cultural change; likewise, a reworking of
assets necessarily means a change in the ability of, and the ways in which, a person will participate
politically. It is also likely to have implications for the concerns that they will pursue in that political
participation. Furthermore, just as livelihood trajectories and decisions have cultural and political
consequences, they are also driven by cultural and political concerns or in other words, livelihood
decisions are not only economically driven and structured, they are also imbued with cultural and
political signicance.
As they combine their assets in pursuit of their objectives, it is supposed that people tend to pursue
those livelihood strategies that do the following:
are the most consistent with the portfolio of assets that they control at that point in time;
reect their long-term aspirations as well as immediate needs;
seem to be the most viable given the opportunities and constraints made available by the
circumstances within which they live.
Thus, for instance, where families have access to land, and where agricultural market conditions are
favourable, then there is a greater possibility that people will pursue livelihood strategies based on
agriculture. Conversely, in other cases in which families have little land, but do have skills that are
demanded in labour markets, as well as networks of relationships that ease their access to such
markets, then it is more likely that at least some family members will pursue livelihoods based on offfarm employment in some (or many) cases such strategies may also lead them to spend extended
periods working in other regions.
177

Livelihood transitions, place transformations: grounding globalization and modernity

Household and
its members

Latin America Transformed

In thinking about livelihoods in this way, it is also important to introduce a time dimension in the sense
that peoples livelihood practices at the present may differ from their strategies for the future. Put
another way, where people invest the majority of their time and effort now may not reect their
aspirations for the future. Indeed, it may be that a livelihood strategy works at two levels simultaneously,
with people accessing and using the resources they need to meet immediate family needs, while also
trying to steadily build up those assets which, when accumulated over time, will allow them or their
children to pursue a different sort of livelihood. One example of this (which has been encountered often
during recent research in the Andean countries: Bebbington et al., 2002; Zoomers, 1999) is that where
rural families not only pursue agriculture to meet immediate needs, but are also investing in those assets
that allow their children to gain education so that they can move out of agriculture (and even out of the
countryside). This capital switching is a dynamic process that likely reects what is happening (or is
desired) in much of the countryside, but which agrarian conceptions of the campesino may not catch.
Likewise, in emphasizing the importance of access to resources, such frameworks also emphasize
the ways in which broader social structures, and market, state and civil society institutions affect this
access and the ways in which people are able to transform, reproduce and accumulate their resources
(Figure 9.1). For instance, the inuence of the state on livelihoods can be profound. This inuence is
exercised in many ways: through laws that inuence who has access to resources; public policies and
programmes that provide resources and also inuence market conditions; state-sanctioned violence
that makes control of assets insecure, and depresses local economies; levels of repression or
democratization that inuence the relative inclination of more powerful social groups to take the
assets of the poor, and so on. Edelman (1999), for instance, shows just how deeply rural livelihoods in
Costa Rica were inuenced by public programmes, and thus how adversely they were affected when,
in the course of adopting neoliberal policies, the state began to reduce the scope of those
programmes and scale back protection for smallholder agriculture.
The ways in which institutions and social structures affect livelihoods are described in other parts of
the book. For instance, land reform programmes (see Chapter 12) reect attempts to change
institutions so as to increase access to land for some people; squatter settlement land titling
programmes aim to change poor peoples access and security of control over urban property; the
promotion of extractive industries affects the quality and security of environmental assets. Likewise,
social movement struggles of various types (see Chapter 10) often reect attempts to challenge the
formal and informal institutions and policies that restrict their members access to certain assets (e.g.
land); the security of their control over those resources (e.g. because of violence); or their ability to
transform them in particularly productive ways (e.g. because of policies that allow cheap imports and
thus reduce the price people can command for their agricultural products); or because of racism or
sexism that reduces black, indigenous or womens ability to gain access to employment even though
their educational level is more than adequate. These are just some of the senses in which the assetbased framework attempts to keep political economy and the institutions of market, state and civil
society at the forefront of how we think about livelihoods and development.
Asset-based notions of livelihood are just one effort to formalize and structure a whole range of
discussions of poverty and livelihoods that have been around for several decades. In many respects,
these different approaches to livelihoods are not so much mutually exclusive as different in what they
emphasize and in the language they use. For instance, although recent research by Zoomers and
colleagues (1999; 1998) on livelihoods in highland Bolivia uses a somewhat different language, its
concerns remain very similar. In that research, livelihood strategies are dened as the way households
handle opportunities and limitations or, more specically, the way families respond to change,
resulting in the reallocation of land, labour and capital resources. Thus, livelihood strategies are
directly related to external context (agro-ecological situation, market access, infrastructure and the
presence of development institutions), the availability of resources at the household level (labour
capacity, land and capital) and the familys set of goals and priorities (Zoomers, 1999: 18). Indeed,
rather than arguing over the best framework for conceptualizing livelihoods, and emphasizing the
178

BOX 9. 1 Common themes in livelihood approaches


While there are various approaches to studying livelihoods, they share some common
orientations. They tend to do the following:
focus on what people actually do, rather than derive conclusions from broader theoretical
statements about how the political economy works;
emphasize peoples ability to be creative, believing that in that creativity lie the seeds of
development alternatives;
tend to emphasize diversity among livelihoods and thus argue for more participatory
approaches to politics and policy formation that will help make that diversity visible;
believe that the material basis for getting by is very inuential in how people live their lives,
allocate their time and engage politically, without believing that explanations can be only
materialist;
emphasize more locally based research and the power of case studies as a basis for theorizing
about development, both in Latin America and elsewhere.

Grounding globalization: livelihoods and place formation


The tendency for studies of livelihood to be more locally oriented and to focus on case studies points
to the relationship between livelihoods and processes of place formation in Latin America. Place is an
important but also a difcult, vague and slippery concept in contemporary social science. In its most
straightforward sense it draws attention to the character and feel of localities a feel that often varies
depending on who is encountering that place. In more recent times, discussions of place have often
been combined with reections on the ways in which the character of places and of the activities
pursued within and through them are affected by frequently long-standing processes linking those
people and places to others in often far removed locations (Massey, 1991; Bebbington and Batterbury,
2001; see later in this chapter too).
Livelihoods help constitute both the feel and the material nature of places. What people do, what
and how they build, what and how they cultivate, what and how they consume all these facets of
livelihood are part of place formation. However, the facets of livelihood inuencing this place
formation are themselves inuenced not only by the decisions and preferences of people, but also by
globalization processes and national political alliances that help determine which livelihoods are going
to be possible in which places. These inuences occur in many ways. Perhaps the more obvious ones
revolve around the inuence of neoliberal economic policy. For instance, the opening of agricultural
markets and other related economic changes can steadily undermine the competitiveness of smallscale agriculture, leading ultimately to its demise, and the abandonment and/or consolidation of
landholdings thus changing the nature and feel of rural places. Globalization can also open up
opportunities for new types of economic activity: employment in the maquila industry in northern
Mexico, in the booming, new greenhouse-based ower industry in northern Ecuador or the
transformation of Chiles Central Valley due to the massive growth in fruit and wine exports; or the
rise in particular locations of fair-trade coffee and cocoa production for sale in Northern markets. In
each of these cases the new activities change livelihood possibilities and the feel of places.
Global relationships affect the feel of localities in other ways. Once the colonial centre of Lima was
denoted a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, informal street vendors (the same type of
proto-capitalist entrepreneur celebrated by de Soto) were slowly pushed out in the name of urban
preservation and in the hope that this would make Lima that much more attractive to international
179

Livelihood transitions, place transformations: grounding globalization and modernity

differences among different approaches, perhaps what is most important to keep in mind is that these
different approaches generally share a similar set of general concerns and emphases (see Box 9.1).

Latin America Transformed

and national tourists and thus a better business prospect for those Limeos catering to the high end
tourist industry (Seppnen, 1999). Here globalization in the sense of both global conservation
programmes and the international tourist economy intersected with particular national and
metropolitan interests in Peru, and led to a remaking of central Lima that involved the exclusion of
vendors livelihoods from its streets.
Of course, a clean, colonial downtown Lima without legions of street vendors can seem an
enchanting, fascinating and much more desirable site to a tourist or even an upper-middle class Limeo.
But it can also engender anger and a sense of exclusion for those vendors who previously sold
products and pursued their livelihoods on its pavements and along its pedestrianized walkways. This
merely highlights the notion that different social groups experience places in different ways, depending
on their particular interests. Similar processes to those in Lima can also occur around national parks
and other protected areas, when rural residents ability to harvest natural resources, plant crops or
pasture their animals is changed once an area is designated protected. Indeed, the viability of those
protected areas can often be threatened as such excluded groups either protest against or in one way
or another sabotage conservation initiatives which they view as undermining their livelihoods and
beneting international tourists and elite national interests (Naughton-Treves, 2002). It is partly for this
reason that, recently, one of the more urgent themes in conservation initiatives in Latin America has
been to nd ways of accommodating both place and environmental conservation with the livelihood
interests of local groups (Zimmerer and Young, 1998).
Moving beyond these particular contexts of conservation, it is possible to make the more general
argument that many places in Latin America have become more conictive in the neoliberal period as
certain livelihoods have become systematically disadvantaged under conditions of globalization. Such
conicts can take many forms, from increasing violence (as Moser and MacIlwaine, 2000, discuss for
the case of urban Colombia) to more organized forms of protest. Looking at changes in livelihoods is
therefore not only a way of addressing the ways in which globalization touches ground in distinct ways
in distinct places in Latin America, it is also a window on helping understand contemporary forms of
place-based (and wider) protest in the region.
Livelihoods, culture and politics
When talking of livelihoods, it is easy to assume that ones focus is on how people make a living. Of
course, this is to a great extent true. But we cannot separate the question of how one makes a living
from the sorts of meanings people apportion to that living, and the ways in which they will struggle
both to defend and to enhance what they value in their living.This is not the place to delve deeply into
the complex and at times arcane debates on the ways in which making a living, culture and politics are
related, but sufce to say at least that they are indeed related (e.g. see Smith, 1989, for the case of
highland Peru). Cultural concerns can affect choice of livelihood, such as the values that lead people to
want to keep their family together, send their children to a distant high school, or live in the same place
they grew up. Conversely, how people make a living can lead to changes in what they value in what
is meaningful to them. In this sense, livelihoods are deeply imbricated in the production of popular
cultures of the types discussed in Chapters 2 and 10.
These concerns will also affect how people engage politically. Of course, not all popular political
action in Latin America is related to livelihood concerns, but there can be little doubt that much is.
There are many senses in which this is so. One of the easiest to see is the way in which people struggle
to defend or gain access to the assets they need to put a living together. Examples abound here: the
long slow struggle for land on the part of peasants prior to, during and after land reform laws (e.g.
Smith, 1989); the on-going efforts of the Landless Peoples Movement in Brazil (the MST, or
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) to gain access to land (Wolford, 1998; see Chapter 12);
the slow, often invisible but heartfelt struggles of communities to improve the quality of schooling in
their neighbourhoods; families efforts to gain access to electricity that allows their kids to do
homework, but also allows them to run small-scale machinery for home enterprises, and so on.
180

LIVELIHOODS SINCE NEOLIBERALISM


If we take Zoomers (1999) denition of livelihood the way households handle opportunities and
limitations then, given the diverse and geographically varied ways in which neoliberalism and
globalization have reworked these opportunities and limitations, we would expect to nd
considerable variation in the ways in which livelihoods have changed in the past two decades.That said,
it is worth reecting on some more general tendencies in these livelihood trajectories in this period.
While the impacts of neoliberalism and structural adjustment on livelihoods have been varied in the
region, for many, the post-adjustment period has been one of increasingly precarious livelihoods, in
both rural and urban areas. Responses to this crisis have been both ingenious and also increasingly
constrained. Caroline Moser (1992; 1998) has traced these responses for more than two decades in
Cisne Dos, a neighbourhood of Guayaquil, Ecuador, where by 1992 fully 77.2 per cent of residents
were living in poverty. Using an asset-based approach, she then traced the ways in which people
confronted this crisis. First, more women began to mobilize their labour in order to earn cash (from
32 per cent of women in 1988 to 46 per cent in 1992). Likewise, men began to dedicate more time
to work as they migrated out of the city to seek employment. Family members also had to dedicate
more time in order to access basic services whose overall quality was declining. Just for the case of
sanitation services, families spent on average 45 minutes a day collecting water, and increasingly shifted
to private vendors because public supply was failing. Families also began to use their houses to
generate income (by working from home, adding a small store, etc.). Finally, in addition to these new
ways of using human (labour and skills) and produced (houses) capital, families also mobilized their
social capital between a half and three-quarters of families borrowed money from friends and
neighbours to buy food, and between 15 and 25 per cent of families depended on friends for childcare
so that they could work (Moser, 1998: 8).
A signicant theme in the image portrayed by Moser is that families in Cisne Dos have had to
dedicate more time to tasks in order to compensate for the declining ability of the government to
provide services. This was so either because they had to spend more time searching or queuing, etc.,
or because they had to earn more money in order to purchase privately those services that the
government could no longer provide with any quality (for instance, by 1992 fully 50 per cent of families
used private health care when they got sick). In a completely different context rural Costa Rica
181

Livelihood transitions, place transformations: grounding globalization and modernity

Arturo Escobar, one of the most visible and important commentators on development in Latin
America, has argued that a central motivation for contemporary social movements is the defence of
the local (Escobar, 1995: 226), a key part of which is presumably to defend how their members make
a living in those localities. But the ways in which they defend these localities often involves relationships
with actors in other localities. Escobar has argued this primarily with reference to the Afro-Caribbean
communities of the Pacic Coast of Colombia (Escobar, 2001b), but similar patterns emerge
elsewhere. Marc Edelman (1999; 1998a) has traced ways in which peasant mobilizations in the North
West of Costa Rica have been linked over time with national and Central America wide peasant
organizations, all sharing the same concerns to challenge neoliberal economic policy and to push for
policy alternatives that will make it easier for peasants to continue making a living, and thus to continue
living, in rural areas.
While Escobar, Edelman and social researchers in general have tended to focus on the ways in
which poor people pursue livelihood concerns through social movements, there are doubtless also
relationships between these livelihood concerns and how people choose to participate in political
parties and formal electoral processes. A livelihoods approach, therefore, does not or at least should
not avoid paying attention to the political and cultural issues raised in Chapters 2, 8 and 10. What it
does do, though, is ask us to think a bit more about the links between changes in the ways in which
people get by in Latin America, cultural changes, and changes in the ways in which people engage in
politics. These themes structure the next few sections of the chapter.

Latin America Transformed

Marc Edelmans research during the 1980s and 1990s tells a disconcertingly similar story. Costa Ricas
was arguably the most elaborate social democratic state in all of Latin America, and its social and
economic programmes reached most corners of the country, touching most livelihoods in one way or
another. Since Costa Ricas own debt crisis (which Edelman dates as 198082), cutbacks in public
spending led inevitably to reductions in state-provided social safety nets (e.g. family benets), social
services (e.g. health care), and productive services (agricultural extension, credit, etc.). This in turn had
ramications for peoples livelihoods, as they either spent more money and time accessing these
services from the private sector, simply reduced their use of such services, and/or drew on other social
and institutional relationships in order to access them from other sources.
Another theme in both Mosers and Edelmans analyses is the notion that livelihoods have become
increasingly diverse, exible and mobile. That is, individuals and families have incorporated more
activities among the things that they do and need to do to get by. Certainly in rural areas in Latin
America it is very difcult now to talk of purely agricultural peasant families (see Chapter 12). In a
study of 11 countries for which data was available, in nine of them between 65 and 92 per cent of
rural women worked in non-farm activities by the late 1990s, and between 25 and 54 per cent of men
did (Reardon et al., 2001). In Peru, 51 per cent of the net income of rural households came from offfarm activities (Escobal, 2001). In Costa Rica, Edelman talks of people combining farming with trade,
VCR repair work, being a mechanic, and so on. In urban areas families combine self-employment,
working for others, trade, and a range of other petty activities. While such multi-activity livelihoods are
not only recent phenomena (e.g. Bromley and Gerry, 1979), they appear to be even more pervasive
now (Reardon et al., 2001).
As part of this diversication of strategies both within the family and over time, migration has also
taken on an increasingly important role (see Chapters 5 and 11). Again, this is not in and of itself a new
phenomenon, but in rural areas the signicance of migrant income appears to have increased. This is
often a step along the way to making the decision (especially for young adults) to move more
permanently to urban areas. But as Mosers case also suggests, even in urban areas, as livelihoods
become more unstable people have opted to begin migrating elsewhere, often to centres of export
industry based on natural resource extraction in the mining, sheries, hydrocarbons, timber sectors
(sectors which have themselves been among the primary beneciaries of neoliberalism: see Chapter
6). Migration to these areas has, in its turn, favoured the growth of urban areas at the centre of these
extractive economies (Portes, 1989). Increasingly, such decisions have also led to international
migration, as witnessed by the increasing number of Latin Americans seeking livelihoods in the USA,
Spain, the Netherlands, etc. (Jokisch and Pribilisky, 2002; also see below).
Under neoliberalism, then, livelihoods have become more diverse, multi-active and mobile in addition
to becoming in many cases more vulnerable.These are changes that clearly reect the political economic
transformations that the regions economies have undergone in the last two decades. However, they also
reect the assets at peoples disposition, while at the same time leading to a change in the relative
signicance of those assets in livelihood strategies. The increasing importance of non-farm income for
rural families means that land though still vital has become relatively less signicant as a source of
livelihood, while human capital (as skills) and social capital (both as contacts helping people access work,
and relationships that help people cope with crisis) have become more important. Likewise, in urban
contexts, human and social capital have become increasingly important (Moser, 1998) and social capital
appears to have become particularly important in helping people deal with increasing levels of violence
in the places in which they live (Moser and MacIlwaine, 2000) even though levels of trust and
cooperation have at the same time been seriously damaged by such violence (Moser, 1998).
Having said all this, it is also important to note that neoliberalism in Costa Rica also led to the
opening of new economic opportunities, above all in activities linked to exports, and that a good
number of people and families have reoriented their livelihood strategies to these sectors. This is an
important caveat because other observers (e.g. Hamilton and Fischer, 2003) have suggested that in
some cases (they write on Chimaltenango, Guatemala), poor people have beneted from the new
182

LIVELIHOOD POLITICS
An important theme to emerge in research on social movements in Latin America (Alvarez et al.,
1998; see Chapter 10) has been that political engagement in Latin America in the neoliberal period
has reected identity and citizenship-based concerns as much as material concerns. Indeed, some have
cautioned that some discussions of social movement politics in the region have gone as far as to
downplay the continuing signicance of material livelihood concerns in politics (Edelman, 1999). While
the livelihoods framework sketched earlier on in this chapter cannot, and certainly should not, be used
as a basis for trying to explain all forms of modern, popular political activity in the region, at least one
of its merits is that it draws attention to the inseparable relationship between the material and the
cultural in livelihoods (Escobar, 2001a), and as such dissuades analysts from over-explaining political
activity in one or another way. It suggests that when people engage in struggles over material concerns
they are also struggling to protect and project particular meanings; and also that in many cases,
struggles over meaning are also very often also struggles to defend or enhance material interests (or
in the language of the framework, to defend or enhance their control over various assets, and/or the
productivity of these assets).
Again, using the language of the framework, these struggles might be oriented either to gain direct
control over assets, or to change the institutions and social structures that govern access to and the
productivity of those assets. One can think of many cases of the former type of struggle. Perhaps the
clearest example is the long and continuing history of particular groups struggles to gain access to
particular parcels of land.The land invasions of the 1950s and the 1960s in many countries in the region
(Stavenhagen, 1970; Smith, 1989), and the continuing invasions by the MST in Brazil (Wolford, 1998)
are just some examples here. In some of these cases and of course this is the great struggle of the
MST in Brazil still the cumulative effect of these invasions was the implementation of land reform
policies that in one or another way did change the institutions governing access to land, and did
challenge some of the social structures linked to the control of land. But in many cases, these struggles
and mobilizations are localized and at best lead to the local group gaining access to the land. In cities,
the land invasions by shanty dwellers invasions not only of the past but also very much of the
present constitute an urban analogue of these rural struggles. This is all the more so if the housing
built on the land acquired increasingly becomes a productive asset for the household, used as a home
workshop, small store or guarantee for a loan for some other form of economic activity (Moser, 1998).
Yet it is important to note that rarely are the gains from such struggles shared equally among the poor,
and in such squatter settlements processes of social differentiation among landowners and tenants
become often and quickly apparent.
183

Livelihood transitions, place transformations: grounding globalization and modernity

export markets that have emerged under neoliberalism (in their case markets for horticultural crops).
Indeed, even in the case of Cisne Dos men were migrating to work in shrimp farms, themselves a
booming (if environmentally destructive) sector of the Ecuadorian economy under neoliberalism.
So, even if much research conveys a strong sense of increasing livelihood crisis for many of the urban
and rural poor in Latin America, this is not always or necessarily the case. Perhaps the more important
points to recognise are that: (a) the opportunities and threats opened up to livelihoods under
neoliberalism vary geographically (see Chapter 3); (b) peoples ability to take advantage of these
opportunities, or the likelihood that their livelihoods will be seriously compromised, depends greatly
on the assets they have at their disposal their human, produced, natural, social and cultural capital
and the institutional conditions affecting the security and productivity of those assets; and (c) whatever
the case, people reallocate these assets as their adjust their livelihood strategies to these new
contexts. This reallocation in turn has implications both for the assets that people are most likely to
struggle to gain access to, politically as well as on a day-to-day basis, and for the most appropriate areas
of intervention for programmes that aim to improve the livelihoods of poor people under such
conditions. We return to these two points in the next two sections of the chapter.

Latin America Transformed

Material gains such as these struggles over land also constitute signicant cultural gains, not only
because they allow a particular way of living, but also because they convey new meanings about the
dignity and political potential of the poor. In a similar vein, mobilizations to protect the natural
resources that local populations depend upon have also had simultaneously cultural and material
concerns as, for instance, in the on-going struggles of the Mapuche/Pehuenche in Chile against dam
building, or of the Uwa in Colombia against oil development.
Struggles to gain access to land (natural capital) have perhaps been the most visible form of
livelihood politics aimed at gaining direct access to resources, but there have also been important
struggles to gain access to other assets. People have struggled for access to roads, credit and a range
of other forms of produced capital; and an important arena of struggle has been over access to
education (human capital). Some of this struggle is on a very individual and day-to-day basis, as parents
reorganize livelihood strategies (by changing residence, or by changing age and gender work roles in
the family) in order that their children might go to school for more days of the week, and for more
years. Other of these struggles are more organized. At the most local level the efforts of parents to
organize Parent Associations strong enough to pressure teachers to come to school all week, or to
assume a role in managing and improving the local school, reect examples of this. Indeed, research in
Cusco in the rural highlands of Peru has suggested that such struggles are among the greatest
priorities of adults (Garca, 2000). In some cases, such struggles have spilled over onto a national stage,
and have ultimately inuenced some of the rules governing how poor people are able to gain access
to human capital. An example of this has been the ways in which the national indigenous movements
in Ecuador have inuenced policy governing education for indigenous peoples (Box 9.2).

BOX 9.2 Indigenous organizations and the politics of education in


Ecuador (source: Selverston-Scher, 2001)
That education has constituted one of the primary concerns of the indigenous movement in
Ecuador is not surprising, given that many of its leaders themselves were involved in programmes
of bilingual education in the 1970s and the 1980s. What, however, is interesting is the extent to
which these organizations have been able to shape elements of educational policy in the country,
and the extent to which certain moments of government policy have facilitated this process.
While early (and very important) literacy programmes (some conducted by public institutions)
focused on Spanish literacy, by the late 1970s the government was supporting literacy training in
Quichua and the development of curricula for bilingual education. This programme managed by
the Centre for Research in Indigenous Education (CIEI) at the Catholic University of Ecuador
opened 300 bilingual schools from 197984, and illiteracy rates dropped from 25.7 per cent to
12.6 per cent in the same period (Selverston-Scher, 2001: 88). Once the government changed in
1984 to a more authoritarian regime the programme languished, but on the election in 1988 of a
centre-left government, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE)
negotiated with the government the creation a National Directorate for Bilingual Education
(DINIEB) that would sit within the Ministry of Education and Culture but would be staffed and
run by CONAIE itself (giving CONAIE and its afliate organizations the considerable power of
selecting teaching staff in bilingual schools).
Indigenous organization around education has thus clearly affected public institutions and
education policy and politics in Ecuador, opening up signicant spaces for indigenous participation
and management of education. Whether this management has been handled well, however, is
another matter. Since 1988 DINEIB has been wracked by political and economic difculties
(Selverston-Scher, 2001: 89), clientelism has continued, and conicts among currents within the
indigenous movement have been played out through DINEIB.
184

LIVELIHOODS, NGOs AND DEVELOPMENT


One of the reasons for studying existing livelihood strategies is that they may point to options for
development interventions that might have implications for policy and practice. On the one hand, they
might within the conditions of the existing macro-economy point to interventions that hold out
more hope of enhancing peoples incomes, capabilities and sense of fullment. On the other, such
analyses might help identify specic policy changes that could create new opportunities for people to
enhance their livelihoods. This second point is important, because if one is to advocate a form of
neostructuralism as a new policy agenda for Latin America (as does the introductory chapter to this
book), it is vital to give some details of what this agenda would be: what sorts of state intervention,
what sorts of livelihood enhancing, targeted protectionism, what sorts of new relationships between
state and society?
Many NGOs in Latin America have argued for some time that this is indeed what they aim to do.
They have attempted to understand existing livelihood strategies, and on that basis have devised
development interventions and policy recommendations. It is therefore instructive to consider some
of what has derived from these experiences to see how far an analysis of livelihoods really can point
to policy change, and under what conditions. This is what this section attempts to do, taking the rural
areas of Andean countries of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru as a point of reference.
While rural development NGOs are very diverse and are discussed in more detail in Chapter 12
(see also Bebbington, 1997), it is a reasonable generalization to say that most of them aim through
185

Livelihood transitions, place transformations: grounding globalization and modernity

If successful, livelihood-based struggles that challenge and change the institutions and social
structures governing control and use of assets, have far greater and far longer-lasting impacts on the
quality of many more peoples livelihoods than do more localized struggles to gain access to assets.Yet,
perhaps not surprisingly, such political struggles are far less frequently successful. In part, this is because
such forms of livelihood politics are often spontaneous and short-lived. Nowhere has this been clearer
than in mobilizations (so-called IMF riots) against neoliberal macro-economic policy that though
highly visible have rarely led to signicant to policy changes. In other words, the more dominant the
policy and the political economic structures that sustain it, the less likely it is to change even in the face
of signicant protest.
Of course, such ostensibly spontaneous mobilizations are not always that spontaneous. They often
build on concerns built up from everyday political engagements and networks of solidarities often
constructed in the course of peoples composing their livelihoods. Also in many instances they have
depended upon coordinating and organizing activities of social movements and other more formalized
organizational structures. Yet even in those cases where such mobilizations have been grounded in a
strong fabric of popular organizations struggling, inter alia, to protect their members livelihoods, their
effects have been limited. One of the conclusions of Edelmans (1999; 1998a) research on peasant
movements in Costa Rica and Central America was that, although they achieved many things and were
able to participate in discussions about economic and agricultural policy in the region, ultimately they
had little or no impact on the nature of those policies. They were unable to change policies that
liberalized trade, removed price guarantees and that in various ways undercut the economic viability
of the small-scale farming sector.
Yet this may not always be so. The national indigenous movements in Ecuador (discussed in detail in
Chapter 10) have inuenced more areas of policy, particularly in the education sector but also to
some extent in rural development more broadly (though arguably still not in macro-economic policy
formulation). And in Mexico, the Zapatistas have because of their broad base of support and
their use of arms softened policies, institutions and social relationships that have historically
prejudiced the access of the indigenous and rural poor to a range of assets and political processes.
Yet even in this case, the inuence thus far on broad macro-economic policy in Mexico must be
deemed limited.

Latin America Transformed

different means to enhance the quality of rural peoples livelihoods. Most do this primarily or only
through project interventions that aim to provide assets directly; fewer, though some, aim to challenge
dominant institutions and social structures, and to develop alternative policy ideas that might then
inuence the thinking of governments and other agencies. Some NGOs do this alone, while others
combine this and direct interventions, aiming to derive broader policy and political lessons from their
own projects.
One measure of the quality and relevance of these approaches is to assess their actual impacts on
poor peoples livelihoods. In practice, there are only few studies that have been able mostly for
reasons of funding and time to do this with some degree of research intensity and broad coverage.
The results of these studies are, however, not especially encouraging (Zoomers, 1998, 1999;
Bebbington et al., 2002). Of the many reasons for this limited impact one that stands out is that project
interventions may well not address the primary constraints on rural livelihoods. Many of these
constraints as intimated in the literature on dependent livelihoods relate to those dominant
institutions and social structures which underlie: limited access to land; market slumps due to cheap
imports since trade liberalization; racism and its multiple impeding effects (see Chapter 2); inequalities
in relationships of power that led to overall government neglect of and policy biases against peasants.
However, another reason for this limited impact seems to be that NGOs have often misperceived
the nature of rural livelihoods. They have tended to continue acting as if rural livelihoods depended
primarily on agriculture for income generation, and as if the medium and long-term vision of peasants
was that they and their children would continue to be agriculturalists. Yet as we have seen above, the
changes that have occurred in rural livelihoods particularly in the neoliberal period suggest that rural
livelihoods are less and less based on agriculture. Indeed, one study in parts of Peru and Bolivia showed
that many families (including quite poor ones, if not the very poorest) were making great efforts to
invest in assets that would help their children leave the countryside. In particular, they went out of their
way to invest in childrens education. They did this by direct investments (spending money so kids
could go to school), but also by less direct means.They would, for instance, develop social relationships
with people living near secondary schools so that their children could stay with them during the
school week. Those who were slightly wealthier would also aim to acquire small plots of land in urban
areas and slowly build a house so that ultimately the children could sleep there while schooling. Once
the children had nished secondary school, these houses would then be somewhere they could live
while they pursued their new urban livelihoods (Zoomers, 1998; Bebbington et al., 2002). In
circumstances where campesinos seemed to be dedicating signicant resources to a strategy of slowly
shifting their families livelihoods out of agriculture, it is not surprising that rural development
interventions aiming to foster increased investment in agriculture should have limited success. What
is perhaps more surprising is that NGOs should have been so slow in recognizing these tendencies,
and in recognizing the changing signicance of certain assets, and of certain economic activities, within
livelihood strategies.
In such circumstances, what might constitute more effective interventions? Here peoples
livelihoods, and their discussion of what they aim to pursue through them, might offer some clues. In
these studies, people (especially women) repeatedly referred to education as the asset that mattered
most to them. They also showed through their strategies as noted above that this was indeed
important. People struggled, perhaps above all else, to build up their and especially their childrens
human capital.
A second asset that appeared important were social relationships (or social capital). However, while
much rural development literature assumes that the most important forms of social capital for rural
development are those linked to peasant and other types of rural peoples organization, in these
studies people had not made much effort to invest their time in strengthening such organizations.
Instead they had aimed to develop the social networks that would allow them access to information,
housing and other such resources resources that would help them school their kids, nd work as
migrant labourers, pool resources in times of crisis, etc. It is notable that Mosers work in urban
186

Ecuador (Guayaquil) and Colombia has come to quite similar conclusions (Moser, 1998; Moser and
MacIlwaine, 2000).
Other work has also suggested that nancial capital often delivered in very small and exible loans
is increasingly important in these new livelihood contexts. This capital helps people slowly establish
themselves in new activities and places (see Figure 9.2). In many cases, these activities are very small-scale
selling prepared food on the streets of Lima (assuming one has not been evicted by urban
preservation programmes!) or on the squares of small towns; buying equipment to work as plumber,
electrician or builder; buying a cow to fatten and sell. However small, these activities each require an initial
nancial investment that can be onerous for poor people. There is also evidence that loans for housing
investments to help people consolidate their urban base are also very helpful and readily repaid.
What does all this mean for rural development NGOs? It may mean that it is more important to
provide interventions of a sort that help people build the livelihood strategies they see as most
desirable and most feasible, rather than interventions that presume to know the type of livelihood
strategy that people most want. In the area of credit and savings, in fact, an increasing number of
NGOs have indeed recognized this and have created new organizations specically concerned to
offer credit to poor people, and to help people save (in however small amounts). This has been
particularly so in Bolivia where NGOs and NGO-owned nancial service companies provide the bulk
of credit to the rural poor, and large amounts to the urban poor. While in some cases the credit is still
tied to particular agricultural activities, borrowers often nd ways of bending the credit to their actual
needs. In human capital formation it might mean programmes that help people nd the sorts of
training they want rather than the NGO deciding on the nature of the training to be given. And in
social capital formation it might mean helping people and groups make the links they see as most t,
rather than fostering the emergence of the more or less pre-dened types of peasant, producer,
womens or other such organizations that NGOs have typically supported in the region.
This is all easier said than done, however, and it is easy to be wise after the event. Indeed, there is a
growing body of thought (published and spoken) which is gratuitously unfair to NGOs, many of whom
have worked and struggled politically under levels of hardship that their critics would never have
187

Livelihood transitions, place transformations: grounding globalization and modernity

Figure 9.2 Male and female market traders, Otavalo, Ecuador. Photograph by Sylvia Chant

Latin America Transformed

endured. It is also hard to change because most NGOs in the region depend on nancial support from
other sources in the form of contracts, project grants or institutional grants. In many cases these
resources come from Europe and North America, or if they come from Latin American governments
do so from public programmes that themselves have international funding. Thus, for interventions to
become more open-ended and more adapted to the sorts of mobile, multi-activity and exible
livelihoods that people increasingly seem to live in the region, then these international sources must
also change their views of the conditions on which they will transfer resources globally. This point
anticipates a theme we return to in the closing section of the chapter the extent to which
livelihoods, and livelihood possibilities, continue to depend on globalized as much as local relationships.

GLOBALIZATION AND LIVELIHOODS IN LATIN AMERICA


Although a livelihoods analysis focuses our attention on a more local scale and on questions of human
agency, it is important to keep in mind the ways in which those local processes and livelihoods are
related to processes that occur at wider scales. At the same time, it is also worth recognizing that this
inuence of the global on the local is not only a phenomenon of the past 20 years, as accounts of
globalization can often imply. In the closing section of this chapter, we address some of the ways in
which Latin Americans livelihoods are affected by and embedded within global processes, and some
of the ways in which, occasionally, livelihoods can affect these processes.
Historical continuities
In some sense, the very idea of Latin America is itself a product of globalizing processes, referring inter
alia to the ways in which Europe and part of the Americas became linked from the period of the
conquest on. Indeed, the conquest gave rise to a series of activities and relationships that transformed
livelihoods in the region, primarily through changing the relationships of power that governed the
control of land, markets and exchange relationships, natural resources, spiritual faith, and a whole range
of other elements of everyday life. While the sorts of linkage between the Americas and Europe that
underpinned these changes may not be the same as those that are today commonly referred to as
globalization, they were nonetheless linkages that led to the ow of resources and people across great
distances, and the establishment of transnational networks affecting those ows (e.g. those related to
the government of Colonial Latin America, or to the functioning of the Catholic Church).
The tendency in much literature is to emphasize the extent to which these early globalizations
destroyed livelihoods in Latin America: through expropriating land, introducing various forms of servile
and indebted labour, through the decimation wrought by the introduction of European diseases, etc.
However, even in these early global entanglements it was the case that local practices gave placespecic forms to globalization. Steve Stern (1993), for instance, discusses the sixteenth-century silver
mining economy in Potos, Bolivia, to show how indigenous workers aimed to resist the types of labour
relationships that the early Spanish entrepreneurs aimed to impose on them and how they were
able to rework some of these labour relationships. Spanish colonizers discovered Potos in 1545,
encountering the vast silver mountain located there in the midst of the Bolivian altiplano. On realizing
the immense quantities of silver in the mountain (it is still being mined today), the Spanish introduced
enormous sums of capital and new technology, transforming the physical landscape with dams,
aqueducts, and reneries. At the same time, they aimed to introduce labour systems (the encomienda
and later the mita) that attempted to control workers and (in this case) ensure that the mines could
function effectively allowing the transfer of silver back to Spain a globalized transformation of
livelihood and landscape reminiscent of contemporary accounts of new mining and natural resource
extraction investments by multinationals (see below, and see Oxfam America website).
Yet Stern shows that in practice, indigenous labourers were far more difcult to control than such
explanations imply. In the early years, Spaniards depended on both free Indian miners and encomienda
188

Transnational linkages
These responses draw attention to a further global dimension to livelihoods in some regions of Latin
America. These livelihoods encounter globalization not only in the form of external investments by
global capital, the local effects of economic policy under neoliberalism, or the new social policies that
have accompanied neoliberalism. People can also encounter it through their involvement in interorganizational and social networks that directly or indirectly link them to actors in other countries,
either in Latin America or in the global North. Again, such linkages are not absolutely new. As just one
example, the Catholic Church and orders within it (such as the Jesuits, Franciscans, or Dominicans)
189

Livelihood transitions, place transformations: grounding globalization and modernity

workers who retained important levels of control over production and even over the ore extracted.
Furthermore, Indians controlled much of the ore smelting market. When in the 1570s the Spanish
Crown introduced the servile mita labour system which sent thousands of labourers to the mines and
reneries for a one-year stint of poorly remunerated work, the Spanish gained far more control of the
production process. Yet by the early 1600s this control was again being systematically resisted and
challenged by labourers both indentured and free who pushed to increase their income from
mining by moving from a wage-based system to a sharecropping arrangement in which they kept
some of the silver ore as payment and/or mined the veins for themselves on weekends. While
the mitayos were unable to change the conditions of their work, free labourers over half the
workforce succeeded in retaining apparently signicant shares of the silver nally rened in Potos.
This, however, is not to deny that far vaster quantities of precious metals were not shipped back to
Spain.
In parts of the Andes globalization processes then, already touched livelihoods 450 years ago.
Furthermore, in defence of their livelihoods some people were able to rework the ways in which
globalization processes worked themselves out in specic places. This case study is particularly
interesting, because if we fast-forward to the late twentieth century in Cajamarca in the Andes of
northern Peru, it is apposite to ask how similar these processes are today. Among the various mines
and mining companies in the department, Cajamarca is home to Latin Americas largest gold mine,
owned by the US-based Newmont Mining Corporation (this section draws heavily on Bury, 2002).The
mine, developed only during the 1990s now covers an area larger than the city of Cajamarca and its
development has, as in Potos, involved the infusion of immense amounts of capital and technology.
Clearly, again, livelihoods have been transformed in the process: farmers have sold land and moved out
of agriculture; others have experienced water contamination; urban water supplies are, many argue,
threatened; road networks have been expanded; urban employment opportunities have increased in
response to miners spending, though these opportunities are mostly in the service sector and are not
always legal; a city has been transformed (ibid.).
Globalization this time in the form of a transnational mining company and global commodity
chains linked to gold has reworked livelihoods: closing opportunities for some, opening them for
others (ibid.). But, as in Potos, local human agency concerned to defend livelihood interests has partly
reworked the process of globalization. Both rural and urban social movements have emerged to
challenge some (or all, depending on the particular livelihood interests of the movements members)
of what the mine does. In some instances, their responses have themselves become globalized, as the
movements have made links with national and international non-governmental organizations. Through
these networks of relationships, pressure has been placed on the mine, on its US owner, and on the
World Bank Group (which nanced some of its operations) to change elements of the mines
operations. Nonetheless, as in the colonial case, Newmont and its afliates have still transferred vast
wealth to the USA, and another historical continuity it is poignant to recall that Cajamarca was the
site at which the Spanish executed the Inca Atahuallpa while also taking the ransom in gold that had
been mobilized by the Inca in order to pay his release. Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind
that be it in the sixteenth or the twenty-rst centuries these globalization processes do not go
uncontested.

Latin America Transformed

have long spanned North and South, and have affected livelihoods in particular places where the
Church has had a presence. In more recent times, these intra-church networks have connected
parishes in Latin America with parishes or other groups in the North and have channelled resources
and ideas in ways that impinge on local livelihoods. In more recent times, as Protestantism has
exploded in the region, especially in its evangelical form, different networks linking people and places
in Latin America with church groups in the North (especially the USA) have also emerged, and have
again served to channel resources and ideas in ways that are signicant for livelihood options.
Depending on the networks involved, such resources have been used for activities as diverse as
building drinking water systems, funding primary schooling, or lobbying for land rights.
While transnational linkages related to the Catholic Church are perhaps among the longeststanding manifestations of this phenomenon, there are of course many others. We have already talked
of the different ways in which NGOs and social movements affect livelihoods. However, it is also
important to recognize that the activities of these organizations often mobilize resources accessed
from sympathetic groups outside Latin America. These groups are diverse, ranging across nongovernmental organizations, governments, social movements, trades unions, human rights groups,
environmental organizations and many others in Europe and North America. The relationships
involved are not always easy ones, and a perhaps growing number of NGOs in Latin America complain
with ever more annoyance that their ostensible partners in Europe or North America are increasingly
inclined to impose conditions before approving resource transfers (Aldaba et al., 2000). But even so,
it remains the case that these networks continue to exist, and link organizations that ultimately
intervene in and have effects on livelihoods in particular places in the region. In this sense NGOs in
Latin America are not just organizations with projects in particular places. They are also parts of
transnational networks that change peoples livelihoods in the places where those networks touch
solid ground in Latin America.
We can, then, think of globalization as working not only through the economic networks that
structure the movements and investments of capital, but also through transnational networks or
what some have called global civil society (MacDonald, 1997) that channel resources for social
change and attempt to lobby for policy and political change. Livelihoods in the region are affected by
each of these dimensions of globalization.
To close this section, it is worth commenting on one other sense in which livelihoods have become
increasingly transnational. An increasing number of people in Latin America more in some countries
and some places than others have begun to construct livelihoods that are based both within and
beyond Latin America (Jokisch, 1999; Kearney, 1996; 2000). This phenomenon is particularly apparent
for those who spend periods of the year, or several years at a time, working in the USA. By 1997
estimates were that there were 13.1 million people living in the USA who had been born in Latin
America and the Caribbean (Jokisch, 1999).There are 400,000 people in the USA from Ecuador alone
(Jokisch and Pribilsky, 2002), and on Colombian television, telephone companies advertise their longdistance services by explicitly appealing to Colombians to maintain their links to family members now
living in various parts of the USA.
In addition to these USLatin America livelihoods, there are also increasing numbers of people
who have moved to work in Spain. For instance, following the last few years of economic crisis in
Ecuador, many Ecuadorians have travelled to Spain to work (Jokisch and Pribilsky, 2002). Other
migrations include those of Bolivians to Argentina and Chile (Cortes, 2000; Preston, 2002). Of
course, many of these migrations involve a permanent move and so to the extent that they do not
involve a constant circulation between and identication with two countries they cannot be thought
of as transnational livelihoods. Nonetheless, these migrations still affect livelihoods in Latin America in
many ways: they may lead to labour shortages (increasing workloads for those staying in Latin
America); and they may lead to remittances of money earned in the North back to migrants home
families and communities, even if the size and frequency of such remittances generally decline over
time. While in the mid-1990s the IMF estimated that migrants from Ecuador sent $406 million back
190

CONCLUSION
Livelihoods have without any doubt changed profoundly in the neoliberal period, even if this is
certainly not the only period of Latin American history in which they have been globalized. These
changes though diverse in nature have often involved an increase in livelihood vulnerability in rural
and urban areas, an increasing pressure on the viability of small farm agricultural livelihoods, increasing
levels of mobility, and a trend towards more multi-activity livelihoods. Again, none of these are new
phenomena restricted only to this period, but they do seem to have intensied in the period since
1980.
These changes imply challenges for forms of development programme and for popular political
strategies. Focusing on the nature and dynamics of these new livelihoods, and on the many and
creative ways in which people get by within, and respond to the contemporary political economic
context in the region may provide pointers for rethinking such programmes and politics. Whatever the
case, while a focus on livelihoods certainly does not obviate the need for careful analysis of political
economic context, it does caution against making sweeping theoretical and policy generalizations. It
suggests that perhaps the most effective way to develop policy, politics and theory that can cope with
the contemporary context in Latin America is to grow them from the grassroots (Blauert and Zadek,
1998; Bebbington and Bebbington, 2001).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Parts of this chapter draw on Bebbington (2002).Thanks to Denise Humphreys Bebbington for insight
into the dynamics of small-scale nancial services among the poor.
191

Livelihood transitions, place transformations: grounding globalization and modernity

home to Ecuador each year (Jokisch, 1999), by 1997 this amount had risen to $643 million, and by
2001 to $1.41 billion (Jokisch and Pribilsky, 2002). Many of these remittances are from one family
member to other family members, but in cases where a number of migrants move to the same
destinations, they have sometimes organized collective remittances. Marie Price, for instance, has
shown how migrants from Cochabamba, Bolivia, who have moved to northern Virginia in the USA
organize to support community development, welfare and infrastructure projects in their home
villages in Cochabamba.
So some international migration is permanent but for other people, such migration is more
circular. There is much evidence of people building homes in two countries at once, circulating to and
fro between them, often illegally and dangerously. Jokisch (1999), for instance, has shown how rural
people from Caar (in the southern highlands of Ecuador) have migrated to New York. In this process
family networks have been stretched transnationally, but resources accessed in New York, and news
and people from Caar, continue to circulate through them (in ways facilitated by the Internet,
Western Union and Ecuadorian businesses in New York). Many of these resources are then invested
in landscape transformations in Caar. Many people have invested in conspicuous, modern two- and
three-storey brick houses in rural landscapes where until recently the norm was single-storey cinder
block and adobe houses. They have also invested in cattle, and one consequence of this migration
appears to have been that in Caar, agriculture (which requires more labour) has declined and there
has been an increase in livestock production (which requires less labour). Livestock also requires a
signicant investment in animals, which has been made possible by money earned in New York. As a
result of all this, Caar has become for some people mainly a place where one demonstrates ones
success in migrating, by building ashy houses. For others, it becomes a place for resting and ultimately
retiring on the basis of earnings gained in the USA. For still others, Caar remains a place of
production, of peasant agriculture and traditional practices. For all people, though, the experience of
Caar has changed during this process of transformation and living in parts of Caar at least is
associated with having contacts in the USA.

Latin America Transformed

FURTHER READING
Bebbington, A. 1999 Capitals and capabilities: a framework for analysing peasant viability, rural
livelihoods and poverty, World Development 27(12): 202144, for more empirical and conceptual
detail related to the way this chapter discusses rural livelihoods.
Bebbington, A. and Batterbury, S. (eds) 2001 Transnational livelihoods and landscapes.
Ecumene 8(4). This Special Issue contains three papers on Latin American livelihoods which address
the issues discussed in this chapter from a political ecology perspective.
Bromley, R. and Gerry, C. (eds) 1979 Casual work and poverty in Third World cities. New York,
John Wiley. Many useful case studies on urban livelihoods.
Moser, C. 1998 The asset vulnerability framework: reassessing urban poverty reduction strategies.
World Development 26(1): 119. A good introduction to the study of urban livelihoods.
Zoomers, A. 1999 Linking livelihood strategies to development. experiences from the Bolivian Andes.
Amsterdam, Royal Tropical Institute/Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation.
Useful resource for the study of the changing Andean livelihoods.

WEBSITES
Department for International Development, http://www.livelihoods.org, a helpful site for
livelihoods.
Grupo Chorlavi, http://www.chorlavi.cl, a very useful and well-maintained site for issues related to
the rural economy and rural livelihoods.
Oxfam America, http://www.oxfamamerica.org/advocacy/art2607.html, this website is useful for
exploring livelihoods and extractive industries.

192

10
Civil society, grassroots politics and
livelihoods
Sarah A. Radcliffe

Transformations in civil society over the past few decades in Latin America point to the need to
understand broad structural processes alongside local actors concerns about livelihood and their
creative responses to shifting political systems and economic situations. Political systems in the past
three decades have moved through various waves of authoritarian and exclusionary regimes to
electoral democracies in which the role of civil society and social participation is lauded by national
politicians and aid agencies alike. In the economic sphere, actors have responded creatively to
economic crisis by organizing new forms of social reproduction (that is, feeding, teaching and caring
for community members), as nationstates have transformed the ways in which resources are
distributed following international measures to restructure their economies. The major structural
changes in national and regional politics and societies over these decades relate to the macro-level
processes of neoliberal reform and globalization. Explanations of civil society transformations at the
macro level clarify the consequences of state reforms and nationwide political processes while
informing debate in Latin American public opinion.
By contrast, looking at civil society transformations among grassroots actors provides a distinct
entry point for understanding social and political change in the region. Information on actors
differentiated experiences of, and responses to, political and livelihood change provides us with an
understanding of what organized civil actors can achieve (or not) under conditions of neoliberalism
and globalization. Drawing on outlines of regionally and sectorally sensitive neostructuralist and
livelihood approaches (Chapters 1, 9), this chapter examines how different social actors in civil
society organize themselves through informal political activities (on formal politics, see Chapters
6, 7).
The chapter begins by outlining what we mean by civil society and informal politics, and informal
political action. Second, it discusses the patterns of civil society mobilization in the 1970s and 1980s.
In Latin Americas high modernization period (Chapter 2), many countries had weakly organized
civil society while formal (electoral, party-based) politics was generally absent, due to the
authoritarian military regimes that swept to power in those years (Chapter 6). Yet paradoxically,
those same decades experienced the mobilization of diverse actors in social movements and other
forms of collective action. The third section considers the degree to which informal political action
among civil society actors contributed to the transitions to electoral democracies. In the fourth
section, we discuss how neoliberalism and globalization have contributed to the on-going
transformation of Latin American civil society in the past two decades. Both neoliberalism and
civilian action contributed to macro-level constitutional reform in many countries, while further
differentiating between the livelihoods and identities among local actors and institutions. Civil
society was transformed internally by growing income inequalities and externally by changing
relations with the state and new institutional actors such as non-governmental organizations
(NGOs).
193

Latin America Transformed

CIVIL SOCIETY IN LATIN AMERICA: SOCIAL DIFFERENCE, RIGHTS


AND THE STATE
Civil society is classically viewed as the sphere of society existing outside the capitalist market and
outside the state (Adler Hellman, 1995). Civil society plays a key role in maintaining society by means
of practices and values persisting in diverse groups such as families, households, and religious and
cultural organizations, among others. Two consequences follow from this. First, civil society actors are
concerned crucially with their position vis--vis the market and the state, and are often involved in
struggles over the distribution of responsibilities for livelihood and social reproduction among the
three spheres. Second, civil society is very heterogeneous, crosscut by differences in gender relations,
class difference, raceethnicity, culture, and location, which position individuals very differently vis--vis
the state and markets, and each other.
Civil societys relationship to the state and the market has often been framed in terms of rights,
which specify the access to livelihood, security and political society enjoyed by individuals in a country
(Arce and Long, 2000). The classic description of rights from T.S. Marshall remains useful in outlining
the different kinds of rights that states have guaranteed (or not) for their citizens. Ideally, civil rights are
those that sustain individual freedom and freedom of expression, religion and property, guaranteed by
the justice system. Political rights by contrast refer to the right to vote, to be a member of a political
authority, and be elected as a representative. Finally, social rights refer to the goods and services that
a state provides to citizens, through social programmes and public services (such as education and
health). In Latin America, different types of political regimes historically created different packages of
rights, changing over time in a continual reconstitution of the regime of rights (Caldern et al., 1992:
29; Foweraker, 1995). The states rights regime shapes the ways in which the market, civil actors and
state organize the distribution of resources, access to livelihood and security. Latin America has what
many commentators argue is a regionally specic set of rights where in mid-twentieth-century
populist development, states expanded social rights under conditions of closely controlled political
rights and under-developed civil rights (Roberts, 1995). Corporatist regimes organized social rights
(access to welfare provision) via unions or state-recognized associations, thereby limiting others
access to these goods (Caldern et al., 2003). Under authoritarian governments, civil and political
rights were repealed as voting, political organizations and public meetings were banned. However, in
Brazil social rights were extended under the military, until economic crisis forced cutbacks. With the
return of electoral democracies, civil and political rights were newly established on paper although ongoing economic crisis often entailed limited social rights (Foweraker, 1995: 28). More recently,
neoliberal reforms and globalization recongured regimes of rights yet again (see below).
Latin American civil society is heterogeneous, with extreme income and cultural differences within
nations, combined with racial-ethnic diversity, gender and ruralurban and cultural differences. Social
heterogeneity is moreover combined with social hierarchies, the valuing of certain social categories
(white-mestizo, male, urban) over others (indigenous/black, female, rural), a characteristic that Jorge
Larran attributes to the long tradition of authoritarianism in the region (Chapter 2). Baroque and later
Enlightenment principles contained implicit normative values by which social actors were judged. In
Latin America, citizenship and hence rights of various kinds has long been tied to certain
characteristics (male, white-mestizo, urban, upper income), thereby limiting other social actors
citizenship status and civilian role. Social heterogeneity and hierarchy through the twentieth century
were built into conceptions of citizenship, development and statesociety relations, shaping actors
relationship to livelihood, the market and the state. For many actors, Enlightenment goals of equality
and inclusion are still to be realised (Schuurman, 1993: 187), generating what Elizabeth Jelin describes
as struggles from below (1990: 15).
However, as they are engaged more immediately with local livelihoods and specic cultures, many
Latin Americans do not perceive the issue in macro-structural terms. Rather, their livelihoods bring
them into the socially transformative experiences of migration, education, new forms of employment
194

195

Civil society, grassroots politics and livelihoods

and nationalism, each of which changes the meaning of citizenship and social identity. Involving millions
of people from the mid-twentieth century, (largely urbanward) migration and education recongured
civil society and social difference. Education provided new work opportunities while creating a new
sense of pride and recognition among poor and rural populations. New racialethnic categories were
created in cities (such as the Peruvian cholo) while new gender divisions of labour, informal sectors and
household forms emerged (Chapter 11). Rapid urbanization inevitably transformed civil society,
political consciousness and social interaction. Urban migrants began to interact with nationstates and
labour markets in new ways, demanding resources as well as full citizenship. State-sponsored
nationalism attempted to create a universal sense of belonging to transcend profound social gulfs,
while social actors forged local geographies of identities (Radcliffe and Westwood, 1996). The
nationstate promoted good citizenship through civil participation in military service, nationalist
school lessons and state rituals. In many rural areas, state corporatist organizations forged new
identities and local civil organizations, such as the comunas in rural Ecuador. Culturally, new forms of
mass culture and mass politics (advertising, demonstrations, campaigning, unionization) drew people
into a new relationship with the political sphere (Caldern et al., 1992: 25). All of these processes
signicantly transformed the conditions for civil society structures and informal politics, and created a
wider public awareness of the language of citizenship and rights. Geographical processes constitute
social movements and reinforce the politics of social difference. Latin Americas uneven development
and urban and regional bias generate the uneven distribution of resources, cutting large swathes of civil
society out of development. In this context, insecurity and precarious development gains generate civil
mobilization for title to housing in urban shantytowns or to agricultural land in rural areas.
As mentioned above, the interactions between civil society, the state and the market are often the
source of tension, negotiation and contestation especially as citizens livelihood depends upon stability,
access to resources, and forms of recognition dened by the nationstate or forged in capitalist
markets. Theoretically, these tensions are debated and negotiated in the public sphere where citizens
agree responsibilities and rights. However, in Latin America, the public sphere has historically been
limited or non-existent (Foweraker, 1995: 30), and in this context, citizen debate and forms of informal
organization have been associated with alternative counter-publics (Alvarez et al., 1998).The struggles
of civil society actors in Latin America to establish their position vis--vis the state (civil, social and
political rights) or the market (economic rights) has been the topic of much research.
An overview of this work reveals that the social and institutional features and political identities
involved in these struggles shifted slowly over the twentieth century, as the nationstate and the
market were transformed. During the politically and economically nationalist period of mid-century,
civil society negotiations were often channelled through union structures (many tied to the state) and
state-approved local associations. By channelling civil representation, this corporatism attempted to
keep separate groups of civil actors directly tied to state-controlled institutions. Nevertheless, despite
rapid industrialization and modernization from the 1950s to 1970s, many groups in civil society
remained outside these networks of resource distribution and political representation, giving rise to
diverse forms of self-help in shantytowns and neglected rural areas (Lehmann, 1990: 150; Scott, 1990).
Self-help reected uneven development and the actions of a state premised on social hierarchies and
associated patterns of exclusion.
By contrast, during the lost decade of the 1980s and particularly under authoritarian and military
regimes, civil society had few formal outlets for public debate and representation. In this context, social
movements became the locus of political action among civilian actors. More recently, civil society and
the public sphere have been transformed once again in the context of globalization and neoliberal
reforms of the state and the market. Despite new constitutions and the rise of the third sector of nongovernmental organizations, the nationstate has been the main referent for civil action and demands.
In contrast to Western social movements that turned their back on the states ever-extending reach
(Touraine, 1981), Latin American civilian mobilizations generally coexist and cooperate with the state
and political institutions. However, as throughout this time the public sphere remained insecure and

Latin America Transformed

weak, state and civil society relations were often characterized by a terrible tension (Caldern et al.,
1992: 25). The political right to participate represents an assertion of citizenship as it is a precondition
for democratic decision-making, and may also entail the wish to put (new) rights on the political
agenda (Foweraker, 1995). Civil society action thus shifts between resistance, protest and proposals
(Escobar and Alvarez, 1992: 4), depending on the context of the state and the market. Civil
movements are often focused around constellations of specic issues or grievances, unlike political
parties manifestos or programmes that tend to address a wide range of issues (Scott, 1990: 1626).

CIVIL SOCIETY MOBILIZATION IN THE 1970s AND 1980s


During these decades, civil society was highly organized in what have been termed new social
movements, whose expansion in numbers, condence and geographical extent surprised leaders,
public opinion and scholars alike. Paradoxically, such civilian mobilization occurred at a time when in
many countries of the region military and in some cases, highly authoritarian regimes were in
power, when politics as usual could not occur. Military regimes, whether authoritarian or more benign,
closed down political parties, disbanded unions and forms of corporatist representation, and clamped
down on the public sphere through restrictions on the media, public meetings and social association.
Yet in this context, civilian actors organized themselves sometimes at considerable risk to their lives
to express their concerns regarding livelihoods, the market, the state and rights. In other words, the
relationship between the spheres of civil society, the state and the market did not disappear, but was
dramatically recongured with long-term consequences for both civil society and the state. This
section rst addresses the ways in which theories have approached this period. Second, the section
examines a number of different forms of civil action in these decades, addressing livelihoods, rights,
social identities and cultural meaning. In the nal part, we discuss the role of economic transformations
and growing global integration in beginning to shape civil action and its agendas.
Understanding the paradox: theoretical perspectives
Why did social movements emerge during the 1970s and the 1980s? Are they due to livelihood issues,
to questions of opportunities and survival that exist in Latin America regardless of the regime in
power? Or is this mobilization primarily due to peoples identity vis--vis other members of civil society
and the nationstate, an identity informed by livelihoods? While these questions suggest that there are
two distinct ways of understanding the paradox of civilian mobilization, recent approaches stress the
equal importance of livelihood, culture and political opportunity.
Resource mobilization theory (RMT) tends to stress the question of livelihood, and the structural
conditions under which civilian actors mobilize. According to this approach, groups act in response to
structural economic and political conditions. Recognizing that non-formal politics can be both rational
and important, these approaches focus on the methods adopted by organized civilians to gain access
to a particular resource or right. Also, social movements require resources and inputs from members,
and leaders to make strategic decisions (Foweraker, 1995). Actors are understood to mobilize to
protect economic interests and livelihood. For example, peasant farmers land invasions to recover
elds taken by landowners are argued to relate to the threats to peasant survival caused by
landlessness or subdivided plots. However, this primarily economic interpretation of livelihood is often
problematic in Latin America (as elsewhere in the world), as it disregards the political and sociocultural context within which livelihoods are created, maintained and struggled over (Sheffner, 1995).
First, access to resources is structured by the socially exclusionary interaction between the state, the
market and civil society. Beyond individual economic concerns, civil mobilization challenges
governments that systematically fail to guarantee rights to certain citizen groups for non-economic
reasons. For example, Latin American womens movements challenge legislation that restricts married
womens control over children and property. Second, civil actors livelihoods are embedded within
cultural meanings that inform the value of different resources to social actors and thus shape their
196

197

Civil society, grassroots politics and livelihoods

willingness to mobilize in their defence. For example, social organizations of Amazon indigenous
peoples ght for access to land, not only because it is the basis of their daily livelihood and survival, but
also because of its cosmological and cultural signicance.
The second major theoretical contribution to understanding civil mobilization is identity theory, also
known as new social movement (NSM) theory. This approach stresses the identity dimensions of civil
organization, arguing that the meanings invested in struggles are not economic but rather social and
cultural. Accordingly, civil movements are not merely struggles over production and consumption but
also crucially about meaning, communication and representation (Melucci, 1995). By documenting the
meanings, life-worlds and everyday actions, peoples motivations, hopes, desires and meanings of
organizations become clear (Escobar and Alvarez, 1992; Melucci, 1995; Schuurman, 1993; Scott, 1990).
Stressing the macro-level exclusions of certain social categories from recognition and status, new
social movement theory suggests that mobilization emerges from individuals and groups intrinsic
search for social recognition and identity. As Latin American society comprises various Others, the
argument goes, so these Others seek by means of grassroots and informal organization to have their
views heard, their right to self-representation acknowledged and their right to decision-making over
development and livelihood secured. Evers argues that social movements are driven by the need to
express an identity, a way of doing society in which individuals/groups can realize their full subjecthood (1985: 48). Gaining power is thus not as important as civil movements aim of democratizing
authoritarian political cultures through the slow transformation of meanings (Alvarez et al., 1998).
NSM theory has been harshly criticized for ignoring the material factors behind mobilization, and for
glossing over persistent social inequalities within civil organizations (Roberts, 1997). Due to its focus
on submerged identities, NSM theory tended not to dene the achievements of civil action except in
the broadest terms.
Latin Americas diverse forms of civil society mobilization challenge both these theoretical
approaches, leading to a theoretical synthesis. Current approaches to grassroots organization include
a focus on the institutional and social opportunities offered by particular regimes, specic economic
situations and diverse socio-cultural traditions. Analysis of political opportunity structures replaces a
purely economistic interpretation with a more contextualized, regionally and socially sensitive
approach to the material conditions for civil action. Additionally, the meanings and creativity of social
actors are acknowledged in recognition of political agency and the philosophicalpsychological
dimensions of struggle. Social movements are thus dened as a collective actor constituted by
individuals who consider themselves to have common interests and, for at least some signicant part
of their social existence, a common identity (Scott, 1990: 6).
Alongside the growing awareness of social movements exibility and multi-dimensionality comes
the recognition of the geographies of civil society. Civil society is often distant politically, geographically
and socially from governments and state agencies, reected in the regions civil society organization
(Davis, 1999). Civil actors create informal geographies of identities, shaping relations of afliation and
belonging often at odds with state administrative areas (Radcliffe and Westwood, 1996). These place
identities are not enclosed nor xed, although they can often be local. Arturo Escobar (2001b) argues
that the defence of the local provides a core rationale for civilian action. The predominant pattern of
action during the 1970s and the 1980s was a relatively local one, showing a cyclical pattern of activity
and quiescence. However, this is not to say that groups remain limited to a local circumscribed area,
as strategic alliances beyond this may be crucial. This does not prevent social actors from extending
networks beyond the local in order to coordinate action, agree a list of demands and construct a
regional or national sense of identity. In the 1990s Central American peasant farmers coordinated
across national borders to formulate alternatives to neoliberal agricultural policy (Edelman, 1998b).
Similarly, the Peruvian peasant patrols are concerned with local livelihood security such as the
protection of livestock, but are also embedded within transnational networks of ideas and support,
located in larger networks of ideas, exchange and authority (Starn, 1992: 94) (Box 10.1). Moreover,
local actors are often very aware of the ways in which broader structural processes neoliberal

Latin America Transformed

reforms, regional trade agreements, and international legal provisions, among others come to map
out in a locality. Civil actors mobilized against the privatization of water resources in Cochabamba,
Bolivia, voicing their concerns that government neoliberal reforms to liberalize the water market
would lead to a transnational company taking over water required for irrigation, drinking and cleaning
(Laurie et al., 2002). Although this was a local struggle, the actors involved saw themselves affected by
interconnecting local, national and international processes.

BOX 10.1 The peasant patrols of northern Peru (source: Starn, 1992)
Started in the 1970s and widespread by the 1980s throughout northern Peru, the peasant
patrols, or rondas campesinas, arose out of peasants concern over security, namely theft of farm
animals and disillusionment with formal judicial procedures. Centre-left political parties as well as
church catechists contributed to its formation. As rondas become embedded in the daily routines
of villages, conflict resolution mechanisms and womens rondas emerged to deal with a widening
circle of social issues. However, the rondas maintained their own alternative modernities in rural
highland locations, drawing on a wide and hybrid range of institutional ideas, diverse forms of
cultural capital and social relations, local knowledge and forms of identity. Ronda participants
identified as ronderos, as Peruvians, and as campesinos/peasants.

The geographies of public and private space are signicant in Latin America in the way they
designate the separation of nationstates and civil society. These geographies are not necessarily
secure or xed, as demonstrated under authoritarian military regimes in Central America and the
Southern Cone countries where soldiers invaded private domestic space to kidnap citizens. In
Argentinas dirty war, the military junta moreover issued strict rules about public and private
behaviour in its efforts to create rigid control over civil society (Taylor, 1997). Hence, the boundaries
between public and private have a decisively political character (Touraine, 1981) in Latin America, as
they are contested and shifting. Where the private space of the household was unable to guarantee
family members livelihood, these private concerns became the focus of public action and mobilization
(cf. Sheffner, 1995; Foweraker, 1995). As Latin American private spheres have long been associated
with (married) women and gender divisions of labour, issues of private survival have often prompted
womens organization in defence of household living standards. Low-income women organized
through the lost decade of the 1980s and later to create community-based soup kitchens. These built
on but subtly transformed womens domestic role and extended the scope of their political
activities.
Grassroots experiences and viewpoints: livelihood, opportunity and culture
Claims to specic rights often lie at the centre of mobilization, especially in the context of failed
modernization (Caldern et al., 1992). Mobilization for rights may include material and economic rights,
such as secure land or housing title, agricultural extension or bilingual education.The origin of civil action
in the 1960s and at its peak in the 1980s are attributed to the failure of inclusive development, high rates
of poverty and social marginalization and a new politics of needs (Slater, 1998; Chalmers et al., 1997).
Failure of development to grant what it promised generated interests in better types of development
and more equitable benet distribution, combined in some cases with a questioning of the industrial,
urban and technological path to development. In Mexico, austerity in the 1980s undermined the states
ability to buy out opposition, hence boosting the number and scope of social movements.
Uneven development favouring certain groups created a mismatch between urban groups in terms
of access to collective consumption goods such as paved roads, water systems, adequate housing and
198

199

Civil society, grassroots politics and livelihoods

electricity supplies. The failure of municipal and national governments to provide poor, often migrant
and squatter, populations with services a package of goods comprising developmentalist states
promise of modernity prompted urban civil society to demand them (Castells, 1983). Marches to
government ofces and self-help construction groups recongured the urban poors livelihood and
sense of political worth, and inevitably contested economic and political gulfs in power, while owing
much to specic often rural traditions of social organization (Degregori et al., 1986).
Neighbourhoods became the location for personal and group networks (such as Limas migrant
associations) linking populations with churches, rural villages with migrant paisanos (countrymen) and
state institutions. These quotidian networks provided for a microstructure of organization (Evers,
1985: 44), a local social pattern through which civil society could be imagined (Melucci, 1989; Scott,
1990). By 1982 around 8,000 neighbourhood associations existed across Brazil, while in So Paulo
favelas (shantytown neighbourhoods), civilian associations marched to demand assistance, forming
strategic links with popular leaders.
Civil action is prompted not only by uneven development, but also crucially by the ways in which
people identify and understand diverse forms of discrimination. In Latin Americas hierarchical
societies, rights and social recognition have been accessible to certain groups/individuals and not
others rich, not poor; urban, not rural, men, not women; whites/mestizos, not indigenous and black
Latin Americans. As social movement theory notes, individuals are prompted to carry out political
action when they self-identify as a group. Self-identity is not an essential core but is dened and
understood within a specic historical, cultural and geographical context of Othering and uneven
access to benets. Discriminatory meanings attached to ethnicracial labels such as indigenous or
black prompt resistance by racialized groups who contest their exclusion from public space, their lack
of access to social benets, and the inability of national societies to recognize their cultural
distinctiveness (Van Cott, 1994; Minority Rights Group, 1995).
Civil action thus often questions the status quo, and the exclusions and negative meanings that are
associated with particular groups or places.Treated for much of Latin Americas history as non-citizens
or as second-class citizens, women are just one of the groups that challenge their exclusion from rights
(Dore and Molyneux, 2000; Molyneux and Craske, 2001). The association of rights with a public
citizenship role came under pressure with women contesting the separation of masculine, public and
political space from the feminine domestic sphere (Dore and Molyneux, 2000). While these gendered
divisions have long been breached by subaltern, peasant and indigenous groups (whose livelihoods rely
upon female work and wages), the political sphere has long been dened by masculine culture and
womens exclusion (Melhuus and Stolen, 1996; Chant and Craske, 2003). Female citizenship arrived
late, with voting rights conceded slowly in the mid-twentieth century, while formal representation
proceeded at a snails pace. Ecuador granted the vote to women in 1929, while Paraguay granted this
right in 1961; most countries extended female franchise in the 1940s and 1950s. Women make up
between 4 and 15 per cent of parliamentary representatives in the early 1990s post-transition
governments. Despite highly gendered patterns of formal politics, women made up the majority of
participants in social movements in the 1970s and 1980s, when other political avenues were closed.
For instance, women made up 99 per cent of Chilean neighbourhood associations, purchasing and
cooking cheap food, and calling for housing tenure (Lehmann, 1990). In Limas shantytowns, women
organized communal kitchens, thereby freeing themselves to earn wages (Jelin, 1990). In the shanties
of Buenos Aires, Lima or Mexico City, the structural limits on womens participation were clear
female reproductive and domestic work was increasingly difcult under conditions of economic
austerity, prompting women to organize themselves.
Debates about Latin American womens civil action centre on the question of livelihood versus
identity. Maxine Molyneuxs work on womens rights and livelihood under the Sandinista regime in
Nicaragua pointed to the complexities of womens citizenship rights. In Nicaragua, womens civic
action has been explained in terms of practical concerns (livelihood issues of affordable food,
education and health care, urban infrastructure) and on the other hand, strategic issues (gender

Latin America Transformed

ideologies that disadvantage women) (Molyneux, 1985). In effect, however, many of Latin Americas
diverse womens groups are concerned with both livelihood and identity, both practical and strategic
interests. While feminists historically demanded legislative, familial and marital changes to empower
women, they are also concerned with the feminization of poverty and womens access to resources
and livelihood security. Their activism and lobbying of governments in addition to strong international
linkages put Latin American feminist movements at the heart of civil and political life during the 1980s
(Saporta Sternbach, 1992). Although initially urban and middle-class, feminists increasingly intersected
with the popular womens movements arising in the shantytowns (Lind, 1992).
As a highly signicant actor in civil society, the Church especially the Catholic Church played a
crucial role in many forms of civil organization during the 1970s and 1980s. During these decades, the
Catholic Church re-oriented towards an option for the poor creating new forms of civil association
including Bible reading and adult literacy groups. These Christian base communities (CEBs or
comunidades eclesisticas de base) often provided spaces for social actors to meet and discuss
livelihood and political alternatives (Lehmann, 1990). Especially where the state had been discredited,
CEBs provided an organizational focus and a repertoire of cultural meanings (about oppression,
exploitation and redemption) for marginal groups (Lehmann, 1996). In Chiapas state, Mexico, during
the 1970s, Catholic catechists formulated petitions for land and basic services on behalf of rural
communities. The CEBs played a crucial supportive role in the early days of much citizen action,
although the strength of basismo as a political credo has recently been questioned and the highly
signicant role of Protestant and diverse evangelical groups has been increasingly acknowledged.
Given its origin in alternative public spaces and specic cultural milieus, civil mobilization often
designs and operates a repertoire of actions that owe little to formal party politics or state rituals.
Nevertheless, common experiences of education, migration and nationalism contribute to these
repertoires while organizations learn from each other (Eckstein, 1989). In So Paulo, grassroots
organizations, CEBs and independent trade unions worked together in 1970s and early 1980s under
the military government (Adler Hellman, 1995). The multiplicity of practices covers a wide range of
examples (Caldern et al., 1992: 27), from colourful marches through the national territory, the use of
new symbols and alternative media, systematic non-violent raids on supermarkets, to street theatre.
Citizen protest often engages with power relations through geographical tactics, by transgressing the
unspoken rules about who should appear where in Latin American urban and state geographies (Pile
and Keith, 1997). Having been treated as internal colonies, indigenous and black peoples marginality
is overturned by their arrival in the centre of capital cities, such as the 1992 Ecuadorian March for Life,
Dignity and Territory to Quito (Sawyer, 1997), and black movements demonstrations in downtown
So Paulo (Minority Rights Group, 1995).
Culture and identity are key to understanding civil society, as the motivations behind political actions
are constructed in specic social, historical and geographical contexts. Communities are not born but
are made and continually re-made as the situation changes (Melucci, 1995: 342; Foweraker, 1995: 12).
However, when the state is the main interlocutor for civil society, its procedures often shape the ways
in which civil societystate interaction occurs. Over much of the twentieth century, Mexico maintained
a strongly corporatist state in which the ruling PRI party structure had the resources and political will
to manage civil expression and demands. Yet low-income urban womens organizations responded
differentially to the resources on offer. Whereas some groups in the city of Guadalajara valued
autonomy from the PRI (cf. Escobar and Alvarez, 1992), other womens organizations welcomed the
livelihood resources and political recognition that the PRI could offer via its networks (Craske, 1993)
(see also Box 10.1).
At its most basic, livelihood raises issues of security and the right to life. Although played out very
differently across Latin America, depending on the nature of the state, the market and the specic
threat to life, violence and insecurity for citizens have been major issues prompting civil action. Two
contrasting examples illustrate these themes. In Central America and the Southern Cone, diverse
groups of women began to demand the return of disappeared relatives who had been abducted and
200

BOX 10.2 The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Argentina


Between 15,000 and 25,000 people died in Argentina in its Dirty War (197683) against
subversives and in defence of the last bastion of Western civilisation. With the shutdown of
political activity, political activists and members of diverse organizations were perceived as a
threat to stability and disappeared after imprisonment, torture and murder by the ruling military.
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were established in 1977 to trace their disappeared sons and
daughters, who had been abducted by the security forces or unnamed groups. Deliberately
excluding men from their organization, the women organized weekly processions around the
main square in downtown Buenos Aires. Despite intimidation from soldiers, they maintained
public protest in the context of a highly restricted public sphere. Over time, they initiated a public
debate about the legitimacy of the authoritarian regime. After the return to civilian rule, the
Madres were at the forefront of demands for the persecution of military crimes and the bringing
to justice of those responsible for disappearance, continuing too in their campaigns to account
for all of the disappeared (Fisher, 1993; Taylor, 1997).

Womens movements had varied outcomes, in part due to the diversity of groups involved. Such
diversity, combined with the fact that many (mostly low-income) women were reluctant to dene
what they did as political (Jelin, 1990), means that the achievements of womens civil action are both
difcult and contentious to dene. In the Brazilian womens movement (comprising the full spectrum
of neighbourhood, consciousness-raising and feminist groups), women were engaged in deliberate
attempts to push, redene or reconstitute the boundary between the public and the private, the
political and the personal (Alvarez, 1990: 23). Low-income women extended their sphere of daily
competence and involvement into community-based groups, which in some cases led them to
question the prevalence of domestic violence and to gain self-esteem (see also Lind, 1992). The
widespread mobilization of women in the past few decades perhaps provides a test case of the
effectiveness of civil mobilization. Newly established legal rights for women and measures to deal with
issues such as domestic violence reect the demands of diverse womens organizations.
What were the achievements of social mobilization in 1970s and 1980s? Many forms of civil
organization during these years were local, but that is not to deny their impact on livelihood, and the
formulation of new civil societymarketstate relations. Moreover, social mobilization during this period
201

Civil society, grassroots politics and livelihoods

killed by the countries military regimes. In Central America, the groups comprised mostly indigenous
women, whose connections with the Catholic Church granted them a political opportunity to
question the regimes policy of genocide (Schirmer, 1993). Informed by international human rights law,
civilian women such as the CONAVIGUA organization in Guatemala campaigned against
disappearance and state violence. As their knowledge of the situation grew, they criticized the regime
for its political violence (and lack of citizen security) and gendered violence against women.
In Argentina, a violent and military state gave rise to another mothers movement, but the distinct
culture and politics of this country shaped the pattern of civilian mobilization differently to Central
America (Fisher, 1993). Again, women were at the forefront of demands for the return of living
relatives in the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo organization (Box 10.2). Here, women of diverse class
backgrounds coordinated using the semi-private, feminine spaces of teashops and childrens
playgrounds (Radcliffe, 1993). Weekly parades around the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires stressed the
womens maternal responsibilities and emotional ties to children. This motherist identity chimed with
the militarys de-politicized view that the family was the basic cell of society in a strongly Catholic and
ordered society (Taylor, 1997). The nature of womens political organization is thus shaped strongly by
the political and cultural context within which they emerge.

Latin America Transformed

was often cyclical, moving through a pattern of greater and lesser visibility, and disappearing once their
aims were met (Foweraker, 1995: 100; Alvarez et al., 1998). Under politically, socially and economically
exclusionary governments, civil associations inevitably varied in their demands and achievements. While
some organizations pursued political or social rights on their own terms, others chased after
entitlements that were embedded in patronclient relationships with political parties or state sectors
(Foweraker, 1998: 275). Institutional change, more secure livelihood, new rights and social mobility can
be identied as possible material outcomes of civil organization, although subtle shifts in cultural codes
and political culture may also occur (Melucci, 1995; Alvarez et al., 1998; Sheffner, 1995). Existing within
the spaces between civil and political society, social movements gains are highly varied and multifaceted, yet the signicance of social organization for Latin Americas political culture is undeniable.

CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY


This section describes social movements role in transitions to electoral politics, and examines their
signicance in transforming political cultures. In assessing civil inuence on transitions, it is difcult to
generalize across the regions varied regimes, political cultures and movements. Civil action had diverse
impacts on transitions to democracy, depending on the forms of organization, the regime and the
nature of the transition. During transitions, social movements necessarily changed their engagement
with development processes and the structures of power. Groups of civil actors impacted on political
cultures in ways that undermined authoritarian regimes legitimacy, rejecting the closure of public
spheres and holding former rulers to account. Nevertheless, civil organizations rarely had direct access
to the negotiations leading to democratic transitions to electoral politics (Foweraker, 1995), which had
long-term consequences for politics and civil society. Where the transition to electoral democracy was
decided behind closed doors in negotiations between political elites and political parties, social
movements often did not have direct access to the negotiating table (ibid.).
In many countries, civil society impacted on transitions more by shaping political culture than by
participation in political negotiations. In Argentina, spearheaded by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,
civil action democratized political culture, developed a public community and revitalized local politics
in the period leading to democratic transition (ibid.). By means of constant visible demands on the
military, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo reoccupied public space and contributed to the loss of the
militarys legitimacy. In Chile, by contrast, civil protests in the early 1980s failed to shift the Pinochet
regimes timetable for return to civilian rule and isolated radical protestors. Here a submerged civil
society could not defeat a powerful regime.
In this context, post-transition political roles for social movements were highly diverse across the
region with some countries seeing the return of party politics as usual, while other countries created
new forms of political participation. Chiles return to electoral politics sidelined social movements as
they incorporated civil leaders but not their demands, with negative consequences for popular groups
access to decision-makers (Schuurman, 1993). Arising under conditions of political authoritarianism,
social movements were potentially the basis for more democratic and participatory politics, through
their attempts to re-open a debate in political culture and their efforts to make new organizational
forms. In this sense, social movements acted at crucial moments like schools for democracy, focusing
on political rights, an expanded notion of citizenship and making political demands on the state. Social
movements insistence on human rights and demands for political transparency and a deepening of
democracy were often common threads (Foweraker, 1995). Nevertheless, scholarly optimism that civil
organizations would be schools for democracy has recently been tempered by recognition of
persistent legacies of authoritarianism and exclusion.

CIVIL SOCIETY AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE


In the 1990s, civil society has been transformed again due to political and economic shifts that interact
to re-congure social actors relationships to the market and the state. The extension of the market
202

New constitutions: rights


The rights and identities of civil actors in Latin America have been profoundly transformed with the
introduction of new constitutions, although much remains to be done to translate these paper rights
into changes on the ground. While the immediate reasons for these constitutions varied, the macrostructural context was informed by the falling legitimacy of political systems and civil action. For
example, Perus authoritarian President Fujimori was challenged by civil protest and occupation of
public spaces, while in Ecuador widespread mobilization against a corrupt government led to the
formation of a constituent assembly. In other words, in the wake of widespread military governments
and civil mobilization, the return to electoral democracy often forced a constitutional change. While
many civil mobilizations and organizations have not contributed directly to the new constitutions, their
presence and ability to express political opinions in a receptive public sphere have evidently shaped
developments. In Ecuador and Bolivia mobilization by indigenous movements fought back neoliberal
reform, and succeeded in protecting and extending collective land rights (Deere and Len, 2001a). By
contrast, in Mexico and Peru, civil society was weakly organized with the result that harsh neoliberal
measures for agriculture had profound effects on peasant livelihood and security.
Around the world, neoliberal reforms have been associated with recognition of ethnic citizenship,
and Latin America is no exception, enacting neoliberal multiculturalism. New Andean constitutions
extended cultural and territorial rights to racial groups, namely indigenous and African-descent
populations, such that Bolivian indigenous groups have rights to autonomous territories and
governance structures although their livelihood and security remain problematic. In Colombia, the
1991 constitution established new rights for the recognition of ethnic and religious minorities, and in
1993, the 70 Law conrmed Afro-Colombian territorial and cultural rights (Minority Rights Group,
1995). Although multicultural citizenship redraws the frontiers of citizen inclusion, the role of the state
in guaranteeing social and civil rights often remains sketchy.
With citizenship dened in terms of plurality and difference, the representation of social actors
within the institutions of the neoliberal state has changed. Constitutional change to recognize
womens, indigenous and Afro-Latin American rights has been accompanied by new forms of
administration by which to meet the needs of and channel state (and NGO and international)
resources to these groups (Bebbington and Thiele, 1993). Bolivia created a body to deal with ethnic,
203

Civil society, grassroots politics and livelihoods

into spheres previously run by state organizations, combined with the rollback of the state from
welfare, extension services and distribution forced a re-working of the ways in which civil society
actors make livelihoods and do politics. In many countries, a neoliberal form of politics (with strong
presidents and executive bureaucracies) has led to delegative or partial democracies in which citizens
rights are compromised by lack of participation and exclusionary political cultures. With deregulated
labour markets, budget cutbacks and limited, targeted welfare systems, larger numbers of citizens are
reliant upon the harsh realities of the market at a time when global economic insecurity has plunged
many countries into low growth.
In this context, many commentators are highly sceptical of the promise that new civil societyoriented forms of representation and distribution can guarantee citizens rights. During transition,
hopes were raised that civil actions and new ways of doing politics would lead to more participatory,
deeper democracy. However, these hopes have often been disappointed despite civilian electoral
rule, and international aid donors and political gurus praise for civil society groups as the solution to
Latin Americas woes. As organized civil society actors become institutionalized under neoliberalism
and globalization, the separation of society and the state is blurred on the legal-institutional terrain
linking civil society and the state (Foweraker, 1995: 103). Nevertheless, more civil society actors than
ever before have the right to vote (Andean populations illiterate in Spanish were granted the vote in
the late 1970s, affecting large numbers of poor people, indigenous groups, and women). Moreover,
new constitutions introduced in the 1990s in many countries have attempted to reformulate the rights
and meanings of citizenship for many groups.

Latin America Transformed

generational and gender affairs, while the Ecuadorian council of indigenous and black groups provides
access to policy decision-making, albeit with tensions and problems, at the heart of the state (Box
10.3). In many cases, these institutions reect the capacity of social mobilization to shape political
structures in civil electoral regimes and international support for civil society organizations.
Nevertheless, institutionalization does not guarantee a change in political cultures or equal access to
resources. Whereas professional women became important representatives in new state womens
agencies (such as the Chilean SERNAM), low-income women often found themselves more
impoverished and politically marginal (Schild, 1998).

BOX 10.3 Ecuadorian indigenous movements move to the global stage


Ecuadorian indigenous movements emerged in the late 1970s and the 1980s to call for land-title,
political representation and appropriate development. The movements capacity to mobilize the
grassroots (Zamosc, 1994), combined with its wide public legitimacy for attacks on corruption
and harsh neoliberal restructuring, made the Indian movement a political actor to be reckoned
with in the 1990s (Collins, 2000). Uneven development across the country including overworked small farms in the highlands, and the oil industrys destruction of Amazonian areas had
left indigenous people with few livelihood choices apart from assimilation, poverty or migration
(Sawyer, 1997). Deploying an anti-colonial discourse, the indigenous movement reformulated
Ecuadorian citizenship as a question of multiple ethnicities and plural cultures, a framework that
was eventually incorporated into the 1998 Constitution (Assies et al., 2001). By means of
transnational linkages to indigenous organizations, development agencies and advocacy groups,
Ecuadors indigenous people also challenged the models of neoliberal development during the
1990s (Treakle, 1998). By exchanging information about alternative models, indigenous
movements combined development experiences from elsewhere in Latin America with new
international legislation and multilateral agency policy to make development pro-indigenous and
bring Indian populations out of poverty and into the centre of decision-making.

According to classical political theory, a citizen should and does claim a canonical set of rights
regardless of class, ethnicity, religion or gender. In Latin America, as noted above, social difference and
hierarchies have made it most likely that male, mestizo, urban, elite groups have tted the model
citizen. The past 20 years of civil mobilization in Latin America, particularly among women, indigenous
and poor people, have questioned this model and introduced a multiplicity of social identities into civil
and political society (Caldern et al., 2003). Indigenous and black groups have forced recognition of
multicultural societies, while establishing rights to culturally appropriate development, education and
government. The introduction of divorce laws, quota laws and institutional structures to oversee
development for women all indicate the extent to which that mobilization has changed the political
landscape in many Latin American countries. However, these rights are established at a time when the
state is pulling back from social provision and when politics has become highly bureaucratic, depending
on technocrats and intermediary organizations, such as non-governmental organizations (see next
section). In this context, civil groups have focused on the formal political sphere although the wider
political and economic context through which livelihood, identity and security are guaranteed is in
considerable ux.
New civil actors: institutionalisation of social movements and the third sector
Latin America has been characterized in recent years by the institutionalization of civil associations and
the emergence of the third sector, a term that refers broadly to non-governmental organizations.
204

Civil action in the context of neoliberal livelihood options


Under post-transition constitutional governments, civil and social rights have been downplayed,
bringing into question the automatic extension of social, political and civil rights to citizens under
electoral civilian regimes. In the past 15 years, economic reforms have recongured the relationship
between political, civil and social rights. Although the state continues to have a major role in the
denition and practice of rights, the combination of economic neoliberalism and public
disenchantment with formal politics shifts the context within which civil society and citizens relate to,
and practice, their rights (Roberts, 1997). In the early twenty-rst century, how signicant is social
mobilization in challenging the economic and social restructuring associated with neoliberalism?
Manuel Castells, among others, argues that the network society is disenfranchising large populations
around the world, who organize social movements in opposition to the New World Order (Castells,
1997). With neoliberal rules of access, social movements and civil groups have entered energetically
into the political arena, bringing with them repertoires and languages, while learning the new ones.
According to this perspective, groups such as the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, offer potential
alternatives to new forces of marginalization through the creation of a project identity (ibid.: 65). As
205

Civil society, grassroots politics and livelihoods

While some commentators question whether NGOs can really be counted as a part of civil society
(because they increasingly take on state functions and features), this highly signicant shift in the civil
societymarketstate triad shapes livelihood and identity. NGOs are a highly diverse group, although
they generally show a degree of solidarity on behalf of the dispossessed groups (Bebbington and
Thiele, 1993). With a total of around 25,000 NGOs across the region, the density of NGOs varies
across the region with the largest registered numbers in Bolivia, Nicaragua and El Salvador (Jelin, 1995:
93; Foweraker, 2001). In Ecuador, the greatest density of NGOs is found in areas with concentrations
of indigenous populations.
In recent years, NGOs have become brokers between civil society especially grassroots
organizations and national/international funding for social development. NGOs generally gain the
majority of their funds from the state, providing targeted social interventions at a distance. For
example, in Brazil NGOs started to grow rapidly in numbers in 1985 with the beginning of a
democratic transition, assisted by CEBs (at one point, nearly three-quarters of NGOs were funded by
religious bodies). As neoliberal states retreat from the provision of social rights, NGOs mediate
between diverse often irregular, uneven and short-term funding sources including nationstates,
municipalities and international development agencies. International donors have been persuaded by
the argument that NGOs offer a more efcient and needs-oriented service delivery role than top
heavy states, and have favoured them in funding. With this in mind, multilateral agencies fund states
which in turn contract NGOs to act on their behalf, as in Peru where 90 per cent of NGO funds go
via the state.
What impact do NGOs have on civil actors and the public sphere? Many commentators argue that
NGOs impact is mixed. Whereas they can provide needed social services crucial at a time of
increasing income differentials NGOs have an ambivalent impact on civil and political society. First,
NGOs are not necessarily accountable to civil society (this depends on individual NGO procedures
and ideologies). Second, they are often forced to be accountable to national and international donors.
For example, in Chile, NGOs are politically autonomous but act as clients of the state (Foweraker,
2001: 853). Third, competition between NGOs forces them to drop political mobilization in favour of
service delivery. In Nicaragua, health NGOs now do less mobilizing of low-income women and
questioning of the health service model (Ewig, 1999). Fourth, social provision is targeted at specic
areas and groups in increasingly technocratic procedures in which clients that is, citizens have to
struggle to decide about the nature and content of the assistance offered to them (Caldern et al.,
2003). Overall, NGOs are now a central feature of Latin America, mediating in diverse ways between
civil society, the state and the market in ways that extend social rights in neoliberal and often
disempowering ways.

Latin America Transformed

the rst informational guerrilla movement, the Zapatistas strategically used the resources available in
new telecommunications. Other writers are less optimistic about the room for manoeuvre under
neoliberalism, arguing that in the post-transition period social movements have not been shown to be
successful in affecting resource distribution (Foweraker, 1995: 104). Overall, we can say that given the
partial and uneven implementation of neoliberalism, restructuring opens up new avenues just as it
closes down others.
Two examples illustrate these mixed legacies of neoliberal livelihood and globalization. The
Northern Mexican border maquila or assembly factories are one key site for neoliberal restructuring
of work and social relations. In the mid-1990s, the killing of 50 women maquila workers prompted a
civil organization to ght the idea that women arent worth anything as citizens and workers (Wright,
2001). This campaign combined efforts to guarantee security and livelihood in light of neoliberal
market pressures (e.g. changing the low value of womens labour, re-arranging shifts), as well as cultural
meanings. In our second example from Colombia, rural groups contest neoliberal destruction of ecosystems by means of organizations that similarly combine aspects of identity, livelihood and security.
The PCN black peoples movement in the Pacic rainforest region organized to defend the territory
and environments upon which their livelihoods rested in bio-diverse habitats with varied resources
(timber, sh, agriculture, gold). Although the 1991 Colombian constitution had granted rights to black
populations, these rights had to be translated into practice, by challenging logging companies and
constructing new ways of articulating environmental concerns with livelihood issues.
Just as neoliberal economic policies open up nationstate borders to international trade, multilateral
agencies and intergovernmental bodies carry out policies that impact on civil society. The scope for
citizen action to shape these processes remains relatively limited, even when international bodies are
sympathetic to civil participation (Cooke and Kothari, 2001). Although adapted to mitigate further
impoverishment, structural adjustment policies are applied with little citizen participation. When the
World Bank offered civil society a place in negotiations in the 1990s, the international organizations
and states were the dominant partners, while grassroots civil society remained largely excluded
(Friedman et al., 2001). Nevertheless, civil action and global networking can make a difference in
shaping some international negotiations. In September 2000, representatives of Ecuadors indigenous
movement had a seat at the Club of Paris discussions about the national debt, reecting their high
international prole and legitimacy (Espinosa, 2001).
Globalization: new geographies of civil action?
At the turn of the twenty-rst century, the microstructures of everyday life and the heavily policed
terrains of authoritarian regimes gave way to civil society action in a wider, multi-layered set of spaces
comprising informal, discontinuous and plural public spaces (Alvarez et al., 1998: 18). A global/local
focus has become increasingly important to understand actions beyond and below the state that
shape rights, citizenship and civil action. In a deterritorialized world (where nevertheless uneven
development and global inequalities deepen), nationstate borders are less of a constraint on civil
action and in many cases are deliberately crossed by civil actors in order to bring about a boomerang
effect on the nationstate (Keck and Sikkink, 1998). However, the reasons for civil actors mobilizations
often show continuity with past decades, even in shifting technological, geopolitical and economic
contexts. Civil groups continue to speak of rights and citizenship, but they mobilize for these at
multiple scales and spaces.
International law from the United Nations and other inter-governmental bodies has during the past
decades provided Latin American actors with the language and resources to press for political and
social change in their own countries. One example is Latin American indigenous organizations use of
the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169 on ethnic territories to press
nationstates for collective rights to land (Brysk, 2000). By establishing indigenous peoples right to
territory, political recognition and appropriate development, the convention provided a benchmark
statement through which to leverage for legal and constitutional change. In the context of
206

CONCLUSION
Theoretical approaches to civil society in the 1980s broadly suggested that social movements
represented a new way of doing politics, a form of politics that broke denitively with the past.
However, in recent years that interpretation has been challenged on a number of fronts. First,
continuities between the pre-social movement times and social movements are increasingly being
investigated and documented. Unions and civil associations (for example, urban migrants associations)
provided an identity and an organizational framework that many civil actors later built on in the 1970s
and the 1980s. With the return of electoral democracies in the 1980s and the 1990s came the
unwelcome return of clientelism and corporatism, forms of linkage between civil society and the
political system that restricted full participatory decision-making and substantive democracy.
Moreover, the existence of numerous political parties led to the fragmentation of civil organizations in
some cases and, as described above, the institutionalization (NGO-ization) of civil association. Also,
geographies and repertories of action, as in Mexican rural movements, show continuity with past
organizations (Adler Hellman, 1995). The content of many civil concerns also shows continuities with
the past, namely issues of security, livelihood and identity.
207

Civil society, grassroots politics and livelihoods

globalization, citizenship can become multi-layered, as international law, the nationstate and collective
territories/local governments all shape livelihood, security and identity for civil actors.
The theoretical language used to talk about civil society action in a global context includes
discussion of networks, webs and transnationalism, rather than statesociety boundaries (Slater, 1998).
Transnationalism refers to ties of non-state actors across national borders which have become more
frequent in Latin America in recent years (Radcliffe, 2001), while social movement networks have
rapidly crossed national frontiers, the global NorthSouth divide and divisions between social actors
(Ydice, 1998). International law, new communication media and transnational issue networks all
contribute to the reorganization of civil society action in Latin America. The Ecuadorian indigenous
movement, for example, is networked with a range of international actors, including the Brazilian
Workers Party (PT), European Green parties, transnational human rights organizations and indigenous
advocacy networks. The Ecuadorian indigenous movements are moreover well embedded within
SouthSouth links, having active and creative ties with indigenous organizations in other Andean
countries.
Technological advances have expanded the possibility of activism at a distance (Ribeiro, 1998: 325).
New technologies, especially communication technologies, have assisted the explosion of globalized civil
actions although face-to-face communication and meetings remain the most important component of
organizations decision-making. Due to regional markets liberalization, increased access to computers
and late modernitys emphasis on the image, more civil movements diversify their use of
communication tools. The sophisticated use of new communications methods such as websites and
video by the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas Mexico since January 1994 is combined with the strategic
use of the photogenic gurehead of Sub-comandante Marcos (Harvey, 1998). Nevertheless, what is
often forgotten in relation to the Zapatistas is their continued reliance on older forms of
communication and protest, including marches across Mexico, the reorganization of local territories and
livelihoods, and the strategic use of other civil actors (including the Catholic Church) as intermediaries.
Certainly transnational ows of images and ideas are made easier in a globalizing world, creating a
potentially wider audience and support network for civil actors within Latin America. Transnational
issue networks have become established in, and beyond, Latin America, putting pressure on states and
key business actors to bring about change in human rights or environmental degradation (Keck and
Sikkink, 1998). While these networks can give rise to new political cultures and new brokers (Ydice,
1998: 370), Latin American civil society continues to have to engage crucially with states and the
market, through which livelihood and security can be ensured. However, these negotiations remain
problematic due to the slow pace of change in political cultures.

Latin America Transformed

In relation to civil action, further questions have been raised in recent years about the exclusive focus
on social movements as illustrations of citizen action. Is the Maoist terrorism of Perus Shining Path a
social movement? Most people would say not. Does the daily, small-scale foot-dragging resistance of
maquiladora workers in Mexico comprise a civil action? Again, most commentators would say not but
for very different reasons. Recently, researchers have asked us to look beyond the narrow confines of
social movement-type forms of civil action, in order to understand the range and complexity of actions
undertaken by groups on a continuum from armed rebellion through to the hidden tactics of the
marginalized (Fox and Starn, 1997). The sheer heterogeneity of civil, political and social forms defies
simple categorization, especially given their diverse social and political repertoires (Scott, 1986).
Third, although social movements were celebrated and certainly in some cases, functioned as
schools for democracy, the return to electoral democracies in the 1980s demonstrated clearly that,
in many ways, politics was back to normal and that was not necessarily fully participatory nor
democratic. With the return of political parties, the relation between civil society and the state was in
many situations characterized as in previous decades by clientelism and corporatism. Achieving
material goods and services in this context often comes through compromise with the state, thereby
reducing the independence and autonomy of civil groups (Adler Hellman, 1995). Civil actors in their
dealings with technocratic, neoliberal and NGO-ized states continue to face an uphill struggle to
ensure participation, representation and accountability (Aguero and Stark, 1998). In exceptional
circumstances, civil action and progressive elements in the state permit participatory oversight and
decision-making, although these are restricted currently to the municipal level. In Porto Alegre, Brazil,
participatory budgeting takes place with community organizations that set the priorities for municipal
plans ensuring that benefits go to each neighbourhood (Foweraker, 2001). In Guamote, Ecuador, an
18-month participatory workshop defined development goals and means, led by the indigenous
mayor and involving over 4,000 local people and local associations (Radcliffe et al., 2002).
Globalization has advanced steadily in Latin America during the past two decades, as neoliberal
economic measures open the region to global capital and make them more vulnerable to global
markets. Globalization has also influenced politics with the introduction of international law and
international social development bodies that strongly influence nationstates and their relation to
civil society in the region. Latin Americas population is not only mostly urban, but it is now
increasingly linked to global consumer patterns and media flows. Civil society action has been
shaped centrally by modernity and globalization. Globalization provides civil actors with a wider
range of reference points, perhaps questioning their attachment to the nationstate. Yet globalization
does not guarantee livelihood and security for most Latin Americans, excluded as they are from
neoliberal growth policies and from increasingly distant nationstates and institutions. Where
globalization can make a difference it has been in networking Latin American civil groups and
individuals with others in a similar position, and offering them a vision of what they can achieve
through coordinated action. In the meantime, however, uneven geographies of global development
and the continuities in Latin American political cultures restrict political participation, and undermine
livelihoods for many civil society actors.

FURTHER READING
Alvarez, S., Dagnino, E. and Escobar, E. (eds) 1998 Cultures of politics, politics of cultures: revisioning Latin American social movements. Westview Press, Boulder, CO. A collection of 15 papers on
civil society, social movements and the state in the context of democratization, neoliberalism and
globalization.
Chalmers, D. A. et al. 1997 The politics of inequality in Latin America: rethinking participation and
representation. Oxford University Press, London. A detailed discussion of the neoliberal regime of
rights and its impact on civil society.
208

WEBSITES
Ecuadors indigenous organizations, conaie.nativeweb.org/index.html
Guamotes local government, Ecuador, www.snvworld.org/localGovernance/part%205/
Ecuador_1.htm
Latin American indigenous movements, abyayala.nativeweb.org
Porto Alegre participatory budgeting, www.worldbank.org/participation/sdn/snd71.pdf or
www.futurenet.org/24democracy/lewit.htm
Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, www.ezln.org (in Spanish) or www.utexas.edu/students/nave
then click on About the EZLN icon on the left.
Zapatistas Internet lists and sources, eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html

209

Civil society, grassroots politics and livelihoods

Foweraker, J. 1995 Theorising social movements. Pluto Press, London. The best review of the
theoretical literature on social movements and the role of the state in Latin America.

11
Urban livelihoods, employment and
gender
Sylvia Chant

This chapter provides an overview of trends in urban livelihoods and employment in Latin America
between 1980 and the present. The discussion commences with an introduction to the concept of
livelihoods and a brief resum of how low-income households in towns and cities have diversied and
intensied their livelihood strategies in the wake of economic crisis and neoliberal restructuring. The
second section of the chapter deals more specically with employment, which remains the urban
poors primary source of income (ECLAC, 2002b). Here, particular attention is given to the growth of
the urban informal sector (UIS), and the informalization of urban labour markets more generally. Since
womens rising labour force participation stands out as one of the major features of adjustment in
urban areas in the past two decades, both in the public sphere of the labour market, and in the
private sphere of the home (Gonzlez de la Rocha, 2000), the third section of the chapter considers
the gender dimensions of urban employment and the implications of womens rising labour force
participation for household evolution and gender relations.

HOUSEHOLD LIVELIHOODS
The concept of livelihoods originated in research on poverty in rural areas, but has increasingly been
used in relation to low-income groups in urban contexts. As Chapter 9 has outlined, the concept
encompasses the diverse capabilities, assets (stores, resources, claims and access) and activities
required for a means of living (Chambers and Conway, 1992: 7). In turn, the ways in which capabilities,
assets and activities are mobilized and pursued are referred to as livelihood strategies (Chambers,
1995). While theoretical and policy approaches to livelihoods range from the sustainable livelihoods
framework used by the UK Department for International Development (Carney, 1998), to the asset
vulnerability framework (Moser, 1998), to the capital assets framework (Rakodi, 1999; Rakodi and
Lloyd-Jones, 2002), all share the aim of codifying the multiple resources on which household
livelihoods depend. A focus on what the poor have and how they make use of it allows for a much
more holistic appreciation of how survival is negotiated.
Carole Rakodis (1999) exposition of the capital assets approach to livelihoods concentrates on
assets, which constitute a stock of capital of varying types (human, social, natural, physical and nancial)
which can be stored, accumulated, exchanged or depleted and put to work to generate a ow of
income or other benets (see Box 11.1). Depending on the local environment, social and cultural
context, power relations within households and so on, people may manage assets differently, although
generally speaking households aim at a livelihood which has high resilience and low sensitivity to
shocks and stresses (Rakodi, 1999: 318).

210

Human capital
Social capital

Natural capital

Physical capital

Financial capital

vocational skills, knowledge, access to/command over labour, health.


relationships of trust, reciprocity and exchanges that facilitate
cooperation, and may provide for informal safety nets among the
poor (NB: there can also be negative social capital in the form of
violence, mistrust and so on).
natural resource stocks such as trees, land, biodiversity (particularly
relevant to rural areas).
basic infrastructure and producer goods such as transport, shelter,
water supply and sanitation, energy, and communications.
savings (whether in cash, livestock, jewellery), and inflows of money,
including earned income, pensions, remittances, and state transfers.

Household livelihood strategies and neoliberal economic restructuring


Accepting that disadvantaged groups have always had to be resourceful, in the past two decades
demands on their ingenuity have risen massively in Latin America, along with other regions of the
South, due to recession and neoliberal economic restructuring. Features that stand out as having had
a major impact on the poor include:

losses in income through reductions in wages and job availability;


rising costs of living;
mounting competition in the labour market;
increased occupational instability and precariousness in working conditions;
and reduced social sector spending (Arce, 2002).

Assessing how these changes have affected low-income people in Latin American cities is inevitably
complicated by variations in contextual factors such as local labour market conditions, pre-existing
levels of national poverty, and the specic measures adopted by different countries to restructure their
economies (Chant, 1996). None the less, the ndings of case studies from different parts of the region
indicate that the urban poor have had to make considerable on-going efforts to protect living
standards. The main strategies used, and which are identied in Rakodis (1999) general discussion of
the capital assets framework for livelihoods, are summarized in Box 11.2.

BOX 11.2 Major strategies adopted to protect household livelihoods in


the context of recession and restructuring (source: Rakodi, 1999)
1 Strategies to increase resources by intensifying the use of natural, physical or human capital. This
includes diversication of economic activities, starting businesses, migrating, renting out rooms,
and increasing subsistence production. A particularly common strategy has been to place more
people into the workforce and for households to adopt multiple earning patterns and/or
increase occupational density, rather than rely on a single wage or breadwinner. Many new
workers deployed into the labour force are women who were hitherto economically inactive.
2 Strategies to change the quantity of human capital. These can take two main forms. First,
household size might be increased through the retention or incorporation of members. A
211

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

BOX 11.1 Capital assets of the poor (source: Rakodi, 1999)

Latin America Transformed

major motivation might be for the relative(s) in question to take on domestic chores and
childcare in order to release wives and mothers into the labour force. Alternatively, households
may opt for cutting consumption costs by lowering fertility, by engaging in migration, or by
shedding members who are not making an adequate contribution to household well-being.
The latter applies in cases where women leave husbands who fail to provide financially, and
who set up on their own with their children.
3 Strategies which involve drawing on stocks of social capital. These include borrowing, seeking
charity, begging, and perhaps most importantly, strengthening peoples extra-domestic links with
kin and friends beyond the household unit for the purposes of securing and/or exchanging
money, food, labour, and so on.
4 Strategies to mitigate or limit a decline in consumption. These encompass the avoidance of luxury
purchases or expenditure, the withdrawal of children from school, the scaling down of social
engagements and obligations, the buying of second-hand clothes, and reduced spending on
food and drink. Although people normally try to protect food consumption above all else,
studies from several countries indicate that recession and restructuring have led to the poor
eating fewer meals per day and also cutting down substantially on expensive items such as
meat, milk and fresh fruit juice.

While Rakodi divides households strategies into four groups, they are underpinned by two main
imperatives: to minimize consumption (expenditure-conserving or negative strategies), or to
maximize income (income generating or positive strategies) (Benera and Roldn, 1987; Gonzlez de
la Rocha, 1991). To a large extent it is agreed that the use of such strategies has enabled the poor in
Latin America to cushion themselves from the worst ravages of post-1980 recession and
restructuring. In one low-income settlement in Guadalajara, Mexico, for example, increases in multipleearning coupled with the expansion of household membership between 1982 and 1985, resulted in
a fall of real per capita income of only 11 per cent despite a 30 per cent drop in the wages of (male)
household heads (Gonzlez de la Rocha, 1988). In urban Latin America as a whole, increases in the
economically active population to working age population continued rising during the 1990s, from
59.6 per cent to 61.2 per cent between the beginning and end of the decade (see Table 11.1). Four
out of every ten employed persons in Latin America is now a secondary worker (dened as a person
whose earnings are less than that of the main breadwinner in the household), and the increase in socalled occupational density within households has provided an important defensive function (ECLAC,
2002b: 97).
Even if the majority of households have managed to fend off destitution in the crisis years, many
have only done so at the cost of unprecedented self-exploitation and self-denial. Not only are adults
working increasingly long days for lower returns, but poverty and the economic crisis have also been
associated with a rising need for children to participate in income-generating activities (McIlwaine et
al., 2002: 125). Moreover, there is considerable doubt that such efforts can continue in the face of
worsening macro-economic circumstances. At the start of the twenty-rst century, income
polarization is intensifying in Latin America, and for the majority of the poor, life remains extremely
arduous. Not only do the poor stand a disproportionate risk of being unemployed or engaged in lowproductivity occupations, but many live in over-crowded conditions, lack access to drinking water, and
have high demographic dependency ratios through taking care of children and/or the elderly (ECLAC,
2002b: 16). In relation to Mexico, Mercedes Gonzlez de la Rocha (2001) warns that persistent
poverty over two decades has effectively brought the poor to their knees (Figure 11.1). While the
mobilization of household, family and community solidarity served as vital resources in the past, there
is a limit to how many favours people can call on from one another and how effective these exchanges
212

1990

Persons (thousands)
1994
1997
1999

Average annual rate of change (%)


199094 199497 199799 199099

Total population
Urban
Rural

429,775
305,352
124,524

460,791
335,804
124,987

484,133
358,904
125,229

499,872
374,553
125,319

1.8
2.4
0.1

1.7
2.2
0.1

1.6
2.2
0.0

1.7
2.3
0.1

Working-age population
Urban
Rural

274,619
202,454
72,165

302,852
228,358
74,494

324,685
248,478
76,208

339,680
262,354
77,327

2.5
3.1
0.8

2.3
2.9
0.8

2.3
2.8
0.7

2.4
2.9
0.8

1564 years
Urban
Rural

254,569
187,968
66,601

280,102
211,517
68,586

299,741
229,732
70,009

313,203
242,187
71,016

2.4
3.0
0.7

2.3
2.8
0.7

2.2
2.7
0.7

2.3
2.9
0.7

20,050
14,486
5,564

22,749
16,841
5,980

24,944
18,745
6,199

26,478
20,167
6,311

3.2
3.8
1.5

3.1
3.6
1.6

3.0
3.7
0.9

3.1
3.7
1.4

Economically active population 167,485


(15 years and over)
Urban
120,688
Rural
46,797

186,446

201,417

211,833

2.7

2.6

2.6

2.6

138,097
48,349

151,968
49,448

161,648
50,185

3.4
0.8

3.2
0.8

3.1
0.7

3.3
0.8

Employed persons
Urban
Rural

175,632
127,987
47,645

187,824
139,094
48,730

194,714
144,190
49,524

2.4
2.9
1.0

2.3
2.8
0.8

1.6
1.8
0.8

2.2
2.6
0.9

Over 64 years
Urban
Rural

159,841
114,087
45,754

Source: ECLAC (2002b: 88, Table III.1).

Figure 11.1 Low-income settlement, Quertaro, Mexico. Photograph by Sylvia Chant


213

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

TABLE 11.1 Latin America: key labour market aggregates, 19901999

Latin America Transformed

are in the face of huge structural impediments to well-being. In particular, there are worries that the
disproportionate burdens that have fallen on women have stretched their personal reserves to full
capacity and there is no further slack to be taken up (Moser, 1992).
Gender-differentiated impacts of structural adjustment
Ingrid Palmer (1992) argues that structural adjustment has worsened womens position by intensifying
two gender-based misallocations in the market: (a) unequal terms of male and female participation in
employment; and (b) womens subjection to a reproduction tax which derives from their
responsibility for a disproportionate share of unpaid labour in the home. The effects of restructuring
on these misallocations among the urban poor are three-fold:
1 the informal sector becomes more crowded which, given womens disproportionate concentration
in this sector, leads to a greater fall in female income;
2 reductions in social service expenditure mainly affect reproductive work within households and
ipso facto women who are primarily responsible for domestic labour and childcare;
3 the introduction or raising of user charges for health and education means that women are more
likely to be discriminated against in terms of access to schooling and medical care, which has
signicant knock-on effects on human capital accumulation and well-being.
While the implications of these gendered dimensions of restructuring are explored in more detail
later in the chapter, sufce it to say here that substantial numbers of women have become burnt out
by their increasingly arduous, multiple roles and responsibilities (Elson, 1991; Moser, 1992). Although,
as we shall see later, increased labour force participation can enhance womens power and autonomy,
in many respects it has merely compounded their exploitation, especially given the concentration of
women in the lowest tiers of the occupational hierarchy, both in formal and informal employment
(Figure 11.2) (Gonzlez de la Rocha, 1994; Chant with Craske, 2003).

Figure 11.2 Home-based commerce, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.This is often small-scale due to lack of resources.
Here, the owner minds her children while selling bars of soap, boxes of matches, sweets, single cigarettes and small
cupfuls of cooking oil from the side of her house in a low-income settlement. Photograph by Sylvia Chant
214

URBAN EMPLOYMENT
In the past two decades, employment in Latin America has undergone radical transformation through
economic globalization (see Chapters 1 and 3). According to Ward and Pyle (1995: 38) this has been
characterized by three main trends:
1 a shift to export-oriented economic growth strategies under the inuence of IMF and World
Bank loan conditionalities;
2 the globalization of the production and marketing operations of transnational companies;
3 debt crises and recessions.
Additional factors include shifts in terms of trade and technological change, and lessening intervention
of the state in economic and labour matters (Berry, 1997: 3; Sheahan, 1997: 8). More recently, the rise
of information and communication technologies has become signicant, with fears that the
technology-intensive modernization of tertiary as well as secondary activities may depress job
creation in the formal sector (UNDP, 2001). While the multiplicity of macro-economic, political,
institutional and technological trends makes the process of analysing the evolution of urban labour
markets highly complex, a number of trajectories seem to be shared among different countries in Latin
America.These include rising levels of unemployment and underemployment, deteriorating wages and
working conditions, an increased supply of labour (especially that of women, and in large part due to
pressures on household incomes), and mounting numbers (and proportions) of informal sector
workers.
Unemployment and underemployment
The most troubled time for employment in the majority of Latin American countries occurred during
the initial stages of the debt crisis in the early 1980s. Between 1980 and 1985, underemployment in
the region grew by 48 per cent (Safa, 1995b: 33), and by 1984 open unemployment had escalated to
14 per cent of the economically active population from around 6 per cent ten years previously
(Cubitt, 1995: 164). Levels for some countries at this time were even higher. During Chiles depression
of 198283, for example, unemployment reached 28 per cent, compared with 16 per cent in the
period 197581 (Sheahan, 1997: 15).
Even if current rates of open unemployment are less than they were, and in some countries, such
as Mexico, they have been on a downward trend since the early 1990s, in general terms, the increase
in labour supply has exceeded that of labour demand. Between 1990 and 1999, job supply in Latin
America increased by an average annual rate of 2.6 per cent, whereas demand for workers lagged
behind at 2.2 per cent (see Table 11.1).
The lack of buoyancy in Latin American labour markets in the past decade results from a number
of factors. One of the most signicant is the reduction of state employment creation, not to mention
the loss of pre-existing public sector jobs. This has arisen mainly as a result of pressure upon Latin
American governments from the IMF and the World Bank to trim down their unwieldy bureaucracies
and to privatize parastatal enterprises. In Nicaragua, for example, a steep rise in unemployment (from
4.5 per cent in 1986 to 23.5 per cent in 1994) occurred with the switch from the Sandinista to the
UNO government and the opening-up of the economy to global nancial institutions (BulmerThomas, 1996a: 326). Within three years of Violeta Chamorros election to the presidency, as many as
250,000 public sector employees had been red (Green, 1995: 567). In Bolivia, three-quarters of
workers in the state mining company, COMIBOL, were dismissed following implementation of the
215

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

In the following section the changing contours of urban employment in Latin America are sketched
out more generally. This is important not only because employment has been identied as the main
link between economic growth and social development, but because the utilization of labour provides
the main source of household income for the urban poor (ECLAC, 2002b: 99).

Latin America Transformed

countrys New Economic Policy in 1985 (Jenkins, 1997: 113). In Argentina, the privatization of ve
major rms which were under government control until 1989 Argentine Airlines, ENTEL (the
telephone company) and three other utility companies (gas, electricity and sanitation) led to the
slashing of the overall workforce in these companies of 100,000 to a mere 51,000 (Geldstein, 1994).
In Latin America more generally, the overall share of public employment in the non-agricultural sector
fell from 15.3 to 13.2 per cent between 1990 and 1995 (Thomas, 1999: 279).
Formal jobs have also been lost in the private sector due to the fact that increased global
competition has either forced rms to close down altogether or to introduce and/or intensify the use
of subcontracting arrangements as a means of cutting costs. Indeed, practically all the increase in
unemployment in Latin America in the 1990s was attributable to job losses (see Table 11.2).
TABLE 11.2 Level and composition of unemployment in urban and rural areas of Latin America,
199099
Persons (thousands)
1990
1999

Annual rate of change


(%)

Unemployed persons
Urban areas
Rural areas

7,643
6,600
1,043

18,118
17,457
1,661

10.1
11.4
4.9

Laid-off workers
Urban areas
Rural areas

5,932
5,225
1,708

15,391
15,204
1,186

11.2
12.6
13.8

Seeking work for the first time


Urban areas
Rural areas

1,711
1,376
1,335

2,728
2,253
1,475

5.3
5.6
3.9

Source: ECLAC (2002b, p. 101, Table III.6).

Numbers of unemployed persons in Latin America increased at an annual rate of 10.1 per cent in
the 1990s, with the biggest rises occurring in the period 199799 (see Table 11.2). Unemployment
rates are particularly high among the poor, with the urban unemployment rate for the poorest 20 per
cent of households in the region being 22.3 per cent, as against 10.6 per cent for the population in
general (ECLAC, 2002b: 22). Unemployment is also mounting among young people aged 15 to 24
years. Between 1994 and 1999, for example, youth unemployment rose from 14 per cent to 20 per
cent (ILO, 2000). Moreover, despite the generally upward trend in female labour force participation
(see below), urban unemployment among women during the 1990s rose from 7.7 to 12.3 per cent,
as against an increase from 6.7 to 9.4 per cent among their male counterparts (ECLAC, 2002b: 106).
The average duration of unemployment in Latin America has also shown signs of increase. During
the second half of the 1990s, the mean length of time unemployed rose from 4.4 to 5.3 months
(ECLAC, 2002b: 23). On top of this, evidence suggests that wage levels have declined for people
returning to work after time out. In Uruguay, for example, which has experienced high levels of
unemployment for some time, and where there is an increasing incidence of temporary labour
recruitment, people who manage to return to work commonly face a 23 to 34 per cent reduction in
salary. The main reasons for this are three-fold. First, difculties in nding waged employment forces
some people to resort to own-account work in the informal sector, where average hourly
remuneration is lower. Second, returning to work is often accompanied by a reduction in hours
worked, which depresses monthly income. Third, even where people do nd full-time waged
employment, they tend to be paid less than in their previous jobs. As such, episodic (and increasingly
216

Wages and working conditions in the formal sector


In addition to job losses in the formal sector, the past two decades have been marked by substantial
changes in working conditions, particularly in the manufacturing sector. In general terms, this has
comprised a greater incidence of short-term and subcontracted labour, the restriction of trade union
activities, and the introduction of policies geared to ease processes of hiring and ring. In many cases,
these changes have resulted from the pressure exerted by international nancial institutions to reduce
structural rigidities in the workforce and to encourage greater labour exibility (Tironi and Lagos,
1991; Green, 1996: 10910). In Bolivian manufacturing, for example, there has been an increasing
concentration of production in small-scale factories and workshops, and a doubling of the percentage
of workers working 49 hours per week or more (Jenkins, 1997: 119). In Mexico, shoe manufacturers
in the city of Len have farmed out increasing amounts of production to home-based workshops
and/or individual outworkers as a means of exibilizing their operations and cutting labour costs
(Chant, 1991; see Figure 11.3).
The paring-down of structural rigidities has also been accompanied by labour law revisions. The
New Economic Policy in Bolivia, for example, embodied reduced protection for workers and an
elimination of wage indexation leaving wage levels to be bargained within individual rms (Jenkins,
1997: 113). In Peru, legislation was introduced in 1991 which gave the right to employers to hire
people on probationary contracts, leaving them virtually no entitlement to fringe benets or to
compensation for retrenchment (Thomas, 1996: 91). This has had far-reaching implications given that
the proportion of the Peruvian workforce on temporary contracts rose from 41 per cent to more
than 50 per cent between the early and late 1990s (Thomas, 1999: 276). By the same token, it is
important to note that such practices were by no means absent in large rms before the crisis. As

Figure 11.3 Home-based footwear production, Lon, Mexico. Photograph by Sylvia Chant
217

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

protracted) spells of unemployment, can seriously diminish the income and well-being of workers and
their dependants. As asserted by ECLAC (2002b: 109), income reductions among people rejoining the
workforce may be functioning as a secondary adjustment mechanism in labour markets, where
regulations and procedures regarding the hiring and ring of workers are increasingly being loosened.

Latin America Transformed

Roberts (1991: 118) maintains, with reference to Mexico, implicit deregulation . . . antedates by
many years the present policy of explicit deregulation. Explicit deregulation refers to the formal
abandonment or erosion of legislation, whereas implicit deregulation relates to the inadequate
implementation or systematic bypassing of regulations (Standing, 1989: 1077).
Wage restraints have also formed an important part of formal sector restructuring, which, coupled
with inationary costs of living, have meant negative growth rates in average real earnings in many
countries in the last twenty years.The average industrial wage in Latin America, for example, fell by 17.5
per cent between 1980 and 1991, and the average minimum wage by 35 per cent (Moghadam, 1995:
122). Thomas (1996: 901) further notes that between 1985 and 1992, urban real minimum wages
declined in all countries in Latin America except Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Panama and Paraguay.
Wages have often been held down with the agreement of trade unions, whose bargaining strength
has tended to decline with crisis and the scaling down of formal sector activity (Epstein, 2000; Gwynne
and Kay, 2000: 145, 148). According to Frundt (2002: 8) two major aspects of globalization have been
responsible for transforming worker rights and union viability. These are rst, corporate strategies to
promote exibility and subcontracting, and second, the privatization of public sector enterprises. On
top of this, Koonings et al. (1995: 123) assert that endemic poverty poses a major threat to the capacity
of trade unions to organize and defend the working population (see also Mndez-Rivero, 1995: 158).
Although the consolidation of democracy in many Latin American nations in recent years has been
achieved with the active participation of unions, the same process has tended to de-link them from
the state, which in some cases has deprived them of an important source of support. Chile is one
exception here, where Fras and Ruiz-Tagle (1995: 141) argue that the institutional strength and
stability of trade unions increased following Aylwins election to the presidency in 1990 and the end
of 17 years of military rule. In Brazil too, the strong links of unions with powerful political factions are
also observed to have provided some protection (Thomas, 1996: 91). In other contexts such as
Guatemala and El Salvador, union membership may have risen following the Peace Accords, but this
has not been in traditionally militant industrial unions. Instead, the bulk of new recruitment has
occurred in enterprise unions and independent unions unafliated with any national labour
organization (Frundt, 2002: 10). Another area of increase in union activity is among informal
entrepreneurs (Koonings et al., 1995: 119), possibly as a means of guarding their interests as the sector
absorbs increasing numbers of formal sector refugees and new entrants to the labour market.
The urban informal sector
Alongside the informalization of labour occurring in large-scale industry and services, Latin Americas
informal sector of employment has undergone considerable expansion during crisis and neoliberal
reform. A wide variety of criteria has been used to dene this unclear but popular shorthand, rst
coined back in the 1970s (Gilbert, 1998: 65). These include the size of enterprises, the level of
technology used in the production process, legality as a business activity, social security coverage of
workers, self- versus waged employment, and labour arrangements (Scott, 1994: 1624; Thomas,
1995). While it is true that informal enterprises are often small in scale, use rudimentary technology
and are characterized by self-employment or family labour, Roberts (1994: 6) asserts that the most
generally accepted denition of the informal sector is income-generating activities unregulated by the
state in contexts where similar activities are so regulated. Further noting that a number of labour
arrangements in the formal sector t this bill and that the informal sector comprises a huge range of
jobs and incomes, Roberts argues that the persisting interest in the idea of an informal economy lies
not in its analytic precision, but because it is a useful tool in analysing the changing basis of economic
regulation. Indeed, while 75 per cent of people in micro-enterprises in Mexico in 1989 were not
covered by social security, this also applied to 17 per cent of workers in formal sector rms (Roberts,
1994: 16). The micro-enterprises referred to by Roberts were legally registered with the federal and
local authorities, but since social security contributions are by far the most costly aspect of legality, then
there is greater likelihood that employers will not pay.
218

1 legal recognition as a business activity, which involves registration, and possible subjection to health
and security inspections;
2 legality in respect of payment of taxes;
3 legality in respect of labour matters such as compliance with ofcial guidelines on working hours,
social security contributions and fringe benets.
Only 2 to 5 per cent of self-employed people (the single largest group of the informally employed) in
Latin America have access to social security. This is mainly a consequence of high costs, administrative
difculties, lack of incentives due to the eroding value of pensions, and uncertainty in occupational
prospects (ibid.: 1523).
Growth and dynamics of the informal sector
Referring to a wide and heterogeneous range of activities such as shoe-shining, street-selling, smallscale food production, and refuse-collecting and recycling, the informal sector is primarily an employer
of low-income people. While the bulk of the sector comprises low-productivity, low-prot commercial
and service activities, about one-quarter of informal occupations are in manufacturing (Bromley, 1997;
Grabowski and Shields, 1996: 170-1). Although trends in informal employment need to be treated
with caution given shifting categorizations of activity by different governments and regional
organizations, between 1970 and 1980 the informal sector increased its share of the regions
workforce from 16.9 to 19.3 per cent (Tokman, 1989: 1067). Growth in the pre-crisis years is usually
attributed to rural-urban migration and the consequent creation of a labour surplus in cities (Portes
and Schaufer, 1993). From 1980 onwards, however, when increases in informal employment appear
to have been even higher, labour surpluses have been less attributed to demographic dynamics than
to economic and labour market transformations (Chant, 2001).
In Cuba, for example, liberalization of the economy during its Special Period dating from the collapse
of communism in the former USSR and Eastern Bloc, resulted in job losses and the cessation of full
employment policies (Molyneux, 1996; see also Chapter 4). By January 1996, there were over 160,000
people registered as self-employed and the proliferation of small-scale economic activities was much in
evidence. While traditionally suspicious of informal sector work, the informal sector is now recognized
and accepted by the state as an important part of Cuban peoples survival. In Nicaragua, too, the effects
of economic embargo during the Sandinista administration combined with a war-ravaged countryside
and weak industrial base meant that many people had to create their own sources of employment. By
1990, the informal sector occupied nearly half the labour force in Managua, excluding domestic servants
(Roberts, 1995: 124). Such tendencies have contributed to an overall increase in informal employment
in Latin American cities from 25.6 per cent to 30 per cent between 1980 and 1990 (Gilbert, 1995b),
and to 48 per cent by 1999 (ECLAC, 2002b: 95). Indeed, during the 1990s, it is estimated that seven
out of every ten new jobs in urban areas were in the informal sector (ibid.: 87).
The main reasons underpinning the general upsurge in informal employment in Latin America in the
past 20 years have been cutbacks in public sector employment, the closure of formal sector rms in the
wake of increased competition provoked by lowered tariff barriers, declining labour demand in
the formal sector, and increased growth of the labour force, both as a result of demographic growth per
se, and pressure on household incomes (Alba, 1989: 1821; Pelling, 2002: 235). Many family rms have also
been pushed into informality due to declining ability to pay registration, tax and labour overheads, bearing
out the argument that informality for the self-employed is basically a household survival strategy in the
face of unemployment and declining real wages (Roberts, 1995: 124; see also Escobar Latap, 1988). As
Thomas (1996: 99) summarizes, the top-down informalization promoted by governments and
219

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

While regulation implies legality, legality itself is a multidimensional concept.Thomas (1997: 6) points
out that being legal usually involves complying with a number of regulations often imposed by a variety
of different authorities. More specically, Tokman (1991: 143) identies three types of legality with
which informal sector enterprises may not comply:

Latin America Transformed

employers has been paralleled from the bottom up, stemming from the need for retrenched formal
sector workers and newcomers to the labour market to create their own sources of earnings.
Activities and working conditions in the informal sector
In light of the above, it is hardly surprising that the informal sector has become increasingly competitive
during recent years. As Miraftab (1994: 468) argues: Poor people have had to concentrate their daily
activities with much greater intensity around the issue of survival. This has implied not only longer
hours of work, but also the need to be extremely innovative in order to earn a living at the edges of
the urban economy (Escobar Latap and Gonzlez de la Rocha, 1995).Yet although ever more creative
strategies to generate income can be witnessed both in the streets and houses of Latin American
cities, competition is such that, according to ILO gures, there was a 42 per cent drop in informal
sector earnings between 1980 and 1989 (Moghadam, 1995: 1223).
Constraints on the health (and further expansion) of informal sector employment, are presented by
lower purchasing power among the population in general and greater numbers of people needing to
work (Roberts, 1991: 135). The latter is in part the legacy of high fertility in the 1960s and 1970s, and
in part due to the increased participation of women in the workforce. Indeed, although there has been
increased informalization of mens work (Arias, 2000; Elson, 1999), the growth of informal activity is
often argued to have hit women the hardest given their disproportionate concentration in the sector
and the fact that their limited resource base connes them to the lowest productivity ventures within
it (Bromley, 1997: 135; Len, 2000; see Table 11.3). In towns in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, for example,
where low-income women constitute around 40 per cent of informal workers, many complain that
due to extremely limited resources the only way they can generate revenue is by selling small
quantities of snacks such as home-made sweets, avoured ices and pastries outside local schools or
on the streets (Chant with Craske, 2003: 219; see Figure 11.2). Yet since most of their neighbours are
forced to do the same, some feel it is not worth the effort, thereby contributing to the so-called
discouraged worker effect (Baden, 1993: 13). In order to get around the problems of making ends
meet, many low-income women here and in Mexico are forced to engage in a variety of economic
ventures, such as combining part-time domestic service with home- or community-based activities
such as tortilla-making and selling, or personal services such as hairdressing (see Figure 11.4).
Beyond this, it should also be noted that the informal sector is unlikely to thrive as long as the formal
sector remains fragile. Detailed empirical studies in Latin America have revealed that the informal
TABLE 11.3 Percentage of male and female labour force in the informal sector: selected Latin American countries
Percentage of non-agricultural Womens percentage share
labour force in the informal
of the informal sector in the
sector, 1991/1997
non-agricultural labour force
Women
Men
1991/1997
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Honduras
Mexico
Panama
Venezuela

74
67
44
44
48
69
65
55
41
47

Source: United Nations (2000: 122, Chart 5.13).


220

55
55
31
42
46
47
51
44
35
47

51
47
46
50
40
58
56
44
44
38

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

Figure 11.4 Home-based services hairdressing, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.The sign advertises haircuts, colouring
(highlights) and perms. Photograph by Sylvia Chant

sector is linked to the formal sector in numerous (and often exploitative) ways, that enterprises with
the fewest direct links with the formal sector are likely to be the least dynamic economically, and that
over time, the informal sector is increasingly likely to lose its independent basis for subsistence
(Roberts, 1991: 132; Thomas, 1996: 569). It should also be borne in mind that the formal sector has
depended very much on the informal sector for its own dynamism (Gilbert, 1998: 679). In times of
crisis, declining fortunes in the formal sector cuts off valuable sources of contracts and supplies to the
informal sector. Thus, although informal activity has continued to expand during the years of crisis and
restructuring (and recovery in some countries in the early 1990s), it has not been able to absorb all
the job losses in the formal sector. This undoubtedly accounts for the fact that open unemployment
has not only grown, but in most places has remained high, during the last two decades.

GENDER AND THE URBAN LABOUR MARKET


As indicated earlier, late twentieth-century transformations in Latin American urban labour markets
have been characterized by signicant shifts in their gender dimensions. Not only has there been an
on-going rise in womens workforce participation, but in their overall share of employment.This partly
represents the continuation of a trend which commenced early in the post-war period. Bearing in
mind that womens economic activities often fail to be captured in ofcial enumeration due to their
informal and part-time nature, between 1950 and 1980, the size of the female labour force tripled in
Latin America, with an increase in womens share of the overall workforce (including agriculture) from
18 per cent to 26 per cent (Safa, 1995b: 32). During the period 1990 to 1999, womens labour force
participation rate increased from 37.9 per cent to 42 per cent, and for the rst time in the history of
the region, the increase in female employment exceeded that of men (Len, 2000: 9). By the turn of
the century, womens share of employment stood at an unprecedented 34.4 per cent, and in urban
areas, at 35.8 per cent. (see Table 11.4).
221

Latin America Transformed


222

TABLE 11.4 Womens share of labour force, and key occupational and sectoral characteristics
Female share of
labour force (%)

Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Uruguay
Venezuela

1980

1994

1999

28
33
28
26
25
21

25
20
27
22
25
27
28
30
26
24
31
27

30
37
34
31
35
29

29
26
33
25
28
32
36
33
28
28
40
33

33
38
35
33
38
31

30
28
36
28
31
33
35
35
30
31
42
34

Women as percentage of:


legislators,
professional
senior officials
and technical
and managers
workers
19912000*
19912000

36

26
38
33

31
28
33

36
24

33
23
28
36
24

40
62
52
49
46

49
47
47

51
41

46
54
39
54
58

no data
* data given for latest available year 19912000
** data given for latest available year 19952001
Sources: UNDP (1995, Table A2.7), UNDP (2002, Tables 23 & 25), World Bank (1996, Table 4), World Bank (2000, Table 3).

Womens employment
by sector 19952001**

Agriculture

Industry

Services

2
19
5
0
4

3
2
6
14
9
7

2
3
3
1
2

10
16
10
14
20
17

20
14
25
18
25
22

10
10
11
14
13

89
82
71
82
80
79

77
84
69
68
66
71

88
87
86
85
85

BOX 11.3 Factors accounting for womens rising labour force


participation in Latin America 19502000 (source: Chant with Craske,
2003, p.207, Box 8.1).
Individual

rising literacy rates


rising levels of education
later age of marriage and/or first birth
declining fertility
rural-urban migration

Household

changes in household structure, especially rising proportions of


female-headed households
increases in household poverty and the need for multiple household
incomes
changing ideologies of motherhood in which financial inputs to
household budgets are increasingly regarded as integral to
maternal obligations

Labour Market

declining share of agriculture in overall employment


growth of tertiary sector
expansion of feminized occupational niches, e.g. as operatives in
multinational export manufacturing firms
increased competition due to neoliberal restructuring
deregulation and informalization

Institutional/Legal

increases in anti-discriminatory employment legislation


introduction of employment and training programmes for femaleheaded households in some countries
some increase in childcare provision for working mothers

Womens share of the labour force was already growing before the recession due, inter alia, to ruralurban migration, rising education and lower fertility (Safa, 1995a: 16; Cerrutti, 2000b: 888), That this
growth has continued in the wake of tightening labour market conditions suggests that post-1980
economic restructuring has played an important part in the process (see Box 11.3). Indeed,
Humphrey (1997: 171) notes that even during the lost decade of the 1980s in Brazil, womens share
of employment in the So Paulo Metropolitan Area grew from 33 to 38 per cent. A number of factors
pertaining to both the demand and supply side of the labour market are relevant to these tendencies.
223

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

In a long-term perspective, the rise in female employment in the post-war period owes to
numerous factors (see Box 11.3). Despite the growth of seasonal export agricultural production,
especially of temperate fruits, which has led to pockets of feminized rural employment in some
countries (Barrientos et al., 1999; see Chapter 12), a major reason for the relative increase in womens
share of the workforce is the general fall in demand for agricultural labour which has traditionally been
a male domain (Table 11.4). In the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, for example, Safa (1995b)
notes that the disintegration of the sugar economy has led to employment losses for men, with the
shift to urban-based labour-intensive manufacturing and services having favoured female workers.
Indeed, in Puerto Rico, unemployment rates have actually been higher for men since the 1950s.

Latin America Transformed

Womens employment and economic restructuring


On the supply side of the labour market, numerous studies of poor urban communities indicate that
pressures on household income have been the main impetus behind womens increased involvement
in remunerated work (Benera, 1991; Chant, 1994; 1996; Gonzlez de la Rocha, 1988; 2000). In many
cases, this is due to the declining purchasing power of male breadwinners wages, and in others,
because men have lost their jobs altogether (see Cerrutti, 2000b, on Argentina; Moser, 1997, on
Ecuador; Nash, 1995, on Uruguay). Indeed, between 1990 and 1999, the female employment rate
(measured as a percentage of the female population of working age), increased by 1.3 percentage
points, whereas that of men fell by 3.6 percentage points (ECLAC, 2002b: 97). In respect of the
recorded ratio of the economically active to working-age population during the same period, that for
women in urban areas increased from 39.5 per cent to 43.7 per cent, but for men declined (albeit
marginally) from 81.4 per cent to 81 per cent. Yet, although mens share of employment has fallen, it is
important to stress that this is not because women have taken mens jobs. Given that women have
moved into expanding yet specic gender-typed segments of the labour force not previously occupied
by men, male and female workers remain relatively uncompetitive (Ros, 1995: 143; Pearson, 1998). As
further noted by Standing (1999: 600), signs of greater convergence in womens and mens
employment (and particularly the conditions of their employment), seem to be more to do with the
progressive informalization and casualization of mens work than improvements in womens
employment. Whether or not this is perceived to be the case, however, is another matter (Chant with
Craske, 2003: 217).
Much of the increase in female labour force participation has occurred among wives and mothers
(Gonzlez de la Rocha, 1988: 21415; Selby et al., 1990: 174). A study of Mexico based on ofcial
national statistics, for example, indicated that women aged 2049 years, increased their labour force
participation rate from 31 to 37 per cent between 1981 and 1987 (cited in Gonzlez de la Rocha,
1991: 117). Over one-quarter of married women in Mexico were recorded as working in 1991
compared with only 10 per cent in 1970 (CEPAL, 1994: 15), and the highest levels of economic activity
are now in the 3539 year age cohort (43 per cent). In Costa Rica, there was only one female worker
for every three men in the 2039 year age cohort in 1980, yet by 1990, the gap had narrowed to one
in two (Dierckxsens, 1992: 22). More generally in Latin America, the highest levels of female labour
force participation are now among women aged between 25 and 44 years (Len, 2000: 31). This
means that in only two decades, the early peak pattern of womens employment has shifted to one
where the highest part of the curve is in the middle stage of the life course. This coincides in most
cases with what is conventionally thought to be the average age of marriage (or establishment of a
consensual union), and the end of the reproductive cycle (Chant with Craske, 2003: 21314).
On the demand side of the labour market, the recruitment of female workers has persisted during
the past two decades as Latin American countries have placed greater emphasis on strategies of
export promotion (Safa, 1995b: 33; Willis, 2002: 144). This has intensied competition among rms,
which have often resorted to increasing their female workforce, either directly by recruitment in
industrial plants (especially common in Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the Dominican
Republic), or on a sub-contracted piecework basis. Although, on the one hand, this may have increased
income-generating opportunities for women, there are decidedly more benets for employers.
Capitalizing upon the low aspiration wages and voluntary labour turnover of married women, these
include the cutting of production costs, saving on social security contributions and fragmentation of
the workforce (Benera and Roldan, 1987; Miraftab, 1994: 469; Pea Saint Martin, 1996). In addition, it
is argued that sectors and occupations which were already marked by a high degree of feminization
(for example, the labour-intensive maquiladora [assembly] industry, domestic service and other lowskilled tertiary occupations) were less hard-hit by recession than sectors in which men were prevalent
such as heavy industry and construction (de Barbieri and de Oliveira, 1989: 23).
Upward trends in womens employment are not conned to Latin America, and it is signicant that
world-wide increases in female labour force participation have occurred during a time in which
224

225

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

conditions of employment in general have deteriorated considerably. As Moghadam (1995: 11516)


notes: The global spread of exible labour practices and the supply-side structural adjustment
economic package coincide with a decline in labour standards, employment insecurity, increased
joblessness, and a rise in atypical or precarious forms of employment. Moreover, as Acero (1997: 72)
observes, the casualization of work in the formal sector and the growth of informal activity have
affected women to a greater extent than men. Indeed, despite the fact that unemployed women are
more likely to be classied as economically inactive housewives, it is interesting that in general terms
female unemployment has continued to be higher than mens (Mehra and Gammage, 1999: 51;
Monten, 1995: 51; Radcliffe, 1999: 201).
Although the numbers and proportion of economically active women have grown steadily, this has
not been matched by an equivalent rise in female employment opportunities. During the 1990s, for
example, women classied as economically active in Latin America grew by 3.6 per cent per annum,
but womens employment rose at an annual rate of only 2.8 per cent. This helps to account for the
general increase of female unemployment in Latin America from 5.1 per cent to 11.2 per cent in the
1990s, and widening gaps between levels of male and female unemployment (ECLAC, 2002b: 97).
While women still tend to be restricted to a narrower range of jobs than men, and to be
disproportionately concentrated in tertiary employment (see Table 11.4), Safas research on Puerto
Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic reveals some diminution of occupational segregation as
womens participation increases in the professions, clerical work and the public sector (Safa, 1995b: 39;
see also Cerrutti, 2000a, on Argentina; Willis, 2000, on Mexico). Another interesting development in
the years of crisis and restructuring, which has gone some way towards blurring the boundaries
between mens and womens activities in lower income sectors, is the increased use of the home as a
site of production (see Bastos, 1999, on Guatemala; Miraftab, 1994; 1996, on Mexico; Pineda, 2000, on
Colombia). Yet in Brazil, Humphrey (1997: 171) argues with reference to industrial employment that
the continuing entry of women into the labour force has not in any way undermined the gender
division of labour. Gender segregation and gender inequalities remain as great as ever. Part of this
pattern is attributed not only to the way that labour market divisions mirror gender divisions in wider
society, but because gendered occupations and work structures are constructed within the factory
and then institutionalized and legitimated through segmented labour markets. Indeed, for Brazil, more
generally, womens employment is still skewed to low-productivity occupations such as domestic
service (Pitanguy and Mello E. Souza, 1997: 73).
While gendered wage differentials in most parts of Latin America are less pronounced among
younger age groups, which suggests a possible tendency towards closure of these gaps over time (see
Table 11.5), there is no certainty that such a trajectory will become established in the long term.
Acknowledging that there is some evidence of a harmonizing down of male wages to more closely
approximate those of women in certain areas of the labour market (Elson, 1999), the fact is that within
a number of leading sectors, such as textiles and electronics, women remain locked into the least
skilled jobs, and are often pushed out when levels of automation increase and give rise to greater
masculinization in export-manufacturing employment (Acero, 1997; Pearson, 2000; Ros, 1995). In this
light it is entirely possible that more women than men will end up in the informal sector, which may
well exacerbate wage gaps. Evidence from Colombia points to earning differentials being greater in the
informal than the formal sector, with womens average incomes being 86 per cent of mens in the latter
compared with 74 per cent in the former (Tokman, 1989: 1071). Across Latin America more generally,
the gap between mens and womens earnings in informal activity averages 25 per cent, compared with
10 per cent in the formal sector (Funkhouser, 1996: 1746).
Leading on from this, worrying implications for pension entitlements (the bulk of which are
contributory) ow from womens disproportionate concentration in the informal sector, their lower
earnings, and their general lack of employment continuity (Bertranou, 2001). In Argentina, research in
low-income settlements indicates that while over half the male population have made sufcient
contributions to qualify for pensions, this applies to only 15 per cent of women (Lloyd-Sherlock, 1997:

Latin America Transformed

TABLE 11.5 Wage differentials in paid employment by gender and age cohort, selected Latin American countries
Country

Year

Argentina**
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Honduras
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Paraguay
Uruguay
Venezuela

1997
1997
1996
1996
1997
1997
1997
1997
1997
1997
1996
1997
1997
1996
1997
1997

Gender wage differentials by age cohort (years)*


1524
2534
3544
4554
55 plus
98
65
80
93
92
102
97
94
100
86
90
74
81
76
79
92

92
74
72
82
85
87
87
90
85
78
73
76
87
74
71
87

77
85
65
67
73
79
90
77
85
74
66
62
73
82
64
77

63
64
56
62
64
87
84
75
91
70
72
43
73
72
60
73

66
39
60
67
60
55
67
62
73
72
84
57
50
93
55
65

* figures for wage differentials expressed in terms of female earnings as a percentage of male earnings
** data for Gran Buenos Aires only
Source: Len (2000: 26, Table 4).

180). In El Salvador, up to three-quarters of economically active women are not covered by social
benets (Gutirrez Castillo, 1997: 151). Womens disadvantage in pensions coverage is exacerbated by
the fact that they tend to use more of their earnings for basic household expenditure than men, which
leaves little surplus for contributions (Chant with Craske, 2003: 93, 2212).
Womens work, gender relations and urban households
While women are clearly still a very vulnerable group in the labour force, Safa (1995b: 33) argues that
the crisis has heightened the importance and visibility of womens contribution to the household
economy as additional women enter the labour force to meet the rising cost of living and the
decreased wage-earning capacity of men. As echoed by Radcliffe (1999: 197) for Latin America more
generally: the avocation of neoliberal development policies by most governments has signicantly
inuenced the ways in which the nexus of labourhouseholdeconomy is organized, with
consequences in turn for the nature of gender relations.
Some research suggests that rising levels of employment have provided an important source of
prestige and power for women and have exerted democratizing inuences on intra-household
decision-making. In my own studies of low-income households in the Mexican cities of Len,
Quertaro and Puerto Vallarta, for example, there seems to be greater collective negotiation and
scrutiny over nancial affairs where households have moved from a single wage earner to a dual or
multiple income-earning strategy, especially where women themselves gure among these workers
(Chant, 1991). This echoes Safas research in Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, where
although the cultural norm of the male breadwinner remains rmly embedded in the workplace and
the state, the large-scale incorporation of women into the labour force is asserted to have had
positive effects on their consciousness and household bargaining power (Safa, 1995a: 58; see also
Cerrutti and Zenteno, 1999, on Mexico). In turn, the myth of the male breadwinner seems to have
226

that womens earnings are usually so much lower than mens;


that women cannot necessarily control their own earnings;
women are still very much tied to childcare and domestic responsibilities.
Given that there has been such little movement by men into reproductive tasks, it is not surprising that
womens labour burdens in Latin America have tended to grow in the past 20 years as outlined by
a wide variety of studies (Langer et al., 1991: 197; Chant, 1996: 298; Pearson, 1997: 677; UNICEF, 1997:
19; Safa, 1999: 16). Womens continued (and frequently rising) burdens of reproductive labour may be
partly explained by what Gates (2002) calls the strategic use of gender in household negotiations. On
the basis of her research among women workers in Agua Prieta, Sonora, on Mexicos northern border,
Gates observes that women frequently negotiate their entry into waged work by making offers (for
example, of housework, or earnings) to their menfolk. In so doing, women afrm their gender identity
and thereby sustain gender norms even as they pursue interests that challenge gender norms (ibid.,
p.522). In light of this, Gates (2002: 523) suggests that we might be best advised to reinterpret an
increased burden of household labour as a calculated trade-off made in order to win practical
changes.This gender bias in household livelihood organization not only impacts upon mothers, but can
also extend to daughters. In order to accommodate the labour force participation of adult women,
older female children may take care of younger siblings and/or perform vital domestic tasks. As a
consequence, they neglect their own education or have to leave school altogether (Moser, 1989; 1992;
Dierckxsens, 1992; Rodrguez, 1993). This obviously undermines the socio-economic prospects of
women in younger generations and may exacerbate future gaps between male and female education,
training and employment.
An additional downside of rising levels of female labour force participation is that men have not
always reacted positively to sharing responsibilities for nancial provision with their womenfolk.
Coupled with the general insecurity and exhaustion associated with increased poverty, and unequal
burdens of labour, this is commonly linked with rising levels of intra-household conict (Benera,
1991; Geldstein, 1994: 57; Gledhill, 1995: 137; Townsend et al., 1999: 29). As Selby et al. (1990: 176)
argue:
227

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

been challenged through womens declining dependence on male incomes and growing economic
participation in their own right (Safa, 1995b: 33).These tendencies also appear to have been important
in accounting for growing numbers of female-headed households in recent decades (Chant, 1997),
with many case studies indicating that levels of female household headship tend to be greater in areas
where womens rates of employment are high (Fernndez-Kelly, 1983; Bradshaw, 1995a; Safa, 1995a).
This is not to say that female-headed households have been absent from Latin American societies in
previous historical periods (see Chant, 1997).
While acknowledging these apparent manifestations of an increase in womens autonomy, there
may also be negative connotations, with discussions on these issues highlighting not only that women
may be reluctant to leave their spouses (ibid.), but that within male-headed households, where most
of them remain, changes in gender relations may be negligible. As observed by McClenaghan (1997:
29), for the Dominican Republic, even in households where women are the principal providers, men
still tend to be regarded as el jefe (the head). In turn, womens roles as wives and mothers continue
to be emphasized, if not reinforced. As Tiano (2001: 202) summarizes: the contradictions between
traditional gender norms and womens actual behaviour creates conicts that many women reconcile
by privileging their domestic roles and viewing wage work as a means by which to perform their roles
as wives and mothers more effectively (see also Garca and de Oliveira, 1997; Gonzlez de la Rocha,
2000; Chant, 2002b). In a context in which mens unemployment or forced migration tends to be
associated with rising rates of conjugal instability, the fact is that even greater responsibility falls on
womens shoulders for the care and welfare of dependants (Nash, 1995: 162). Additional factors
accounting for the limited impact of womens employment on gendered power relations, as noted by
Gonzlez de la Rocha (1994: 141-2) in relation to Guadalajara, Mexico, are:

Latin America Transformed

Male dignity has been so assaulted by unemployment and the necessity of relying on women for the
subsistence that men formerly provided, that men have taken it out on their wives and domestic
violence has increased . . . the families which have been riven by ghting and brutality can easily be
said to be the true victims of economic crisis.
Certainly, loss of employment and dependence on womens earnings can strike an extremely
discordant note at the core of masculine identities (Kaztman, 1992; Gutmann, 1996; Escobar Latap,
1998; Chant, 2000, 2002a, b; Fuller, 2000). This, in turn, may have destabilizing effects on families, as well
as play a part in provoking increased levels of community violence (see Moser and McIlwaine, 2000,
2001a, b). By the same token, men who have reacted violently towards women, can and do change,
often as a result of womens instigation (Gutmann, 1997)

CONCLUSION
Reecting on trends in employment and livelihoods in Latin America in the past 20 years, it is clear that
trajectories in a number of areas have been less than positive. How some of the more negative trends
increased poverty, mounting occupational instability, and rising levels of self-exploitation among the
poor may be redressed remains problematic, not least because of diminished scope on the part of
governments to intervene in labour markets and to provide social assistance (Batley, 1997; Arce,
2002). Indeed, part of the reason for current levels of vulnerability and privation among the urban
poor is precisely because the progressive erosion of state services and subsidies has forced greater
privatization of livelihood struggles within low-income households (Benera, 1991: 171, 176). Yet while
poor households have traditionally been able to manage some self-defence by mobilizing their own
(albeit limited) resources, Gonzlez de la Rocha (2001) argues that persistent poverty over two
decades has massively sapped peoples reserves and made such mobilization considerably less viable,
not to mention less desirable (see also Molyneux, 2002). This is particularly pertinent to women,
where the cumulative depletion of time, energy and income has led to a situation in which they are
carrying burdens within their households that are close to unsustainable and which are seriously
affecting their physical and psychological health. There is a clear need for interventions to ensure that
the poor are prevented from engaging in protracted self-exploitation that jeopardizes their own
chances of survival, and those of their children.
In order to better guarantee the access of the poor to livelihood possibilities that do not further
erode their assets and well-being, it is vital that attempts are made to ensure that adequate
employment is created to absorb Latin Americas growing labour force, and that this can provide
reasonable nancial support for workers and their dependants, be these children, elderly relatives and
so on. Here public and international pressure to encourage employers to subscribe to the ILOs
recently launched initiative to Reduce the Decent Work Decit may help to provoke some advances.
The Decent Work agenda has the goal of obtaining productive work for all in conditions of freedom,
equity, security and human dignity. It is a goal both for individuals and for nations and is built around
four strategic objectives, all of which are cross-cut by gender (see Box 11.4). While recognizing that
competition in the global economy may make enterprises less willing to countenance workers rights,
or to pay for social protection, the ILO argues that there are major economic dividends from decent
work. Better paid workers tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction and productivity, and also
respond positively when they are entitled to good quality jobs, prot-sharing and a decision-making
voice in the workplace (ILO, 2001).

228

1 Employment: This refers to job creation through sound and sustainable investment and growth,
access to the benefits of the global economy, supportive public policies and an enabling
environment for entrepreneurship.
2 Standards and fundamental principles and rights at work: Following on from the ILO Declaration
on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work of 1998, this objective calls for the creation of
work that does not involve forced labour, exploitation, discrimination and denial of association
(e.g. prohibition on the formation of trade unions).
3 Social protection: This principle is concerned with ensuring that workers have formal protection
for old age, invalidity, sickness and health care, and with creating safe and dignified working
conditions
4 Social dialogue: This advocates the opening of channels of communication between different
stakeholders in the economy, and particularly about giving workers in the informal economy
more of a voice and greater representation

Some measures could be taken to improve standards and efciency in the informal sector which has
clearly become a long-standing feature not only of labour markets in Latin America but elsewhere in
the world (Pearson, 2000: 16). Moreover, the time is arguably ripe to do so. Hernando de Sotos
(1989) widely publicized arguments for championing the informal sector as an engine of growth and
sector of entrepreneurship seem to have captured the hearts and minds of policy makers, and placed
more proactive informal sector initiatives rmly on the agenda at national and international levels
(Cubitt, 1995: 175; Szirmai, 1997: 208). One popular idea, for example, is the repeal of regulations and
policies which obstruct entrepreneurship without serving any legitimate public regulatory purpose.
Another is the scaling down or cessation of assistance to favoured sectors such as large enterprises
which has hitherto discriminated against the informal sector (Chickering and Salahdine,1991: 6;
Grabowski and Shields, 1996: 172).
On the supply side of the labour market, policies geared towards education and training to promote
diversication, to enhance access to credit, to improve management and marketing, and to promote
greater health and safety, would undoubtedly improve conditions in informal employment (Rodgers,
1989). Such initiatives are particularly relevant for groups such as ambulant traders and food vendors
where women often form a large percentage of operatives (Leach, 1999;Tinker, 1997).These might be
implemented along with the decentralization of policies to accord with needs and skills in different
localities (Portes and Schaufer, 1993: 56), as well as the re-orientation of policies from individual rms
to groups of workers as a means of utilizing the social networks and social capital which are often so
vital to the successful operation of informal activity (Portes and Itzigsohn,1997: 2445; Portes and
Landolt, 2000).
Aside from steps to improve the rate and quality of job creation in conventional formal and informal
employment, increased facilities for vocational education in expanding spheres such as information
technology could bolster income and employment prospects at both national levels and at the
grassroots. On the one hand, indigenous economic activity may be enhanced insofar as the more
skilled and educated the labour force, the greater its likely productivity, which, in turn, could provide an
important market for goods and services (Szirmai, 1997: 901). On the other hand, and in view of the
likely powerlessness of Latin America to resist the forces of globalization, this could attract greater
foreign investment into the region. As Mitter (1997: 267) points out, the youth of developing country
populations set against demands for new technological skills are likely to motivate Northern
229

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

BOX 11.4 Strategic objectives of the ILOs decent work agenda (source:
ILO, 2001)

Latin America Transformed

companies to spread information-intensive aspects of production to the South in the next few
decades (see also UNDP, 2001). Acknowledging these trends, some governments in the region have
already started making dedicated moves to expand technical and professional training (see, for
example, MINDESP, 2001 on Bolivia).
Alongside interventions in the labour market and in education and training, household livelihoods
among the poor could be bolstered by other (relatively modest) investments in human capital such as
primary health care, and housing and neighbourhood improvements. The latter would be especially
relevant given the tendency for greater numbers of people to resort to domestic-based economic
activity and flexible working. In order to arrest existing trends in womens exploitation, attempts could
be made to alleviate their household and parenting responsibilities via the introduction or extension
of publicly subsidized childcare programmes, as well as by concerted efforts to encourage men to
engage in parenting, housework and/or financial support, whether as resident or non-resident
household members (UNICEF, 1997; Chant, 2002b; Chant with Craske, 2003). While recognizing that
Latin American governments are restricted in their range of economic and social options by an
increasingly competitive global economy and by international financial institutions, without due
attention to the individuals and households who make up their societies, attempts to shape a more
positive and equitable future for the continent are likely to be doomed to failure. While the livelihoods
model represents a useful analytical framework to understand how the poor get by, care must be
taken that its positive conceptualizations of peoples resources and resourcefulness do not translate
into neglect of their fundamental societal needs by politicians and policy-makers. In an unequal world,
the store and efficacy of grassroots assets are by no means limitless, and for the urban poor in Latin
America, especially women, this fact requires immediate recognition.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks go to Cathy McIlwaine for her helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

FURTHER READING
Chant, S. with Craske, N. 2003 Gender in Latin America. Latin America Bureau/Rutgers University
Press, London/New Brunswick, NJ. This book provides an overview of changing patterns of gender
in Latin America in the past three decades, with dedicated reviews of themes that are directly
relevant to this chapter.These include Chapter 3 on gender, poverty and social movements, Chapter
7 on gender, families and households, and Chapter 8 on gender and employment.
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) 2002 Social
panorama of Latin America 20002001. Comisin Econmica para Amrica Latina y el Caribe,
Santiago de Chile. An accessible and comprehensive overview of economic and social trends in
Latin America in the last decade of the twentieth century, particularly as they relate to poverty,
income inequality, employment and unemployment, social expenditure and shifts in family life and
organization. The analysis is complemented by several tables, boxes, figures and appendices and is
downloadable in PDF format from www.cepal.org.
Portes,A., Dore-Cabral, C. and Landolt, P. (eds) 1997 The urban Caribbean: transition to a new
global economy. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. An interesting collection of case
studies on a wide range of countries in Central America and the Caribbean, including Costa Rica,
Haiti, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.These are bound together by the underlying question
of whether the urban informal sector is an arena of growth and entrepreneurship, or one of survival.
Rakodi, C. with Lloyd-Jones, T. (eds) 2002 Urban livelihoods: a people-centred approach to
reducing poverty. Earthscan, London. This book consists of a series of interdisciplinary contributions
on key issues in current livelihoods debates. Examination is made of the value of a focus on
230

Roberts, B. 1995 The making of citizens: cities of peasants revisited. Edward Arnold, London. This
book is a substantially revised version of Roberts classic text Cities of peasants, published by Edward
Arnold in 1978. The main focus is Latin America, but the analysis is strongly informed by a wider
global perspective. Of particular relevance to the present chapter are Roberts discussions in
Chapter 5, which looks at employment in cities, and Chapter 7, which covers various aspects of
household livelihoods.
Thomas, J. 1995 Surviving in the city: the urban informal sector in Latin America. Pluto, London. This is
possibly the most thorough account of the nature and behaviour of the informal sector of
employment in Latin American cities in recent years. It traces the history of conceptualizations of
informal sector activity and its wide-ranging characteristics. Particular attention is paid to the
evolution of informal employment in the wake of urban growth, the debt crisis and economic
restructuring in the late twentieth century. There is also discussion of the longer-term prospects for
the urban informal sector in Latin America, and of the implications of different policy interventions.

WEBSITES
Department for International Development, www.livelihoods.org, UK government website
on the livelihoods approach to reducing poverty.
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, www.cepal.org
International Labour Organization, www.ilo.org

231

Urban livelihoods, employment and gender

livelihoods in analysing urban poverty and in guiding policy and programme formulation in relation
to development challenges such as employment, education and peoples living environments.

12
Rural livelihoods and peasant futures
Cristbal Kay

The main argument in this chapter is that the neoliberal policies followed by almost all Latin American
countries since the 1980s are further deepening the exclusionary character of the regions rural
modernization and jeopardizing the livelihoods of the peasantry. The chapter begins by discussing the
legacy of Latin Americas agrarian reforms. It then examines the changes in the countryside ushered in
by government policies supportive of the modernization of capitalist farms within the context of
globalization. The inuence of these transformations on rural livelihoods and the peasantrys future
prospects under neoliberalism are subsequently analysed. A new rurality is being shaped which is
characterized by a more heterogeneous agrarian structure, more complex and uid social relations,
greater signicance of non-agricultural and off-farm activities, and the emergence of new social actors,
especially women and indigenous people. Finally, the character of the new peasant movement, which
is challenging the imposition of neoliberal policies in the countryside, is highlighted.

THE LOST PROMISE OF AGRARIAN REFORM


Latin America has one of the most polarized agrarian structures in the world. By 1960 latifundios
constituted roughly 5 per cent of farm units and about 80 per cent of the land; minifundios constituted
80 per cent of farm units but had only 5 per cent of the land (Barraclough, 1973: 16). The mediumsized farm sector was relatively insignicant. In explaining Latin Americas poor agricultural
performance structuralists emphasized the high degree of land concentration (Barraclough and
Domike, 1966) while neoliberal interpretations stressed government policy, in particular price and
trade policy which allegedly discriminated against agriculture (Valds and Siamwalla, 1988). The fact
that counter-vailing policies often compensated large agricultural producers is generally ignored by the
neoliberal interpretations (Kay, 2000a). For example, landlords received highly subsidized credits and
beneted from cheap imports of agricultural machinery and inputs. Thus government policy was
biased not so much against agriculture but against peasants and rural workers. Rural labour was largely
unorganized due to legal obstacles as well as coercion. Working conditions throughout rural Latin
America were exploitative and repressive (Feder, 1971; Duncan and Rutledge, 1977).
Most Latin American countries implemented some sort of agrarian reform mainly in the period
1960 to 1970. But they largely failed to full expectations for a variety of reasons (Kay, 2001a). Mistakes
in their design and implementation contributed to their eventual unravelling. Often they were
implemented in a half-hearted fashion; in other instances erce political opposition from landlords
restricted the reforms. Historical experience, as in South Korea and Taiwan, clearly shows that a
comprehensive agrarian reform is a key ingredient for a successful economic development process
(Kay, 2002a). Furthermore, the root causes of social and political instability will remain as long as
peasants continue to be marginalized and rural poverty persists (Kay, 2001b).
The neoliberal unravelling of the agrarian reform
The increasing shift to neoliberal policies by governments led to counter-reforms, the privatization
of the reform sector and the ending of agrarian reforms. Neoliberal land policies have changed
232

The continuing search for agrarian reform


Poverty, exclusion and landlessness or near landlessness are still far too common in Latin America.The
land issue has not yet been resolved and the need for agrarian reform remains in much of Latin
America (Barraclough, 1994). The contemporary struggle for a piece of land by the mass of landless
peasants in Brazil, spearheaded by the Movimento (dos Trabalhadores Rurais) Sem Terra (MST or the
Landless Rural Workers Movement), is a clear illustration of the continuing need for agrarian reform.
There has been a shift from state-led and interventionist agrarian reform programmes to marketoriented land policies. Paradoxically, such land policies have turned out to be much driven from above
by the state and international agencies. Thus, future state interventions in the land tenure system are
likely to be conned to a land policy which focuses not on expropriation but on progressive land
taxes, land colonization, land markets, registration, titling and secure property rights. A variety of
studies are indicating that such land policies have not turned out to be the promised panacea
(Zoomers and van der Haar, 2000; Zoomers, 2001). However, some land titling programmes have
enhanced the property rights of women (Deere and Len, 2001b).
While the potential benets of clearly dened property rights may be substantial given that about
half of rural households lack land titles (Vogelgesang, 1996) the economic and socio-political context
under which small farmers are operating conspire against them. Peasants in the end turn out to be the
losers from these land-titling projects because of their weak position in the market as well as in the
political system, which is unable to protect their land rights (Carter and Mesbah, 1993; Jansen and
Roquas, 1998; Carter and Salgado, 2001). The market-led or negotiated agrarian reform proposals of
the World Bank (Deininger, 1999), resting on the principle of willing seller and willing buyer, have so
far failed to have any signicant impact (Borras, 2003).
The main legacy of agrarian reform is that it has hastened the demise of the landed oligarchy and
cleared away the institutional debris which prevented the development of markets and the full
commercialization of agriculture, albeit after the unravelling of the reformed sector. Thus the main
winners have been the capitalist farmers. Although a minority of campesinos (peasants and landless
233

Rural livelihoods and peasant futures

priorities away from expropriation of estates, which typied the populist agrarian reform period,
towards decollectivization and privatization, land registration and titling and land tax issues.
Legislation has also been introduced in some countries facilitating the privatization of land in
indigenous communities and the sale of their land. Chile was the rst to initiate this process in the
mid-1970s, Peru followed in a more gradual manner since 1980, Nicaragua since 1990 and Mexico
and El Salvador since 1992. Some expropriated land was returned to former owners (as in Chile
and Nicaragua), but most was subdivided into family farms known as parcelas and sold to members
of the reformed sector who henceforth were referred to as parceleros (Jarvis, 1992). In some
instances a sizeable proportion of them were unable to secure a parcel, often for political reasons
and sometimes due to nancial circumstances, generally joining the ranks of the rural proletariat.
Nevertheless, this process of parcellization signicantly increased the land area under the individual
control of the peasant farm sector, especially in Peru. However, after some years many parceleros
were unable to keep up their land payments or nance their farm operations and had to relinquish
their land.
Agrarian reform and the subsequent neoliberal unravelling of the reformed sector have thus given
rise to a more complex and heterogeneous agrarian structure. It has reduced and transformed the
latifundia system and has enlarged the peasant sector and the commercial middle-to-large-farm sector.
Parcelization also increased differentiation among the peasantry (Murray, 2002b). Capitalist farmers
have been the ones to benet from the liberalization of land, labour and nancial markets, the new
drive to exports, and the withdrawal of supportive measures for the peasant sector.Their greater land,
capital and technical resources, their superior links with national and especially international markets
and their greater inuence on agricultural policy explain why they have been more able to exploit the
new market opportunities than have peasant farmers.

Latin America Transformed

rural labourers) gained some benets, for the majority the promise of agrarian reform remains
unfullled (Thiesenhusen, 1995; Bretn, 1997).

GLOBALIZATION, NEOLIBERALISM AND AGRICULTURE


The major force shaping the rural economy and society in Latin America in the post-agrarian reform
era has been the process of neoliberal globalization. There has been a shift in the past two decades
from a state-led inward-directed development strategy, spearheaded by a process of importsubstitution-industrialization, to an outward-oriented development strategy largely relying on primarycommodity exports (see Chapters 3 and 4). According to the neoliberal policy-makers Latin
Americas agricultural sector was to be one of the main beneciaries of this opening to world markets
due to the regions comparative advantages in this sector as well as the elimination of the
discriminatory policy measures against it. Thus it was expected that agricultural exports, in particular,
would thrive (Krueger et al., 1990). The neoliberal policy shift has certainly had major consequences
for agriculture but not always in the way neoliberals expected.
The neoliberal turn has had a major impact on rural livelihoods (see Chapter 9). It has modied the
agricultural production pattern as well as the rural social structure in Latin America. It has largely been
the capitalist farmers and particularly transnational agro-industrial capitalists who have been able to
take advantage of, and benet from, the new opportunities opened up by the liberalization of markets
and globalization. The nancial, organizational and technological requirements for agricultural
intensication and export production have been largely beyond the reach of the peasant economy
(David et al., 2000; Rubio, 2001). Nevertheless, through agribusiness contract farming, some
smallholders have been able to participate in the production of agro-industrial commodities for
export or for high-income domestic urban consumers (Schejtman, 1996). Although the neoliberal
discourse promised the creation of a level playing eld through its market reforms, the situation so far
has revealed that the real markets, in contrast to the abstract markets of the neoliberal literature,
have continued to favour capitalist farmers and disadvantaged peasants (Ruben and Bastiaensen,
2000).
The neoliberal integration of some peasants into the global agro-food complex has accentuated the
socio-economic differentiation process (Teubal, 1995). Some peasants have been able to prosper
through capital accumulation and expanded reproduction thereby evolving into capitalized family
farmers (Lehmann, 1982) or capitalist peasant farmers (Llamb, 1988). Others have become
proletarians in disguise formal owners of a smallholding but tied to, and dependent on, agribusiness
and earning an income similar to the average rural wage. Another category is that of semiproletarians whose principal source of income is no longer derived from farming the household plot
but the sale of their labour power for a wage. Furthermore, a signicant proportion of peasants have
been openly and fully proletarianized by depending completely on the sale of their labour power for
a wage (Kay, 2000b).
Agricultures loss of competitiveness, non-traditional exports and heterogeneity
While agricultures share in the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Latin America had been
declining in the decades before the neoliberal turn, it has remained relatively stable at about 8 per cent
during the 19802000 period. Agricultures average yearly growth rate was 2.0 per cent in the 1980s
and 2.6 per cent in the 1990s, which compares unfavourably with the 3.5 per cent achieved by the
sector in the 195080 period (ECLAC/IICA 2002: 27). Thus the neoliberals promise of a new
agricultural dynamism has so far remained unfullled (Spoor, 2002). However, agricultural exports
performed better, growing at an average yearly rate of 3.3 per cent in the 1980s and 6.4 per cent in
the 1990s (ECLAC/IICA 2002: 115). Non-traditional agricultural exports (NTAEs) such as soybeans
and fresh and processed fruits were particularly dynamic, while most of the traditional export
products like coffee, sugar, bananas and cotton recorded below average rates of export growth.
234

Changes in rural labour and livelihoods


Agricultures neoliberal transformation has led to signicant changes in rural labour and livelihoods.
The percentage of the agricultural economically active population within the total economically active
population declined from 35 per cent to 21 per cent in the 19802000 period (ECLAC/IICA, 2002:
49). The modernization of the latifundio and their transformation into capitalist farms have led to a
signicant reduction in their labour force as well as to new forms of labour exploitation and
subordination. The main tendency has been towards a greater exibilization of rural labour (Lara
Flores, 1998; Garriacca, 2001) and greater diversication of rural livelihoods (Bebbington, 1999;
Reardon et al., 2001). For an analysis of similar transformations of urban labour and the rise of the
informal sector, see Chapter 11.
The following ve major changes in rural labour and employment, which had a major impact on
rural livelihoods, can be highlighted:
replacement of tenant labour by wage labour;
growth of temporary and seasonal wage labour;
235

Rural livelihoods and peasant futures

Subsistence crops, especially those produced by peasant farmers, performed poorly due to unfair
international competition (markets distorted as a result of subsidies to farmers in the EU and the
USA), the withdrawal of government support (such as cheap credit) and changes in urban
consumption patterns. But the shift to, and rapid expansion of NTAEs, were unable to compensate for
the sluggish growth, or even decline, of the traditional agricultural commodities, largely destined for the
domestic market.
Although agriculture continues to provide a major share of Latin American foreign exchange
earnings, its contribution has been declining. Agricultural exports accounted for about 51 per cent of
total exports in the 1970s but only 35 per cent and 26 per cent in the 1980s and 1990s respectively
(Spoor, 2001: 146). In only exceptional cases, such as Chile, has the share of agriculture in total export
earnings risen. Latin America has also lost competitiveness within the international market despite the
greater dynamism of agricultural export commodities as compared to agricultural crops for the home
market. While in 1990 Latin Americas agricultural exports contributed 12 per cent of total agricultural
imports by developed countries, this declined to 6 per cent by the end of the decade (ECLAC/IICA
2002: 193).
This loss of competitiveness of Latin Americas agriculture can also be gauged by the sharp rise in
agricultural imports. While during the lost decade of the 1980s agricultural imports declined by an
average yearly rate of 0.9 per cent, due to the downturn in the economy, they rose sharply during the
1990s growing by an average 8.6 per cent annually (ibid.: 117). As a consequence the proportion of
agricultural imports to exports has risen from about 40 per cent in 1980 to over 60 per cent in 2000,
thereby reducing agricultures net contribution to Latin Americas foreign exchange earnings (Garca
Pascual, 2003: 13). In some countries the increasing reliance on food imports might endanger food
security, especially in periods of foreign exchange crisis.
Neoliberal policy has widened the technological gap between capitalist and peasant farmers
(Ocampo, 2001), thereby further accentuating rural heterogeneity (David et al., 2001). It is difcult, if
not impossible, for peasant farmers to adopt new technology that is largely capital-intensive, such as
mechanization. Such technology is not only beyond the nancial reach of peasants, but often it is also
inappropriate for small-scale agriculture and the inferior soils of peasant farms. Furthermore, chemical
fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are too expensive for peasant farmers, especially since the
governments withdrawal of subsidized credit and technical assistance programmes. In addition, the
harmful environmental consequences of fossil fuel-based technology are increasingly being called into
question. The capital-intensive (and often import-intensive) nature of this technology is also
inappropriate for Latin American economies, as it requires too many scarce capital resources (such as
foreign exchange) and displaces labour.

Latin America Transformed

increasing feminization of rural wage labour;


urbanization of rural workers;
growing importance of non-farm employment and incomes.
The decline of tenant labour and rise of wage labour
Tenant labour used to supply most of the latifundios labour needs. With modernization of the
latifundios, tenant labour became increasingly more expensive than wage labour for landlords, as the
rent income received from tenants (sharecroppers, labour-service tenants, or others) became lower
than the prots landlords could earn by working the land directly with wage labour. Mechanization,
which was attractive because of the availability of government-subsidized credits, turned direct
cultivation by landlords into a more protable activity than tenancy. Tenant labourers thus became
waged labourers and many migrated to urban areas (Chase, 1999). Landlords also employed fewer
tenants for political reasons so as to reduce the internal pressure for land reform.
The growth of temporary and seasonal wage labour
Within the shift to wage labour, there has been a marked increase in the proportion of temporary,
often seasonal, wage employment. In many countries permanent wage labour has declined, even in
absolute terms, while in almost all countries temporary labour has greatly increased. In Brazil, it is
estimated that permanent wage labour has fallen to a third of rural wage labourers; the remaining
two-thirds are being employed on a temporary basis (Grzybowsky, 1990: 21). In Chile, the shift from
permanent to temporary labour has also been dramatic. While in the early 1970s, approximately twothirds of wage labour were permanent and a third temporary, by the late 1980s these proportions
had been reversed (Falabella: 1991).
This growth of temporary labour is partly connected to the expansion of agro-industries that
export seasonal fruit and vegetables and is particularly evident in those Latin American countries that
export these products.This has led to the increasingly casualization or precarious nature of rural wage
labour. Temporary workers are generally paid by piece rates, are not usually entitled to social security
benets and have no employment protection (see Figure 12.1). These changes in employment
practices towards more casual and exible labour enable employers to increase their control over
labour by reducing workers rights and bargaining power (Newman and Jarvis, 2000). Their
introduction has been facilitated by regressive changes in labour legislation, introduced often by the
military governments but continued by their neoliberal civilian successors. The expansion of
temporary wage labour therefore represents a deterioration in the conditions of employment.
This casualization of rural labour has contributed to the fracturing of the peasant movement.
Although seasonal labourers can be highly militant, they are notoriously difcult to organize due to
their diverse composition and shifting residence. Thus, the shift from permanent to seasonal labour in
the countryside has generally weakened peasant organizations, making it difcult for them to negotiate
improvements in their working conditions either directly with their employers or indirectly by
pressurizing the state.
The feminization of rural wage labour
Associated with the expansion of temporary and/or seasonal wage labour is the marked increase in
the participation of women in the labour force. In the past, rural women worked as day labourers,
milkmaids, cooks or domestic servants on the landlords estate. They also found seasonal wage
employment during the labour-intensive harvests on coffee, cotton and tobacco farms. With the rising
commercialization of agriculture and the crisis of peasant agriculture, an increasing proportion of rural
women have joined the labour market (Lara Flores, 1995). This has resulted in a renegotiation of
gender relations within the household (Barrientos et al., 1999: 124).
The rapid expansion of new export crops such as fruits, vegetables, and owers, however, has
opened up new employment opportunities for women (Figure 12.2; Collins, 2003). Agro-industries
largely employ female labour since women are held to be more readily available, more willing to work
236

Rural livelihoods and peasant futures


Figure 12.1 Man and machete, Liberia, Costa Rica. Casual agricultural labourers are expected to provide their own
tools.The machete is used in a wide range of tasks including cane cutting and pasture clearance. Photograph by
Sylvia Chant

on a seasonal basis, accept lower wages, and are less organized and, according to employers, are better
workers for activities which require careful handling. Any permanent employment, however, tends to
be the preserve of men. Although they are employed in generally low-skilled and low-paid jobs, aside
from being temporary, for many young women these jobs provide an opportunity to earn an
independent income and to escape (at least partially and temporarily) from the constraints of a
patriarchal, peasant family household. Even though the terms of their incorporation are unfavourable,
this does not necessarily imply that gender relations have remained unchanged. Furthermore, with the
rural womens rising incorporation into the formal labour market they have begun to exercise
increasing inuence in the affairs of peasant organizations and, in some instances, have even established
their own organizations (Stephen, 1993).
In Mexico, about 25 per cent of the economically active rural population are employed in fruit and
vegetable production and half of them are women. In Colombia, over 70 per cent of the labour
employed in the cultivation of owers for exports and about 40 per cent of coffee harvesters are
women (ECLAC 1992: 103). In Chile, about 70 per cent of temporary workers in the fruiticulture
export sector are women being employed mainly in the fruit packing plants. In Ecuador, in 1991, an
estimated 69 per cent of workers in NTAE production were women (Thrupp, 1996: 125) and
237

Latin America Transformed


Figure 12.2 Seasonal female labour in one of Chiles fruit-packing plants.The boom in fruit exports in Chile has
created a large market for temporary labour, employed mainly during the harvest season (March to May in applegrowing regions).The gender division of labour is marked: men pick the produce in the fields; women work in the
packing plants. Photograph by W. Murray

currently about half of those working in the ower industry are women (Korovkin, 2003: 27).The rapid
expansion of NTAEs, in which female labour is a key ingredient, has occasionally extracted high
environmental and health costs, as these activities are accompanied by an intensive use of chemical
fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides which pollute the environment and create dangerous health
hazards (Stewart, 1996: 132).
The urbanization of rural workers
An additional dimension to the growth of temporary wage labour concerns the geographical origins
of the workers so employed. An increasing number of rural workers come from urban areas due to
the lack of urban employment opportunities and improved transport facilities between urban and
rural areas (see Figure 12.3). In many Latin American countries over a quarter of the economically
active agricultural population currently reside in urban areas. In Brazil about half of temporary workers
employed in agricultural activities are of urban origin. They are known as bias frias (cold luncheons),
as they go to work with their lunch box containing cold food, and volantes (iers or oating workers)
who reside on the periphery of cities or towns and uctuate between rural and urban employment.
About three-quarters of female volantes are employed in the coffee-growing industry and when there
is no agricultural work, they tend to look for employment in the urban areas largely as domestics
(ECLAC, 1992: 98). The growing presence of labour contractors, who hire gangs of labourers from
small towns and cities for work in the elds, means that the direct employer is not always even the
farm owner or manager. Increasingly, rural residents have to compete with urban labourers for
agricultural work, and vice versa, leading to more exible labour markets and reducing the ruralurban
divide, at least in the labour market.
238

Rural livelihoods and peasant futures

Figure 12.3 Truck bringing cane workers home from a day in the fields, Liberia, Costa Rica. Large-scale farming
enterprises send trucks to low-income settlements or to known roadside locations where recruitment of labour is
done on the spot. Generally speaking, pick-up is in the early morning (around 5 a.m.), and drop off between 3 and
4 p.m. Labourers are often paid on a piece rate basis, e.g. for the metreage of cane cut. Photograph by Sylvia
Chant

Rising importance of rural non-farm employment and incomes


Rural non-farm employment (RNFE), or rural non-agricultural employment (RNAE), refers to
employment by rural household members in the non-farm or non-agricultural sector, i.e. in
manufactures (such as rural industry and agro-industrial processing plants) and services (such as rural
tourism and commerce). Employment can be self-employment or wage employment for an employer.
Rural non-farm income (RNFI) or rural non-agricultural income (RNAI) is the income derived from
the RNFE or RNAE such as non-farm rural wage income and non-farm rural self-employment,
sometimes called business income. RNFI/RNAI can also include urban-to-rural and international
remittances as well as pension payments to retirees (Ellis, 2000: 11-12). It is relatively recently that the
increasing signicance of RNFE in rural livelihoods has become evident. While in 1970 in Latin America
17 per cent of the rural population had their principal occupation in non-farm activities, this rose to
24 per cent in 1981 (Klein, 1992). Agricultural employment stagnated or declined during this period,
while RNAE increased signicantly. This shows that secondary and tertiary activities in the rural sector
have been more dynamic than primary activities, at least in terms of employment. Many of these
secondary and tertiary activities are derived from agriculture such as food processing, packaging, and
marketing of agricultural produce. Thus dynamic agriculture is likely to lead also to a dynamic rural
non-farm sector.
Subsequent studies have shown that this shift to RNFE and RNFI has even accelerated further in
recent decades. While in the early 1980s RNAI accounted for 25 per cent to 30 per cent of total rural
income by the second half of the 1990s this proportion rose to above 40 per cent (Berdegu et al.,
2000: 2). A far higher proportion of rural women are engaged in non-farm jobs than men. While in
most countries this share varied between 20 per cent and 55 per cent for employed men, in the case
of employed women it varied between 65 per cent and 90 per cent (Reardon et al., 2001: 400).
239

Latin America Transformed

It is important to stress that non-farm employment has a different meaning for rural households
according to their income level. For poor peasant households RNFE is a key mechanism to retain
access to their small plot of land and to maintain a subsistence income. Meanwhile, for rich peasant
households, it is a way to accumulate more capital. This capital can be used for expanding the farm
enterprise by buying more land or to increase its productivity by investing in machinery, fertilizers,
upgrading their labour and management skills through further education, and so on. Poor peasants
depend to a greater degree on non-agricultural income than rich peasants but in absolute terms this
amount is much lower in the poor households than in the rich households (Berdegu et al., 2000: 3).

PEASANT FUTURES: A PERMANENT SEMI-PROLETARIAT?


The increasing globalization of Latin Americas rural sector is having a profound impact on the
peasantry. How are these major transformations affecting the development of the peasant economy,
especially in the wake of the increasingly widespread and entrenched neoliberal policies? Can the
peasant economy provide adequate productive employment and rising incomes? Will peasants be able
to continue farming by increasing their competitiveness or will they become a mere supplier of wage
labour to the capitalist farm sector? Or, will they become fully proletarianized by having to sell their
land, give up farming and depend on wage employment and income for their subsistence?
Challenges facing the peasantry: diversication of rural livelihoods
The peasant household farm sector is still a signicant sector within Latin Americas rural economy
and society. Indeed, some authors have celebrated the persistence of the peasantry contrary to those
who predicted their disappearance (Edelman, 2000; Barkin, 2002). The peasant economy has certainly
not faced a unilinear decline and has shown a remarkable capacity for survival in the face of the
challenges of neoliberal globalization. Peasants have had to change their livelihood strategies in order
to survive (Bebbington, 2000), as well as engage in new forms of social mobilization and politics
(Otero, 1999; Bernstein, 2000). Nevertheless, their future is uncertain (Bryceson et al., 2000).
It is estimated that peasant agriculture in the 1980s in Latin America comprised four-fths of farm
units, possessed a fth of total agricultural land, over a third of the cultivated land, and over two-fths
of the harvested area (Lpez Cordovez, 1982: 26). The peasant economy accounted for almost twothirds of the total agricultural labour force, the remaining third being employed by capitalist farms.
Furthermore, peasant agriculture supplied two-fths of production for the domestic market and a
third of the production for export. Their contribution to food products for mass consumption is
particularly important. At the beginning of the 1980s, the peasant economy provided an estimated 77
per cent of the total production of beans, 61 per cent of potatoes and 51 per cent of maize. In
addition, the peasant economy owned an estimated 24 per cent of the total number of cattle and 78
per cent of pigs (ibid.: 28).
While the peasantry is far from disappearing, it is not thriving either, since their relative importance
as agricultural producers continues to decline. According to de Janvry et al. (1989b), the Latin
American peasantry is experiencing a double squeeze. First, they face a land squeeze. By failing to
acquire additional land to match their increased numbers, the average size of peasant farms has
decreased.This decline of the peasant sector mainly concerns the small-scale peasantry (minifundistas)
which accounts for about two-thirds of peasant farm households. Their average farm size decreased
from 2.1 hectares in 1950 to 1.9 hectares in 1980. The remainder of the peasant sector retained an
average farm size of 17 hectares, partly through the implementation of redistributive land reforms (de
Janvry et al., 1989a: 74). Second, peasants face an employment squeeze as employment opportunities
have not kept pace with the growth of the peasant population and as they face increased competition
from urban-based workers for rural employment.
Peasants have responded to this double squeeze on their livelihoods by seeking off-farm sources of
income, meaning incomes generated within agriculture other than own-account farming such as
240

Persistence of rural poverty


Agricultural modernization in Latin America, with its emphasis on capital intensive farming and the
squeeze on the peasant economy, means that rural poverty remains a persistent and intractable
problem. Structural adjustment programmes and stabilization policies of the 1980s had a detrimental
impact on poverty, although more in the urban than rural sector (see Chapter 5). But the proportion
241

Rural livelihoods and peasant futures

seasonal agricultural wage labour on capitalist farms agriculture, and/or non-farm sources of income.
Furthermore, the proportion of the economically active rural population that is engaged in nonagricultural activities, largely as wage labourers, is rising faster than those engaged in farm employment
as discussed earlier. These trends mean that an increasing proportion of total peasant household
income originates from wages, whereas income from their own-farm activities often comes to less
than half the total (de Janvry et al., 1989a: 141).
These processes mean that peasants have had to increasingly diversity their assets and livelihood
activities in order to survive and to improve their living standards (Zoomers, 1999; see Chapter 9).
These assets, as described by Bebbington (1999: 2029) and Ellis (2000: 8), include natural capital (land,
water, trees), physical or produced capital (tools, machines and land improvements such as irrigation
canals), human capital (education and health), nancial capital (cash or money), and social capital
(social networks and associations). Only the richer peasants, who are a minority, have been able to use
this process of rural livelihood diversication as an accumulation strategy, thereby increasing their
wealth.
For the majority of the Latin American peasantry, this livelihood diversication has entailed seeking
a variety of wage labour activities as a survival strategy (Rubio et al., 2002; Korovkin, 2003). This is the
case for the small-scale peasantry who can be characterized as semi-proletarian as over half of their
household income is derived from off-farm sources, principally from seasonal agricultural wage
employment on commercial farms or from non-farm wage work. As the small-scale peasantry is the
most numerous, it can be argued that this process of semi-proletarianization is the main tendency
unfolding among the Latin American peasantry. It is less marked in those few Latin American countries
where land reforms signicantly increased peasant access to land. For the richer peasantry rural nonfarm income is far more important than farm wage-employment income. Furthermore, the poorer
peasantry due to their lesser human capital engages principally in casual farm wage employment, as
entry requirements are lower (Reardon et al., 2001: 402).
This double squeeze on the peasant economy has forced many peasants to migrate, feeding the
continuing and high rate of rural out-migration (Salman and Zoomers, 2002; see Chapter 5). Some
peasants migrate only temporarily as part of their livelihood strategy to ensure the survival of their
household through the remittances. But this migration can vary from some months to a few years, and
even become permanent. Increasingly migration has become transnational. The most notorious case
is the migration of Mexican rural labour to the USA. But transnational migration within Latin America
has also become more common over the last couple of decades, as in the case of Bolivian peasants
working as rural labourers in Argentina (Aparicio and Benencia, 1999). In a few cases this migration
results in signicant remittances which allow some investment on the peasant farm and expansion of
farm income. However, as Reardon et al. (2001: 402) argue, the importance of migration income for
rural households is far less than has been assumed, even in the case of Mexico.
In short, Latin Americas peasantry appears to be trapped in a continuing process of semiproletarianization and structural poverty. Their access to off-farm sources of income, generally
seasonal wage labour, enables them to cling to the land, thereby blocking their full proletarianization.
This process favours rural capitalists as it eliminates small peasants as competitors in agricultural
production and transforms them into cheap wage labour. Semi-proletarianization is the only livelihood
strategy open to those peasants who wish to retain access to land for reasons of security and survival
or because they cannot nd alternative employment, either in the rural or urban sector, which secures
them a minimum standard of living.

Latin America Transformed

of people in poverty still remains higher in rural as compared to urban areas. Adjustment policies
exacerbated poverty as government expenditure on social welfare, subsidies for basic foods and other
essential commodities and services were cut back (Altimir, 1994). Some governments reduced this
negative impact by subsequently targeting welfare payments more closely and by introducing poverty
alleviation programmes. In the 1990s, rural poverty started to decline but only very slowly. While 65.4
per cent of rural households in Latin America were below the poverty line in 1990, this had fallen to
63.7 per cent in 1999 (ECLAC, 2002c: 212).The corresponding data for extreme poverty or indigence
are 40.4 per cent and 38.3 per cent, respectively. Only in a few countries did rural poverty decline
signicantly, like in Chile from 39.5 per cent in 1990 to 23.8 per cent in 2000, and rural indigence fell
from 15.2 per cent to 8.3 per cent, respectively (ibid.: 211).
The main cause of rural poverty is structural, being related to the unequal land distribution and the
increasing proportion of semi-proletarian and landless peasants. Contributory factors for the
persistence of rural poverty are the neoliberal policies that further an exclusionary pattern of rural
development marginalizing the peasantry. Tackling the root causes of poverty will require major land
redistribution and rural investments, raised employment opportunities and improved agricultural
productivity, particularly of smallholders. Particularly promising for reducing rural poverty are also
policies that promote rural non-farm activities, but this should not be done at the expense of policies
promoting agricultural development (Lpez and Valds, 2000). With the right mix of policies, farm and
non-farm activities should reinforce each other by developing their linkages (Reardon et al., 2001).
Only by such an assault on various fronts will it be possible to alleviate rural poverty signicantly. Latin
Americas poverty is directly related to the unresolved agrarian question. Governments can no longer
afford to neglect the rural poor.
State, market and civil organizations: what future for the peasantry?
Neither the state-driven ISI development strategy (1950s to 1970s) nor the neoliberal market-driven
policies since the 1980s have been able to resolve the peasant question. Rural poverty, inequality and
exclusionary rural development still persist. It was only during the brief land reform interlude that
sections of the peasantry began to emerge from their marginalized situation only to see their hopes
for a better future vanish with the counter-reform and neoliberal project. However, these past
upheavals have created new opportunities as well as constraints. Calls for new thinking for new
policies for rural development practices are multiplying. Such voices are seeking to nd new ways of
combining state action with market forces and civil organizations so as to make a fresh attempt to
resolve the agrarian question (de Janvry et al., 1995). More radical voices seek to create a new rurality
which puts at the centre of rural development the peasantry and the rural proletariat (Giarracca,
2001; Prez and Farah, 2001; Barkin, 2002).
What, then, are the prospects for a peasant path to rural development? It is well known that access
to capital, technology, and domestic and foreign markets, as well as knowledge and information
systems, are becoming increasingly important relative to access to land in determining the success of
an agricultural enterprise. Even though in recent decades some peasants managed to gain access to
land through agrarian reforms, this by no means secures their future survival. The widening
technological gap between the capitalist and peasant farm sectors have prompted those involved with
the peasants well-being to urge international agencies, governments and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) to create more peasant-friendly, appropriate and sustainable technologies.
Such a policy, however, runs the danger of relying exclusively on a technological x, while the
sustainability of peasant agriculture depends on wider social and political issues and particularly a
favourable macro-economic context. In short, a viable peasant road to rural development raises
questions about development strategy and ultimately about the political power of the peasantry.
In the 1990s, concerned scholars and institutions have become increasingly vociferous in pointing
out the adverse impact of Latin Americas neoliberal agricultural modernization on the peasantry. As
opposed to the concentrating and exclusionary character of this process, they call for a strategy that
242

Reconversion and non-traditional agricultural exports (NTAEs)


The key to the development of peasant farmers and their transition to capitalized peasant farms,
especially in these days of privatization, liberalization and globalization is to enhance their market
competitiveness. For this purpose some governments in Latin America are beginning to design policies
for the reconversion of peasant farming. In a broad sense, reconversion aims at enabling and
improving peasant agricultures ability to adapt to its increasing exposure to global competition and to
enter into the more dynamic world market. This is to be achieved through a series of specic peasant
programmes with the aim of raising productivity, enhancing efciency and shifting traditional
production and land-use patterns to new and more protable products thereby increasing the
peasants competitiveness (Figure 12.4) (Kay, 2002b).
Governments and NGOs concerned with promoting the development of peasant farmers
proposed a series of measures to facilitate their participation in the lucrative agricultural export
boom. It was almost exclusively capitalist farmers who initially reaped the benets of the thriving
NTAE business as they had the resources to respond relatively quickly to the new outward-looking

Figure 12.4 Inside a smallholders greenhouse, Peumo, Chile, 1996. Smallholders in Chile are becoming more
specialized and technical: here carnations are grown for national markets but only family labour is used.The
smallholder benefits from being a member of a local cooperative both for technical and marketing assistance.
Photograph by C. Kay
243

Rural livelihoods and peasant futures

includes the peasantry in the modernization process (Murmis, 1994). This would be part of the
democratization of rural society and some authors speak of democratic modernization to highlight
this link (Chiriboga, 1992). Currently, suggestions are being made with a view to changing production
patterns with social equity in Latin America and for the productive reconversion of agricultural
producers so as to meet the challenges of an increasingly global world economy in the new
millennium (ECLAC, 1990). To forward these aims, special government policies in favour of the
peasantry are proposed to reverse the past bias in favour of landlords and rural capitalists. The
achievement of broad-based growth requires proactive state policies so as to overcome market
failures and biases against the peasantry.

Latin America Transformed

development strategy of the neoliberal trade and macro-economic policy reforms. In view of the
dynamism of NTAE sector, it was thought that a shift in the production pattern of peasant farmers to
these products would spread the benets of NTAE growth more widely and ensure their survival.
However, experience has been rather mixed.
To analyse the impact of NTAE growth on smallholders and rural labourers, Carter et al. (1996:
378) argue that this depends on three factors:
1 whether small-scale units participate directly in producing the export crop and enjoy the higher
incomes generated from it (the small-farm adoption effect);
2 whether the export crop induces a pattern of structural change that systematically improves or
worsens the access of the rural poor to land (the land access effect);
3 whether agricultural exports absorb more or less of the labour of landless and part-time farming
households (the labour-absorption effect).
They examine the cases of agro-export growth in Paraguay (based on soybeans and wheat), in Chile
(based on fruit), and in Guatemala (based on vegetables). Their ndings reveal that only in the case of
Guatemala was there a broadly based growth as both the land access and net employment effects
were positive, while the opposite happened in Paraguay, resulting in exclusionary growth. The Chilean
case had elements of both as the net employment effect was positive but the land access effect was
negative.Thus, in Chile, the fruit-export boom has been partly exclusionary, as many parcelero peasant
farmers have sold part or all of their land as they were squeezed by the export boom (Murray, 1999),
and partly inclusive, as the shift from traditional crops to fruit-growing increased labour demand
(Schurman, 2001).
Even if a larger proportion of peasant farmers were to adopt the new export crops, it is far from
certain that this would ensure their survival. Thus, the much-fancied NTAE rural development policy
of many Latin American governments cannot be considered as a panacea, especially if no
complementary measures are taken to create level playing elds (Carter and Barham, 1996). The
Chilean experience is illustrative in this regard (see Chapter 6). First, there has been a low adoption
rate of NTAEs by small-scale farmers due to nancial, technical, risk, and other factors. Second, even
those who did switch to NTAEs were far more likely to fail as compared to capitalist farmers, as they
were less able to withstand competitive pressures due to their disadvantaged position in marketing,
credit, technology, and other markets. As a consequence of rising debts, many are forced to sell their
land often to larger farmers or transnational fruit companies (Murray, 2002c). Such an on-going
process of land concentration is also happening in other Latin American areas in which NTAEs are
taking hold.
Food import substitution (FIS), diversication and sustainable development
An almost forgotten alternative or additional possibility to NTAEs for peasant farmers is to enhance
their comparative advantage in staple food production and potentially in some import-competing
commodities. This can be achieved through a programme of food import substitution (FIS) as
suggested by de Janvry (1994). More radical proposals call for the redevelopment of the peasant
economy through an autonomous development strategy that is seen as the key for sustainable
development in rural areas (Barkin, 2002). For an autonomous development strategy to succeed,
major supportive policies by the state are required, such as specically targeted protectionist
measures to counteract the distortions in the world food market arising from subsidies to farmers in
developed countries (Valds, 2002).
Import-substitution in staple foods has the advantage of not only saving valuable foreign exchange
but of enhancing food security, employment, and possibly a more equitable income distribution,
especially if it is peasant farmers who undertake this FIS (Teubal and Rodrguez, 2002). The expansion
of peasant food output has also the advantage of being more ecologically friendly as they use less
chemical inputs as compared to capitalist farmers and also relative to NTAEs. Instead of viewing
244

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)


A new relationship has to develop between the state and civil society. The state should devolve some
of its powers, initiatives, nancial resources and activities to local governments and civil organizations
such as NGOs, producer and consumer organizations, trade unions, women and ecological
associations and political parties. These should play an increasing role in policy formulation and
implementation. NGOs are known to be particularly able to establish close working relationships with
grass-roots organizations and their constituency. Such increased participation of individuals and civil
organizations in economic, social and political affairs is likely to strengthen the democratic processes.
By creating a more participatory framework, it might be possible to establish mechanisms for
regulating and governing the market for the benet of the majority in society.
In some instances, governments in Latin America have already began to subcontract certain
activities, such as technical assistance for peasant farmers to NGOs, as well as giving greater powers
and resources to local administrative agencies (see Chapters 9 and 10). It is too early yet to assess the
signicance and impact of such initiatives. However, NGOs face a dilemma when they come to depend
too closely on government resources and appear to be implementing government policy, especially if
this of a neoliberal kind. They might lose grassroots support and thus their legitimacy (Bretn 2002).
But if NGOs are in turn able to inuence government policy by making it more sensitive and friendly
towards peasant, gender, indigenous and ecological issues, then this closer relationship is only to be
welcomed. Generally, NGOs have limited resources and this constrains the coverage of their activities
to a limited number of beneciaries (North and Cameron, 2003). In those countries where the state
has been drastically downsized, NGOs have often been used as a palliative to overcome the
abdication of social responsibility by the state. Thus, the closer links between state and NGOs can be
a mixed blessing (Bebbington and Thiele, 1993).
The key agrarian question: assets and power
The increasing competitive gap between peasant and capitalist farming due to agricultures unequal
modernization limits the survival of the peasant producers and perpetuates rural poverty. The
neoliberal slogan of getting prices right is certainly not a panacea for rural development (Binswanger
et al., 1995). A major step in tackling the agrarian question requires a redistribution of assets as well as
the empowerment of peasants and rural workers. Although agrarian reforms are no longer on the
political agenda, except in Brazil, the problem of land concentration and landlessness remains. Land
policy reforms are far from dead as a broadly based and sustainable development strategy requires a
fairer distribution of land assets.
However, access to nance and knowledge are increasingly important assets in todays globalized
world. This calls for government policies that facilitate peasant access to these other two crucial assets
through market reforms, human resource development, and special credit and technical assistance
programmes. NGOs and the private sector can implement some of these projects. Governments have
to give greater priority to rural diversication, education and infrastructure that are targeted
particularly at smallholder communities.
245

Rural livelihoods and peasant futures

NTAEs and food production as being in conict or as alternatives, they can be seen as complementary.
In Schejtmans (1994) view, it is possible to envisage a positive correlation as those peasants who are
able to go into lucrative agro-export production can use their increased incomes, knowledge and
market experience derived from NTAEs to invest in raising productivity of their traditional food crops.
Similarly, the search by peasant farm households for incomes derived from non-agricultural activities
can, under certain circumstances, enhance the productive capacity of the farms agricultural activities.
However, if such a search for additional incomes arises out of distress (where the peasant household
is ghting for its survival), it is unlikely that such a positive interaction between farm and non-farm
activities can be achieved. In such a case, the peasant household might remain in a state of semiproletarianization or become fully proletarianized landless labourers relying on wage labour.

Latin America Transformed

Such policy reforms have little chance of succeeding unless peasants and rural workers develop their
own organizations such as producer and community associations, cooperatives and trade unions. It is
only through the creation of a counter-vailing power by peasants and rural workers that they will be
able to shape the future to their advantage rather than having to continually accept the disadvantages
of the past and present. While undoubtedly the state, political parties and NGOs can provide the
necessary supportive role; the development of such organizations depends on the determination of
peasants and workers themselves. Whether or not these proposals will be adopted is an open question,
but there are grounds for some optimism as new indigenous, ecological and peasant movements have
emerged which are contesting neoliberal policies. This will be discussed in the next section.

THE NEW PEASANT MOVEMENT: INDIGENOUS AND


ENVIRONMENTAL DIMENSIONS
The neoliberal project has certainly not gone unchallenged by peasants in most of Latin America. One
of the most signicant events which symbolizes the new character of the peasant movement has been
the 1994 rebellion in Chiapas, the most southern and indigenous region of Mexico (Burbach, 1994).
The uprising was led by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and was fuelled by a variety
of factors (Harvey, 1994). Some of the major causes were the exclusionary impact of Mexicos
agricultural modernization, the governments repeal of the land reform legislation in 1992 and the
desire of the insurgents for greater control over their livelihoods and for a certain degree of autonomy
(Collier, 2000; Rus et al., 2001; Stavenhagen, 2003). Also fears that Mexicos neoliberal integration into
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would marginalize them further inuenced
events (de Janvry et al., 1997). Mexicos peasant farmers cannot compete with the large-scale
mechanized maize and cereal farmers from North America unless special protective and
developmental measures are adopted in their favour (Barkin, 1994; Collier, 1999).
Since the neoliberal free-market onslaught in the 1980s the peasantry has re-emerged as a
signicant force for social change not only in Mexico but also in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Ecuador, El Salvador and Paraguay, among other Latin American countries. The peasantry is striking
back and it would be a serious mistake to dismiss these new peasant and indigenous movements in
Latin America as the last gasp of rebellion (Petras, 1997;Veltmeyer et al., 1997).These new movements
are shaping new class and ethnic identities in which the protagonists are afrming their own history
and capacity to make history. The condent assertions, from opposite political spectrums, on the end
of history (Fukuyama, 1992) and the death of the peasantry (Hobsbawm, 1994: 289) are proving to
be premature (Edelman, 1999).
In Brazil, the principal protagonist in the countryside has been the MST, which is the largest peasant
movement in Latin America with a membership of more than 500,000 peasant families (Robles, 2001:
147). It has spearheaded over 1,500 land invasions of large estates demanding their expropriation
(Meszaros, 2000). Some 350,000 families were involved in these mobilizations under the leadership of
about 20,000 MST activists (Stedile, 2002: 85). The land occupations come as no surprise as inequality
is particularly acute in Brazil where only 4 per cent of farm owners control 79 per cent of the
countrys arable land (Veltmeyer et al., 1997: 181). Through direct actions, which also involve blocking
highways and sit-ins at local ofces of the states agrarian reform institute (INCRA), the MST has
managed to force the governments pace on expropriations. The MST has been instrumental in
establishing over 1,300 rural land-reform settlements, largely organized as cooperatives, throughout
Brazil since its foundation in 1984 (Navarro, 2000: 37). An estimated 350,000 families have been
settled on these cooperative farms and more than 100,000 additional families not in the MST have
received land from the government as part of the land reform programme that arguably would not
exist without the MST (Wright, 2003: 1).
The MST has greatly contributed to the democratization of rural life, especially in the settlement
areas. In this struggle there have been many casualties as fazendeiros (landlords) and their hired
246

247

Rural livelihoods and peasant futures

gunmen took the law into their own hands, generally with impunity. Many peasants also died or were
wounded in clashes with the military police. By 2000, over 1600 persons had been killed in land
conicts since 1984 but only about 250 of these were MST members (Cadji, 2000: 30; Branford and
Rocha, 2002: 251). Nevertheless, as land settlements have increased, murders in the countryside have
declined sharply (Margolis, 2002: 26). To what extent the left-of-centre government of President Luis
Incio Lula da Silva, which took ofce in 2003, will be able to give a new impetus to land reform
remains to be seen.
In the past couple of decades there has been a resurgence of Indian ethnic identity movements
which has revitalized and changed the character of social movements in the countryside (see Chapter
10). The new strength of indigenous movements is reshaping statesociety relations and enhancing
indigenous rights, cultural diversity, decentralization and democracy (Assies et al. 2001; Bengoa, 2000;
Korovkin, 2001; Sieder, 2002; Wilson et al., 2003).
Ethnic and environmental issues have become also increasingly important political concerns as the
fate of the tropical rainforest and the fate of the indigenous peoples have become more intertwined.
Environmental movements have become struggles for social justice as native groups were being
displaced and their livelihoods threatened through the actions of companies exploiting the natural
resources through logging, mining, oil extraction, building of dams and deforestation for pastureland
and cattle raising. The ensuing conicts between these companies, cattle ranchers and the local
population, which often led to casualties, activated human rights groups in defence of the victims. This
coalition of indigenous, peasant, environmental and human rights organizations became one of the
major forces in the ght for social justice (Kaimovitz, 1996).
In the case of Chiapas, with its large Mayan population, the linkage of the indigenous question to
environmental concerns also gave the uprising wider support and strength. In Brazil, the building of the
Transamazon Highway in the 1970s led to large-scale deforestation and expansion of pastureland as
big capital was lured by tax rebates, subsidies and cheap credit to Amazonia. This led to a major
migration of settlers, largely from impoverished north-eastern Brazil, to the tropical forest areas that
contributed to the environmental deterioration. This expansion of grazing and mining encroached on
lands used by indigenous groups and rubber tappers in what Dore (1995: 262) has called the most
extensive enclosure movement in history. This sparked off the rubber tappers movement as well as
the actions of indigenous groups in defence of their livelihoods, which brought the Amazon
environmental issue to world attention. The assassination in 1988 of Chico Mendes, the leader of the
Amazon rubber tappers movement, provoked an international outcry. His murder led to strong
national and international pressure that prompted the government into action by acceding to some
of the rubber tappers demands with the establishment of extractive reserves and other productive
conservation schemes (Hall, 1997). These projects attempted to reconcile the conservation of the
forest with its sustainable use in supporting local livelihoods (Hall, 1996).
In Ecuador, major social mobilization took place in the 1990s and was organized by the
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE). During an entire week in 1990, tens
of thousands of Indian peasants blocked highways, organized marches in various capitals and seized
government ofces (Zamosc, 1994). Their protest was brought about by the economic recession
resulting from the structural adjustment package. In a second major mobilization in 1994 the protest
was directed specically against the introduction of neoliberal policies, especially the new so-called
Agrarian Development Law.This law threatened the communal lands of indigenous groups, facilitating
their privatization and ultimately favouring their transfer to capitalist farmers through the market
mechanism. Thousands of indigenous communities, representing all of the countrys ethnic
nationalities, small farmers, trade unions, and popular organizations joined this protest and
international environmental and human rights organizations offered their support (Picari, 1996).
Ecuadors indigenous movement took centre stage in January 2000 when a thousand protestors,
mostly indigenous people from the highlands, under the leadership of CONAIE occupied the National
Congress building demanding a change of government and policy (Collins, 2000). Although the

Latin America Transformed

occupation lasted only one day, it, together with subsequent uprisings, paved the way for the election
of Army Colonel Lucio Gutirrez, who had been one of the key gures in the protest movements, as
President in 2002. Although Gutirrezs government might not be able to satisfy all the demands of
the indigenous people, it is the most pro-indigenous government yet in Ecuadors history.
In Bolivia, an historic march for dignity and territory took place in 1990. Hundreds of people from
lowland indigenous groups trekked from the Amazon rainforest through the snow-capped Andes on
route to the capital city to protest about logging on indigenous lands and to demand legal rights to
these lands (Alb, 1996: 15). They framed their demands not just in terms of rights to resources but
also in terms of indigenous rights, thereby broadening its support from civil society.This historic march
and subsequent mobilizations resulted in reforms of the Constitution in 1995 declaring Bolivia to be
a multiethnic state. It also led to the enactment of a series of new laws such as: the Law of Popular
Participation (1994), which gives legal recognition to community associations and facilitates
administrative decentralization; the Forestry Law (1996), which allows indigenous groups to log
commercially on collectively held land; and the Agrarian Reform Law (1996), which enhances the
territorial rights of indigenous peoples (Roper, 2003).
This new peasant movement in Latin America differs from past social movements in the countryside
for various reasons and the following four can be highlighted:
1 Ethnic groups have a far greater presence than in the past. There is also a greater degree of ethnic
consciousness and, in some cases, even demands for national autonomy, expressed in selfgovernment and territorial sovereignty (Ross, 1997b: 35). While governments have not yielded to
the claim for national autonomy, countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil have changed
their respective Constitutions recognizing the multi-ethnic character of the nation and including
provisions which recognize the linguistic, cultural, social and territorial rights of the various
indigenous groups.
2 Owing to the social transformation of the peasantry the movement has acquired a more urbane
and international dimension. This has been helped by the more uid relationships between urban
and rural sectors, the greater mobility of rural populations, the improvements in rural education
and the more pervasive inuence of the media. Leaders have become more adept at promoting
the movements objectives by making skilful use of the media and internet thereby reaching a
wider audience both nationally and internationally. To the globalization from above they have
been able to generate a globalization from below, bypassing national governments and creating
international pressure on them as well as on other international organizations by appealing to the
foreign constituency (Kearney and Varese, 1995).
3 The peasant movement has achieved a greater degree of autonomy from political parties and the
government. While this is partly a result of the greater maturity achieved by the movement
through past struggles, it has also been made possible by the political vacuum resulting from the
crisis of the left-wing parties. The world crisis of socialism could not fail to weaken socialist
organizations and often led to left-wing parties adopting elements of the neoliberal agenda. The
weakening of the landlords former dominance over the peasantry in countries with radical agrarian
reforms has also opened up new political spaces for the peasantry as well as new social actors.
4 Peasant movements have developed a variety of links with NGOs that have made important
contributions in creating and strengthening grassroots organizations in the countryside.
International NGOs have also provided a useful vehicle for raising world-wide support for the
new movements causes, especially if these concern ecological, gender, social justice and human
rights issues. Women have also achieved a far greater presence in these new peasant movements,
although still less than their relative importance would warrant. Women have gured especially
prominently in some of the indigenous and human rights movements.
This new character of the social movement in the countryside does not mean that traditional
concerns have vanished with the transformation of the peasant movement. Thus, demands for better
248

CONCLUSION
Latin Americas rural economy and society have been transformed in recent decades as a
consequence of neoliberal reforms and globalization. Latin Americas agriculture is now further
enmeshed with the new world-food regime. Transnational agribusiness has further consolidated its
dominance. This form of modernization has beneted only a minority of the rural population and
excluded the vast majority of the peasantry. The beneciaries are a heterogeneous group, including
agro-industrial rms, capitalist farmers, and some capitalized peasant households. The losers are the
semi- and fully proletarianized peasantry, the majority of rural labourers whose employment
conditions have become temporary, precarious and exible.
The boundaries between rural and urban have become ambiguous.The massive rural out-migration
has partly ruralized the urban areas (especially the shantytowns), and the countryside is becoming
increasingly urbanized. Urban and rural labour markets have become more closely interlinked. The
land market has become more open and competitive enabling urban investors and international
capital to gain greater access to agricultural land. Competition among agricultural producers has
intensied due to a more uid situation in the commodity, land, capital and labour markets.
While the rural economy is less important today than in the past, it still retains critical signicance
in most Latin American countries. To ignore the agrarian question of unequal access to land, rural
poverty, and exclusionary modernization, is ill advised. Rural poverty remains widespread, and
discrimination against the peasantry and indigenous communities is still pervasive. The continuing
promotion of agricultural, forestry and shery exports further depletes natural resources contributing
to ecological deterioration.
Although the shift from a state-centred inward-directed development process to a neoliberal
market-oriented and export-oriented model has weakened the power of traditional peasant
organizations through the fragmentation of rural labour, new social conicts have erupted in the
countryside. A new peasant and indigenous movement has emerged in the countryside which is
contesting the neoliberal globalization policies. Thus, it will be politically difcult for governments to
continue to impose the neoliberal model regardless of the consequences for rural people. A radical
shift to a post-liberal development strategy is required. This change has to be shaped by the creative
249

Rural livelihoods and peasant futures

wages and working conditions, land, improved prices for peasant products and greater and cheaper
access to credit and technical assistance continue to be made. But new organizational forms and ways
of mobilization have emerged. Also new issues have arisen, such as the environment, and some issues
have become either less prominent or have acquired a different meaning. The land question has
acquired a new connotation with the conicting territorial claims made by capitalists, small settlers and
indigenous groups as well as by the new ecological concerns.
The new peasant and indigenous movements are not struggling for a mythical past and utopia. They
do, however, reject contemporary modernity with its current neoliberal and globalization processes as
this is exclusionary and often threatens their survival, whether physically, socially or culturally (Edelman,
1999; Wise et al., 2003). Such modernity is regarded as reckless, hypocritical and bigoted (Zamosc,
1994). Instead they are struggling for a different modernity which rests on their own emancipatory
project that includes greater control over their lives, more security and a better standard of living
(Petras and Veltmeyer, 2001b). Thus, the challenge for the new movements is to use the current
processes of modernization for their own interests and, where possible, to develop their own
alternatives. Peasants have to increase their ability to master their own environment as well as to
participate on more favourable terms in the global environment (Bebbington, 1996). This requires
weaving new alliances and strengthening old alliances with other social groups as well as reshaping
relations with the state, which still principally serves the interests of capitalists and is still a major actor
despite neoliberal globalization (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2002). The agrarian question has yet to be
resolved in Latin America (Brass, 2003).

Latin America Transformed

interaction between civil society and an activist but democratic state, in which the new peasant and
indigenous movement must have a crucial role so as to ensure that market forces are harnessed for a
participatory, inclusive and egalitarian development process.

FURTHER READING
Bebbington, A. and Thiele, G. 1993 Non-governmental organizations and the state in Latin
America: rethinking roles in sustainable agricultural development. Routledge, London and New York. A
sympathetic, yet critical analysis, of NGOs active in the rural sector in Latin America.
Brass, T. (ed.) 2003 Latin American peasants. Frank Cass, London. The most up-to-date analysis
currently available on the impact of globalization and neoliberalism on the Latin American peasantry
and their struggles.
Deere, C. D. and Len, M. (eds) 2001 Empowering women: land and property rights in Latin
America. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA. A pioneering and comprehensive study on
gender and land issues in rural Latin America.
de Janvry, A. 1981 The agrarian question and reformism in Latin America. The Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, MD. Although written a quarter of a century ago this is still a classic text
on Latin American agrarian development.
Giarracca, N. (ed.) 2001 Una nueva ruralidad en Amrica Latina? Consejo Latinoamericano de
Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO), Buenos Aires. Top Latin American rural specialists examine Latin
Americas rural transformations in the neoliberal period and discuss whether they can be
characterized as a new rurality.

WEBSITES
Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, www.clacso.org/wwwclacso/espanol/
html/publicaciones/catalogo.html, for downloading the text by Giarracca mentioned above and
other useful publications.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, www.fao.org/regional/
LAmerica, the regional ofce for Latin America and the Caribbean. It has many documents on rural
development, food security, natural resources and agricultural trade and is a rich source for statistical
data. From the website of the FAOs sustainable development unit www.fao.org/sd/ it is possible to
download the articles published in the journal Land Reform, Land Settlements and Cooperatives
(www.fao.org/sd/Ltdirect/landrf.htm).
Inter-American Development Bank, www.iadb.org/sds, website of the Sustainable
Development Department has a link to the Environment and Natural Resources Unit which has
information on agriculture, rural development, the environment, forestry, water and so on.
Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, www.iica.int, has much
information on Latin Americas agriculture.
LANIC, http://info.lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/indigenous, this website specializes in indigenous
peoples in Latin America. The LANIC website in general has useful search facilities for rural
development issues.
World Bank, www.worldbank.org/landpolicy, this particular site has many documents on land
policy issues.

250

4
LATIN AMERICAN FUTURES

This page intentionally left blank

13
The alternatives to neoliberalism
Robert N. Gwynne, Cristbal Kay

The neoliberal policies introduced throughout most of Latin America in the past two decades opened
a new development era which could be referred to as the globalization phase succeeding the earlier
import-substitution phase. There is nothing inevitable about this phase, as it is the outcome of
powerful struggles between different social forces in the world system, in general, and within Latin
America, in particular. This globalization reveals the defeat of the socialist project and the triumph of
capitalism in Latin America, which had been challenged in a variety of ways by the Cuban revolution
of 1959, Allendes Chilean road to socialism in the early 1970s and by the Sandinista revolution in the
1980s. While Chiles and Nicaraguas attempts at socialist transformation failed, Cubas is barely
surviving and no longer inspires those forces seeking a progressive alternative to the neoliberal
project. While neoliberalism can point to some successes, especially in its ability to become the
dominant ideological force among economic policy-makers, it has so far been unable to resolve Latin
Americas endemic problems of vulnerability to external forces, social exclusion and poverty and has
even aggravated them. This chapter rst intends to evaluate the current political economy of Latin
America, including how individuals and groups are contesting elements in terms of their livelihood
strategies. Finally, it will discuss the possibilities for political economy alternatives for the twenty-rst
century.

THE NEOLIBERAL MODEL EVALUATED


Macro-economic reform
The neoliberal model has maintained a certain inuence largely due to the macro-economic stability
that it has provided. Most Latin American countries are now characterized by single digit ination. Only
those countries that have avoided adopting the neoliberal model (such as Venezuela) are still dogged
by high ination. In addition, the technocracies of most Latin American governments have organized
some incentives for entrepreneurship. As a result, there has been a growth in the signicance of the
private sector and not only large but also medium-sized enterprises
The outward-oriented model achieved growth in direct foreign investment in most countries, at
least until the peak years of 1999 and 2000. Through the decade of the 1990s there was a new
impetus for exports, although these were largely based on primary resources and their processing
rather than based on manufacturing exports (Figure 13.1). Manufacturing exports have only grown
substantially in Mexico and Brazil.
The model still suffers from low savings rates; this problem has been a factor in explaining the
various nancial crises over the last decade. In terms of the public sector, the tax base is relatively low
and tax evasion high. As regards the private sector, sweeping reform to private pension funds has been
associated with a signicant rise in the savings rate in Chile (Barrientos, 1996). Other countries have
not followed the example and the Chilean pension funds have suffered heavily from declining stock
values since the mid-1990s. High interest rates on their own do not seem to have changed savings
habits in most of Latin America. Indeed, greater access to credit in the wake of nancial liberalization
has appeared to fuel consumerism and high indebtedness (Sklair, 1994). As a result, Latin American
253

Latin America Transformed

(a)

(b)
Figure 13.1 The results of foreign direct investment in Chilean agriculture. Italian investment (through Masterplant)
has created this highly mechanized nursery between Curico and Talca in the Central Valley.Trays of seeds are
prepared mechanically (see Figure 13.1a), spend five days in very humid conditions and then are carefully prepared
for market (in this case for large numbers of Chilean tomato farmers) in state-of-the-art greenhouses where growing
conditions are rigorously controlled (Figure 13.1b). Photographs by Robert N. Gwynne
254

Labour markets transformed


The neoliberal model argued that stability would produce rapid growth in production and employment.
Contrary to these predictions, the generation of employment has fallen short of expectations. Labour
has suffered much more heavily than holders of capital during economic restructuring.
The adoption of an outward-oriented economic policy was normally associated with large increases
in unemployment in key industrial sectors. The privatization of state rms was also characterized by a
signicant loss of labour. Growth in export-oriented sectors took much longer to generate adequate
employment opportunities. This created the need to radically restructure labour markets in order to
lower wage costs, to have a more exible hiring and ring system for employers and to lower
employers non-wage costs (as in employers insurance contributions). Employers were further able to
reduce costs by adopting short-term contracts and by subcontracting more of their supply of parts
and services (Thomas, 1996). This increased the importance of informal arrangements in productive
activities as discussed particularly in Chapter 11.
The state has also tried to reduce the power of trade unions in order to reduce worker protection
and lower labour costs (as in Chile and Peru). Increased employment of female labour (particularly in
areas of agricultural exports and assembly industries) has been another feature (see Chapters 11 and
12). Labour has increasingly suffered reduced bargaining power with the acquiescence or indeed active
support of the state. These processes have often been perceived as the necessary prerequisites to
produce a more exible labour market and to create more competitive labour conditions for
employers in the international market place. Overall, labour has become more vulnerable and
insecure due to the growth of short-term contracts, the shift to more competitive labour markets and
the decline of social security. Unless workers are skilled and/or possess a marketable knowledge, they
are destined for either low wages or even worse underemployment and periods of unemployment.
Social impacts of reform
The transformations of labour markets introduce the wider theme that neoliberal reform has been
associated with negative effects in such social areas as income distribution and poverty.These negative
effects can be seen in the impact of neoliberal reforms in at least ve areas of the labour market
(Bulmer-Thomas, 1996b):
1 Unemployment rate: trade liberalization, scal and labour market reform have combined to
substantially increase unemployment during the economic crisis and the process of economic
restructuring. Those companies unable to compete with foreign rms in the domestic market lay
off workers, governments drastically reduce the numbers of civil servants and short-term
contracts make temporary unemployment more common.
255

The alternatives to neoliberalism

economies still depend heavily on external nance, either in the form of private capital ows or
foreign investment.
By making Latin American economies more closely integrated into the global economy, the
neoliberal model has also made them more dependent on, and hence vulnerable to, global economic
shifts. As with the structuralist arguments of the 1950s, Latin American economies are still concerned
about the wide uctuations in world prices for primary commodities. With the volume of resource
exports growing rapidly since the end of the twentieth century, particularly in small countries, their
potential vulnerability is being accentuated.
Furthermore, although neoliberal economic policies have provided reasonable rates of economic
growth once they have become rmly established, this has been associated with increasing inequality.
Within the framework of market-oriented economics, benets have been concentrated within the
more successful entrepreneurs and executives of the private sector. Entrepreneurs specializing in
exports and nance and large national companies that have been able to successfully restructure have
been some of the main beneciaries of the reforms.

Latin America Transformed

2 Real minimum wage: labour market and scal reforms have normally operated to reduce the
minimum wage in real terms both to save government spending on social provision and to
maximize employment during economic restructuring. Although the real minimum wage declines
during the economic crisis, it can subsequently increase once economic growth becomes more
sustained (as in Chile since the late 1980s).
3 Real wages: trade liberalization, scal and labour market reform have all tended to exert
downward pressure on real wages as companies face more competition from overseas rms, as
governments increase wages and salaries at lower rates than ination and as greater exibility
enters the labour market. Again, a distinct sequencing can be found with real wages declining
during the rst phase of economic restructuring but with slight increases occurring once the
labour market subsequently tightens.
4 Wealth effects: the impact of scal reform, the liberalization of trade and domestic capital markets
and increased inow of foreign capital has been to substantially increase the wealth of the top
two deciles of income earners the capitalist class in general and entrepreneurs in particular.
5 The urban informal sector. This corresponds to that part of the urban economy that is small-scale,
avoids regulation and covers a wide variety of activities (see Chapter 11). During the phase of
economic restructuring, the informal sector tends to expand as more enterprises wish to enter
the unregulated sector (Figure 13.2). However, subsequently, it can decline as it becomes easier
for small-scale enterprises to comply with the more limited regulations required of a deregulated
formal sector. It has been argued (de Soto, 1989) that the urban market does offer opportunities
for many (as in petty commerce). However, as Thomas (1996) and Roberts (1995) point out,
these are basically survival strategies and enterprises will normally remain with low levels of
capital accumulation and therefore income. Increased subcontracting from larger rms to smallscale informal enterprises would be one example of such trickle-down mechanisms operating.
Thus, the social impacts of neoliberal reform are both considerable and substantial, although it is
important to indicate a certain sequencing normally a period of drastic change (increased
unemployment, declining wages) followed once economic growth picks up by a period of gradual
improvement. Does this period of gradual improvement reduce inequalities as well? It is difcult to

Figure 13.2 The informal sector in action. Selling coca leaves on the street for local consumption in Cuzco.
Weighing, packaging and retailing functions combined. Photograph by Laura Maynard
256

Poverty and the changing social provision of the state


One of the strongest criticisms against the neoliberal model has been its inability to tackle poverty
(Figure 13.3). Indeed, there has normally been a substantial increase in poverty as structural
adjustment policies (the shock treatment) have been enforced. After the debt crisis of the 1980s, there
was discussion of a social debt, societys debt to the poor and underemployed (between 30 and 50
per cent of the population of most countries). There was the idea that this debt had to be paid
alongside that of the foreign debt. However, whereas many countries have arranged the latter debt,
the social debt continues. The poor are characterized by poor health and high infant mortality rates.
When epidemics break out, as with cholera in Peru in the 1980s, it is the poor with their low levels of
sanitary infrastructure that most suffer. The social debt remains high and even the Inter-American

Figure 13.3 Elderly beggars, Quinch, Ecuador. Photograph by Sylvia Chant


257

The alternatives to neoliberalism

judge at present. In the longest historical surveys of the relationship between neoliberal reform and
inequality (Altimir, 1994; Scott, 1996), there is a tendency for improvement after the crisis of economic
restructuring during which income distribution becomes considerably worse. Even so, it is the upper
two deciles that have performed consistently well during economic reform, due to the great
advantages enjoyed by those owning capital and earning high salaries due to business skills.The middle
four deciles tend to be relatively static or even declining, while the lower four deciles remain with low
and declining percentage proportions of national income. In short, given the limited evidence available
all that can be concluded at present is that the neoliberal reforms have not signicantly changed the
high levels of income inequality and may well have aggravated it. This is particularly the case in those
countries that have failed to implement major social expenditure programmes as these have shown
to have a positive impact on income distribution (Stallings and Peres, 2000: 12952).
In states that have shifted from authoritarian to democratic governance, there is greater evidence
of integrating social policies into neoliberal reform packages with the objective of achieving greater
social equity or neoliberalism with a human face as it has been called. The democratic transition in
Chile after 1990 saw a signicant shift in social priorities, as tax increases were directed to pay for
greater spending on social welfare, education and health. However, there seems to be less
commitment to social policies in other countries experiencing neoliberal reform.

Latin America Transformed

Development Bank (DB, 1996) emphasized the need to rebuild the continents social infrastructure
and social services.
In general, the state has tried to reduce its long-term commitment to social provision and to create
more market-driven forms of social support. Notable here is the case of pension reform in which the
private sector takes control of workers contributions, the investment of those contributions and the
delivery of social and pension benets (Barrientos, 1998). This reduces the scal burden and shifts
resources from the state to the private sector, giving greater opportunities for the private sector to
invest. The private sector has also been encouraged to invest in the health and education sectors.
However, this has normally been associated with two-tier systems of social welfare with only the
upper and wealthier middle classes able to afford the high costs of private schools and health
provision. The poorer majority is left to fend for itself within an under-funded and low-quality public
service. With the reduction of social welfare provision from the state, there is an increased role for
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in helping with skills and livelihoods for the poor both in
rural and urban areas. However, overall, inequality of access to social welfare has become a
characteristic of the new economic model.
Are there contradictions to the neoliberal model?
The operation of neoliberal reforms can be seen as a contradictory process. It is achieving economic
growth in certain countries but with increasing income inequality, more exclusion and less social
protection. This is taking place within a Latin American continent that has shifted to democratic
frameworks. However, as Gills and Rocamora (1992) argue, in the transition from authoritarian to
democratic regimes in Latin America institutions have failed to broaden popular political participation
in a meaningful way. In these elite democracies, social reform agendas that could have established the
basis for broader popular participation and greater social equity have been abandoned (Veltmeyer and
OMalley, 2001). Indeed, Green (1995: 164) argues that the application of the new economic model
has ripped the heart out of democratization, turning what could have been a owering of political and
social participation into a brand of low-intensity democracy.
Many question how the economic model can be orchestrated within democracies in which large
numbers of the electorate are not enjoying the benets of economic growth. Is democracy sustainable
under such conditions? Or does the continuation of the economic model rely on technocratic
governments? Does the model rely on the necessity for economic growth and the increasing
integration within global consumerism? Has neoliberalism become responsive to local needs?
Some neoliberal policies have tried to become closer to local needs by decentralising powers and
functions from the central state. Reforms to local government (Nickson, 1995) have tried to provide
services more responsive to local needs and with clearer local targeting. These reforms have
attempted to increase efciency while legitimating the reduced state at the local level. NGOs have in
the past helped in this process. However, NGOs have tended to be captured by the state during the
democratic transition. Although there are some positive factors in this (qualied personnel moving
into democratic local government), there are also substantial negative factors. These include: much
reduced budgets and staff; lack of alternative perspectives; losing a certain degree of autonomy due to
reliance on public funding (as opposed to international organizations); being not that closely linked to
local needs.
However, the realities of decentralization in many countries that have attempted it (such as Chile
and Bolivia) are more akin to deconcentration the shifting of functions down to the local scale but
not many powers of decision-making (Angell et al., 2001). In this way, deconcentration has been more
closely linked to the idea of maintaining a small state but being able to provide cheaper and more
efcient social services at the local scale without any increased resources.
Despite the earlier social consensus surrounding it, largely due to its success in controlling ination,
the neoliberal model has increasingly been contested, particularly in the social area. Peasant
movements in Southern Mexico and Ecuador, movements representing the urban poor in squatter
258

ALTERNATIVES TO NEOLIBERALISM
Democratization and neoliberalism
In the past two decades in Latin America, globalization has been intimately linked with the shift to
neoliberal policies. During this period, the governments of most of the countries of mainland Latin
America have integrated their national economies more closely with the global economy. The
neoliberal model has restructured Latin Americas political and economic system, creating new
interest groups, particularly in nance capital and exporting rms. In addition, it has become apparent
that a closer relationship with the global restricts the internal room for manoeuvre of Latin American
states. Opening up to the global economy has been a disciplining force for both capital and labour in
Latin America. Mistaken policies, or those policies perceived as mistaken by international capital, are
penalized, such as through a rapid withdrawal of nance capital.
The more global framework for Latin American economies coincided with a shift from authoritarian
governments (still signicant in the 1980s) to democratic governance so that at present virtually all
Latin American countries have governments elected through the ballot box. Thus, the Latin American
state has transformed itself into a democratic system at the same time as reducing its direct inuence
over the economy (through privatization and deregulation) and cutting the size of the public sector
through scal reform. To a certain extent the shift to a more representative and participatory political
system may have obscured the negative social impacts of neoliberal reform (Haggard and Kaufman,
1995). Increased unemployment and poverty, an even more unequal distribution of income and a
further rise in the informal sector have resulted.
The technocratic components of democratic governments have attempted to explain or justify this
in two ways. First, there is the argument that the negative social impacts reect a short-term
adjustment to new conditions and will be soon turned around. Unemployment and poverty will
increase as the economy adjusts to new external realities and as the country forges a more
competitive economy. The main problem with this argument is that adverse social impacts have not
been restricted to the short term. As Sylvia Chant emphasizes in Chapter 11, the decreasing access to
resources by the huge numbers of urban poor has become a long-term trend. It must be remembered
that extreme inequality has long been a feature of virtually all Latin American countries. In two such
apparently very different countries as Brazil and Guatemala the top 10 per cent of the population
amass almost 50 per cent of national income, while the bottom 50 per cent scrape up little more than
10 per cent (IDB, 1998: 1).
The second justication concerns the lack of alternatives argument. Latin American governments
point to the political economy of neoliberalism becoming the basis for policy in other areas of the
world that are identied as competitor regions in the world economy Eastern Europe and East Asia,
in particular. It becomes paramount, according to Latin American Treasury ministers, to modernize
their economies in order to make them more competitive in world markets, so that they can better
take advantage of global forces (Foxley, 1996). More recently, the need to modernize the Latin
American state (Bresser Pereira and Spink, 1999) has been emphasized, particularly in terms of
improving the technical competence of civil servants and improving the policy-making capability of the
state.
This leads one to consider the need for institutional reform in Latin America. In order to make
Latin American countries more competitive in a globalizing world, neoliberal reform cannot simply
be about making economies more market-oriented. The Chilean case shows that substantial and
critical institutional reforms have to take place over a long period of time for a country to become
more competitive and less prone to international crises. Institutional reform in Chile has stretched
over a period dating from 1964 and has emerged from a wide variety of political ideologies.
259

The alternatives to neoliberalism

settlements and ecological movements taking up environmental issues at the local scale provide
examples of this.

Latin America Transformed

Reforms to landholding, to the ownership of national mineral wealth (notably copper), to health and
personal pensions, to nancial institutions and to taxation have been notable examples that have
occurred under governments of widely different ideologies. Chile is also regarded as having a much
lower level of corruption than any other Latin American country (The Economist, 2003c). Martnez
and Daz (1996) argue that it is the combination of these profound institutional reforms with
market-oriented neoliberal policies that lie behind Chiles sustained economic success since the
mid-1980s.
The future relationship of the state with the process of economic change is thus a key issue. The
ideological shift to limited government involvement in the economy may not produce the
modernized, competitive economy that is anticipated from neoliberal reform. If this is the case,
sustained economic growth will not occur which is seen as the prerequisite for governments to
address the social debt and begin to rectify the highly unequal patterns of income distribution.
There is also the question of the relationship between economic integration, neoliberalism and
globalization. For year 2005, it is planned that the Americas will be one large free-trade zone. This will
involve integrating the USA, the dominant economy of the early twenty-rst century, with a large
number of much smaller and highly diverse countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. In
geopolitical terms, it will be necessary to resolve the problems inherent in a strong centreperiphery
pattern that will characterize economic integration of all the Americas (in contrast to other schemes
which have dealt with parts of the Americas, see Chapters 3 and 4).
The need for Latin American theories
In view of the crisis of socialism and neoliberalisms failure to address the social question, it is
imperative to develop an alternative development paradigm that is able to tackle the problems
mentioned. While it is beyond the scope of this book to develop this alternative paradigm, it is our
view that a useful starting point is to build upon Latin Americas contribution to development theory
while considering other contributions as well. These are principally the structuralist and dependency
theories. Latin Americas structuralist theory, sometimes referred to as the centreperiphery
paradigm, was mainly developed by staff working in the United Nations Economic Commission for
Latin America (ECLA) during the 1950s and 1960s under the inspired leadership of Ral Prebisch.
Some time ago ECLA changed its name to Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean, hence ECLAC. In Spanish, the acronym remained CEPAL Comisin Econmica para
Amrica Latina y el Caribe.
Meanwhile, Latin Americas dependency theorists, writing mainly in the late 1960s and 1970s, were
more widely dispersed throughout a variety of institutions all over the region. Both theories grew out
of a critique of existing development paradigms, which these authors saw as being unable to uncover,
let alone deal with, Latin Americas problems of underdevelopment and development. While
structuralism argued in favour of an inward-directed development policy largely through importsubstituting industrialization, dependency theory proposed a new international economic order and,
in one of its strands, a transition to socialism as a way out of underdevelopment.
Structuralism might provide more relevant ideas for thinking about alternative development
strategies for those with a more pragmatic bent while for those with a more radical mind and long
term (and possibly utopian) vision might nd the ideas of dependency theorists more appealing.
Structuralism and the structuralist strand within dependency sought to reform capitalism both
internationally and nationally while the neo-Marxist version of dependency strived to overthrow
capitalism as socialism was seen as the only system able to resolve the problems of
underdevelopment. Given the collapse of the East European socialist system and Chinas transition
from a planned to a market economy, the dependencys socialist alternative is unable to command
much support in the less developed world, while the structuralist view of reforming the capitalist
system is seen as a more feasible option for those searching for an alternative to the existing neoliberal
model.
260

It is important to emphasize that the neoliberal model has evolved from an often narrow and
economistic interpretation to the so-called Washington Consensus (Williamson, 1990) and on to a
more social democratic interpretation in Chile (Ffrench-Davis, 2002) and Brazil (Bresser Pereira, 1996;
Cunningham, 1999). Indeed, some form of convergence between neoliberalism and structuralism
seems to have occurred in some parts of Latin America. There is a reappraisal of the structuralist
theories of the 1950s and 1960s and an emergence of a neostructuralist position since the late 1980s.
For some key writings on neostructuralism, see Rosales (1988), Ffrench-Davis (1988, 2000), Sunkel
and Zuleta (1990), Fajnzylber (1990a), ECLAC (1990, 1992a, 2002a), Lustig (1991) and Ramos and
Sunkel (1993). For a comparison between neoliberalism and neostructuralism, see Sunkel (1994), Bitar
(1988) and Muoz (2001). For a critical assessment of neostructuralism, see van der Borgh (1995) and
Harris (2000). It could be argued that neostructuralism has gained some inuence on government
policy in Latin America, such as with the Concertacin regimes of Chile since 1990 and during the
presidency of F. H. Cardoso in Brazil (19952002).
Given that Fernando Henrique Cardoso is considered as one of the key gures of dependency
theory, it is useful to evaluate his own record when in government. As a dependency writer, Cardoso
preferred to speak of analysis of concrete situations of dependency, rather than of a theory of
dependency, as he was sensitive to the differences between dependent countries as well as being
sceptical of grand theories. He also coined the term dependent development as in his view
dependent countries could develop and were not condemned to a process of development of
underdevelopment as argued by Andr Gunder Frank, who was seen by some, especially in the
English-speaking world, as the key gure in the dependency movement. While Frank continued his life
as an engaged academic, Cardoso, as has been noted, moved into politics, becoming president of Brazil
from 1995 to 2002.
While Frank has remained a erce critic of capitalism and globalization, Cardoso is viewed by some
analysts as having embraced both neoliberalism and globalization. As Birdsall and Lozada (1996: 17,
emphasis in original) forcefully put it: Far from wanting to get out of the international economic system,
Latin America is taking all the steps necessary so as not to be left out. Brazils Fernando Henrique
Cardoso, once a leading proponent of dependency theory and now a champion of market reform,
exemplies this shift. Cammack (1997: 242), ironically observes, that Cardoso the sociologist remains
the most acute critic of Cardoso the president and once in power he has stripped the social
democratic promise from his project, and reduced it to a recipe for the consolidation of neoliberalism
in practice. Indeed, for Petras and Morley (1990: 14556, 1992: 159), this metamorphosis is
symptomatic for most Latin American left-wing intellectuals who, in their view, have retreated from
Marxism to liberal/social-democratic views. Cardoso even said, in front of the television cameras,
Forget everything I have ever written. (Branford, 2003: 75).
Nevertheless, Cardoso has insisted several times that he is not a neoliberal. In his view, globalization
requires that the state be reformed by intervening less but more effectively and by privatizing those
state enterprises that can be run more efciently by private capital. In Cardosos (2001: 246) view, this
does not conict with the traditional ideals of the left, although it seems paradoxical. He (2001: 257)
defends himself against these charges by arguing that the timing and motivation of the politician are
essentially different from those of the social scientist. The politician cannot wait for the sedimentation
of knowledge in order to act. Should he do so he will be overcome by events. He argues that
globalization cannot be avoided, offers opportunities, and although it conditions government action
there is room for manoeuvre. Most left-wing critics agree with Branfords (2003: 76) view that by 1990
Cardoso had been completely converted to neoliberalism. But in the view of another Brazilian analyst:
It becomes abundantly clear that policy developments in Brazil during Cardosos administration are
home-grown, the product of the countrys unique situation and modus operandi, having little in
common with neoliberalism per se or its ideology (Cunningham, 1999: 82).
261

The alternatives to neoliberalism

Neostructuralism and Cardoso

Latin America Transformed

However, Cardoso (2001: 248) does admit that his views have changed:
When I wrote my books on dependency theory, the underlying hypothesis was that the international
process of capitalism adversely affected conditions for development. It did not prevent development,
but made it unbalanced and unjust. Many considered economic inward-orientation was a possible
form of defence against the alternative of an international integration regarded as risky and
dangerous. This view has changed. We have to admit that participation in the global economy can be
positive, that the international system is not necessarily hostile. But we should work carefully to seize
the opportunities. Successful integration into the global economy depends, on the one hand, on
diplomatic articulation and adequate trade partnerships, and, on the other, on the individual
homework of each developing country based on a democratically built consensus.
Thus, Cardoso maintains that it is possible to make globalization work for national development.
Whether he successfully accomplished such a challenging task during his presidency is doubtful. For
critics like Cammack, Petras and Morley, Rocha, and Theotonio dos Santos (1998; 2002b) Cardoso
certainly has not succeeded. Indeed, many analysts conclude that previous state-led economic
performance was clearly superior to Cardosos market-led record. By forgoing his earlier dependency
analysis, he under-estimated the global as well as the domestic political realities that greatly limited and
undermined his development project. Paradoxically during his two-term presidency, having been reelected in 1998, Brazils dependency has deepened while economic growth remained disappointingly
low. According to Branford (2003: 76):
By the time Cardoso ended his eight years in government, international capital had taken over huge
areas of the Brazilian economy and the country was caught in a foreign debt trap of unprecedented
proportions. Unemployment and crime had reached record levels.
Indeed, the country had become more dependent than ever on international nancial capital leaving
the country at the mercy of speculators, and more vulnerable to external shocks, thereby further
eroding Brazils capacity for independent and sovereign decisions.
It is ironic that the foremost theoretician and critic of dependent development should have brought
about as president of Latin Americas biggest economy a profound denationalization and its highest
dependence ever on transnational corporations and international nancial institutions. As a theoretician
he should have foreseen the contradictions of his project, which were to scupper his desired goal of
enhancing Brazils autonomy as a key regional power in the global scene. Thus, once Cardoso was in
power, the question of dependency and development was turned on its head (Rocha, 2002: 10).
Neostructuralism as an alternative
Thus, to characterize the policies pursued by the Cardoso government as neostructuralist would be
going too far, even though this might have been their intention (Petras and Leiva, 1994; Cammack,
1997). Subsequently, with the election of President Lagos in 2000 in Chile the neostructuralist
dimension of Chiles Concertacin government has gained more prominence. Then, with the election
of Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, to the presidency of Brazil in 2002 a shift to neostructuralist policies might
happen in view of his priority to ght poverty and his land reform programme.
Some authors have dismissed neostructuralism as being merely the human face of neoliberalism
and its second phase (Green, 1995: 189) or a variant of neoliberalism (Harris, 2000; Petras and
Veltmeyer, 2001a), which can be characterized as neoliberal populism (Demmers et al., 2001). Leiva
(1998: 35) argued that neostructuralism can be seen as a logical continuation of the neoliberal model:
neostructuralisms historical opportunity appears once it is necessary to consolidate and legitimise the
new regime of accumulation originally put in place by neoliberal policies. Neoliberalism and
neostructuralism, therefore, are not antagonistic strategies, but rather, due to their differences, play
complementary roles ensuring the continuity and consolidation of the restructuring process.
262

263

The alternatives to neoliberalism

Neostructuralism, despite recognizing the asymmetries in the world system, sees the need to keep on
being part of that system. It is certainly true that there has been a shift of structuralism towards
neoliberalism as it has taken on board some elements of neoliberalism but at the same time it has
retained some of the core structuralist ideas hence, the label neostructuralism. Furthermore, there
are differences, some of which have already been mentioned when discussing the contemporary
relevance of structuralism and dependency theories in Chapter 1. These differences concern mainly
their respective views on the relationship between developed and developing countries as well as
between state, civil society and the market.To what extent these differences are signicant enough for
arguing that neostructuralism constitutes a distinctive enough alternative to neoliberalism is open to
debate.
The neoliberal view is that further liberalization of the world economy is required and that this will
benet the developing countries considerably. In contrast, neostructuralists, as well as dependency
writers, view the world economy as a hierarchical and asymmetric power system which favours the
centre countries and the TNCs in particular. They are thus more sceptical about further liberalization,
believing that it will act to enhance the inequalities between and within countries; powerful global
groups located in developed countries ensure that the benets of global liberalization will be
channelled in their favour.
As for the relationship between state, civil society and the market, neostructuralists give a more
important role to the state in the process of social transformation and are eager to involve the
disadvantaged groups of society in this process, particularly as it has tended to exclude them.
Meanwhile, neoliberals desire a minimalist state, putting the market at centre stage as they believe it
to be the most effective transformative force; the less constraints that are put on the free operation
of the market, the better for the national economy, society and polity.
Neostructuralism should not be interpreted as the structuralists surrendering to neoliberalism but
rather as an attempt to come to terms with the new reality of globalization and to learn from the
successful development experience of the East Asian NICs. In this sense, structuralism is showing an
ability to adapt to changing historical circumstances rather than remain frozen in the past. Despite the
shortcomings of neostructuralism, it appears as the only feasible and credible alternative to
neoliberalism in present historical circumstances.
The neostructuralists interpretation of the East Asian NICs experience also differs from that of the
neoliberals. While neoliberals hail it as a model of free-market economics, neostructuralists emphasize
the key role that the state played in their development process.The main lesson neostructuralists take
from the East Asian NICs is the need to selectively integrate into the world economy and create
competitive advantages through well-designed and exible industrial policies (Fajnzylber, 1990c). Such
industrial and export policies try to continually exploit niches in the world market and shift upstream
to more skill-intensive, technologically advanced and higher value added products (see Figure 13.1).
Policies to improve the knowledge base of the economy and above all the national technological
capability are seen as crucial for achieving sustainable long-term growth. Thus, the importance of
education is stressed, as well as improving state capacity and income distribution, and reforming the
unequal land tenure system as these factors were key ingredients in the success of the East Asian NICs
(see Kay, 2002a).
Neostructuralism gives more importance to market forces, private enterprise and foreign direct
investment as compared to structuralism but argues that the state should govern the market through
strong regulatory bodies. In neostructuralist thinking the state plays a less pivotal role in development
than it did under import substitution industrialization, as the state no longer undertakes direct
productive activities through public ownership of industrial or other enterprises.The ability of the state
to direct the economy is limited as protectionism and subsidies are used only in a restricted and
sporadic fashion. The imperative of achieving and maintaining a macro-economic balance is
recognized, as now price stability and scal stability are seen as conditions for growth, which was not
necessarily the case in the past. Another key element of neostructuralism is its greater concern for

Latin America Transformed

equity and poverty reduction, requiring special action by the state and involving collaboration with
NGOs.
The position with regards to the world market is much changed as export orientation rather than
import substitution is now the strategic direction that the economy has to take. But this shift towards
world markets by the neostructuralists is framed within a strategy of development from within as
argued by Sunkel (1993: 89):
It is not demand and markets that are critical. The heart of development lies in the supply side:
quality, exibility, the efcient combination and utilization of productive resources, the adoption of
technological developments, an innovative spirit, creativity, the capacity for organization and social
discipline, private and public austerity, an emphasis on savings, and the development of skills to
compete internationally. In short, independent efforts from within to achieve self-sustained
development. [emphasis in original]
The world market is not seen as a panacea. But domestic transformations in the countrys productive
structure and institutions are seen as essential for self-sustained development. These transformations
should be driven internally according to national priorities.The greater the internal capacity for change,
the greater the likelihood that the country will be able to take advantage of the possibilities offered by
globalization and improve its ability to limit any possible negative effects of globalization.
Another key element in neostructuralism is the achievement of competitive advantages in certain
key productive areas in the world market by selective liberalization, integration into the world
economy and an export-oriented industrial and growth policy. Neostructuralists are keen advocates
of open regionalism which they hope will enhance Latin Americas position in the world economy
while at the same time reducing its vulnerability and dependence, see ECLAC (1994; 1995). Previous
attempts at regional integration in Latin America, such as the Latin American Free Trade Association
(LAFTA) and the Andean Pact were more inward-looking as they were an extension of a domestic ISI
strategy to a regional level (see Chapter 3). Instead, commercial integration through open regionalism
is seen as complementing the outward-orientation by increasing international competitiveness and
exports (Sideri, 1997).
Neostructuralist writings in recent years from the ECLAC stable have attempted to deal with
globalization phenomena (ECLAC, 2002a). It is argued that globalization in the current neoliberal
phase, far from leading to convergence as asserted by neoliberals, reproduces and sometimes
exacerbates four major asymmetries:
1 in technical progress with the extreme concentration of innovation and technological capability in
the centre or core economies and largely under the control of TNCs;
2 in nancial vulnerability as peripheral or developing countries are far more exposed to external
shocks than in the past due to greater nancial dependence with its associated volatility;
3 trade vulnerability has intensied as a result of uctuations in demand levels and terms of trade,
partly due to the continued deterioration in commodity prices;
4 in the economic mobility of factors of production. While the neoliberal reforms have greatly
enhanced the mobility of capital, the mobility of labour continues to be restricted. This asymmetry
skews the distribution of income in favour of capital, and places labour at a disadvantage,
especially in the periphery or developing countries due to their surplus of labour.
To overcome these asymmetries, the neostructuralists (ECLAC, 2002a) propose a global agenda that
includes measures to do the following:
enhance the transfer of technical progress from the centre to periphery countries;
promote the development of institutional, social, human and knowledge capital so as to
strengthen endogenous growth in countries of the periphery;
ensure adequate participation in decision-making at the international level;
264

The neostructuralists have renewed their equity commitment and added a new focus to their analysis
with their emphasis on citizenship (ECLAC, 2001). In this study the neostructuralists lament that
globalization and neoliberalism have eroded social cohesion and solidarity as well as collective action
for the common good. The neoliberals emphasis on market relations has fragmented and
individualized society. Neostructuralists thus propose to reconnect the individual to society by
developing citizenship that implies a reciprocal commitment between public institutions and the
individual. For this purpose the state should promote education, employment, health and social
security among the citizenry. The enhancement of social cohesion implies the individuals participation
in public life and in the decision-making processes which affect livelihoods and the countrys future.The
increasing alienation of the people from politics has to be reversed. It also calls for the abolition of
discrimination due to sex and race and reduction of the gap between the included and excluded
individuals or groups. It is only by strengthening citizenship that it is possible to gain sufcient social
cohesion and political legitimacy to undertake the major transformations required for achieving
equitable and sustainable development.
Chile: from neoliberalism to neostructuralism?
Chile is the rst and most aggressive neoliberal reformer in Latin America and probably in the world.
It had the best economic performance over the last quarter century in Latin America (UNDP, 2002:
1903). In the year 2000 Chile was ranked 38th out of a total of 173 countries in the human
development index which measures not just economic performance but also life expectancy and
educational achievements (ibid., p. 149). Within Latin America only Argentina was ranked higher (34th)
but since the deep crisis of 20012 it has fallen well below Chiles ranking. But is Chiles relative
economic success the result of the neoliberal reforms?
This is indeed an issue for debate. Readers will nd throughout the text many references to the
Chilean case (for example, in Chapter 3) allowing them to form their own opinion. The initial set of
reforms, from the military coup on Chiles 11th of September in 1973 until the economic crisis of
198283, was indeed cast within a highly doctrinaire and authoritarian neoliberal mould. Thereafter,
the government shifted to a more pragmatic set of neoliberal policies that introduced some economic
controls and social policies. With the democratic transition since 1990 the Concertacin
governments have attempted to shift to a growth with equity or neostructuralist set of policies. The
Concertacin governments continued to build upon the economic success of the Pinochet
dictatorship, achieving even higher rates of economic growth while at the same time halving poverty,
largely as a result of substantial increases in social expenditure (Stallings, 2001: 4653). In 2001 only
Uruguay had a lower level of poverty than Chile in Latin America (ECLAC, 2002c: 39). However, the
Concertacin governments have so far failed to deliver on equity. Chile still has one of the worst
income inequalities in Latin America (ibid., 2278). Thus, the achievement of greater equity continues
to be Chiles main challenge.
Despite Chiles economic success there exists a high degree of insecurity among the population as
revealed by the pioneering studies of the Chilean ofce of the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP, or PNUD in Spanish). Human security refers to objective conditions as well as to
the subjective experiences of people. The survey found widespread feelings of concern in all the six
dimensions of human security it measured: delinquency, employment, social provision, health,
information and sociability. Also fear of the other, fear of social exclusion and fear of meaninglessness
were expressed (Kirby, 2003: 121). A surprising nding of a subsequent UNDP survey is that over half
265

The alternatives to neoliberalism

gradually lower the barriers to labour migration, particularly from countries of the periphery to
those of the core;
decrease nancial volatility;
reduce the sizeable production and export subsidies of agricultural commodities in the centre or
core economies.

Latin America Transformed

of the people interviewed felt insecure economically and three-quarters expressed negative
sentiments about the current economic system. What is less surprising is that mainly individuals of a
lower socio-economic level and rural people expressed such views (PNUD, 2002: 2578). Perceptions
do matter. For example, Chile has the lowest rate of homicide and one of the lowest levels of crime
in Latin America and yet Chileans express a great fear of crime (Dammert and Malone, 2003: 85).This
reveals that the fear of crime is an expression of the economic and social insecurities felt by many
Chileans, especially by those left behind by the rapid process of modernization.
The 1998 UNDP Chile report (PNUD, 1998) provoked a debate among some members of the
Concertacin coalition of political parties. One group, labelled the autoflagelantes (self-flagellators or
self-chastisers), argued that the peoples feelings of unease, anxiety and insecurity could not be
brushed aside as an inevitable but transitory outcome or byproduct of the countrys rapid process of
modernization as had been done by the other group, the autocomplacientes (the self-satisfied or selfcongratulatory). The autoflagelantes were far more self-critical and demanded that the government
pay greater attention to economic inequality, vulnerability and social justice (see Chapter 8). Both
groups continued to stress the need for growth (Van der Ree, 2003). Is it possible to achieve growth
with equity in todays globalizing world? The Chilean case has so far shown how difficult it is to attain
both goals, especially without shifting more decisively towards a new national and international
political economy.
Outstanding problems to be addressed
In our view, there are four major issues that need to be addressed by policy-makers and society at
large in contemporary Latin America:
Inequality in its various dimensions, such as income, and access to resources such as land, finance,
technology, education and social services. Also inequality arising from discrimination on the
grounds of ethnicity, gender and class. By addressing these inequalities, a major source of poverty
will be removed.
Vulnerability and insecurity that have been exacerbated by the neoliberal transformation and
globalization. The economy and individuals are more vulnerable to changes in the world market
conditions due to the increased exposure of the region to international trade and the volatility of
international capital. The power of TNCs and international financial institutions over policy-making
and the domestic economy has greatly increased. Similarly, social groups (such as industrial and
rural workers), households and individuals have to deal with far greater insecurities than in the
past as the state has dismantled many of the protective social regulations and provisions.
Lack of an alternative development project to tackle inequalities, vulnerabilities and insecurities.
For this reason, it becomes necessary to develop ideas as widely as possible for an alternative
project that begins to deal with these deeply embedded problems. This implies deepening
democracy, as this project cannot be constructed from above but needs to build upon demands
and proposals emanating from below. It implies a political system that is able to forge a consensus
and to implement a transformative project that requires good governance and state capacity.
These problems cannot be resolved in the short term and thus a long-term vision has to be
forged, but one which clearly sets out a sequence and a timeframe for dealing with these
problems. Lulas Campaign against Hunger may be seen as one step in this direction.
The exclusionary globalization process in which a minority are the winners but the majority are
the losers. The paradoxical character of neoliberal globalization is that while it incorporates a few
groups, regions and economic sectors to the benefits of globalization, it at the same time excludes
many groups, regions and productive sectors, thereby worsening their situation. To change this
state of affairs requires a radical reform of the global system. The restructuring of the relationships
of Latin America to the global system will require reforming various international institutions, such
as the WTO, the IMF and the WB. It will also require creating new institutions so as to forge a
266

It is thus not surprising that the neoliberal model is being contested, at the theoretical level but
particularly by social movements. The indigenous movements in Chiapas in Southern Mexico, in
Ecuador and in Bolivia, the landless peasant movement in Brazil, movements representing the urban
poor in squatter settlements and ecological movements taking up environmental issues at the local
scale provide examples of this socio-political contestation.
The neoliberal model is also being contested at the theoretical level with increasing force. One of
the most influential critics has been Joseph Stiglitz (2002), given that he was Chief Economist at the
World Bank until his resignation in 2000 and is a Nobel Laureate in Economics. In Latin America the
neoliberal paradigm has increasingly been criticized from a variety of perspectives but the main
theoretical challenge continues to be from a neostructuralist perspective. Charles Gore (2000)
detects the emergence of a latent Southern Consensus which he views as the convergence between
neostructuralism and the distinctive analysis of the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) of the East Asian development experience and the world economy in its
annual Trade and Development Reports since 1994.
Alternative paradigms have not yet managed to gain hegemony, although it is possible that if the
Lula government succeeds in its transformative project, this may further their influence. What is no
longer in doubt though is that the neoliberal paradigm no longer commands the influence it once had.
It has already been reshaped in recent years, with a shift in emphasis to social policies and a gradual
appreciation that the neoliberal recipe needs to be adapted to different national contexts one size
does not fit all. Latin Americas outstanding problems call with increasing urgency for an alternative
political economy to contemporary neoliberal globalism. It remains to be seen if a possible Southern
Consensus can emerge and begin to tackle the key outstanding problems of poverty, social exclusion
and equity.

267

The alternatives to neoliberalism

more egalitarian international system in which the developing countries have as much a voice as
the developed countries in designing the reformed international system. The construction of such
a new inclusionary globalization will be greatly facilitated if the various Latin American countries
are able to forge a common project. This might at first be a minimalist project and achieved in the
first instance by building upon existing regional associations like Mercosur, the Andean Community,
and the Central American Common Market as well as developing linkages between the subregional groupings of countries.

Bibliography

Acero, L. 1997: Conflicting demands of new technology and household work: womens work in
Brazilian and Argentinian textiles. In Mitter, S. and Rowbotham, S. (eds), Women encounter technology:
changing patterns of employment in the third world. London: Routledge, 7092.
ACS (Association of Caribbean States) 2003: ACS statistical database: exports by destination 2001.
Accessed 16 January: http://www.acs-aec.org/tsestat/Exports_by_Destination-2001.htm
Adler Hellman, J. 1995: The riddle of new social movements: who they are and what they do. In
Halebsky, S. and Harris, R. (eds), Capital, power and inequality in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 16583.
Aguero, F. and Stark, J. (eds) 1998: Fault lines of democracy in post-transition Latin America. Coral Gables,
FL: North-South Center Press.
Aguilar, A.G. 1999: Mexico City growth and regional dispersal: the expansion of largest cities and new
spatial forms. Habitat International 23, 391416.
Ainsa, F. 1986: Identidad cultural de Iberoamrica en su narrativa. Madrid: Gredos.
Akin Aina, T. 1990: Understanding the role of community organisations in environmental and urban
contexts. Environment and Urbanization 2(1), 36.
Alba, F. 1989: The Mexican demographic situation. In Bean, F., Schmandt, J. and Weintraub, S. (eds),
Mexican and Central American population and US immigration policy. Austin, TX: University of Texas
Press, 532.
Alb, X. 1996: Bolivia: making the leap from local mobilization to national politics. NACLA Report on the
Americas 29(5), 1520.
Aldaba, F., Antezana, P., Valderrama, M. and Fowler, A. 2000: NGO strategies beyond aid: perspectives
from Central and South America and the Philippines. Third World Quarterly 21(4): 66983.
Allende, I. 1983: La casa de los espritus. Barcelona: Plaza y Jans Editores.
Almond, G.A. and Bingham Powell, Jr., G. 1966, 1978, Comparative politics: system, process, and policy. 2nd
edn. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.
Altimir, O. 1982: The extent of poverty in Latin America. World Bank Staff Working Paper 522.
Washington, DC: World Bank.
Altimir, O. 1994: Income distribution and poverty through crisis and adjustment. CEPAL Review 52, 731.
Alvarez, S. 1990: Engendering democracy: the womens movement in Brazil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Alvarez, S., Dagnino, E. and Escobar, A. (eds) 1998: Cultures of politics, politics of cultures: re-visioning Latin
American social movements. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Anderson, S. 2001: Seven years under NAFTA. Institute for Policy Studies, online at: www.ips-dc.org.
Andrews, F.M. and Phillips, G.W. 1970: The squatters of Lima: who they are and what they want. The
Journal of Developing Areas 4(2), 21124.
Angell, A., Lowden, P. and Thorp, R. 2001: Decentralizing development: the political economy of institutional
change in Colombia and Chile. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
268

269

Bibliography

Anglade, C. and Fortn, C. (eds) 1985: The state and capital accumulation in Latin America. Volume I.
Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Annis, S. (ed.) 1992: Natural resources and public policy in Central America. Washington, DC: Overseas
Development Council.
Aparicio, S. and Benencia, R. (eds) 1999: Empleo rural en tiempos de exibilidad. Buenos Aires: Editorial
La Colmena.
Apey, A. 1995: Agricultural restructuring and co-ordinated policies for rural development in Chile.
Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, UK.
Arce, A. and Long, N. 2000: Anthropology, development and modernities. London: Routledge.
Arce, L. and Escamilla, Z. 1996: Mujer, trabajo y stress. Revista Costarricense de Psicologa 25, 218.
Arce, M. 2002: Social sector reform, Latin American style. Latin American Research Review 37(3),
189200.
Arenas de Mesa, A. and Montecinos, V. 1999: The privatization of social security and womens welfare:
gender effects of the Chilean reform. Latin American Research Review 34(3), 737.
Arevalo Torres, P. 1997: May hope be realized: Huaycan self-managing urban community in Lima.
Environment and Urbanization 9(1): 5879.
Arguedas, A. 1975: Pueblo enfermo. In Siles Guevara, J. (ed.), Las cien obras capitales de la literatura
boliviana. La Paz: Editorial Los Amigos del Libro.
Arias, O. 2000: Are all men beneting from the new economy? Male economic marginalization in Argentina,
Brazil and Costa Rica. Washington, DC: World Bank, LCSPR (www.worldbank.org/external/lac).
Arizpe, L. 1982: Relay migration and the survival of the peasant household. In Safa, H. (ed.), Towards a
political economy of urbanization in developing countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946.
Arroyo, F. 2001: Dinmica del PIB de las entidades de Mxico, 19801999. Comercio Exterior 51(7),
58399.
Ascher, W. and Healy, R. 1990: Natural resource policymaking: a framework for developing countries.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Asociacin de Exportadores various years: Estadsticas de exportaciones horto-frutcolas. Santiago, Chile:
AE.
Assies, W. 1997: The extraction of non-timber forest products as a conservation strategy in Amazonia.
European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 62: 3353.
Assies, W., van der Haar, G. and Hoekema, A. (eds) 2001: The challenge of diversity: indigenous peoples
and reform of the state in Latin America. Amsterdam: Thela Thesis.
Auty, R. 1993: Sustaining development in mineral economies: the resource curse thesis, London: Routledge.
Baden, S. 1993: The impact of recession and structural adjustment on womens work in developing countries.
Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Bridge Report
No. 2.
Baer, W. 1969: The development of the Brazilian steel industry. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
Bhr, J. and Wehrhahn, R. 1997: Polarisation reversal in So Paulo. In van Naerssen, T., Rutten, M. and
Zoomers, A. (eds), Diversity of development. Assen: Van Gorcum, 16679.
Bailey, A. and Hane, J. 1995: Population in motion: Salvadorean refugees and circulation migration.
Bulletin of Latin American Research 14(2), 171200.
Bakacs, P. 1970: Public health problems in metropolitan areas. In Miles, S.R. (ed.), Metropolitan problems:
international perspectives. London: Methuen.
Banco Central de Chile 2002a: Chile: social and economic indicators, 19602000. Santiago: Banco
Central de Chile.
Banco Central de Chile 2002b: Indicadores de comercio exterior. Santiago: Banco Central de Chile.
Banco de la Repblica 2002: Economic indicators third quarter 2002. Bogot: Banco de la Repblica.
Barham, B., Clark, M., Katz, E. and Schurman, R. 1992: Non-traditional agricultural exports in Latin
America. Latin American Research Review 27(2), 4382.
Barkin, D. 1994: The spectre of rural development. NACLA Report on the Americas 28(1), 2934.

Latin America Transformed

Barkin, D. 2002: The reconstruction of a modern Mexican peasantry. The Journal of Peasant Studies
30(1), 7390.
Barraclough, S. 1973: Agrarian structure in Latin America. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.
Barraclough, S. 1994: The legacy of Latin American land reform. NACLA Report on the Americas 28(3),
1621.
Barraclough, S. and Domike, A. 1966: Agrarian structure in seven Latin American countries. Land
Economics 42(4), 391424.
Barraclough S. and Ghimire, K. 1995: Forests and livelihoods: the social dynamics of deforestation in
developing countries. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.
Barrientos, A. 1996: Pension reform and pension coverage in Chile: lessons for other countries. Bulletin
of Latin American Research 15(3), 30922.
Barrientos, A. 1998: Pension reform in Latin America. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.
Barrientos, S. 1997: The hidden ingredient female labour in Chilean fruit exports. Bulletin of Latin
American Research 15(4), 7182.
Barrientos, S., Bee, A., Matear, A. and Vogel, I. 1999: Women and agribusiness: working miracles in the
Chilean fruit export sector. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.
Barrow, C. 1992: Family, land and development in St. Lucia. Cave Hill, Barbados: Institute of Social and
Economic Research, University of the West Indies.
Barry, T. 1987: Roots of rebellion: land and hunger in Central America. Boston, MA: South End Press.
Barton, J.R. 1997a: A political geography of Latin America. London: Routledge.
Barton, J.R. 1997b: Revolucin Azul? El impacto regional de la acuicultura del salmn en Chile. Revista
Eure 32(68), 5776.
Barton J.R. and Murray, W.E. (eds) 2002: Chile a decade in transition. Special issue of Bulletin of Latin
American Research 21(3), 329459.
Bartone, C.R. 1990: Water quality and urbanization in Latin America. Water International, 15.
Bastos, S. 1999: Concepciones del hogar y ejercicio del poder: el caso de los mayas de la ciudad de
Guatemala. In Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. (ed.) Divergencias del modelo tradicional: hogares de jefatura
femenina en Amrica Latina. Mxico, DF: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en
Antropologa Social, 3775.
Batley, R. 1997: Social agency versus global determination in Latin American urban development. Third
World Planning Review 19(4), 33346.
Baumol, W. and Wolff, E. 1996: Catching up in the postwar period: Puerto Rico as the fth Tiger? World
Development 24(5), 86985.
Bebbington, A. 1994: Knowledge, practice, organization: theory and relevance in indigenous agriculture. In
Booth, D. (ed.), Rethinking social development: theory, research and practice. Harlow: Longman, 20225.
Bebbington, A. 1996: Debating indigenous agricultural development: Indian organizations in the
Central Andes of Ecuado. In Collinson, H. (ed.), Green guerrillas: environmental conicts and initiatives
in Latin America and the Caribbean. London: Latin American Bureau, 5160.
Bebbington, A. 1997: Reinventing NGOs and rethinking alternatives in the Andes. Annals of the
American Academy of Social and Political Sciences 554, 11735.
Bebbington, A. 1999: Capitals and capabilities: a framework for analysing peasant viability, rural
livelihoods and poverty. World Development 27(12), 202144.
Bebbington, A. 2000: Reencountering development: livelihood transitions and place transformations in
the Andes. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90(3), 495520.
Bebbington, A. 2002: Geographies of development in Latin America? Conference of Latin Americanist
Geographers Yearbook 27, 10548.
Bebbington, A. and Batterbury, S. (eds): 2001 Transnational livelihoods and landscapes. Ecumene 8(4):
369492.
Bebbington A. and Bebbington D. 2001: Development alternatives: practice, dilemmas and theory. Area
33(1), 717.
270

271

Bibliography

Bebbington, A., Hinojosa, L. and Rojas, R. 2002: Contributions of the Dutch conancing program to rural
development and rural livelihoods in the Highlands of Peru and Bolivia. Boulder/Ede: Stuurgroep.
Bebbington, A. and Thiele, G. 1993: Non-governmental organizations and the state in Latin America:
rethinking roles in sustainable agricultural development. London: Routledge.
Becker, C. and Morrison, A. 1997: Public policy and rural-urban migration. In Gugler, J. (ed), Cities in the
developing world: issues, theory and policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 7487.
Bee, A. and Vogel, I. 1997: Temporeras and household relations: seasonal employment in Chiles agroexport sector. Bulletin of Latin American Research 16(1), 8395.
Bjar, R. 1988: El Mexicano, aspectos culturales y psicosociales. Mexico City: UNAM.
Benera, L. and Roldn, M. 1987: The crossroads of class and gender: industrial homework, subcontracting
and household dynamics in Mexico City. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Benera, L. 1991: Structural adjustment, the labour market and the household: the case of Mexico. In
Standing, G. and Tokman, V. (eds), Towards social adjustment: labour market issues in structural
adjustment. Geneva: International Labour Organization, 16183.
Bengoa, J. 2000: La emergencia indgena en Amrica Latina. Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Econmica.
Berdegu, J.A., Reardon, T., Escobar, G. and Echeverra, R. 2000: Policies to promote non-farm rural
employment in Latin America. In Natural Resources Perspectives. London: Overseas Development
Institute (ODI).
Bernstein, H. 2000: The peasantry in global capitalism: who, where and why? In Panitch, L. and Leys, C.
(eds), Socialist Register 2001: working classes, global realities. London: Merlin Press.
Berry, A. 1997: The income distribution threat in Latin America. Latin American Research Review 32(2),
340.
Berry, A. (ed.) 1998: Poverty, economic reform, and income distribution in Latin America. Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner.
Bertranou, F. 2001: Pension reform and gender gaps in Latin America: what are the policy options?
World Development 29(5), 91123.
BID (Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo) 2002: Modestos ingresos con impacto global. Bidamrica
1(3), 1.
Bielschowsky, R. 1998: Cincuenta aos del pensamiento de la CEPAL: una resea. In CEPAL, Cincuenta
aos de pensamiento de la CEPAL. Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 961.
Binswanger, H., Feder, G. and Deininger, K. 1995: Power, distortions and reform in agricultural land
relations. In Behrman, J. and Srinivasan, T.N. (eds), Handbook of development economics, Vol. 3.
Amsterdam: North Holland, 2661761.
Birdsall, N., Lozada, C.E. 1996: Recurring themes in Latin American thought: from Prebisch to the
market and back. In Hausmann, R. and Reisen, H. (eds), Securing stability and growth in Latin America:
policy issues and prospects for shock-prone economics. Paris: OECD, 1121.
Bitar, S. 1988: Neo-liberalism versus neo-structuralism in Latin America. CEPAL Review 34, 4562.
Blauert, J. and Zadek, S. (eds) 1998: Mediating sustainability: growing policy from the grassroots. West
Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.
Blum, W. 1986: The CIA: a forgotten history. London: Zed Books.
Booth, J. and Walker, T. 1993: Understanding Central America 2nd edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Borras, S.M. 2003: Questioning market-led agrarian reform: experiences from Brazil, Colombia and
South Africa. Journal of Agrarian Change 3(3), 36794.
Bradshaw, S. 1995a: Womens access to employment and the formation of women-headed households
in rural and urban Honduras. Bulletin of Latin American Research 14(2), 14358.
Bradshaw, S. 1995b: Female-headed households in Honduras: perspectives on ruralurban differences.
Third World Planning Review 17(2), 11731.
Branford, S. 2003: The Fernando Henrique Cardoso legacy. In Branford, S., Kucinski, B. with Wainwright,
H. Politics transformed: Lula and the Workers Party in Brazil. London: Latin America Bureau,
74102.

Latin America Transformed

Branford, S. and Rocha, J. 2002: Cutting the wire: the story of the Landless Movement in Brazil. London:
Latin America Bureau.
Brass, T. 2003: Latin American peasants: new paradigms for old? In Brass, T. (ed.), Latin American
peasants. London: Frank Cass, 140.
Bresser Pereira, L.C. 1996: Economic crisis and state reform in Brazil: toward a new interpretation of Latin
America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Bresser Pereira, L.C. and Spink, P. (eds) 1999: Reforming the state: managerial public administration in
Latin America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Bretn, V. 1997: Capitalismo, reforma agraria y organizacin comunal en los Andes. Lleida: Publicaciones
Universitat de Lleida.
Bretn,V. 2002: Cooperacin al desarrollo, capital social y neo-indigenismo en los Andes ecuatorianos.
European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 73, 4363.
Brockett, C.D. and Gottfried, R.E. 2002: State policies and the preservation of forest cover: lessons
from contrasting public policy regimes in Costa Rica. Latin American Research Review 37(1): 340.
Bromley, R.J. 1994: Informality, de Soto style: from concept to policy. In Rakowski, C.A. (ed.),
Contrapunto: the informal sector debate in Latin America. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 13152.
Bromley, R.J. 1997: Working in the streets of Cali, Colombia: survival strategy, necessity or unavoidable
evil? In Gugler, J. (ed.), Cities in the developing world: issues, theory and policy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 12438.
Bromley, R.J. and Gerry, C. (eds) 1979: Casual work and poverty in third world cities. New York: John Wiley.
Browder, J. 1989: Fragile lands of Latin America: strategies for sustainable development. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Brundtland, H. 1987: Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brunner, J.J. 1988: El espejo trizado. Santiago: FLACSO.
Brunner, J.J. 1994: Cartografas de la modernidad. Santiago: Dolmen Ediciones.
Brunner, J.J. and Moulian, T. 2002: Brunner vs Moulian: izquierda y capitalismo en 14 rounds. Santiago:
Editorial El Mostrador.
Bryceson, D., Kay, C. and Mooij, J. (eds) 2000: Disappearing peasantries? Rural labour in Africa, Asia and
Latin America. London: Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) Publishing.
Brysk, A. 2000: From tribal village to global village: Indian rights and international relations in Latin America.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bulmer-Thomas, V. 1994: The economic history of Latin America since independence. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Bulmer-Thomas, V. 1996a: Conclusions. In Bulmer-Thomas, V. (ed.), The new economic model in Latin
America and its impact on income distribution and poverty. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan,
296327.
Bulmer-Thomas, V. (ed.) 1996b: The new economic model in Latin America and its impact on income
distribution and poverty. Basingstoke and London: MacMillan.
Bulmer-Thomas, V. 1998: The Central American common market: from closed to open regionalism.
World Development 26(2), 31322.
Bunker, S. 1985: Underdeveloping the Amazon: extraction, unequal exchange and the failure of the modern
state. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Burbach, R. 1994: Roots of the postmodern rebellion in Chiapas. New Left Review 205: 11324.
Burbach, R. 2002: Throw them all out: Argentinas grassroots rebellion. NACLA Report on the Americas
36(1), 3840.
Burgess, R. 1978: Petty commodity housing or dweller control critique of Turners views on housing
policy. World Development 6(910), 110533.
Bury, J. 2002: The political ecology of transnational gold mining corporations and the transformation of
livelihoods in Cajamarca, Peru. PhD thesis, Graduate School of the University of Colorado, Boulder,
Department of Geography.
272

273

Bibliography

Cadji, A.-L. 2000: Brazils landless nd their voice. NACLA Report on the Americas 33 (5), 304.
Cairncross, S., Hardoy, J. and Satterthwaite, D. 1990: The urban context. In Hardoy, J., Cairncross, S. and
Satterthwaite, D. (eds) The poor die young: housing and health in third world cities. London: Earthscan.
Caldern, F., Piscitelli, A. and Reyna, J.L. 1992: Social movements: actors, theories, expectations. In
Escobar, A. and Alvarez, S. (eds), The making of social movements in Latin America. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1936.
Caldern, M., Assies, W., Salman, T. (eds) 2003: Ciudadana, cultura poltica y reforma del estado en
Amrica Latina. Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacn.
Cammack, P. 1985: Democratisation: a review of the issues. Bulletin of Latin American Research 42(2),
3946.
Cammack, P. 1997: Cardosos political project in Brazil: the limits of Social Democracy. In Panitch, L.
(ed.), Socialist Register 1997: ruthless criticism of all that exists. London: Merlin Press, 22343.
Cardoso, F.H. 1973: Associated-dependent development: theoretical and practical implications. In
Stepan, A. (ed.), Authoritarian Brazil: origins, policies, and future. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
14270.
Cardoso, F.H. 1975:The city and politics. In Hardoy, J. (ed.), Urbanization in Latin America: approaches and
Issues. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Press, Doubleday Books, 15790.
Cardoso, F.H. 1979: On the characteristics of authoritarian regimes in Latin America. In Collier, D. (ed.),
The new authoritarianism in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Cardoso, F.H. 2001: Charting a new course: the politics of globalization and social transformation. Edited
and introduced by M.A. Font. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littleeld Publishers.
Cardoso, F.H. and Faletto, E. 1969: Dependencia y desarrollo en Amrica Latina: ensayo y interpretacin
sociolgica. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores.
Cardoso, F.H. and Faletto, E. 1979: Dependency and development in Latin America, Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
CARICOM 2003: All about the CARICOM single market economy. Georgetown, Guyana: CARICOM.
Carley M. and Christie, I. 1993: Managing sustainable development. Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press.
Carney, D. 1998: Implementing the sustainable rural livelihoods approach. In Carney, D. (ed.),
Sustainable rural livelihoods: what contribution can we make? London: Department for International
Development (DFID), 323.
Carter, M.R. and Barham, B.L. 1996: Level playing elds and laissez faire: postliberal development
strategy in inegalitarian agrarian economies. World Development 24(7), 113340.
Carter, M.R., Barham, B.L. and Mesbah, D. 1996: Agricultural export booms and the rural poor in Chile,
Guatemala, and Paraguay. Latin American Research Review 31(1), 3365.
Carter, M. and Mesbah, D. 1993: Can land market reform mitigate the exclusionary aspects of rapid
agro-export growth? World Development, 21(7), 1085100.
Carter, M.R. and Salgado, R. 2001: Land market liberalization and the agrarian question in Latin
America. In de Janvry, A., Gordillo, G., Platteau, J.P. and Sadoulet, E. (eds), Access to land, rural poverty,
and public action. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 24678.
Casaburi, G. 1999: Dynamic agroindustrial clusters: the political economy of competitive sectors in Argentina
and Chile. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.
Casper, G., Taylor, M.M. 1996: Negotiating democracy: transitions from authoritarian rule. Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press.
Castaeda, J.G. 1994: Utopia unarmed: the Latin American left after the cold war. New York: Vintage
Books.
Castaeda, T. 1992: Combating poverty: innovative social reforms in Chile during the 1980s. San Francisco,
CA: ICS Press.
Castells, M. 1983: The city and the grassroots: a cross-cultural theory of urban social movements. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.

Latin America Transformed

Castells, M. 1997: The power of identity. Oxford: Blackwell.


Castells, M. and Laserna, R. 1995: The new dependency: technological change and socioeconomic
restructuring in Latin America. In Kincaid, A.D. and Portes, A. (eds), Comparative national development:
society and economy in the new global order. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press,
5783.
Cataln, C. and Souza, M. 1999: Calidad, identidad y televisin, paper presented at the Latin American
Meeting on Television and Quality, So Paulo, Brazil, 46 August.
Caturelli, A. 1961: Amrica bifronte. Buenos Aires: Editorial Troquel.
CBEA (Caribbean Banana Exporters Association) 2003: The Dispute Settlement, accessed 17 January:
http://www.cbea.org/home2.cfm
CED 1990: Santiago: dos ciudades. Santiago: Centro de Estudios del Desarrollo.
CELADE 2001: Amrica Latina: fecundidad 1950205. Boletn Demogrco, 68.
Centeno, M.A. 1993:The new Leviathan: the dynamics and limits of technocracy. Theory and Society 22,
30735.
Centeno, M.A. and Silva, P. (eds) 1998: The politics of expertise in Latin America. Basingstoke and London:
Macmillan.
CEPAL (Comisin Econmica para Amrica Latina y el Caribe) 1994: El sector informal urbano desde
la perspectiva de gnero: el caso de Mxico. Paper presented at workshop El Sector Informal Urbano
desde la Perspectiva de Gnero: El Caso de Mxico, Mxico DF: Comisin Econmica Para Amrica
Latina y el Caribe, 2829 November.
CEPAL 1995: Anuario estadstico de Amrica Latina y el Caribe. Santiago: CEPAL.
CEPAL 2001a: Anuario estadstico de Amrica Latina y el Caribe. Santiago: CEPAL.
CEPAL 2001b: Panorama social 2001. Santiago: Comisin Econmica para Amrica Latina y el Caribe.
CEPAL 2002: Panorama social 2002. Santiago: Comisin Econmica para Amrica Latina y el Caribe.
CEPAL 2003: Balance preliminar de las economas de Amrica Latina y el Caribe 2002. No. 26, Santiago:
CEPAL.
Cerrutti, M. 2000a: Intermittent employment among married women: a comparative study of Buenos
Aires and Mexico City. Journal of Comparative Family Studies 31(1), 1943.
Cerrutti, M. 2000b: Economic reform, structural adjustment and female labor force participation in
Buenos Aires, Argentina. World Development 28(5), 87991.
Cerrutti, M. and Zenteno, R. 1999: Cambios en el papel econmico de las mujeres entre las parejas
mexicanas. Estudios Demogrcos y Urbanos 15(1), 6595.
Chalmers, D., Vilas, C., Hite, C., Martin, K. Piester and Segarra, M. (eds) 1997: The politics of inequality in
Latin America: rethinking participation and representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chambers, R. 1987: Sustainable livelihoods, environment and development: putting poor rural people
rst. IDS Discussion Paper 240, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies at the University of
Sussex.
Chambers, R. 1995: Poverty and livelihoods: whose reality counts? Environment and Urbanization 7(1),
173204.
Chambers, R. and Conway, G. 1992: Sustainable rural livelihoods: practical concepts for the 21st century.
IDS Discussion Paper 296. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.
Chant, S. 1991: Women and survival in Mexican cities: perspectives on gender, labour markets and lowincome households. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Chant, S. 1992: Migration at the margins: gender, poverty and population movement on the Costa
Rican periphery. In Chant, S. (ed.), Gender and migration in developing countries. London: Belhaven
Press, 4972.
Chant, S. 1994: Women, work and household survival strategies in Mexico, 19821992. Bulletin of Latin
American Research 13(2), 20333.
Chant, S. 1996: Womens roles in recession and economic restructuring in Mexico and the Philippines.
Geoforum 27(3), 297327.
274

275

Bibliography

Chant, S. 1997: Women-headed households: diversity and dynamics in the developing world. Basingstoke
and London: Macmillan.
Chant, S. 2000: Men in crisis? Reections on masculinities, work and family in Northwest Costa Rica.
European Journal of Development Research 12(2), 199218.
Chant, S. 2001: The informal sector and employment. In Desai, V. and Potter, R. (eds), The companion to
development studies. London: Edward Arnold, 20615.
Chant, S. 2002a: Whose crisis? Public and popular reactions to family change in Costa Rica. In Abel, C.
and Lewis, C. (eds), Exclusion and engagement: social policy in Latin America. London: Institute of Latin
American Studies, University of London, 34977.
Chant, S. 2002b: Researching gender, families and households in Latin America: from the 20th into the
21st Century, Bulletin of Latin American Research 21(4), 54575.
Chant, S. with Craske, N. 2003: Gender in Latin America. London and New Brunswick, New Jersey: Latin
America Bureau and Rutgers University Press.
Chase, J. 1999: Exodus revisted: the politics and experience of rural loss in central Brazil, Sociologia
Ruralis 39(2), 165270.
Chauvin, L. 1998: Smoking economy, Latin America Press (Lima, Peru) Feb. 5, 45.
Chevannes, B. and Ricketts, H. 1997: Return migration and small business development in Jamaica. In
Pessar, P.R. (ed.), Caribbean circuits: new directions in the study of migration. New York: Center for
Migration Studies.
Chickering, A.L. and Salahdine, M. 1991: Introduction. In Chickering, A.L. and Salahdine, M. (eds), The
silent revolution: the informal sector in ve Asian and Near Eastern countries. San Francisco, CA:
International Center for Economic Growth, 114.
Chilcote, R.H. 1981: Theories of comparative politics: the search for a paradigm. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press.
Chilcote, R.H. 1982: Dependency and Marxism: toward a resolution of the debate. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press.
Chiriboga, M. 1992 Modernizacin democrtica e incluyente. Revista Latinoamericana de Sociologa
Rural 1, 2737.
Clapp, R.A. 1995: Creating competitive advantage: forest policy as industrial policy in Chile. Economic
Geography 71(3), 27396.
Clapp, R.A. 1998: Waiting for the forest law: resource-led development and environmental politics in
Chile. Latin American Research Review 33(2), 336.
Clark, M.A. 1997: Transnational alliances and development policy in Latin America: nontraditional
export promotion in Costa Rica. Latin American Research Review 32 (2), 7197.
Cleuren, H. 2001: Paving the road for forest destruction: key actors and driving forces of tropical
deforestation in Brazil, Ecuador, and Cameroon. Leiden: Leiden University Press.
Cockburn, A. and Hecht, S.B. 1988: The fate of the forest: developers, destroyers, and defenders of the
Amazon. London: Verso.
CODHES 2002: Ms de 90.000 desplazados en el primer trimester de 2002: el destierro no se
detiene. Boletn de la Consultora para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento 41(9).
Colburn, F. 1998: The INCAE-Harvard Project for Central America. LASA Forum 28(4), 1516.
Collier, D. (ed.) 1979: The new authoritarianism in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Collier, D. and Levitsky, S. 1997: Democracy with adjectives: conceptual innovation in comparative
research. World Politics 49(3): 43051.
Collier, G.A. 1999: Basta! Land and the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas. Oakland, CA: Institute for Food
and Development Policy.
Collier, G.A. 2000: Zapatismo resurgent: land and autonomy in Chiapas. NACLA Report on the Americas
33(5), 205.
Collier Berins, R. 1999: Paths toward democracy: the working class and elites in Western Europe and South
America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Latin America Transformed

Collins, J.N. 2000: A sense of possibility: Ecuadors indigenous movement takes center stage, NACLA
Report on the Americas 33(5), 406.
Collins, J.N. 2003: Transnational labor process and gender relations: women in fruit and vegetable
production in Chile. In Gutman, M.C., Matos Rodrguez, F.V., Stephen, L. and Zavella, P. (eds),
Perspectives on Las Amricas: a reader in culture, history, and representation. Oxford: Blackwell, 16073.
Collins, J. and Lear, J. 1995: Chiles free market miracle: a second look. Oakland, CA: Institute for Food and
Development Policy.
Comisin Nacional del Medio Ambiente 1992: Chile: informe nacional a la conferencia de las Naciones
Unidas sobre medio ambiente y desarrollo. Santiago: CONAMA, Ministerio de Bienes Nacionales.
Commoner, B. 1990: Making peace with the planet. New York: Pantheon.
Congdon, T. 1988: The debt threat. Oxford: Blackwell.
Conroy, M., Murray, D. and Rosset, P. 1996: A cautionary tale: failed U.S. development policy in Central
America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Conway, D. 1998: Misguided directions, mismanaged models, or missed paths? In Klak, T. (ed.),
Globalization and neoliberalism: the Caribbean context. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littleeld, 2950.
Cooke, B., and Kothari, U. 2001: Participation: the new tyranny? London: Zed Press.
Corbridge, S. 1993: Debt and development. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cordero-Guzman, H. 1993: Lessons from Operation Bootstrap. NACLA Report on the Americas 27(3),
710.
Cornelius, W. 1975: Politics and the migrant poor in Mexico. Stanford, CA: University of Stanford
Press.
Cornelius, W. 1991: Los migrantes de la crisis: the changing prole of Mexican migration to the United
States. In Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. and Escobar, A. (eds), Social responses to Mexicos economic crisis
of the 1980s. San Diego, CA: Centre for US-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego,
15594.
Cornia, G. 1987: An overview of the alternative approach. In Cornia, G., Jolly, R. and Stewart, F. (eds),
Adjustment with a human face: protecting the vulnerable and promoting growth. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Cortes, G. 2000: Partir pour rester. Survie et mutation de socits paysannes Andines (Bolivie). Montpelier:
IRD Editions.
CPT (Christian Peacemaker Teams) 1998: Assembly factories in Haiti: a wage of sacrice. Report dated
23 February, available at: www.prairienet.org/cpt/haiti.html
Craske, N. 1993: Womens political participation in colonias populares in Guadalajara, Mexico. In
Radcliffe, S.A. and Westwood, S. (eds), Viva: women and popular protest in Latin America. London:
Routledge, 11235.
Crozier, M., Huntington, S.P. and Watanuki, J. 1975: The crisis of democracy. New York: New York
University Press.
Cubitt, T. 1995: Latin American society, 2nd edition. Harlow: Longman.
Cuenya, B., Armus, D., Di Loreto, M. and Penalva, S. 1990: Land invasions and grassroots organisation:
the Qualmes settlements in Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina. Environment and Urbanization 2(1),
6174.
Cunha, J.M. Pinto da 2002: Urbanizacin, redistribucin especial de la poblacin y transformaciones
socioeconmicas en Amrica Latina. CEPAL Serie Poblacin y Desarrollo 30, Santiago: CEPAL.
Cunningham, S.M. 1999: Made in Brazil: Cardosos path from dependency via neoliberal options and
the Third Way in the 1990s. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 67, 7586.
Currie, L.L. 1971:The exchange constraint of development: a partial solution to the problem. Economic
Journal 81 (34), 886903.
Dahl, R. 1971: Polyarchy: participation and opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Daly, H.E. and Townsend, K.N. (eds) 1993: Valuing the earth: economics, ecology, ethics. Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press.
276

277

Bibliography

Dammert, L. and Malone, M.F.T. 2003: Fear of crime or fear of life? Public insecurities in Chile. Bulletin
of Latin American Research 22(1), 79101.
David, M.B. de A., Dirven, M. and Vogelgesang, F. 2000:The impact of the new economic model on Latin
Americas agriculture. World Development 28(9), 167388.
David, M.B. de A., Morales, C. and Rodrguez, M. 2001: Modernidad y heterogeneidad: estilo de
desarrollo agrcola y rural en Amrica Latina y el Caribe. In David, M.B. de A. (ed.), Desarrollo rural
en Amrica Latina y el Caribe. Bogot: Alfaomega and Santiago: CEPAL, 4188.
Dvila, J. 1996: Bogot, Colombia: restructuring with continued growth. In Harris, N. and Fabricius, I.
(eds), Cities and structural adjustment. London: UCL Press, 13660.
Davis, D.E. 1994: Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the twentieth century. Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press.
Davis, D.E. 1999: The power of distance: re-theorizing social movements in Latin America. Theory and
Society 28, (4), 585638.
Dawson, E. 1992: District planning with community participation in Peru: the work of the Institute of
Local Democracy (IPADEL). Environment and Urbanization 4(2), 90100.
De Barbieri, T. and De Oliveira, O. 1989: Reproduccin de la fuerza de trabajo en Amrica Latina:
algunas hiptesis. In Schteingart, M. (ed.), Las ciudades Latinoamericanas en la crisis. Mxico, DF:
Editorial Trillas, 1929.
de Blij, H. and Muller, P. 1998: Puerto Ricos clouded future. In de Blij, H. and Muller, P. Geography: realms,
regions, and concepts, updated and revised eighth edition. New York: John Wiley.
de Cordoba, J. 1993: Two banana empires, Latin and Caribbean, battle over Europe. The Wall Street
Journal, 15 January, A1.
de Janvry, A. 1981: The agrarian question and reformism in Latin America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
de Janvry, A. 1994: Social and economic reforms: the challenge of equitable growth in Latin American
agriculture. In Muchnik E. and Nio de Zepeda, A. (eds) Apertura econmica, modernizacin y
sostenibilidad de la agricultura. Santiago: ALACEA, 7998.
de Janvry, A. and Garramn, C. 1977:The dynamics of rural poverty in Latin America. Journal of Peasant
Studies 4(3) 20616.
de Janvry, A., Gordillo, G., Sadoulet, E. 1997: Mexicos second agrarian reform: household and community
responses, 19901994. San Diego, La Jolla (CA): Center for US-Mexican Studies, University of
California.
de Janvry, A., Marsh, R., Runsten, D., Sadoulet, E. and Zabin, C. 1989a: Rural development in Latin America:
an evaluation and a proposal. San Jos de Costa Rica: Instituto Interamericano de Cooperacin para
la Agricultura (IICA).
de Janvry, A., Radwan, S., Sadoulet, E. and Thorbecke, E. (eds) 1995: State, market and civil organizations:
new theories, new practices and their implications for rural development. Basingstoke and London:
Macmillan.
de Janvry, A., Sadoulet, E. and Wilcox Young, L. 1989b: Land and labour in Latin American agriculture
from the 1950s to the 1980s. The Journal of Peasant Studies 16(3), 396424.
de Mattos, C.A. 1996: Avances de la globalizacin y nueva dinmica metropolitana: Santiago de Chile,
19751995. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales EURE 22(65), 3964.
de Mattos, C.A. 1999: Santiago de Chile, globalizacin y expansin metropolitana: lo que exista sigue
existiendo. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales EURE 25 (76), 2956.
De Oliveira, O. 1990: Crisis, situacin familiar y trabajo urbano. In DAWN and MUDAR (eds), Mujer y
crisis: respuestas ante la recesin. Caracas: Editorial Nueva Sociedad, 5574.
de Oliveira, O. 1991: Migration of women, family organization and labour markets in Mexico. In Jeln, E.
(ed.), Family, Household and Gender Relations in Latin America. London: Kegan Paul and Paris:
UNESCO, 10118.
De Soto, H. 1989: The other path: the invisible revolution in the third world. New York: Harper and Row.

Latin America Transformed

de Souza, R.-M. 1998: Bridging isolated proximities: transnationalism and the Caribbean migrant. Paper
presented at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, 529 March, Boston, MA.
Deardorff, A. and Stern, R. 2000: What the public should know about globalization and the World Trade
Organization. Discussion Paper No. 40, School of Public Policy, Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan.
Deere, C.D. and de Janvry, A. 1979: A conceptual framework for the empirical analysis of peasants.
American Journal of Agricultural Economics 61: 60211.
Deere, C.D. (eds) 1990: In the shadows of the sun: Caribbean development alternatives and U.S. policy.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Deere, C.D. and Len, M. 2001a: Institutional reform of agriculture under neoliberalism: the impact of
the womens and indigenous movements, Latin American Research Review 36(2), 3163.
Deere, C.D. and Len, M. 2001b: Empowering women: land and property rights in Latin America.
Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Deere, C.D. and Melendez, E. 1992: When export growth isnt enough: US trade policy and Caribbean
Basin economic recovery. Caribbean Affairs 5: 6170.
Degregori, C.I., Blondet, C. and Lynch, N. 1986: Conquistadores de un nuevo mundo: de invasores a
ciudadanos en San Martn de Porras. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Deiniger, K. 1999: Making negotiated land reform work: initial experience from Colombia, Brazil and
South Africa. World Development 27(4), 65172.
Demas, W. 1997: West Indian Development and the deepening and widening of the Caribbean community.
Kingston: Ian Randle.
Demmers, J., Fernndez Jilberto, A.E. and Hogenboom, B. (eds) 2001: Miraculous metamorphoses: the
neoliberalization of Latin American populism. London and New York: Zed Books.
Demographia 2001: Mexico City metropolitan area. Wendell Cox Consultancy, www.demographia.com.
Detwyler, R. and Melvin, M. 1972: Urbanisation and environment: the physical geography of the city.
Belmont, CA: Duxbury Press.
Devlin, R. 1989: Debt and crisis in Latin America: the supply side of the history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Diamond, L. 1999: Developing democracy: toward consolidation. Baltimore, NJ: The Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Diamond, L., Linz, J. and Lipset, S.M. (eds) 1989: Democracy in developing countries: Latin America. Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner and Adamantine Press.
Diaz, V.J. 1992: Landslides in the squatter settlements of Caracas: towards a better understanding of
causative factors. Environment and Urbanization 4(2), 809.
Daz Polanco, H. 1997: Indigenous people in Latin America: the quest for self-determination. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Dicken, P. 1998: Global shift: the internationalization of economic activity. Third edition, New York: The
Guilford Press.
Dicken, P., Peck, J. and Tickell, A. 1997: Unpacking the global. In Lee, R. and Wills, J. (eds), Geographies of
economies. London: Edward Arnold, 15866.
Dierckxsens, W. 1992: Impacto del ajuste estructural sobre la mujer trabajadora en Costa Rica. In
Acua-Ortega, M. (ed.), Cuadernos de poltica econmica. Heredia: Universidad Nacional de Costa
Rica, 259.
Dietz, J.L. (ed.) 1995: Latin Americas economic development: confronting crisis. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Diniz, C.C. 1994: Polygonized development in Brazil: neither decentralization nor continued
polarization. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 18(2), 293314.
Dockerndorff, E., Rodrguez, A. and Winchester, L. 2000: Santiago de Chile: metropolization,
globalization and inequity. Environment and Urbanization 12(2), 17183.
Domnguez, J.I. (ed.) 1997: Technopols: freeing politics and markets in Latin America in the 1990s.
University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Donoso, J. 1981: El jardn de al lado. Barcelona: Seix Barral.
278

279

Bibliography

Dore, E. 1995: Latin America and the social ecology of capitalism. In Halebsky, S. and Harris, R.L. (eds),
Capital, power, and inequality in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 25378.
Dore, E. and Molyneux, M. (eds) 2000: Hidden histories of gender and the state in Latin America. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press.
Dornbusch, R. and Edwards, S. (eds) 1991: The macro-economics of populism in Latin America. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Dos Santos, T. 1970: The structure of dependency. American Economic Review 60 (2): 23136.
Dos Santos, T. 1998: The theoretical foundations of the Cardoso government: a new stage in the
dependency-theory debate. Latin American Perspectives 25(1), 5370.
Dos Santos, T. 2002a: La teora de la dependencia: balance y perspectivas. Barcelona and Mexico City:
Plaza y Jans Editores.
Dos Santos, T. 2002b: Los fundamentos tericos del gobierno de Fernando Henrique Cardoso: nueva
etapa de la polmica sobre la teora de la dependencia. In Dos Santos,T., La teora de la dependencia:
balance y perspectivas, 10136 and 1458.
Doughty, P.L. 1970: Behind the back of the city: provincial life in Lima, Peru. In Mangin, W. (ed.), Peasants
in Cities: Readings in the Anthropology of Urbanization. Boston: Houghton Mifin, 3046.
Drakakis-Smith, D. 1987: The third world city. London: Methuen.
Dupuy, A. 1997: Haiti in the new world order: the limits of the democratic revolution. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Durand, J. and Massey, D.S. 1992: Mexican migration to the United States: a critical view. Latin American
Research Review 27(2), 342.
Durand, J., Parrado, E.A. and Massey, D.S. 1996: Migradollars and development: a reconsideration of the
Mexican case. International Migration Review 30(2): 42344.
Ducci, M.E. 1997: Chile: el lado obscuro de una poltica de vivienda exitosa. Revista Latinoamericana de
Estudios Urbanos-Regionales (EURE) 23, 99115.
Duncan, K. and Rutledge, I. (eds) 1977: Land and labour in Latin America: essays on the development of
agrarian capitalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dussell, E. 2000: Polarizing Mexico: the impact of liberalization strategy. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Easton, D. 1965: A framework for political analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Eckstein, S. (ed). 1989: Power and popular protest: Latin American social movements. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
ECLAC 1990: Changing production patterns with social equity. Santiago: Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
ECLAC 1991: Sustainable development: changing production patterns, social equity and the environment.
Santiago: United Nations ECLAC.
ECLAC 1992a: Social equity and changing production patterns: an integrated approach. Santiago: ECLAC.
ECLAC 1992b: Major changes and crisis: the impact on women in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Santiago: ECLAC.
ECLAC 1994: Open regionalism in Latin America and the Caribbean. Santiago: ECLAC.
ECLAC 1995: Latin America and the Caribbean: policies to improve linkages with the global economy.
Santiago: ECLAC.
ECLAC 1998: Fifty years of the economic survey. In ECLAC, Economic survey of Latin America and the
Caribbean, 19978. Santiago: ECLAC, 34368.
ECLAC 2001: Equity, development and citizenship. Santiago: ECLAC.
ECLAC 2002a: Globalization and development. Santiago: Economic Commission for Latin America and
the Caribbean (ECLAC).
ECLAC 2002b: Social panorama of Latin America 20002001. Santiago: Economic Commission for
Latin America and the Caribbean (www.cepal.org).
ECLAC 2002c: Social panorama of Latin America 20012002. Santiago: Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (www.cepl.org).

Latin America Transformed

ECLAC 2003a: La inversin extranjera en Amrica Latina y el Caribe. Santiago: Economic Commission for
Latin America and the Caribbean.
ECLAC 2003b: Latin America and the Caribbean in the world economy, 20012002 edition. Santiago:
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
ECLAC/IICA 2002: Survey of agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean 19902000, Santiago:
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and Inter-American Institute
for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
Edelman, M. 1998a: Organizing across borders: the rise of a transnational peasant movement in
Central America. In Blauert, J. and Zadek, S. (eds), Mediating sustainability. Growing policy from the
grassroots. Bloomeld, CT: Kumarian Press, 21547.
Edelman, M. 1998b: Transnational peasant politics in Central America. Latin American Research Review
33(3), 4986.
Edelman, M. 1999: Peasants against globalization: rural social movements in Costa Rica. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Edelman, M. 2000: The persistence of the peasantry. NACLA Report on the Americas 33(5), 1419.
Edwards, A. 1987: La fronda aristocrtica en Chile. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria.
Edwards, M. 1982: Cities of tenants: renting among the urban poor in Latin America. In Gilbert, A.,
Hardoy, J. and Ramrez, R. (eds), Urbanization in contemporary Latin America. London: John Wiley,
12958.
Edwards, S. 1995: Crisis and reform in Latin America: from despair to hope. Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press.
Ekins, P. 1992: A new world order: grassroots movements for global change. London and New York:
Routledge.
El Pas 2003: La incertidumbre de Amrica Latina, El Pas, 3 August, 44.
El Tiempo 2002: Pobres ponen en alerta las campaas, El Tiempo, 9 February.
Ellis, F. 2000: Rural livelihoods and diversity in developing countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Elson, D. 1989: The impact of structural adjustment on women: concepts and issues. In Onimode, B.
(ed.), The IMF, the World Bank and the African debt, Volume 2: The social and political impact. London:
Zed Books.
Elson, D. 1991: Structural adjustment: its effects on women. In Wallace,T. with March, C. (eds), Changing
perceptions: writings on gender and development. Oxford: Oxfam, 3953.
Elson, D. 1999: Labour markets as gendered institutions: equality, efciency and empowerment issues.
World Development 27(3), 61127.
Emmanuel, A. 1972: Unequal exchange: a study of the imperialism of trade. London: New Left Books.
Epstein, E. 2000: Changing Latin American labor relations amidst economic and political liberalization.
Latin American Research Review 35(1), 20818.
Escobal, J. 2001: The determinants of nonfarm income diversication in rural Peru. World Development
29(3): 497508.
Escobar, A. 1995: Encountering development: the making and unmaking of the third world. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Escobar, A. 2001a: Beyond the search for a paradigm? Post-development and beyond. Development 43
(4) (online journal: http://www.sidint.org/journal.htm).
Escobar, A. 2001b: Culture sits in places: reections on globalization and subaltern strategies of
localization. Political Geography 20(2): 13974.
Escobar, A. and Alvarez, S. (eds) 1992: The making of social movements in Latin America: identity, strategy
and democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Escobar, A. and Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. 1995: Crisis, restructuring and urban poverty in Mexico.
Environment and Urbanization 7(1), 5776.
Escobar Latap, A. 1988: The rise and fall of an urban labour market: economic crisis and the fate of
small workshops in Guadalajara, Mexico. Bulletin of Latin American Research 7(2), 183205.
280

281

Bibliography

Escobar Latap, A. 1998: Los hombres y sus historias: reestructuracin y masculinidad en Mxico. La
Ventana (Universidad de Guadalajara), 12273.
Escobar Latap, A. 2000: El mercado de trabajo de Guadalajara: clase, gnero y edad, 19871996. In
Instituto Tecnolgico de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO) Jalisco diagnstico y prospectiva
(sociedad, poltica y economa). Mxico, DF: ITESO.
Escobar Latap, A. and Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. 1995: Crisis, restructuring and urban poverty in
Mexico. Environment and Urbanization 7(1), 5776.
Espinal, R. 1991: Review of Diamond, Linz, and Lipset (1989). Journal of Latin American Studies 23(2):
4313.
Espinal, R. 1992: Development, neoliberalism and electoral politics in Latin America, Development and
Change 23(4), 42748.
Espinosa, M.F. 2001: The politics of the indigenous movement in Ecuador: from ethnic protest to a
national political project. Paper read at American Association of Geographers, Annual Conference,
New York.
Evans, P.B. 1979: Dependent development: the alliance of multinational, state, and local capital in Brazil.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Evans, P.B., Rueschemeyer, D. and Skocpol,T. (eds) 1985: Bringing the state back in. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Evans, T., Castro, C. and Jones, J. 1995: Structural adjustment and the public sector in Central America and
the Caribbean. Managua: CRIES (Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Econmicas y Sociales).
Evers, T. 1985. Identity: the hidden side of new social movements in Latin America. In Slater, D. (ed.),
New social movements and the state in Latin America. Amsterdam: CEDLA.
Ewig, C. 1999: The strengths and limits of the NGO womens movement model: shaping Nicaraguas
democratic institutions. Latin American Research Review 34 (3), 75102.
Eyzaguirre, J. 1947: Hispanoamrica del dolor. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Polticos.
Ezcurra, E. and Mazari-Hiriart, M. 1996: Are megacities viable? A cautionary tale from Mexico City.
Environment 38(1), 616.
Fajnzylber, F. 1990a: Sobre la impostergable transformacin productiva de Amrica Latina. Pensamiento
Iberoamericano 16, 85129.
Fajnzylber, F. 1990b: Industrialization in Latin America: from the black box to the empty box: a comparison
of contemporary industrialization patterns. Santiago: Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean.
Fajnzylber, F. 1990c: Industrializacin en Amrica Latina: de la caja negra al casillero vaco. Cuadernos de
la CEPAL 60, Santiago: CEPAL.
Falabella, G. 1991: Organizarse para sobrevivir en Santa Mara. Democracia social en un sindicato de
temporeros y temporeras. Paper presented at the 47th International Congress of Americanists,
New Orleans, 711 July.
FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation) 1996: Trade yearbook. Rome: FAO.
Faux, J. 2001: The global alternative. The American Prospect July 2, online at: http://www.prospect.
org/print/V12/12/faux-j.html
Feder, E. 1971: The rape of the peasantry: Latin Americas landholding system. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Felix, D. 1992: Privatizing and rolling back the Latin American state. CEPAL Review 46, 3146.
Feres, J.C. 2001: La pobreza en Chile en al ao 2000. CEPAL Serie Estudios Estadsticos y Prospectivos 14.
Ferguson, B. 1996: The environmental impacts and public costs of unguided informal settlement: the
case of Montego Bay. Environment and Urbanization 8(2), 17193.
Fernandes, E. and Varley, A. (eds) 1998: Illegal cities: law and urban change in developing countries. London:
Zed Press.
Fernndez, J. 1996: The impact of drugs on the Colombian economy. The Colombian economic model:
institutions, performance and prospects. London: Institute of Latin American Studies Conference,
April.

Latin America Transformed

Fernndez-Arias, E. and Hausmann, R. 1999: Is FDI a safer form of nancing? Inter American
Development Bank, Research Department Working Paper 416. Washington, DC: IDB.
Fernndez-Kelly, M.P. 1983: Mexican border industrialization, female labor force participation and
migration. In Nash, J. and Fernndez-Kelly, M.P. (eds), Women, men and the international division of
labor. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 20523.
Ffrench-Davis, R. 1983: The monetarist experiment in Chile: a critical survey. World Development
11(11), 90526.
Ffrench-Davis, R. 1988: An outline of a neo-structuralist approach. Cepal Review 34, 3744.
Ffrench-Davis, R. 2000: Reforming the reforms in Latin America: macroeconomics, trade, nance. London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Ffrench-Davis, R. 2002: Economic reforms in Chile: from dictatorship to democracy. Ann Arbour, MI:
University of Michigan Press.
Figueroa, A. 1993: Agricultural development in Latin America. In Sunkel, O. (ed.), Development from
within: towards a neostructuralist approach for Latin America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Fisher, J. 1993: Out of the shadows: women, resistance and politics in South America. London: Latin
American Bureau.
Flores Galindo, A. 1994: Buscando un inca. Lima: Editorial Horizonte.
Foweraker, J. 1995: Theorizing social movements. London: Pluto.
Foweraker, J. 2001: Grassroots movements and political activism in Latin America: a critical comparison
of Chile and Brazil. Journal of Latin American Studies 33(4), 83965.
Fox, R. 1975: Urban population growth trends in Latin America. Washington, DC: Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB).
Fox, R. and Starn, O. (eds) 1997: Between resistance and revolution: cultural politics and social protest. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Foxley, A. 1996: Preface. In Bulmer-Thomas, V. (ed.), The new economic model in Latin America and its
impact on income distribution and poverty. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 16.
Franco, J. 1980: Historia de la literatura hispanoamericana. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel.
Frank, A.G. 1966: The development of underdevelopment. Monthly Review 18 (September), 1731.
Frank, A.G. 1967: Capitalism and underdevelopment in Latin America: historical studies of Chile and Brazil.
New York: Monthly Review Press.
Frank, A.G. 1991: Latin American development theories revisited: a participant review essay. The
European Journal of Development Research 3(2), 14659. A longer version was published in
The Scandinavian Journal of Development Research 10(3), 13350.
Freudenheim, M. 1992: Tax credits of $8.5 Billion received by 22 drug makers. The New York Times, 15
May, C3.
Freyre, G. 1946: The master and the slaves: a study in the development of Brazilian civilization. New York:
Alfred Knopf.
Frias, P. and Ruiz-Tagle, J. 1995: Free market economics and belated democratization: the case
of Chile. In Thomas, H. (ed.), Globalization and third world trade unions. London: Zed Books,
13048.
Frieden, J. 1991: Debt, development, and democracy: modern political economy and Latin America.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Friedland, W.H. 1994: The global fresh fruit and vegetable: an industrial organisation analysis. In
McMichael, P. (ed.), The global restructuring of agro-food systems. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Friedman, E., Hochstetler, K. and Clark, A.M. 2001: Sovereign limits and regional opportunities for global
civil society in Latin America. Latin American Research Review 36 (3), 735.
Friedmann, J. and Rangan, H. (eds) 1993: In defense of livelihood: comparative studies on environmental
action. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.
Friedmann, J. and Wolff, G. 1982: World city formation: an agenda for research and action. International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research 6(3), 30943.
282

283

Bibliography

Frundt, H.J. 2002: Central American unions in the era of globalization. Latin American Research Review
37(3), 753.
Fuentes, C. 1990: Valiente mundo nuevo: pica, utopa y mito en la novela hispanoamericana. Madrid:
Narrativa Mondadori.
Fuguet, A. and Gmez, S. 1996: McOndo. Barcelona: Mondadori.
Fukuyama, F. 1992: The end of history and the last man. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Fuller, N. 2000: Work and masculinity among Peruvian urban men. European Journal of Development
Research 12(2), 93114.
Funkhouser, E. 1996: The urban informal sector in Central America: household survey evidence. World
Development 24(11), 173751.
Furley, P. 1996: Environmental issues and the impact of development. In Preston, D. (ed.), Latin American
development geographical perspectives. 2nd edn. Harlow: Longman, 70115.
Furtado, C. 1976: Economic development of Latin America. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Garca, B. and de Oliveira, O. 1997: Motherhood and extradomestic work in urban Mexico. Bulletin of
Latin American Research 16(3), 36784.
Garca, M.E. 2000: To be Quechua is to belong: citizenship, identity, and intercultural bilingual education
in Cuzco, Peru. PhD dissertation, Brown University, Department of Anthropology.
Garca Canclini, N. 1989: Culturas hbridas: estrategias para entrar y salir de la modernidad. Mexico City:
Grijalbo.
Garca de la Huerta, M. 1999: Reexiones Americanas, ensayos de intra-historia. Santiago: LOM Ediciones.
Garca Pascual, F. 2003: El ajuste estructural neoliberal en el sector agrario latinoamericano en la era
de la globalizacin. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 75, 329.
Garza, G. 1999: Global economy, metropolitan dynamics and urban policies in Mexico. Cities 16, 14970.
Gates, L.C. 2002:The strategic uses of gender in household negotiations: women workers on Mexicos
northern border. Bulletin of Latin American Research 21(4), 50726.
Geldstein, R. 1994: Working class mothers as economic providers and heads of families in Buenos
Aires. Reproductive Health Matters 4, 5564.
Geldstein, R. 1997: Mujeres jefas de hogar: familia, pobreza y gnero. Buenos Aires: UNICEF-Argentina.
Geref, G. 1996: Mexicos old and new maquiladora industries: contrasting approaches to North
American integration. In Otero, G. (ed.), Neo-liberalism revisited: economic restructuring and Mexicos
political future. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 85106.
Geref, G. 1994: Rethinking development theory: insights from East Asia and Latin America. In Kincaid,
A.D. and Portes, A. (eds), Comparative national development: society and economy in the new global
order. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Geref, G. and Miguel Korzeniewicz (eds) 1994: Commodity chains and global capitalism. Westport, CT:
Praeger.
Geref, G. and Wyman, D.L. (eds.) 1990: Manufacturing miracles: paths of industrialization in Latin
America and East Asia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Germani, G. 1965: Poltica y sociedad en una poca de transicin. Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidos.
Gerschenkron, A. 1962: Economic backwardness in historical perspective. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press
of the University of Harvard University Press.
Gerth, H.H. and Wright Mills, C. (eds) 1958: From Max Weber: essays in sociology. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Ghai, D. (ed.) 1994: Development and the environment: sustaining people and nature. Development
and Change 25(1), Special Issue.
Ghai, D. and Vivian, J.M. (eds) 1992: Grassroots environmental action: peoples participation in grassroots
development. London: Routledge.
Giarracca, N. (ed.) 2001: Una nueva ruralidad para Amrica Latina? Buenos Aires: Consejo
Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO).

Latin America Transformed

Gibb, R. and Michalak, W. (eds.) 1994: Continental trading blocs: the growth of regionalism in the world
economy. Chichester: John Wiley.
Gibbings, W. 2002:The CARICOM single market and economy: utopia or reality? In Blacklock, M. (ed.),
The association of Caribbean States (ACS) yearbook. 5th edn. ACS and International Systems and
Communications Limited: Port of Spain and London, 1225.
Gibson, C., McKean, M. and Ostrom, E. 2000: People and forests: communities, institutions, and governance.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Giddens, A. 1990: The consequences of modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Gilbert, A.G. 1974: Latin American development: a geographical perspective. Harmondsworth and
London: Penguin.
Gilbert, A.G. 1975: Urban and regional development programs in Colombia since 1951. In Cornelius,
W. and Trueblood, F. (eds), Latin American Urban Research 5, London: Sage Publications, 24175.
Gilbert, A.G. 1992:Third World cities: housing, infrastructure and servicing. Urban Studies 29(34), 43560.
Gilbert, A.G. 1993: Third World cities: the changing national settlement system. Urban Studies 30(45),
72140.
Gilbert, A.G. 1995a: Debt, poverty and the Latin American city. Geography 80(4), 32333.
Gilbert, A.G. 1995b: Globalization, employment and poverty: the case of Bogot, Colombia. Seminar,
Geography and Planning Research Series. London School of Economics, 30 November.
Gilbert, A.G. 1997a: Employment and poverty during economic restructuring: the case of Bogot,
Colombia, Urban Studies 34(7), 104770.
Gilbert, A.G. 1997b: Mining, manufacturing and services. In Blouet, B.W. and Blouet, O.M. (eds), Latin
America and the Caribbean: a systematic and regional survey. NewYork: John Wiley.
Gilbert, A.G. 1998: The Latin American city. 2nd edn. London: Latin America Bureau and New York:
Monthly Review Press.
Gilbert, A.G. 2002: The economy: growth, diversication and globalization. In Blouet, B.W. and Blouet,
O.M. (eds), Latin America and the Caribbean. New York: John Wiley. 4th edn. 199234.
Gilbert, A.G. and Dvila, J. 2002: Bogot: progress in a hostile environment. In Dietz, D.A. and Myers, D.J.
(eds), The local executive in Latin Americas capital cities: democratization and change. Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner.
Gilbert, A.G. and Gugler, J. 1992: Cities, poverty and development: urbanization in the third world. Oxford:
Oxford University Press (second edition).
Gilbert, A.G. and Koser, K. 2002: The dissemination to potential asylum seekers of information about
UK immigration and asylum policy and practice. Interim Report to the Home Ofce. mimeo.
Gilbert, A.G. and Varley, A. 1991: Landlord and tenant: housing and the urban poor in Mexico. London:
Routledge.
Gilbert, A.G. and Ward, P. 1984: Community participation in upgrading settlements: the community
response. World Development 12(9), 91322.
Gilbert, A.G. and Ward, P. 1985: Housing, the state and the poor: policy and practice in three Latin
American cities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gills, B. and Rocamora, J. 1992: Low intensity democracy. Third World Quarterly 13(3), 50124.
Gledhill, J. 1995: Neoliberalism, transnationalization and rural poverty: a case study of Michoacn. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
Gligo, N. 1993: Environment and natural resources in Latin American development. In Sunkel, O. (ed.),
Development from within: towards a neostructuralist approach for Latin America. Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 185222.
Goldin, I. and Winters, L.A. 1995: The economics of sustainable development. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Goldsworthy, D. 1988:Thinking politically about development. Development and Change 19(3), 50530.
Gngora, M. 1981: Ensayo histrico sobre la nocin de estado en Chile en los siglos XIX y XX. Santiago:
Ediciones La Ciudad.
284

285

Bibliography

Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. 1988: Economic crisis, domestic reorganization and womens work in
Guadalajara, Mexico. Bulletin of Latin American Research 7(2), 20723.
Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. 1991: Family well-being, food consumption and survival strategies during
Mexicos economic crisis. In Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. and Escobar, A. (eds), Social responses to
Mexicos economic crisis of the 1980s. San Diego, CA: Center for US Mexican Studies, Contemporary
Perspectives Series No.1, 11527.
Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. 1994: The resources of poverty: women and survival in a Mexican City. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. 1997: The erosion of the survival model: urban responses to persistent
poverty. Paper prepared for the UNRISD/UNDP/CDS Workshop Gender, Poverty and Well-being:
Indicators and Strategies, Trivandrum, Kerala, 2427 November.
Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. 2000: Private adjustments: household responses to the erosion of work. New
York: Social Development and Poverty Elimination Division, United Nations Development
Programme.
Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. 2001: From the resources of poverty to the poverty of resources: the
erosion of a survival model. Latin American Perspectives 38(4), 72100.
Gonzlez de la Rocha, M., Escobar, A., Martnez Castellanos, M. 1990: Estrategias versus conictos:
reexiones para el estudio del grupo domstico en poca de crisis. In de la Pea, G., Durn, J.M.,
Escobar, A. and Garca de Alba, J. (eds), Crisis, conicto y sobrevivencia: estudios sobre la sociedad urbana
en Mxico. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara/CIESAS, 35167.
Gore, C. 2000: The rise and fall of the Washington Consensus as a paradigm for developing countries,
World Development 28(5), 789804.
Gourevitch, P.A. 1986 Politics in hard times: comparative responses to international crises. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
Government of Jamaica 2002 A ve-year strategic information technology plan for Jamaica. Kingston:
Government of Jamaica. Accessed January 2003 at: http://www.mct.gov.jm/GOJ%20IT%20Plan%20%20Revised%20Version%20March%2020021.pdf
Grabowski, R. and Shields, M. 1996: Development economics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Grant, R.D. 1993: Against the grain: agricultural trade policies of the US, the European Community and
Japan at the GATT. Political Geography 12(3), 24762.
Green, D. 1995: Silent revolution: the rise of market economics in Latin America. London: Cassell in
association with Latin America Bureau.
Green, D. 1996: Latin America: neoliberal failure and the search for alternatives. Third World Quarterly
17(1), 10922.
Green, D. 1999: A trip to the market in Latin America: the impact of neoliberalism in Latin America. In
Buxton, J. and Phillips, N. (eds), Developments in Latin American political economy: states, markets and
actors. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1332.
Grifth, I. 1997: Drugs and security in the Caribbean. State College, PA: Pennsylvania State University
Press.
Grifth, I. (ed.) 2003: Caribbean security in the age of terror. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle (forthcoming).
Grifth-Jones, S. 1998: Global capital ows: should they be regulated? Basingstoke and London:
Macmillan.
Grilli, E. and Yang, H. 1988: Primary commodity prices, manufactured goods prices and the terms of
trade of developing countries: what the long-run shows. World Bank Economic Review 2, 147.
Grugel, J. 1995: Politics and development in the Caribbean basin: Central America and the Caribbean in the
new world order. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Grzybowski, C. 1990: Rural workers and democratisation in Brazil. In Fox, J. (ed.), The challenge of rural
democratisation. London: Frank Cass, 1543.
Guoymer, H., Mahe, L. P., Munk, K. J. and Roe, T. L. 1993: Agriculture in the Uruguay Round. Journal of
Agricultural Economics 27(1), 23046.

Latin America Transformed

Gutirrez Castillo, M. 1997: Aspectos de gnero de la economa de El Salvador. In Elson, D., Faun,
M.A., Gideon, J., Gutirrez, M., Lpez de Mazier, A. and Sacayn, E. Crecer con la mujer: oportunidades
para el desarrollo ecnomico centroamericano. San Jos: Embajada Real de los Pases Bajos,
12771.
Gutmann, M. 1996: The meanings of macho: being a man in Mexico city. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
Gutmann, M. 1997: The ethnographic (g)Ambit: women and the negotiation of masculinity in Mexico
City, American Ethnologist 24(4), 83355.
Gwynne, R.N. 1976: Economic development and structural change: the Chilean case, 197073.
Occasional Publication No 2. Birmingham: Department of Geography, University of Birmingham.
Gwynne, R.N. 1978: Government planning and the location of the motor vehicle industry in Chile,
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geograe 69(3), 13041.
Gwynne, R.N. 1985: Industrialisation and urbanisation in Latin America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Gwynne, R.N. 1990: New horizons? Third world industrialization in an international framework. Harlow:
Longman.
Gwynne, R.N. 1993a: Non-traditional export growth and economic development: the Chilean forestry
sector since 1974. Bulletin of Latin American Research 12(2), 14769.
Gwynne, R.N. 1993b: Outward orientation and marginal environments: the question of sustainable
development in the Norte Chico, Chile. Mountain Research and Development 13(3), 28193.
Gwynne, R.N. 1995: Regional integration in Latin America: the revival of a concept? In Gibb, R. and
Michalak, W. (eds), Continental trading blocs: the growth of regionalism in the world economy.
Chichester: John Wiley.
Gwynne, R.N. 1996a: Industrialization and urbanization. In Preston, D. (ed.), Latin American development:
geographical perspectives, 2nd edition. Harlow: Longman, 21645.
Gwynne, R.N. 1996b: Direct foreign investment and non-traditional export growth in Chile: the case
of the forestry sector. Bulletin of Latin American Research 15(3), 34157.
Gwynne, R.N. 1999: Globalization, commodity chains and fruit exporting regions in Chile. Tijdschrift
voor Economische en Sociale Geograe 90(2), 21155.
Gwynne, R.N. 2003: Transnational capitalism and local development. Tijdschrift voor Economische en
Sociale Geograe 94(3), 31021.
Gwynne, R.N. and Kay, C. 2000: Views from the periphery: futures of neoliberalism in Latin America.
Third World Quarterly 21(1), 14156.
Gwynne, R.N., Klak, T. and Shaw, D.J.B. 2003: Alternative capitalisms. Arnold: London and New York:
Oxford University Press.
Gwynne, R.N. and Meneses, C. 1994: Climate change and sustainable development in the Norte Chico,
Chile: land, water and the commercialisation of agriculture. Occasional Papers 34, Birmingham: School
of Geography, University of Birmingham.
Gwynne, R.N. and Ortiz, J. 1997: Export growth and development in poor rural regions: a meso scale
analysis of the Upper Limar. Bulletin of Latin American Research 16(1), 2541.
Haas, Peter M., Keohane, R.O. and Levy, M.A.1993: Institutions for the earth: sources of international
environmental protection. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.
Haggard, S. 1990: Pathways from the periphery: the politics of growth in the newly industrializing countries.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Haggard, S. and Kaufman, R.R. (eds) 1992: The politics of economic adjustment. Princeton, NJ: University
of Princeton Press.
Haggard, S. and Kaufman, R.R. 1995: The political economy of democratic transitions. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Haggard, S. and Webb, S.B. (eds) 1994: Voting for reform: democracy, political liberalization and economic
adjustment. New York: Oxford University Press.
286

287

Bibliography

Hall, A. 1996: Did Chico Mendes die in vain? Brazilian rubber tappers in the 1990s. In Collinson, H.
(ed.), Green guerrillas: environmental conicts and initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean.
London: Latin American Bureau, 93102.
Hall, A. 1997: Peopling the environment: a new agenda for research, policy and action in Brazilian
Amazonia. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 62, 931.
Halpern, P. 2002: Los nuevos chilenos y la batalla por sus preferencias. Santiago: Planeta.
Hamilton, S. and Fischer, E. 2003: Understanding the risks: theoretical perspectives and local
perceptions of nontraditional agricultural exports in highland Guatemala. Latin American Research
Review 38(3), 82110.
Hampton, M. and Christensen, J. 2002: Offshore pariahs? Small island economies, tax havens and the
re-conguration of global nance. World Development 30(9) 165773.
Handelman, H. 1996: The challenge of third world development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hardoy, J. 1975: Two thousand years of Latin American urbanization, in Hardoy, J. (ed.), Urbanization in
Latin America: approaches and issues, New York: Anchor Books, 356.
Hardoy, J., Mitlin, D. and Satterthwaite, D. 1992: Environmental problems in third world cities. London:
Earthscan.
Hardoy, J. and Satterthwaite, D. 1989: Squatter citizen: life in the urban third world. London: Earthscan.
Harris, R.L. 2000:The effects of globalization and neoliberalism in Latin America at the beginning of the
millennium. Journal of Developing Societies 16(1), 13962.
Harris, R.L. 2002: Globalization and globalism in Latin America: contending perspectives. Latin American
Perspectives 29(6), 523.
Hartshorn, G. 1989: Sustained yield management of natural forests: the palcaz production forest. In
Browder, J. (ed.), Fragile lands of Latin America: strategies for sustainable development. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1308.
Harvey, N. 1994: Rebellion in Chiapas: rural reforms, campesino radicalism, and the limits to Salinismo.
In The transformation of rural Mexico, No. 5, La Jolla (CA): Center for US-Mexican Studies, University
of California at San Diego, 149.
Harvey, N. 1998: The Chiapas rebellion: the struggle for land and democracy. Durham, NC, and London:
Duke University Press.
Heal, G. 2000: Nature and the marketplace. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Hecht, S.B. 1985: Environment, development and politics: capital accumulation and the livestock sector
in Eastern Amazonia. World Development 13(6): 66384.
Held, D. 1996: Models of democracy. 2nd edn. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. 1999: Global transformations: politics, economics and
culture. Cambridge: Polity.
Herbert, B. 1996: Banana bully. The New York Times, 13 May, A15.
Hernndez-Laos, E. 2000: Crecimiento econmico, distribucin del ingreso y pobreza en Mxico.
Comercio Exterior 50(10), 86373.
Hey, J. and Klak, T. 1999: From protectionism toward neoliberalism: Ecuador under four administrations
(19811996). Studies in Comparative International Development 34(3), 6697.
Higley, J. and Gunther, R. (eds) 1992: Elites and democratic consolidation in Latin America and Southern
Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. 1992: The problem of globalisation: international economic relations,
national economic management and the formation of trading blocs. Economy and Society 21(4),
35796.
Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. 1996: Globalization in question: the international economy and the possibilities
of governance. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. 1999: Globalization in question: the international economy and the possibilities
of governance. Second edn. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hitiris, T. 1989: European Community economics. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Latin America Transformed

Hobsbawm, E. 1994: Age of extremes. The short twentieth century, 19141991. London: Michael
Joseph.
Hojman, D.E. 1992: Chile: the political economy of development and democracy in the 1990s. Basingstoke:
Macmillan.
Hommes, R., Montenegro, A. and Roda, P. (eds.) 1994: Una apertura hacia el futuro: balance econmico
19901994. Bogot: Ministerio de Hacienda y Crdito Pblico and Departamento Nacional de
Planeacin.
Hopenhayn, M. 1993: Postmodernism and neoliberalism in Latin America. In Beverly, J. and Oviedo, J.
(eds), The postmodernism debate in Latin America. A special issue of Boundary 2, 20 (3). Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 93109.
Hounie, A., Pittaluga, L., Porcile, G. and Scatolin, F. 1999: ECLAC and the new growth theories. CEPAL
Review 68, 734.
Humphrey, J. 1997: Gender divisions in Brazilian industry. In Gugler, J. (ed.), Cities in the developing world:
issues, theory and policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 17183.
Hunt, D. 1993: Economic theories of development. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Huntington, S.P. 1968: Political order in changing societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Huntington, S.P. 1991: The Third Wave of Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK:
University of Oklahoma Press.
Hurrell, A. 1991: The politics of Amazonian deforestation, Journal of Latin American Studies 23, 1:
197215.
Hurrell, A. and Kingsbury, B. (eds) 1992: The international politics of the environment: actors, interests, and
institutions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) 1991: Our own agenda. Washington, DC: IDB.
IDB 1996: Economic and social progress in Latin America: 1996 report: making social services work.
Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.
IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) 1997: Latin America after a decade of reforms: economic and
social progress, 1997 report. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) 1998: Facing up to inequality: economic and social progress in
Latin America, 19981999 report. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
IDB 2003: Inter-American Development Bank annual report, Washington, DC: IDB.
IEA (International Energy Agency) 1996: Energy balances and statistics of the non-OECD countries. Paris:
IEA.
Iglesias, E.V. 1992: Reections on economic development: toward a new Latin American consensus.
Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
ILO 1995: World employment 1995: an ILO report. Geneva: ILO.
ILO 2000: 2000 labour overview. Lima: International Labour Organization (www.ilolim.org.pe/english/
260ameri/publ/2000.special.html)
ILO 2001: Report of the director general: reducing the decent work decit a global challenge. Geneva:
International Labour Organization (www.ilo.org).
Imaz de, J.L. 1984: Sobre la identidad iberoamericana. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana.
INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadstica, Geografa e Informtica) 2001: El XV Censo Industrial.
Resultados de la industria manufacturera. Comunicado de Prensa, 054, Mexico City: INEGI.
INEGI 2002: Censo de Poblacin y Vivienda, 2000. Aguascalientes, Mexico City: INEGI.
Jansen, K. and Roquas, E. 1998: Modernizing insecurity: the land titling project in Honduras. Development
and Change 29(1), 81106.
Jaquette, J. (ed.) 1994: The womens movement in Latin America: participation and democracy. 2nd edn.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Jarvis, L.S. 1992: The unravelling of the agrarian reform. In Kay, C. and Silva, P. (eds.), Development and
social change in the chilean countryside: from the pre-land reform period to the democratic transition.
Amsterdam: CEDLA, 189213.
288

289

Bibliography

Jeffrey, P. 1998: Central America: A growing role in drug trade. Latinamerica Press (Lima, Peru) 30(1), 2.
Jelin, E. (ed.) 1990: Women and social change in Latin America. London: UNRISD/Zed Books.
Jelin, E. 1995: Emergent citizenship or exclusion? Social movements and non-governmental
organizations in the 1990s. In Jelin, E. and Hershberg, E. (eds) 1996: Constructing democracy: human
rights, citizenship, and society in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 79101.
Jenkins, R.O. 1977: Dependent industrialization in Latin America. New York: Praeger.
Jenkins, R.O. 1991: The political economy of industrialisation: a comparison of Latin American and East
Asian newly industrialising countries. Development and Change 22(2), 197231.
Jenkins, R. 1997: Structural adjustment and Bolivian industry. European Journal of Development Research
9(2), 10728.
Johnston, R.J., Taylor, P.J. and Watts, M.J. (eds) 1995: Geographies of global change: remapping the world in
the late twentieth century. Oxford: Blackwell.
Jokisch, B. 1999: Transnational landscapes: Ecuadorian migration and landscape transformation. Paper
presented at Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers in Honolulu, 2327
March 1999.
Jokisch, B. 2002: Migration and agricultural change: the case of smallholder agriculture in highland
Ecuador. Human Ecology 30(4), 52350.
Jokisch, B. and Pribilsky, J. 2002: The panic to leave: economic crisis and the new emigration from
Ecuador. International Migration 40(4), 7499.
Kahler, M. 1992: External inuence, conditionality, and the politics of adjustment. In Haggard, S. and
Kaufman, R.R. (eds), The politics of economic adjustment. Princeton, NJ: University of Princeton Press,
89133.
Kaimovitz, D. 1996: Social pressure for environmental reform in Latin America. In Collinson, H. (ed.),
Green guerrillas: environmental conicts and initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean. London: Latin
American Bureau, 2032.
Kaplinsky, R. 1995: A reply to Willmore. World Development 23(3): 53740.
Karl,T.L. 1997: The paradox of plenty: oil booms and petro-states. Los Angeles, CA: University of California
Press.
Kaufman, R.R. and Stallings, B. (eds) 1989: Debt and democracy in the 1980s: the Latin American
experience. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Kay, C. 1989: Latin American theories of development and underdevelopment. London and New York:
Routledge.
Kay, C. 1993: For a renewal of development studies: Latin American theories and neoliberalism in the
era of structural adjustment. Third World Quarterly 14(4), 691702.
Kay, C. 1995: Rural development and agrarian issues in contemporary Latin America. In Weeks, J. (ed.),
Structural adjustment and the agricultural sector in Latin America and the Caribbean. Basingstoke and
London: Macmillan, 944.
Kay, C. 1997: Globalisation, peasant agriculture and reconversin. Bulletin of Latin American Research
16(1), 1124.
Kay, C. 1999: Rural development: from agrarian reform to neoliberalism and beyond. In Gwynne, R. and
Kay, C. (eds), Latin America transformed: globalization and modernity. London: Edward Arnold,
272304.
Kay, C. 2000a: Los paradigmas del desarrollo rural en Amrica Latina. In. Garca Pascual, F. (ed.), El mundo
rural en la era de la globalizacin: incertidumbres y potencialidades. Madrid: Ministerio de Agricultura,
Pesca y Alimentacin (Serie de Estudios No. 146), 337429.
Kay, C. 2000b: Latin Americas agrarian transformation: peasantization and proletarianization. In
Bryceson, D., Kay, C. and Mooij, J. (eds), Disappearing peasantries? Rural labour in Africa, Asia and Latin
America. London: ITDG Publishing, 12338.
Kay, C. 2001a: Agrarian reform and rural development in Latin America: lights and shadows. In Morales,
H.R. and Putzel, J. (eds), Power in the village: agrarian reform, rural politics, institutional change and

Latin America Transformed

globalization. Quezon City: Project Development Institute and the University of the Philippines
Press, 191235.
Kay, C. 2001b: Reections on rural violence in Latin America. Third World Quarterly 22(5), 74175.
Kay, C. 2002a: Why East Asia overtook Latin America: agrarian reform, industrialisation and
development. Third World Quarterly 23(6), 1073102.
Kay, C. 2002b: Chiles neoliberal agrarian transformation. Journal of Agrarian Change 2(4), 464501.
Kay, C. and Gwynne, R.N. 2000: Relevance of structuralist and dependency theories in the neoliberal
period: a Latin American perspective. Journal of Developing Societies 16(1), 4969.
Katzman, R. 1992: Por qu los hombres son tan irresponsables? Revista de la CEPAL 46, 19.
Kearney, M. 1995: The local and the global: the anthropology of globalization and transnationalism.
Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 54765.
Kearney, M. 1996: Reconceptualizing the peasantry: anthropology in global perspective. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Kearney, M. 2000: Transnational Oaxacan indigenous identity: the case of the Mixtecs and Zapotecs.
Identities 7: 17395.
Kearney, M. and Varese, S. 1995: Latin Americas indigenous peoples: changing identities and forms of
resistance. In Halebsky, S. and Harris, R.L. (eds), Capital, power, and inequality in Latin America. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 20731.
Keck, M. 1995: Social equity and environmental politics in Brazil: lessons from the rubber tappers of
Acre. Comparative Politics 27(4), 40924.
Keck, M.E., and Sikkink, K. 1998: Activists beyond borders: advocacy networks in international politics. Ithaca,
NY: University of Cornell Press.
Kelly, M.E. 2002: The border environment and the changing bilateral relationship. UCSD Enfoque, Fall,
18.
Kenney, M. and Florida, R. 1994: Japanese maquiladoras: production organization and global commodity
chains. World Development 22(1), 2744.
Killick, T. and Malik, M. 1992: Country experience with IMF programmes in the 1980s. The World
Economy 15(5), 599632.
Kirby, P. 2003: Introduction to Latin America: twenty-rst century challenges. London: Sage Publications.
Klak,T. 1996: Distributional impacts of the free zone component of structural adjustment: the Jamaican
experience. Growth and Change 27(3), 35287.
Klak, T. (ed.) 1998: Globalization and neoliberalism: the Caribbean context. Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littleeld.
Klak, T. 2002: How much does the Caribbean gain from offshore services? In Blacklock, M. (ed.), The
Association of Caribbean States (ACS) yearbook (5th edition). ACS & International Systems and
Communications Limited: Port of Spain & London, 88103.
Klein, E. 1992: El empleo rural no agrcola en Amrica Latina. Documento de Trabajo, 364. Santiago:
Programa Regional de Empleo para Amrica Latina y el Caribe (PREALC).
Kling, M. 1970: Hacia una teora del poder y de la inestabilidad poltica en Amrica Latina. In Petras, J.
and Zeitlin, M. (eds), Amrica Latina: Reforma o revolucin? Buenos Aires: Tiempo Contemporneo.
Koechlin, T. 1995: The globalization of investment. Contemporary Economic Policy 13, (January): 92100.
Koonings, K., Kruijt, D. and Wils, F. 1995:The very long march of history. In Thomas, H. (ed.), Globalization
and third world trade unions. London: Zed Books, 99129.
Kopinak, K. 1996: Desert capitalism: maquiladoras in North Americas western industrial corridor. Phoenix,
AZ: University of Arizona Press.
Kopinak, K. 1997: Desert capitalism: what are the maquiladoras? Montreal: Black Rose.
Korovkin, T. 2001: Reinventing the communal tradition: indigenous peoples, civil society, and
democratization in Andean Ecuador. Latin American Research Review 36(3), 3767.
Korovkin, T. 2003: Cut-ower exports, female labor, and community participation in highland Ecuador.
Latin American Perspectives 30(4), 1842.
290

291

Bibliography

Krueger, A., Schiff, M. and Valds, A. (eds) 1990: The political economy of agricultural pricing policy, 2
volumes. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Kuznets, S. 1966: Modern economic growth: rate, structure and spread, New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. 1985: Hegemony and socialist strategy: towards a radical democracy. London:
Verso.
Lalive, C. 1975: Religion, dynamique social et dpndence. Paris: Mouton.
Langer, A., Lozano, R., Bobadilla, J.L. 1991: Effects of Mexicos economic crisis on the health of women
and children. In Gonzlez de la Rocha, M. and Escobar, A. (eds), Social responses to Mexicos economic
crisis of the 1980s. San Diego: Center for US Mexican Studies, Contemporary Perspectives Series
No.1, 195219.
Lara Flores, S.M. (ed.) 1995: Jornaleras, temporeras y bias-frias: el rostro femenino del mercado de trabajo
rural en Amrica Latina. Caracas: Nueva Sociedad.
Lara Flores, S.M. 1998: Nuevas experiencias productivas y nuevas formas de organizacin exible del
trabajo en la agricultura Mexicana. Mexico City: Juan Pablo Editor.
Larran, J. 2000: Identity and Modernity in Latin America. Oxford: Polity Press.
Larranaga, O. and Sanhueza, G. 1994: Descomposicin de la pobreza en Chile. Santiago: ILADES Working
Paper I79.
Latin America Press 1997: Help from afar, 18 September, 7.
Laurie, N., Andolina, R. and Radcliffe, S. 2002:The excluded indigenous? The implications of multi-ethnic
policies for water reform in Bolivia. In Sieder, R. (ed.), Multiculturalism in Latin America: indigenous
rights, diversity and democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 25276.
Lavin, J. and Larran, L. 1989: Chile, sociedad emergente. Santiago: Editora Zig-Zag.
Le Heron, R. 1993: Globalised agriculture. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Leach, F. 1999: Women in the informal sector: the contribution of education and training. In Oxfam
(ed.), Development with women. Oxford: Oxfam, 4662.
Lehmann, D. 1982: After Lenin and Chayanov: new paths of agrarian capitalism. Journal of Development
Economics 11(2), 13361.
Lehmann, D. 1990: Democracy and development in Latin America. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Lehmann, D. 1996: The struggle for the spirit. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Leitmann, J., Bartone, C. and Bernstein, J. 1992: Environmental management and urban development:
issues and options for Third World cities. Environment and Urbanization 4(2), 13140.
Leiva, F.I. 1998: Disciplining workers in post-neoliberal Chile: neostructuralism, labor exibility and social
fragmentation in the 1990s. Paper presented at the inaugural conference of the Center for Latin
American and Latino Studies, 2021 November. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
LeoGrande, W. and Thomas, J. 2002: Cubas quest for economic independence. Journal of Latin
American Studies 34(2), 32563.
Len, F. 2000: Mujer y trabajo en las reformas estructurales latinoamericanos durante las dcadas de 1980
y 1990. Santiago de Chile: Comisin Econmica para Amrica Latina y el Caribe, Serie Mujer y
Desarrollo, No 28.
Leonard, H. J. 1987: Natural resources and economic development in Central America. New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction Books.
Leonard, H.J. (ed.) 1989: Environment and the poor: development strategies for a common agenda. New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
Lind, A.C. 1992: Power, gender and development: popular womens organizations and the politics of
need in Ecuador. In Escobar, A. and Alvarez, S. (eds), The making of social movements in Latin America.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 13449.
Lindblom, C. 1977: Politics and markets. New York: Basic Books.
Linz, J. 1978: The breakdown of democratic regimes: crisis, breakdown, and reequilibration. Baltimore, MD:
The John Hopkins University Press.

Latin America Transformed

Linz, J. and Stepan, A. . 1996: Problems of democracies: transition and consolidation: Southern Europe, South
America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Linz, J. and Valenzuela, A. (eds) 1994: The failure of presidential democracy. Baltimore, MD: The Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Lipschutz, R. and Conca, K. (eds) 1993: The state and social power in global environmental politics. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Lira, O. 1985: Hispanidad y mestizaje. Santiago: Editorial Covadonga.
Little, W. 1997: Democratization in Latin America, 198095. In Potter, D. et al. (eds), Democratization.
Cambridge: Polity Press, 17494.
Little, W. and Posada-Carb, E. (eds) 1996: Political corruption in Europe and Latin America. Basingstoke
and London: Macmillan.
Llamb, L. 1988: The small modern farmers: neither peasants nor fully-edged capitalists? The Journal of
Peasant Studies 15(3), 35072.
Lloyd-Sherlock, P. 1997: Old age and urban poverty in the developing world: the shanty towns of Buenos
Aires. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.
Logan, J.R. 2002: The New Latinos: who they are, where they are. New York: New York University at
Albany: Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research.
Lomnitz, L., 1977: Networks and marginality: life in a Mexican shantytown, Orlando, FL: Academic
Press.
Londoo, J.L. 1995: 25 aos de cambios distributivos en Colombia. Coyuntura Econmica 25, 613.
Lpez, R. and Valds, A. 2000: Fighting rural poverty in Latin America: new evidence of the effects of
education, demographics and access to land. Economic Development and Cultural Change 49(1),
197211.
Lpez Cordovez, L. 1982: Trends and recent changes in the Latin American food and agricultural
situation. CEPAL Review, 16, 741.
Lpez de Mazier, A. 1997: La mujer, principal sostn del modelo econmico de Honduras: un anlisis
de gnero de la economa Hondurea. In Elson, D., Faun, M.A., Gideon, J., Gutirrez, M., Lpez de
Mazier, A. and Sacayn, E. Crecer con la mujer: oportunidades para el desarrollo ecnomico
centroamericano. San Jos: Embajada Real de los Pases Bajos, 21552.
Loveman, B. 1994: The constitution of tyranny: regimes of exception in Spanish America. Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press.
Luard, E. 1990: The globalization of politics. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.
Lumbreras, L.G. 1991: Misguided development. NACLA Report on the Americas 24(5), 1822.
Lustig, N. 1991: From structuralism to neostructuralism: the search for a heterodox paradigm. In P.
Meller (ed.), The Latin American development debate: neostructuralism, neomonetarism, and adjustment
processes. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2742.
MacDonald, L. 1997: Supporting civil society: the political role of non-governmental organizations in Central
America. New York: St. Martins Press.
Maddison, A. 2001: The world economy: a millennial perspective. Paris: Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development.
Mahon, J.E. 1996: Mobile capital and Latin American development. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State
University Press.
Mainwaring, S., ODonnell, G. and Valenzuela, J.S. (eds) 1992: Issues in democratic consolidation: the new
South American democracies in comparative perspective. Notre Dame, South Bend, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press.
Mainwaring, S. and Scully, T.R. (eds) 1995: Building democratic institutions: party system in Latin America.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Malloy, J. and Seligson, M. (eds) 1987: Authoritarians and democrats: regime transition in Latin America.
Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Mandel, E. 1978: Late capitalism. London: Verso.
292

293

Bibliography

Mandle, J.R. 1996: Persistent underdevelopment: change and economic modernization in the West Indies.
Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers.
Mangin, W. (ed.) 1970: Peasants in cities: readings in the anthropology of urbanization. Boston, MA:
Houghton Mifin.
Margolis, M. 2002: A plot of their own. Newsweek, 21 January, 227.
Marn, C. 1999: Modernity and mass communication: the Latin American case. Unpublished PhD thesis,
University of Birmingham.
Mrmol, J. 1945: Amalia. Buenos Aires: Tor.
Marshall, J. 1998: The political viability of free market experimentation in Cuba: evidence from Los
Mercados Agropecuarios. World Development 26(2), 27788.
Martin, D. 1990: Tongues of re, the explosion of protestantism in Latin America. Oxford: Blackwell.
Martnez, J. and Daz, A. 1996: Chile: the great transformation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Martnez Blanco, M.T. 1987: Identidad cultural de hispanoamrica. Madrid: Editorial de la Universidad
Complutense.
Martnez Estrada, E. 1946: Radiografa de la pampa. Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada.
Martnez Estrada, E. 1968: Meditaciones sarmientinas. Santiago; Editorial Universitaria.
Massey, D. 1991: A global sense of place. Marxism Today (June 1991): 249.
Mayz Vallenilla, E. 1959: El problema de Amrica. Caracas: Universidad Catlica de Venezuela.
McBain, H. 1990: Government nancing of economic growth and development in Jamaica: Problems
and prospects. Social and Economic Studies 39: 179212.
McClenaghan, S. 1997: Women, work and empowerment: romanticizing the reality. In Dore, E.
(ed.), Gender politics in Latin America: debates in theory and practice. New York: Monthly Review Press,
1935.
McIlwaine, C., Chant, S. and Lloyd-Evans, S. 2002: Making a living: employment, livelihoods and
the informal sector. In McIlwaine, C. and Willis, K. (eds), Challenges and change in Middle
America: perspectives on development in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Harlow:
Longman, 11035.
McMichael, P. 1993: The restructuring of the world food system. Political Geography 12(3), 20014.
McMichael, P. 1996: Globalization: myths and realities. Rural Sociology 61(1), 2555.
Mehra, R. and Gammage, S. 1999: Trends, countertrends and gaps in womens employment. World
Development 27(3), 53350.
Melhuus, M. and Stolen, K.A. (eds) 1996: Machos, mistresses and madonnas: contesting the power of
gender imagery in Latin America. London: Verso.
Meller, P. 1991: Adjustment and social costs in Chile during the 1980s. World Development 19(11), 154561.
Melucci, A. 1989: Nomads of the present: social movements and individual needs in contemporary society.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Melucci, A. 1995: The new social movements revisited. In Maheu, L. (ed.), Social movements and social
classes. London: Sage Publications.
Mndez-Rivero, D. 1995: Decline of an oil economy: Venezuela and the legacy of incorporation. In
Thomas, H. (ed.), Globalization and third world trade unions. London: Zed, 14965.
Merrick, T.W. 1986: Population pressures in Latin America. Population Bulletin 41(3).
Meszaros, G. 2000: No ordinary revolution: Brazils landless workers movement. Race & Class 42(2),
118.
Methol Ferr, A. 1981: El resurgimiento catlico latinoamericano. In Consejo Episcopal
Latinoamericano (ed.), Religin y Cultura. Bogot: CELAM.
Michalak, W. 1994:The political economy of trading blocs. In Gibb, R. and Michalak, W. (eds), Continental
trading blocs: the growth of regionalism in the world economy. Chichester: John Wiley, 3774.
Migdal, J.S., Kohli, A. and Shue, V. (eds) 1994: State power and social forces: domination and transformation
in the third world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Miller, M. 1991: Debt and the environment: converging crises. New York: United Nations Publications.

Latin America Transformed

Millet, R.L. and Gold-Biss, M. (eds) 1996: Beyond praetorianism: the Latin American military in transition.
Miami, FL: North-South Center.
MINDESP 2001: Plan nacional de equidad de gnero, 20012003. La Paz: Ministerio de Desarrollo
sostenible y Planicacin (MINDESP).
Minority Rights Group 1995: No longer invisible: Afro-Latin Americans today. London: Minority Rights
Publications.
Miraftab, F. 1994: (Re)Production at home: reconceptualizing home and family. Journal of Family Issues
15(3), 46789.
Miraftab, F. 1996: Space, gender and work: home-based workers in Mexico. In Boris, E. and Prgl, E.
(eds), Homeworkers in global perspective: invisible no more. New York: Routledge, 6380.
Mitlin, D. 1992: Sustainable cities. Environment and urbanization 4(2), 38.
Mitlin, D. 1996: City Inequality. Environment and urbanization 8(2), 37.
Mitter, S. 1997: Information technology and working womens demands. In Mitter, S. and Rowbotham,
S. (eds), Women encounter technology: changing patterns of employment in the third world. London:
Routledge, 1943.
Moghadam,V. 1995: Gender aspects of employment and unemployment in global perspective. In Simai,
M. with Moghadam, V. and Kuddo, A. (eds), Global employment: an international investigation into the
future of work. London: Zed Books, in association with United Nations University, World Institute for
Development Economics Research, 11139.
Moghadam, V. 1999: Gender and globalization: female labour and womens mobilization. Journal of
World-Systems Research 5(2), 298314.
Molyneux, M. 1985: Mobilization without emancipation? Womens interests, the state and revolution in
Nicaragua. Feminist Studies 11(2), 22754.
Molyneux, M. 1996: State, gender and institutional change in Cubas special period: the Federacin de
Mujeres Cubanas. Research Papers No. 43, London: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of
London.
Molyneux, M. 2002: Gender and the silences of social capital: lessons from Latin America. Development
and Change 33(2), 16788.
Molyneux, M. and Craske, N. (eds) 2001: Gender and the politics of rights and democracy in Latin America.
London: Palgrave.
Montbiot, G. 1993: Brazil: landownership and the ight to Amazonia. In Colchester, M. and Lohmann, L.
(eds), The Struggle for Land and the Fate of the Forests. London: Zed Books, 13963.
Monten, M. 1995: Gender and economic crises in Latin America: reections on the Great Depression
and the debt crisis. In Blumberg, R.L., Rakowski, C., Tinker, E. and Monten, M. (eds), Engendering
wealth and well-being: empowerment for global change. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 3962.
Montero, M. 1987: Ideologa, alienacin e identidad nacional. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Moore, B., Jr. 1966: The social origins of democracy and development: lord and peasant in the making of the
modern world. Boston, MA Beacon.
Morand, P. 1984: Cultura y modernizacin en Amrica Latina. Santiago: Universidad Catlica de Chile.
Morley, S.A. 1995: Poverty and inequality in Latin America: the impact of adjustment and recovery.
Washington, DC: The World Bank.
Morris, A. 1981: Latin America: economic development and regional differentiation. London: Hutchinson.
Morse, R.M. 1958: From community to metropolis: a biography of So Paulo. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Morse, R.M. 1971: Trends and issues in Latin American urban research. Latin American Research Review
6(1), 352.
Morse, R. 1982: El espejo de prspero: un estudio de la dialctica del nuevo mundo. Mexico City: Siglo XXI.
Moser, C. 1989: The impact of structural adjustment at the micro-level: low-income women and their
households in Guayaquil, Ecuador. In UNICEF (ed.) Invisible adjustment. Vol. 2. New York: UNICEF
Americas and Caribbean Ofce, 13762.
294

295

Bibliography

Moser, C. 1992: Adjustment from below: low-income women, time and the triple role in Guayaquil,
Ecuador. In Afshar, H. and Dennis, C. (eds), Women and adjustment policies in the third world.
Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 87116.
Moser, C. 1997: Household responses to poverty and vulnerability. Vol. 1: Confronting crisis in Cisne Dos,
Guayaquil, Ecuador. Urban Management and Poverty Reduction Series No. 21. Washington, DC:
World Bank.
Moser, C. 1998: The asset vulnerability framework: reassessing urban poverty reduction strategies,
World Development 26(1): 119.
Moser, C. and Holland, J. 1997: Urban poverty and violence in Jamaica. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Moser, C. and McIlwaine, C. 2000: Urban poor perceptions of violence and exclusion in Colombia.
Washington, DC: World Bank.
Moser, C. and McIlwaine, C. 2001a: Violence in a post-conict context: urban poor perceptions in
Guatemala. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Moser, C. and McIlwaine, C. 2001b: Gender and Social Capital in Contexts of Political Violence:
Community Perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala. In Moser, C. and Clark, F.C. Victims,
perpetrators or actors? Gender, armed conict and political violence. London: Zed Books, 178200.
Moulian, T. 1997: Chile actual, anatoma de un mito. Santiago: LOM Ediciones.
Mullings, B. 1995: Telecommunications restructuring and the development of export information
processing services in Jamaica. In Dunn, H. (ed.), Globalization, communications and Caribbean identity.
Kingston: Ian Randle, 17491.
Mullings, B. 1998: Jamaicas information processing services: neoliberal niche or structural limitation? In
Klak, T. (ed.), Globalization and neoliberalism, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littleeld, 13554.
Munck, R. 1999: Dependency and imperialism in the new times: a Latin American perspective.
European Journal of Development Research 11(1), 5674.
Muoz, O. 2001: Estrategias de desarrollo en economas emergentes: lecciones de la experiencia
Latinoamericana. Santiago: FLACSO.
Murena, H.A. 1954: El pecado original de Amrica. Buenos Aires.
Murmis, M. 1994: Incluidos y excluidos en la reestructuracin del agro latinoamericano. Debate Agrario
18, 10133.
Murray, D. and Hoppin, P. 1990: Pesticides and nontraditional agriculture: a coming crisis for US
development policy in Latin America. Austin, TX: Institute of Latin American Studies.
Murray, W.E. 1997a: Neoliberalism, restructuring and nontraditional fruit exports in Chile: implications
of outward orientation for small-scale growers, PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, UK.
Murray, W. E. 1997b: Competitive global gruit export markets: marketing intermediaries and impacts
on small-scale growers in Chile. Bulletin of Latin American Research 16(1), 4355.
Murray, W.E. 1998: The globalisation of fruit, neoliberalism and the question of sustainability lessons
from Chile. European Journal of Development Research 10(1), 20127.
Murray, W.E. 1999: Local responses to global restructuring in the Chilean fruit complex. European
Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 66, 1938.
Murray, W.E. 2002a: Agriculture in Latin America: the need for a new paradigm? In Heenan, P. (ed.),
South America: handbooks of regional economic development. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 190202.
Murray, W.E. 2002b: From dependency to reform and back again: the Chilean peasantry during the
twentieth century. The Journal of Peasant Studies 29(3/4), 190227.
Murray, W.E. 2002c: The neoliberal inheritance: agrarian policy and rural differentiation in democratic
Chile. Bulletin of Latin American Research 21(3), 42541.
Myres, N. 1992: The primary source: tropical forests and our future. New York: Norton.
NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America) 2002: Drug economies of the Americas,
special issue of NACLA Report on the Americas Vol. 36, No. 2.
Nash, J. 1995: Latin American women in the world capitalist crisis. In Bose, C. and Acosta-Beln, E. (eds),
Women in the Latin American development process. Philadelphia, PA:Temple University Press, 15166.

Latin America Transformed

Naughton-Treves, L. 2002: Wild animals in the garden: conserving wildlife in Amazonian ecosystems.
Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92(3): 488506.
Navarro, Z. 2000: Breaking new grounds: Brazils MST. NACLA Report on the Americas 33(5), 369.
Nelson, J.M. et al. (eds) 1989: Fragile coalitions: the politics of economic adjustment. New Brunswick:
Transaction Books.
Nelson, J.M. (ed.) 1990: Economic crisis and political choice: the politics of adjustment in the third world.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Neto, F. 1990: Development planning and mineral mega-projects: some global considerations. In
Goodman, D. and Hall, A. (eds), The future of Amazonia: destruction or sustainable development? New
York: St. Martins Press.
Nettl, J.P. 1968: The state as a conceptual variable. World Politics 20(4), 55992.
Newman, C. and Jarvis, L. 2000: Worker and rm determinants of piece rate variation in an agricultural
labor market. Economic Development and Cultural Change 49(1), 13769.
Nicholls, S. 1998: Measuring trade creation and trade diversion in the Central American Common
Market: a Hicksian alternative. World Development 26(2), 32335.
Nickson, A. 1995: Local government in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Nielson, D.L. and Stern, M.A. 1997: Multilateral lending institutions and the environment: a discussion
of the political dynamic between lenders, donors and recipients. In MacDonald, G.J., Nielson, D.L.
and Stern, M.A. (eds), The Politics of Latin American environmental policy in international perspective,
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
North, L.L. and Cameron, J.D. (eds) 2003: Rural progress, rural decay: neoliberal adjustment policies and
local initiatives. Bloomeld, CT: Kumarian Press.
Nez, J. and Ramrez, J.C. 2003: Determinantes de la pobreza en Colombia. In CEPAL Estudios y
Perspectivas. Bogot: CEPAL.
OBrien, P. and Cammack, P. 1985: Generals in retreat: the crisis of military rule in Latin America.
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
OBrien, R. 1992: Global nancial integration: the end of geography. New York: Council on Foreign
Relations.
Ocampo, J.A. 1993:Terms of trade and center-periphery relations. In Sunkel, O. (ed.), Development from
within: toward a neostructuralist approach for Latin America. Boulder (CO): Lynne Rienner Publishers,
33357.
Ocampo, J.A. 2001: Agricultura y desarrollo rural en Amrica Latina. In David, M.B. de A. (ed.) Desarrollo
rural en Amrica Latina y el Caribe. Bogot: Alfaomega, and Santiago: CEPAL, 140.
Ocampo, J.A. and Franco, R. (eds) 2000: The equity gap: a second assessment. Santiago: Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
ODEPA (Ocina de Estudios y Polticas Agrarias) 1996: Mercados fruticolas. Santiago: ODEPA, Chile.
ODEPA 2001: Compendio estadstico silvoagropecuario 19902000. Santiago: ODEPA, Chile.
ODonnell, G. 1973: Modernization and bureaucratic-authoritarianism: studies in South American politics.
Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
ODonnell, G. 1979: Tensions in the bureaucratic-authoritarian state and the question of democracy. In
Collier, D. (ed.), The new authoritarianism in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
ODonnell, G. 1992: Delegative democracy. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame.
ODonnell, G. and Schmitter, P.C. 1986: Transitions from authoritarian rule: tentative conclusions about
uncertain democracies. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
ODonnell, G., Schmitter, P. and Whitehead, L. (eds) 1986: Transitions from authoritarian rule: Latin
America. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ohmae, K. 1995: Triad power. New York: Free Press.
Olwig, K. 1993: Global culture, island identity: continuity and change in the Afro-Caribbean community of
Nevis. Philadelphia, PA: Harwood.
Organski, A.F.K. 1965: The stages of political development. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
296

297

Bibliography

Ortega, E. 1992: Evolution of the rural dimension in Latin America and the Caribbean. CEPAL Review
47, 11536.
Ortiz, R. 1988: A moderna tradio brasileira, cultura brasileira e indstria cultural. So Paulo: Editora
Brasiliense.
Otero, G. 1999: Farewell to the peasantry? Political class formation in rural Mexico. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press.
Oxhorn, P. 2001: From human rights to citizenship cights? Recent trends in the study of Latin American
social movements. Latin American Research Review 36(3), 16282.
Oxhorn, P. and Ducatenzeiler, G. (eds) 1998: What kind of democracy? What kind of market? Latin
America in the age of neoliberalism. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Ozrio de Almeida, A.L. and Campari, J.S. 1995: Sustainable settlement in the Brazilian Amazon. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Pacheco, M. 1992: Recycling in Bogot: developing a culture for urban sustainability. Environment and
Urbanization 4(2), 749.
Painter, M. and Durham, W.H. 1995: The social causes of environmental destruction in Latin America. Ann
Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Palma, G. 1978: Dependency: a formal theory of underdevelopment or a methodology for the analysis
of concrete situations of underdevelopment? World Development 6(7/8), 881924.
Palmer, I. 1992: Gender, equity and efciency in adjustment progammes. In Afshar, H. and Dennis,C.
(eds), Women and adjustment policies in the third world. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan,
6983.
Pantojas-Garca, E. 1990: Development strategies as ideology: Puerto Ricos export-led industrialization
experience. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Par, L., Bray, D. Burstein, J. and Vzquez, S.M. (eds) 1997: Semillas para el cambio en el campo: medio
ambiente, mercados, y organizacin campesina. Mexico: UNAM.
Parker, C. 1993: Otra lgica en Amrica Latina: religin popular y modernizacin capitalista. Santiago:
Fondo de Cultura Econmica.
Parsons, T. 1951: The social system. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Patterson, O. 1994: Ecumenical America: global culture and the American cosmos. World Policy Journal
11(2), 10317.
Pattullo, P. 1996: Last resorts: the cost of tourism in the Caribbean. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Paz, O. 1959: El laberinto de la soledad. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econmica.
Paz, O. 1979: El ogro lantrpico. Mexico City: Joaqun Hortiz.
Paz, O. 1990: El ogro lantrpico. Barcelona: Seix Barral.
Pearce, D.W. and Turner, R.K. 1990: Economics of natural resources and the environment. Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Pearson, R. 1997: Renegotiating the reproductive bargain: gender analysis of economic transition in
Cuba in the 1990s. Development and Change 28(4), 671705.
Pearson, R. 1998: Nimble ngers revisited: reections on women and third world industrialization in
the late twentieth century. In Jackson, C. and Pearson, R. (eds), Feminist visions of development: gender
analysis and policy. London: Routledge, 17188.
Pearson, R. 2000: Moving the goalposts: gender and globalization in the twenty-rst century. In
Sweetman, C. (ed.), Gender in the 21st century. Oxford: Oxfam, 1019.
Peattie, L. 1974: The concept of marginality as applied to squatter settlements. In Cornelius, W. et al.,
Latin American Urban Research 4, 10112.
Peattie, L. 1990: Participation: a case study of how invaders organize, negotiate and interact with
government in Lima, Peru. Environment and Urbanization 2(1), 1930.
Peeler, J. 1998: Building democracy in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Peet, R. and Watts, M. 1993: Development theory and environment in an age of market triumphalism.
Economic Geography 69(3), 22753.

Latin America Transformed

Pelling, M. 2002: Dependency, diversity and change: towards sustainable urbanization. In McIlwaine, C.
and Willis, K. (eds), Challenges and change in Middle America: perspectives on development in Mexico,
Central America and the Caribbean. Harlow: Longman, 21842.
Pea Saint Martin, F. 1996: Discriminacin laboral femenina en la industria del vestido de Mrida, Yucatn.
Mxico DF: Instituto Nacional de Antropologa e Historia.
Prez, E. and Farah, M.A. (eds) 2001: La nueva ruralidad en Amrica Latina. Bogot: Ponticia Universidad
Javeriana, Facultad de Estudios Ambientales y Rurales, 2 volumes.
Perez-Aleman, P. 2000: Learning, adjustment and economic development: transforming rms, the state
and associations in Chile. World Development 28(1), 4155.
Perlman, J. 1976: The myth of marginality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Perl-Cohen, M. 1987: Exploring the spatial effects of the internationalization of the Mexican economy.
In Henderson, J. and Castells, M. (eds), Global restructuring and territorial development. London: Sage,
13667.
Petras, J. 1997: The peasantry strikes back. Latin America: the resurgence of the left. New Left Review
223, 1747.
Petras, J. 1999: Globalization: a critical analysis. Journal of Contemporary Asia 29(1), 337.
Petras, J. and Leiva, F.I. 1994: Democracy and poverty in Chile: the limits of electoral politics. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Petras, J. and Morley, M. 1990: US hegemony under siege: class, politics and development in Latin America.
London: Verso.
Petras, J. and Morley. M. 1992: Latin America in the time of cholera: electoral politics, market economics, and
permanent crisis. New York: Routledge.
Petras, J. and Veltmeyer, H. 2001a: Globalization unmasked: imperialism in the 21st century. London and
New York: Zed Books.
Petras, J. and Veltmeyer, H. 2001b: Are Latin American peasant movements still a force for change?
Some new paradigms revisited. The Journal of Peasant Studies 28(2), 83118.
Petras, J. and Veltmeyer, H. 2002: The peasantry and the state in Latin America: a troubled past and
uncertain future. The Journal of Peasant Studies 29(34), 4182.
Pfeffermann, G.P. and Grifn, C.C. 1989: Nutrition and health programs in Latin America: targeting social
expenditures, Washington, DC: World Bank.
Picari, N. 1996: Ecuador: taking on the neoliberal agenda. NACLA Report on the Americas 29(5), 2332.
Pietrobelli, C. 1998: Industry, competitiveness and technological capabilities in Chile. Basingstoke and
London: Macmillan.
Pile, S. and Keith, M. (eds) 1997: Geographies of resistance. London: Routledge.
Pineda, J. 2000: Partners in women-headed households: emerging masculinities. European Journal of
Development Research 12(2), 7292.
Pitanguy, J. and Mello e Souza, C. de. 1997: Codes of honour: reproductive life histories of domestic
workers in Rio de Janeiro. In Harcourt, W. (ed.), Power, reproduction and gender: the intergenerational
transfer of knowledge. London: Zed Books, 7297.
PNUD 1998: Desarrollo humano en Chile 1998: las paradojas de la modernizacin. Santiago: Programa
de la Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD).
PNUD 2002: Desarrollo humano en Chile 2002: nosotros los Chilenos. Santiago: Programa de las
Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD).
Poggi, G. 1990: The state: its nature, development and prospects. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Polanyi, K. 1957: The great transformation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Porter, G., Brown, J. and Chasek, S. 2000: Global environmental politics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Portes, A. 1972: Rationality in the slum: an essay in interpretive sociology. Comparative Studies in Society
and History 14, 3, 26886.
Portes, A. 1989: Latin American urbanization during the years of the crisis. Latin American Research
Review 25(3), 744.
298

299

Bibliography

Portes, A., Dore-Cabral, C., and Landolt, P. (eds) 1997: The urban Caribbean: transition to a new global
economy. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.
Portes, A. and Guarnizo, L.E. 1991: Tropical capitalists. In Daz-Briquets, S. and Weintraub, S. (eds),
Migration, remittances, and small business development: Mexico and Caribbean Basin countries. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 10131.
Portes, A. and Itzigsohn, J. 1997: Coping with change: the politics and economics of urban poverty. In
Tardanico, R. and Menjvar, R. (eds), Global restructuring, employment, and social inequality in urban Latin
America. Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center, University of Miami, 22748.
Portes, A. and Landolt, P. 2000: Social capital: promise and pitfalls of its role in development. Journal of
Latin American Studies 32, 52947.
Portes, A. and Schaufer, R. 1993: Competing perspectives on the Latin American informal sector.
Population and Development Review 19(3), 3360.
Potter, R., Barker, D., Conway, D. and Klak,T. 2003: The contemporary Caribbean. Harlow: Addison-Wesley
Longman and Prentice Hall.
Potter, R. and Lloyd-Evans, S. 1998: The city in the developing world. Harlow: Longman.
Poulantzas, N. 1973: Political power and social classes. London: New Left Books.
Prebisch, R. 1949: El desarrollo econmico de Amrica Latina y algunos de sus principales problemas.
El Trimestre Econmico 16(3).
Prebisch, R. 1950: The economic development of Latin America and its principal problems. New York:
United Nations.
Preston, D. 2002: Identity and migration: tarijeos and the Argentina experience. In Preston, D. (ed.),
Globalization and mobility of capital and labour in Latin America: papers presented at the Third Congress
of European Latinamericanists, (CEISAL) Amsterdam, July 2002. E-Book (http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/
groups/andes/capital.pdf)
Preston, P.W. 1996: Development theory: an introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Przeworski, A. and Wallerstein, M. 1978: The development of the modern state: a sociological introduction.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Przeworski, A. and Wallerstein, M. 1988: Structural dependence of the state on capital. American
Political Science Review 82 (March): 1129.
Quijano, A. 1988: Modernidad, identidad y utopa en Amrica Latina. Lima: Ediciones Sociedad
Poltica.
Quijano, A. 1991: Recovering utopia. NACLA Report on the Americas 24(5), 348.
Qureshi, Z. 1996: Globalization: new opportunities, tough challenges. Finance and Development. March,
303.
Radcliffe, S. 1992: Mountains, maidens and migration: gender and mobility in Peru. In Chant, S. (ed.).
Gender and migration in developing countries. London: Belhaven Press, 3048.
Radcliffe, S.A. 1993: Womens place/El lugar de mujeres: Latin America and the politics of gender
identity. In Keith, M. and Pile, S. (eds), Place and the politics of identity. London: Routledge.
Radcliffe, S.A. 1999: Latina labour: restructuring of work and renegotiations of gender relations in
contemporary Latin America. Environment and Planning A 31, 196208.
Radcliffe, S. A. 2001: Development, the state and transnational political connections: state and subject
formation in Latin America. Global Networks 1(1), 1936.
Radcliffe, S.A., Laurie, N. and Andolina, R. 2002: Re-territorialised space and ethnic political
participation: indigenous municipalities in Ecuador. Space and Polity 6(3), 289306.
Radcliffe, S.A. and Westwood, S. 1996: Remaking the nation: place, identity and politics in Latin America.
London: Routledge.
Rakodi, C. 1999: A capital assets framework for analysing household livelihood strategies: implications
for policy. Development Policy Review 17, 31542.
Rakodi, C. with Lloyd-Jones, T. (eds) 2002: Urban livelihoods: a people-centred approach to reducing
poverty. London: Earthscan.

Latin America Transformed

Ramrez-Ocampo, J. 1998:The Colombian apertura: an assessment. In Posada-Carb, E. (ed.), Colombia:


the politics of reforming the state. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 187205.
Ramos, J. and Sunkel, O. 1993: Toward a neostructuralist synthesis. In Sunkel, O. (ed.) Development from
within: toward a neostructuralist approach for Latin America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 519.
Reardon, T., Berdegu, J. and Escobar, G. 2001: Rural nonfarm employment and incomes in Latin
America: overview and policy implications. World Development 29(3), 395409.
Redclift, M. 1987: sustainable development: exploring the contradictions. London: Methuen.
Redclift, M. 1992: Sustainable development, popular participation, empowerment and local resource
management. In Ghai, D. and Vivian, J. (eds), Grassroots environmental action: peoples participation in
sustainable development. New York: Routledge, 2349.
Reich, R. 1991: The work of nations: preparing ourselves for 21st century capitalism. New York: Vintage.
Ribeiro, G.L. 1998: Cybercultural politics: political activism at a distance in a transnational world. In
Alvarez, S., Dagnino, E. and Escobar, A. (eds), Cultures of politics, politics of cultures. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 32552.
Richardson, B. 1992: The Caribbean in the wider world, 14921992: a regional geography. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Rieff, D. 1993: Multiculturalisms silent partner. Harpers Magazine August, 6270.
Ros, P. 1995: Gender, industrialization and development in Puerto Rico. In Bose, C. and Acosta-Beln,
E. (eds), Women in the Latin American development process. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press,
12548.
Roberts, B.R. 1973: Organising strangers: poor families in Guatemala City. Austin, TX: University of Texas
Press.
Roberts, B.R. 1991: The changing nature of informal employment: the case of Mexico. In Standing, G.
and Tokman, V. (eds), Towards social adjustment: labour market issues in structural adjustment. Geneva:
International Labour Organization, 11540.
Roberts, B.R. 1994: Informal economy and family strategies. International Journal of Urban and Regional
Research, 18:1, 623.
Roberts, B.R. 1995: The making of citizens: cities of peasants revisited. London: Edward Arnold.
Roberts, K. 1997: Beyond romanticism: social movements and the study of political change in Latin
America, Latin American Research Review 32(3), 13751.
Robles, W. 2001: The landless rural workers movement (MST) in Brazil. The Journal of Peasant Studies
28(2), 14661.
Rocha, G.M. 2002: Neo-dependency in Brazil. New Left Review, Second Series, 16, 533.
Rodgers, G. 1989: Introduction: trends in urban poverty and labour market access. In Rodgers, G. (ed.),
Urban poverty and the labour market. Geneva: International Labour Ofce, 133.
Rod, J.E. 1993: Ariel. In Zea, L. (ed.), Fuentes de la cultura Latinoamericana, Vol. 1. Mexico City: Fondo
de Cultura Econmica.
Rodrguez, L. 1993: Respuestas de las mujeres pobres frente a la crisis en el Ecuador. In Paln, Z., Moser,
C. and Rodrguez, L. (eds), La mujer frente a las polticas de ajuste. Quito: Centro Ecuatoriano para la
Promocin y Accin de la Mujer, 4583.
Rodrguez, A. and Icaza, A.M. 1993: Procesos de expulsin de habitantes de bajos ingresos del centro
de Santiago, 19811990. SUR Documentos de Trabajo 136.
Rojas, J.E. 2001: Desplazados: lgicas de guerra incertidumbres de paz. In Rojas, J.E., Lima, L. and
Martnez, H. (eds), Desplazamiento forzado interno en Colombia: conicto, paz y desarrollo. ACNUR
and CODHES, 2946.
Rojas, M. and Sojo, C. 1995: El malestar con la poltica. San Jos: FLACSO.
Rokowski, C. (ed.) 1994: Contrapunto: the informal sector debate in Latin America. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
Roper, J.M. 2003: Bolivian legal reforms and local indigenous organizations: opportunities and obstacles
in a lowland community. Latin American Perspectives 30(1), 13961.
300

301

Bibliography

Rosales, O. 1988: An assessment of the structuralist paradigm for Latin American development and the
prospects for its development. CEPAL Review 34, 1936.
Rosen, F. 1997: Back on the agenda: ten years after the debt crisis. NACLA Report on the Americas 31(3),
214.
Rosenau, J. 1997: Along the domestic-foreign frontier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosenberg, R.L. 1994: Trade and the environment: economic development versus sustainable
development. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 36, 3.
Ross, A. 1997a: No sweat: fashion, free trade, and the rights of garment workers. London and New York:
Verso.
Ross, J. 1997b: Zapatas children defending the land and human rights in the countryside. NACLA Report
on the Americas 30(4), 305.
Ross, J. 2002: Maquila meltdown: plants ee Mexican wages. Now Toronto, 28 November, Online at:
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/20021128/news_story4.php
Ross, M. 1996: Conditionality and logging reform in the tropics. In Keohane, R.O. and Levy, M.A. (eds)
Institutions for environmental aid. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 16798.
Rostow, W.W. 1960: The stages of economic growth: a non-communist manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Rowe, W. and Schelling, V. 1991: Memory and modernity: popular culture in Latin America. London: Verso.
Rowland, A. and Gordon, P. 1996: Mexico City: no longer a leviathan? In Gilbert, A.G. (ed.), The
megacity in Latin America, New York: United Nations University Press, 173202.
Ruben, R. and Bastiaensen, P. (eds) 2000: Rural development in Central America: markets, livelihoods and
local governance. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.
Rubio, B. 2001: Explotados y excluidos: los campesinos latinoamericanos en la fase agroexportadora
neoliberal. Mexico City: Plaza y Valds Editores.
Rubio, B., Martnez, C., Jimnez, M and Valdivia, E. (eds) 2002: Reestructuracin productiva,
comercializacin y reorganizacin de la fuerza de trabajo agrcola en Amrica Latina. Mexico City: Plaza
y Valds Editores.
Rueda-Junquera, F. 1998: Regional integration and agricultural trade in Central America. World
Development 26(2), 34562.
Rueschemeyer, D., Huber Stephens, E. and Stephens, J.D. 1992: Capitalist development and democracy.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Rus, J., Hernndez, C., R.A. and Mattiace, S.L. (eds) 2001: The indigenous people of Chiapas and the
state in the time of Zapatismo: remaking culture, renegotiating power. Latin American Perspectives
28(2) 1170.
Sabatini, F.D. 2000: Reforma de los mercados de suelo en Santiago, Chile: efectos sobre los precios de
la tierra y la segregacin residencial. Revista EURE 77, 4980.
Safa, H. 1995a: The myth of the male breadwinner: women and industrialization in the Caribbean. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
Safa, H. 1995b: Economic restructuring and gender subordination. Latin American Perspectives 22(2),
3250.
Safa, H. 1999: Women coping with crisis: social consequences of export-led industrialization in the
Dominican Republic. Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center, University of Miami.
Salas, J.M. 1998: Algunos apuntes sobre la violencia domstica desde la perspectiva de los hombres. In
Rodrguez, E. (ed.), Violencia domstica en Costa Rica: mas all de los mitos. San Jos: FLACSO Sede
Costa Rica, Cuadernos de Ciencias Sociales, 105, 5568.
Salman, T. and Zoomers, A. (eds) 2002: The Andean exodus: transnational migration from Bolivia, Ecuador
and Peru. Amsterdam: CEDLA.
Saporta Sternbach, N. 1992: Feminisms in Latin America: from Bogot to San Bernardo. Signs 17 (2),
393434.
Sarmiento, D.F. 1945: Facundo. Buenos Aires: Editorial TOR.

Latin America Transformed

Sarmiento, D.F. 1993: Conicto y armona de las razas en Amrica. In Zea, L. (ed.), Fuentes de la Cultura
Latinoamericana, Vol. 1. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 40311.
Sarmiento-Anzola, L. 1999: Exclusin, conicto y desarrollo societal. Bogota: Ediciones Desde Abajo.
Sarmiento-Palacio, E. 2002: En dnde estn las causas del empobrecimiento?, El Espectador 17
February.
Sassen, S. 1991: The global city: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sassen, S. 2000: Cities in a world economy. 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Satterthwaite, D. 1989: Guide to the literature: environmental problems of Third World cities.
Environment and Urbanization 1(1), 7683.
Satterthwaite, D., Ross, D., Stephens, C. and Hart, R. 1996: The Environment for Children. London:
Earthscan.
Sawyer, S. 1997: The 1992 Indian mobilization in Lowland Ecuador. Latin American Perspectives 24 (3),
6582.
Scarpaci, J.L., Pio-Infante, R. and Gaete, A. 1988: Planning residential segregation: the case of Santiago,
Chile. Urban Geography 9, 1936.
Schejtman, A. 1994: Agroindustry and changing production patterns in small-scale agriculture. CEPAL
Review 53, 14757.
Schejtman, A. 1996: Agroindustry and small-scale agriculture: conceptual guidelines for a policy to
encourage linkages between them. Santiago: ECLAC and FAO, Regional Ofce for Latin America and
the Caribbean, Santiago.
Schild,V. 1998: New subjects of rights? Womens movements and the construction of citizenship in the
new democracies. In Alvarez, S., Dagnino, E. and Escobar, A. (eds), Cultures of politics, politics of
culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 93117.
Schirmer, J. 1993:The seeking of truth and the gendering of consciousness: the comadres of El Salvador
and the CONAVIGUA widows of Guatemala. In Radcliffe, S.A. and Westwood, S. (eds), Viva! Women
and popular protest in Latin America. London: Routledge, 3064.
Schmink, M. and Wood, C.H. 1992: Contested Frontiers in Amazonia. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Schneider, B.R. 1998:The material bases of technocracy: investor condence and neoliberalism in Latin
America. In Centeno, M.A. and Silva, P. (eds), The politics of expertise in Latin America. Basingstoke and
London: Macmillan, 7795.
Schoepe, G. and Prez-Lpez, J. 1992: Export-oriented assembly operations in the Caribbean. In Irma
Tirado de Alonso (ed.), Trade issues in the Caribbean. Philadelphia, PA: Gordon and Breach.
Schteingart, M. 1989:The environmental problems associated with urban development in Mexico City.
Environment and Urbanization 1(1), 4050.
Schumacher, E.F. 1973: Small is beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered. London: Blond and
Briggs.
Schurman, R.A. 2001: Uncertain gains: labor in Chiles new export sectors. Latin American Research
Review 36(2), 329.
Schuurman, F. 1993: Modernity, post-modernity and the new social movements. In Schuurman, F. (ed.),
Beyond the impasse: new directions in development theory. London: Zed Press, 187206.
Schwartzman, S. 1991: Deforestation and popular pesistance in Acre: from local social movement to
global network. The Centennial Review 35(2): 397422.
Scobie, J. 1964: Argentina: a city and a nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scobie, J. 1974: Buenos Aires: plaza to suburb 18701910. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scoones, I. 1998: Sustainable rural livelihoods: a framework for analysis. Working Paper 72. Brighton:
Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
Scott, A. 1990: Ideology and the new social movements. London: Unwin Hyman.
Scott, A.M. 1994: Divisions and solidarities: gender, class and employment in Latin America. London:
Routledge.
302

303

Bibliography

Scott, C.D. 1985: Transnational corporations, comparative advantage and food security in Latin
America. In Abel, C. and Lewis, C. (eds), Latin America, economic imperialism and the state. London:
Athlone Press, 48299.
Scott, C.D. 1996: The distributive impact of the new economic model in Chile. In Bulmer-Thomas, V.
(ed.) The new economic model in Latin America and its impact on income distribution and poverty.
Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 14784.
Scott, J. 1986: Weapons of the weak. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Segre, R., Coyula, M. and Scarpaci, J. 2002: Havana: two faces of the Antillean metropolis. Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press.
Selby, H., Murphy, A. and Lorenzen, S. 1990: The Mexican urban household: organizing for self-defence.
Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Selverston-Scher, M. 2001 : Ethnopolitics in Ecuador: indigenous rights and the strengthening of democracy.
Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center, University of Miami.
Seppnen, M. 1999: Global scale, local place? The making of the historic centre of Lima into a world heritage
site. Number 10. Interkont Books. Helsinki: Institute of Development Studies, University of Helsinki.
Seplveda, J. 1996: Gospel and culture in Latin American Protestantism. Towards a new theological
appreciation of Syncretism. Unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Theology, University of
Birmingham.
Shaiken, H. 1994: Advanced manufacturing and Mexico: a new international division of labour. Latin
American Research Review 29(2), 3972.
Sheahan, J. 1987: Patterns of development in Latin America: poverty, repression, and economic strategy.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sheahan, J. 1997: Effects of liberalization programs on poverty and inequality: Chile, Mexico and Peru.
Latin American Research Review 32(3), 737.
Sheffner, J. 1995: Moving the wrong direction in social movement theory. Theory and Society 24(4),
595612.
Sideri, S. 1997: Globalisation and regional integration. In Kay, C. (ed.), Globalisation, competitiveness and
human security. London: Frank Cass, 3882.
Sieder, R. (ed.) 2002: Multiculturalism in Latin America: indigenous rights, diversity and democracy.
Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Silva, E. 1994: Thinking politically about sustainable development in the forests of Latin America.
Development and Change 25(4), 697721.
Silva, E. 199697: Democracy, market economics, and environmental policy in Chile. Journal of
Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 38(4), 133.
Silva, E. 1999: Forests, livelihood, and grassroots politics: Chile and Costa Rica compared. European
Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 66 (June): 3973.
Silva, E. 2003: Selling sustainable development and the shortchanging of social ecology in Costa Rican
forest policy. Latin American Politics and Society 45, (3).
Silva, P. 1995: Modernization, consumerism and politics in Chile. In Hojman, D.E. (ed.), Neo-Liberalism
with a human face? The politics and economics of the Chilean model. The University of Liverpool
Monograph Series No. 20, Institute of Latin American Studies, Liverpool, 11832.
Silva, P. 1998: Neoliberalism, democratization, and the rise of technocrats. In Vellinga, M. (ed.), The
changing role of the state in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 7592.
Silva, P. 1999: Collective memories, fears and consensus: the political psychology of the Chilean
democratic transition. In Koonings, K. and Kruij, D. (eds), Societies of fear: the legacy of civil war, violence
and terror in Latin America. London: Zed Books, 17196.
Silva, P. 2002: Searching for civilian supremacy: the Concertacin governments and the military in Chile.
Bulletin of Latin American Research 21(3), 37595.
Simmons, A. and Guengant, J.P. 1992: Caribbean exodus and the world system. In Kritz, M., Lim, L. and
Zlotnik, H. (eds), International migration systems: a global guide. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Latin America Transformed

Skeldon, R. 1990: Population mobility in developing countries, London: Belhaven Press.


Skidmore, T. 1995: Dependency by any other name? Brown Journal of World Affairs 2(2), 2279.
Sklair, L. 1989: Assembling for development; the maquila industry in Mexico and the United States. Boston:
Unwin Hyman.
Sklair, L. 1992: The maquilas in Mexico: a global perspective. Bulletin of Latin American Research 11(1),
91108.
Sklair, L. (ed.) 1994: Capitalism and development. London: Routledge.
Skocpol, T. 1979: States and social revolutions: a comparative analysis of France, Russia, and China.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Slater, D. 1990: Development theory at the crossroads. European Review of Latin American and
Caribbean Studies 48, 11626.
Slater, D. 1998: Rethinking the spatialities of social movements: questions of (b)orders, culture and
politics in global times. In Alvarez, S., Dagnino, E. and Escobar, A. (eds), Cultures of politics, politics of
culture: revisioning Latin American social movements. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 380404.
Smith, G. 1989: Livelihood and resistance: peasants and the politics of land in Per. Berkeley, CA. University
of California Press.
Smith, W.C., Acua, C.H. and Gamarra, E. (eds) 1994: Latin American political economy in the age of
neoliberal reform: theoretical and comparative perspectives for the 1990s. New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction Press.
Soros, G. 2002: George Soros on globalization. Oxford: Public Affairs.
South, R.B. 1990: Transnational maquiladora location, Annals of the American Association of American
Geographers 80, 54970.
Spoor, M. 2001: Incidencia de dos dcadas de ajuste en el desarrollo agrcola de Amrica Latina y el
Caribe. In David, M.B. de A. (ed.), Desarrollo rural en Amrica Latina y el Caribe. Bogot, DC:
Alfaomega and Santiago: CEPAL, 13564.
Spoor, M. 2002: Policy regimes and performance of the agricultural sector in Latin America and the
Caribbean during the last three decades. Journal of Agrarian Change 2 (3), 381400.
Stallings, B. 1992: International inuence on economic policy: debt, stabilization, and structural reform.
In Haggard, S. and Kaufman, R.R. (eds), The politics of economic adjustment. Princeton, NJ: University
of Princeton Press, 4188.
Stallings, B. 2001: Las reformas estructurales y el desempeo socioeconmico. In Ffrench-Davis, R. and
Stallings, B. (eds), Reformas, crecimiento y polticas sociales en Chile desde 1973. Santiago: LOM
Ediciones, 2360.
Stallings, B. and Peres, W. 2000: Growth, employment and equity: the impact of the economic reforms in
Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Standing, G. 1989: Global feminization through exible labour. World Development 17(7), 107795.
Standing, G. 1991: Structural adjustment and labour market policies: towards social adjustment? In
Standing, G. and Tokman, V. (eds), Towards social adjustment: labour market issues in structural
adjustment. Geneva: International Labour Organization, 551.
Standing, G.1999: Global feminization through exible labour: a theme revisited. World Development,
27(3), 583602.
Starn, O. 1992: I dreamed of foxes and hawks: reections on peasant protest, new social movements
and the Rondas Campesinas of Northern Peru. In Escobar, A. and Alvarez, S. (eds), The making of
social movements in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 89111.
Stavenhagen, R. (ed.) 1970: Agrarian problems and peasant movements in Latin America. Garden City,
NY: Anchor-Doubleday.
Stavenhagen, R. 2003: Mexicos unnished symphony: the Zapatista movement. In Tulchin, J.S. and Selee,
A.D. (eds), Mexicos politics and society in transition. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 10926.
Stedile, J.P. 2002: Landless battalions: the Sem Terra Movement of Brazil. New Left Review 15, 77105.
Steiner, R. 1998: Colombias income from the drug trade. World Development 26(6), 101332.
304

305

Bibliography

Stephen, L. 1993: Challenging gender inequality: grassroots organizing among women rural workers in
Brazil and Chile, Critique of Anthropology, 13(1), 3355.
Stern, S. 1993: Feudalism, capitalism, and the world-system in the perspective of Latin America and the
Caribbean. In Cooper, F., Isaacman, A., Mallon, F., Roseberry, W. and Stern, S. (eds), Confronting
historical paradigms: peasants, labor and the capitalist world system in Africa and Latin America.
Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Stewart, F. 1995: Adjustment and poverty: options and choices. London: Routledge.
Stewart, S. 1996: The price of a perfect ower: environmental destruction and health hazards in the
Colombian ower industry. In Collinson, H. (ed.), Green guerrillas: environmental conicts and
initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean. London: Latin American Bureau, 13239.
Stiglitz, J. 2002: Globalization and its discontents. London: Allen Lane & Penguin.
Strange, S. 1996: The retreat of the state: the diffusion of power in the world economy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Stren, R.E., White, R. and Whitney, J. 1992: Sustainable cities: urbanization and the environment in
international perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Sullivan, K. 2002: Former presidents hidden treasure appals Nicaragua: successor pursues corruption
charges. Washington Post, 12 September, A10.
Sunkel, O. 1973: Transnational capitalism and national disintegration in Latin America. Social and
Economic Studies, 22(1):13276.
Sunkel, O. (ed.) 1993: Development from within: towards a neostructuralist approach for Latin America.
Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner.
Sunkel, O. 1994: Un enfoque neoestructuralista de la reforma econmica, la crisis social y la viabilidad
democrtica en Amrica Latina. Paper presented at the XVIII International Congress of the Latin
American Studies Association (LASA), Atlanta, 1012 March.
Sunkel, O. and Zuleta, G. 1990: Neo-structuralism versus neo-liberalism in the 1990s. Cepal Review 42,
3541.
Szirmai, A. 1997: Economic and social development. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.
Tamayo-Flores, R. 2001: Mexico in the context of the North American integration: major regional
trends and performance of backward regions. Journal of Latin American Studies 33(2), 377407.
Tardanico, R. and Menjvar-Larn, R. (eds) 1997: Global restructuring, employment and social inequality in
urban Latin America, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Taylor, D. 1997: Disappearing acts: spectacles of gender and nationalism in Argentinas dirty war. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press.
Tedesco, L. and Dinerstein, A.C. (eds) 2003: The crisis in Argentina: contrasting perspectives. Bulletin of
Latin American Research 22(1), 165230.
Teubal, M. 1992: Food security and regimes of accumulation: with reference to the case of Argentina. ISS
Rural Development Research Seminars, 29 April 1992, The Hague: Institute of Social Studies.
Teubal, M. 1995: Globalizacin y expansin agroindustrial: Superacin de la pobreza en Amrica Latina?
Buenos Aires: Ediciones Corregidor.
Teubal, M. and Rodrguez, J. 2002: Agro y alimentacin en la globalizacin: una perspectiva crtica. Buenos
Aires: Editorial La Colmena.
The Economist 1998a: Bananas expelled from Eden. Article reprinted in the St. Lucia Mirror, 20 February.
The Economist 1998b: The summit of the Americas. The Economist, 11 April, 4950.
The Economist 2001a: Drugs, war and democracy: a survey of Colombia. The Economist, 21 April.
The Economist 2001b: The US-Mexican border: between here and there. The Economist, 7 July, 2729.
The Economist 2003a: Our kinda ciudad, The Economist, 11 January, 39.
The Economist 2003b: Latin America: wanted a new regional agenda for economic growth. The
Economist, 26 April, 4952.
The Economist 2003c: Corruption. The Economist, 1 February, 90.
Therborn, G. 1995: European modernity and beyond. London: Sage.

Latin America Transformed

Thiesenhusen, W.C. 1995: Broken promises: agrarian reform and the Latin American Campesino. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
Thomas, C.Y. 1988: The poor and powerless: economic policy and change in the Caribbean. London: Latin
American Bureau.
Thomas, J.J. 1995: Surviving in the city: the urban informal sector in Latin America. London: Pluto Press.
Thomas, J.J. 1996: The new economic model and labour markets in Latin America. In Bulmer-Thomas,
V. (ed.), The new economic model in Latin America and its impact on income distribution and poverty.
Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 79102.
Thomas, J.J. 1997: The urban informal sector and social policy: some Latin American contributions to
the debate. Paper presented at Workshop for the Social Policy Study Group, Institute of Latin
American Studies, University of London, 28 November.
Thomas, J.J. 1999: El mercado laboral y el empleo. In Crabtree, J. and Thomas, J.J. (eds), El Per de Fujimori
Lima: Universidad del Pacco, 25596.
Thompson, J. 1990: Ideology and modern culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Thompson, J. 1995: The media and modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Thorp, R. 1998: Progress, poverty and exclusion: an economic history of Latin America in the 20th century.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.
Thoumi, F.E. 1995: Political economy and illegal drugs in Colombia. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Thrupp, L.A. 1995: Bittersweet harvests for global supermarkets: challenges in Latin Americas agricultural
export boom. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.
Thrupp, L.A. 1996: New harvests, old problems: the challenge facing Latin Americas agro-export
boom. In Collinson, H. (ed.), Green guerrillas: environmental conicts and initiatives in Latin America and
the Caribbean. London: Latin American Bureau, 12231.
Tiano, S. 2001: From victims to agents: a new generation of literature on women in Latin America. Latin
American Research Review 36(3), 183203.
Tilly, C. (ed.) 1975: The formation of national states in Western Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Tinker, I. 1997: Street foods: urban food and employment in developing countries. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Tirado, A. 1998: Violence and the state in Colombia. In Posada-Carb, E. (ed.), Colombia: the politics of
reforming the state. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 11124.
Tironi, E. 2002 El cambio est aqu. La Tercera-Mondatori, Santiago.
Tironi, E. and Lagos, R. 1991: The social actors and structural adjustment. CEPAL Review 44, 3550.
Tokman, V. 1989: Policies for a heterogeneous informal sector in Latin America. World Development
17(7), 106776.
Tokman,V. 1991:The informal sector in Latin America: from underground to legality. In Standing, G. and
Tokman, V. (eds), Towards social adjustment: labour market issues in structural adjustment. Geneva:
International Labour Organization, 14157.
Tokman, V. 1992: Beyond regulation: the informal sector in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Tokman, V. and Klein, E. 1996: Regulation and the informal economy: microenterprises in Chile, Ecuador and
Jamaica. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Touraine, A. 1981: The voice and the eye: an analysis of social movements. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Townroe, P.M. and Keen, D. 1984: Polarization reversal in the state of So Paulo, Brazil. Regional Studies
18(1), 4554.
Townsend, J., Zapata, E., Rowlands, J., Alberti, P. and Mercado, M. 1999: Women and power: ghting
patriarchies and poverty. London: Zed Books.
Treakle, K. 1998: Ecuador: structural adjustment and indigenous and environmentalist resistance. In
Fox, J.A. and Brown, D. (eds), The struggle for accountability: the World Bank, NGOs and grassroots
movements. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 21964.
306

307

Bibliography

UNCHS 1996: An urbanizing world: global report on human settlements 1996. United Nations Centre
for Human Settlements (UNCHS). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
UNDIESA (United Nations Division of Economic and Social Affairs) 1989: Social situation 1989. New
York: United Nations.
UNECLAC/UNCHS 2000: From rapid urbanization to the consolidation of human settlements in Latin
America and the Caribbean: a territorial perspective. Santiago: United Nations Economic Commission
for Latin America and the Caribbean, and Nairobi: United Nations Centre for Human Settlements.
United Nations 1989: Demographic yearbook 1987. New York: UN.
United Nations 1995: The worlds women 1995: trends and statistics. New York: UN.
United Nations 1997: Demographic yearbook 1995. New York: UN.
United Nations 2000: The worlds women 2000: trends and statistics. New York: UN.
United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) 1997: Role of men in the lives of children: a study of how
improving knowledge about men in families helps strengthen programming for children and women. New
York: UNICEF.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 1995: Human development report 1995. New
York: Oxford University Press.
UNDP 1997: Human development report 1997. New York: Oxford University Press.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2001: Human development report 2001: making
new technologies work for human development. New York: Oxford University Press.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2002: Human development report 2002: deepening
democracy in a fragmented world. New York: Oxford University Press.
UN Population Division 2001: The state of world population 2001. New York: United Nations
Population Division.
Uribe-Echevarria, F. 1996: Reestructuracion econmica y desigualdades interregionales; el caso de
Chile. EURE, Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales 22(65), 1138.
Utting, P. 1993: Trees, people, and power. London: Earthscan.
Valcrcel, L.E. 1925: Del ayllu al imperio. Lima: Editorial Garcilaso.
Valds, A. 2002: WTO negotiations and agricultural trade liberalization in Latin America. In Rich, P.G.
(ed.), Latin America: its future in the global economy. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 184200.
Valds, A. and Siamwalla, A. 1988: Foreign trade regimes, exchange rate policy, and the structure of
incentives. In Mellor, J.W. and Ahmed, R. (eds), Agricultural price policy for developing countries.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 10323.
Valds, J.G. 1995: Pinochets economists: the Chicago School in Chile. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Van Cott, D.L. (ed.) 1994: Indigenous peoples and democracy in Latin America. New York: InterAmerican
Dialogue/St. Martins Press.
Van der Borgh, C. 1995: A comparison of four development models in Latin America. The European
Journal of Development Research 7(2), 27696.
Van der Ree, G. 2003: Growth with equity: modernity and the Chilean left, 19982002. Paper
presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS), 1113 April,
University of Manchester.
Van Scott, D.L. 1995: Indigenous peoples and democracy in Latin America. New York: St. Martins Press.
Vargas, V. 1991: The womens movement in Peru: streams, spaces and knots. European Review of Latin
American and Caribbean Studies (50), 750.
Vargas Llosa, M. 1974: La novela. Buenos Aires: Editorial Amrica Nueva.
Vasconcelos, J. 1927: La raza csmica. Barcelona: S.A.
Vasconcelos, J. 1993: El pensamiento Iberoamericano. In Zea, L. (ed.), Fuentes de la cultura
Latinoamericana. vol. 1. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econmica.
Vliz, C. 1994: The new world of the Gothic fox: culture and economy in English and Spanish America.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Latin America Transformed

Vellinga, M. (ed.) 1993: Social democracy in Latin America: prospects for change. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press.
Vellinga, M. 2000: Economic internationalisation and regional response: the case of north eastern
Mexico. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geograe 91(3), 293307.
Veltmeyer, H. and OMalley, A. 2001: Transcending neoliberalism: community-based development in Latin
America. Bloomeld, CT: Kumarian Press.
Veltmeyer, H., Petras, J. and Vieux, S. 1997: Neoliberalism and class conict in Latin America. Basingstoke
and London: Macmillan.
Vergara, P. 1994: Market economy, social welfare and democratic consolidation in Chile. In Smith, W.,
Acua, C. and Gamarra, E. (eds), Democracy, markets and structural reform in Latin America: Argentina,
Bolivia, Brazil and Chile and Mexico. Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center, University of Miami,
23761.
Vogelgesang, F. 1996: Property rights and the rural land market in Latin America. CEPAL Review 58, 95113.
Wade, R. 1990: Governing the market: economic theory and the role of government in East Asian
industrialization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Wagner, P. 1994: A sociology of modernity, liberty and discipline. London: Routledge.
Wagner, P. 2001a: Modernity, history of the concept. In Smelser, N. and Baltes, P. (eds), International
encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences. Oxford: Pergamon.
Wagner, P. 2001b: Modernity, capitalism and critique. Thesis Eleven 66, 131.
Walker, T. (ed.) 1997: Nicaragua without illusions: regime transition and structural adjustment in the 1990s.
Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources.
Wallerstein, I, 2000: Globalization or the age of transition? A long-term view of the trajectory of the
world-system. International Sociology 15(2), 24965.
Ward, K. and Pyle, J. 1995: Gender, industrialization, transnational corporations and development: an
overview of trends and patterns. In Bose, C. and Acosta-Beln, E. (eds), Women in the Latin American
development process. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 3764.
Watson, H.A. 1996: Globalization, new regionalization, restructuring and NAFTA. Caribbean Studies
29(1), 548.
Watts, M. 1996: Mapping identities: place, space and community in an African City. In Yeager, P. (ed.), The
Geography of Identity. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 5997.
WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development) 1987: Our Common Future. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Weeks, J. 1995: Macroeconomic adjustment and Latin American agriculture since 1980. In Weeks, J.
(ed.), Structural adjustment and the agricultural sector in Latin America and the Caribbean. London:
Macmillan Press, 6191.
Welch, B. 1994: Banana dependency: albatross or liferaft for the Windwards. Social and Economic
Studies 43(1), 12349.
West, R. and Augelli, J. 1989: Middle America: its lands and people. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Whatmore, S. 1995: From farming to agribusiness: the global agro-food system. In Johnson, R.J., Taylor,
P.J. and Watts, M. (eds), Geographies of global change. Oxford: Blackwell, 3649.
White, R.R. 1993: North, South, and the environmental crisis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Wiarda, H.J. 1990: The democratic revolution in Latin America: history, politics, and U.S. policy. New York:
Holmes and Meier.
Wilentz, A. 1989: In the rainy season: Haiti since Duvalier. New York: Touchstone.
Wiley, J. 1996: The European Unions single market and Latin Americas banana exporting countries.
Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers (CLAG) Yearbook 1996. Volume 22. Muncie, IN: CLAG.
Wiley, J. 1998: Dominicas economic diversication: microstates in a neoliberal era? In Klak, T. (ed.),
Globalization and neoliberalism. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littleeld, 15578.
Wilkie, J.W., Contreras, C.A. and Komisaruk, C. (eds) 1994: Statistical abstract of Latin America 31. Los
Angeles, CA: UCLA Latin American Center Publications.
308

309

Bibliography

Williamson, J. (ed.) 1990: Latin American adjustment: how much has happened? Washington, DC: Institute
for International Economics.
Williamson, J. 1993: Democracy and the Washington consensus. World Development 21 (8), 132936.
Williamson, J. and Kuczynski, P. (eds) 2003: After the Washington consensus: restarting growth and reform
in Latin America. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.
Willis, K. 2000: No es fcil pero es posible: the maintenance of middle class women-headed
households in Mexico. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 69, 2945.
Willis, K. 2002: Open for business: strategies for economic diversication. In McIlwaine, C. and Willis, K.
(eds), Challenges and change in Middle America: perspectives on development in Mexico, Central
America and the Caribbean. Harlow: Longman, 13568.
Willmore, L. 1994: Export processing in the Caribbean: lessons from four case studies. United Nations
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Report Number LC/CAR/G.407.
Wilson, P.C., Perreault, T. and Roper, J.M. (eds) 2003: Indigenous transformational movements in
contemporary Latin America. Latin American Perspectives 30(1), 1207.
Wise, T.A., Salazar, H. and Carlsen, L. 2003: Confronting globalization: economic integration and popular
resistance in Mexico. Bloomeld, CT: Kumarian Press, 3414.
Wolford, W. 1998: Case study: grassroots-initiated land reform in Brazil: the rural landless workers
movement. In de Janvry, A., Gordillo, G., Platteau, J-P. and Sadoulet, E. (eds), Access to land, rural poverty
and public action. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 30414.
World Bank 1980: World development report 1980. New York: Oxford University Press.
World Bank 1986: World development report, 1986, New York: Oxford University Press.
World Bank 1987: World development report, 1987. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
World Bank 1988: World development report 1988. New York: Oxford University Press.
World Bank 1991: World development report, 1991. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
World Bank 1992: World development report 1992: development and the environment. New York and
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
World Bank 1993: The East Asian miracle: public policy and economic growth. Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press.
World Bank 1994: Poverty in Colombia. Washington, DC: World Bank.
World Bank 1995a: Global economic prospects and the developing countries. Washington DC: World Bank.
World Bank 1995b: World development report 1995: workers in an integrated world. New York: Oxford
University Press.
World Bank 1996: World development report 1996: from plan to market. New York: Oxford University
Press.
World Bank 1997: World development report, 1997. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
World Bank 1999: World development indicators, 1999. Washington, DC: World Bank
World Bank 2000: World development report 1999/2000. New York: Oxford University Press.
World Bank 2001a: Global development nance, 2001. Washington, DC: World Bank.
World Bank 2001b: World development indicators 2001. Washington DC: World Bank.
World Bank 2001c: World development report 2000/2001: attacking poverty. New York: Oxford
University Press.
World Bank 2002a: World development report 2002. New York: Oxford University Press.
World Bank 2002b: Globalization, growth and poverty: building an inclusive world economy. New York:
Oxford University Press.
World Bank 2003a: About heavily-indebted poor countries. Accessed January 2003:
http://www.worldbank.org/hipc/about/about.html
World Bank 2003b: World development report 2003: sustainable development in a dynamic world:
transforming institutions, growth, and quality of life. New York: Oxford University Press.
World Health Organization 1992: Our planet, our health: report of the WHO Commission on health and
environment. Geneva: WHO.

Latin America Transformed

World Resources Institute 1994: World resources 1995: a guide to the global environment. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Wright, A. 2003: The land is only the rst step: mobilization and alliances in the Brazilian movement of
landless rural workers. Paper presented at the XXIV International Congress of the Latin American
Studies Association (LASA), Dallas, Texas, 2729 March.
Wright, M. 2001: A manifesto against femicide. Antipode 33(3), 55066.
Xirau, R. 1992: Crisis del realismo. In Fernndez, C. (ed.), Amrica Latina en su literatura. Mexico City:
Siglo XXI, 185203.
Young, O.R. 1994: International governance: protecting the environment in a stateless society. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
Ydice, G. 1998: The globalization of culture and the new civil society. In Alvarez, S., Dagnino, E. and
Escobar, A. (eds), Cultures of politics, politics of culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 35379.
Zamosc, L. 1994: Agrarian protest and the Indian movement in the Ecuadorean highlands, Latin
American Research Review 29(3), 3768.
Zimbalist, A. and Brundenius, K. 1989: The Cuban economy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press.
Zimmerer, K. and Young, K. (eds) 1998: Natures geography: new lessons for conservation in developing
countries. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Zoomers, A. 1998: Estrategias campesinas en el surandino de Bolivia: intervenciones y desarrollo rural en
el norte de Chuquisaca and Potos. La Paz: CEDLA/CID/PLURAL.
Zoomers, A. 1999: Linking Livelihood strategies to development: experiences from the Bolivian Andes.
Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) and Centre for Latin American Research and
Documentation (CEDLA).
Zoomers. A. (ed.) 2001: Land and sustainable livelihood in Latin America. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical
Institute, and Frankfurt: Vervuert Verlag.
Zoomers, A. and van der Haar, G. (eds) 2000: Current land policy in Latin America: regulating land tenure
under neoliberalism. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, and Frankfurt: Vervuert Verlag.

310

Index

actors
civil 193, 194, 195, 1968, 202, 203,
2045, 207, 208
external 149
foreign 189
institutional 193
local 1978
social 193, 194, 1967, 200, 202,
203, 207, 232
state 142, 146, 152, 155
Africa-Caribbean-Pacic (ACP)
countries 75, 76
agriculture 51, 58, 60, 73, 756, 77, 78,
83, 84, 97, 100, 105, 109, 110,
117, 1209, 146, 178, 179, 182,
186, 203, 223
assets 2456
competitiveness 83, 2345, 243,
246, 249
exports 74, 756, 77, 83, 122,
1248, 2345, 2368, 2435
and globalization 122, 126, 232,
23440
non-traditional agricultural exports
(NTAEs) 83, 122, 1248, 2345,
2368, 2435
power 2456
reforms 2323, 23440, 242, 244,
245, 246
subsidization 265
agroindustry 51, 58
Allende, Salvador 147, 253
Alliance for Progress 1456
Amazon 120, 129, 130, 131, 133, 197,
204, 247
amnesty laws 1601
Andean Community 39, 40, 41, 267
Andean Group 67
Andean Pact 264
Andean region 9, 11, 90, 98, 99, 140,
1858, 189, 203, 207
anti-globalization movements 5
Argentina 8, 1218, 27, 28, 32, 37, 39,
40, 45, 48, 55, 57, 58, 63, 95, 96,
97, 98, 100, 101, 103, 115, 144,
14650, 1525, 15860, 163, 164,
168, 169, 190, 198, 201, 202, 216,
225, 241, 265
aristocracy 147
Asia 9, 10, 1112, 16, 19, 32, 44, 51, 52,
111, 253, 267
assembly plants 82

see also maquilas


assets 1768, 181, 183, 1845, 186,
21012, 241, 2456
Association of Caribbean States (ACS)
67, 88
asymmetries 6, 79, 1013, 41, 56, 78,
79, 89, 146, 263, 264
authoritarian regimes 34, 14155,
15863, 1678, 1936, 198, 202,
259
autocomplacientes 266
autoagelantes 158, 266
Aylwin, Patricio 218
Aztecs 94
Bahamas 84, 88
banana exports 74, 756, 77, 234
Barbados 39, 77
barrel children 87
Belize 87
biodiversity 11820, 128, 129
Bishop, Maurice 74
black Latin Americans 200
black market 85, 86
Bogot, Colombia 95, 100, 111, 112,
113, 115
Bolivia 8, 12, 27, 39, 42, 50, 51, 57, 117,
122, 124, 166, 178, 198, 2035,
21517, 241, 246, 248, 267,
185791
boom and bust economies 45, 86, 123
bracero programme 1942 106
Brady Plan 47
Brazil 8, 10, 1214, 1719, 27, 28, 31,
32, 35, 37, 39, 44, 50, 51, 57, 58,
60, 61, 63, 69, 95, 97, 98, 121,
12831, 133, 134, 136, 144,
1468, 1503, 155, 157, 1602,
164, 167, 168, 180, 183, 194, 199,
201, 205, 208, 218, 223, 225, 233,
236, 238, 2468, 253, 259, 2612,
267
Britain 43, 76, 84
see also United Kingdom
British Virgin Islands 84
Brundtland Commission 129
Bucaram, Abdal 167, 168
Buenos Aires, Brazil 93, 94, 95, 101,
199, 201
bureaucratic-authoritarianism 1479
Bush Administration 90
business condence 45, 46

campesinos 2334
Canada 39, 86, 87, 108
capital 146, 167, 240, 255, 259
cultural 176, 183
nancial 187, 210, 211, 241
ight 45
foreign 46, 84, 146, 262
formation 51
human 176, 181, 182, 183, 184, 186,
187, 210, 21112, 230, 241, 264
institutional 264
knowledge 264
mobility 1213, 14, 20, 84, 264
natural 176, 183, 210, 211, 241
produced/physical 176, 181, 183,
210, 211, 241
social 176, 181, 182, 183, 186, 187,
210, 211, 212, 229, 241, 264
switching 178
capitalism 23, 24, 846, 1425, 148,
260, 262
consolidated 150
dependent 734, 91
failure in Latin America 26
and globalization 5, 6
political crisis of 25
triumph 253
capitalist farms 232, 233, 234, 235, 240,
241, 2434
capitalists 19, 20, 142, 143, 152, 256
Caracas 95
Carajs 130
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique 16, 164,
2612
Caribbean 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 39, 41, 173,
190, 260
see also Central America and the
Caribbean
Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) 67, 74,
83
Caricom (Caribbean Community) 39,
40, 75, 878, 8990
Carifta 39
Castro, Fidel 85
Cayman Islands 10, 84
Central America 9, 11, 37, 39, 41, 95,
98, 99, 100, 144, 150, 157, 167,
181, 185, 197, 198, 2001
Central America and the Caribbean
(CA/C) 6791
Central American Common Market
(CACM) 39, 40, 87, 8890, 267
311

Index

centre-periphery 79, 11, 13, 26, 63,


78, 260, 264, 265
centre/core 123, 263, 264, 265
Chamorro, Violeta 215
Chvez, Hugo 37, 142, 157, 167
Chiapas, Mexico 107, 108, 124, 267
Chicago Boys 125
childcare 227, 230
Chile 8, 10, 13, 15, 16, 19, 27, 28, 314,
367, 39, 413, 4952, 55, 5760,
63, 69, 96, 97, 102, 1046,
10911, 115, 120, 1228, 130,
131, 1448, 150, 152, 155,
15766, 168, 179, 184, 190, 199,
202, 205, 215, 218, 233, 235, 236,
242, 244, 253, 257, 25962, 2656
China 10, 44, 86, 260
Christian base communities (CEB)
200, 205
Christianity 149
see also Protestantism; Roman
Catholic Church
Cisne Dos, Ecuador 181, 183
citizenship 1945, 196, 199, 203, 2067
civil society 149, 150, 159, 161, 162,
163, 1645, 174, 178, 193208,
2425
denition 194
and globalization 190, 193, 194,
2067, 208
and neoliberalism 193, 194, 1978,
203, 2056, 208
neostructuralist view of 263
weak 334
civilization 245
class 90, 1424, 145, 1467
see also aristocracy; elites; peasants
alliances 147, 1524
capitalist 19, 20, 142, 143, 152, 256
middle 19, 20, 25, 142, 143, 144,
145, 146, 147, 152, 153, 162
tensions 1423, 1467, 148, 151, 152
upper 148, 152, 153, 162
working 19, 20, 25, 81, 146
clientelism 33, 207, 208
cocaine/coca 90, 111, 122
coffee 179, 234, 236, 238
collective land rights 203, 2067
Collor de Mello, Fernando 162, 167
Colombia 28, 32, 37, 39, 49, 50, 51, 57,
58, 73, 87, 88, 89, 95, 97, 99, 100,
1046, 11114, 115, 122, 144,
1467, 149, 150, 154, 155, 181,
184, 187, 190, 203, 206, 218, 225,
237, 246, 248
colonialism 24, 34
communications technology 79, 100,
207, 215
comparative advantage 19, 126, 136,
244
competitive advantage 264
competitiveness 6, 61, 83, 91, 2345,
243, 246, 249, 259, 260
Concertacin regime 15, 158, 167,
261, 262, 265, 266
Confederation of Indigenous
Nationalities of Ecuador
(CONAIE) 184, 247
conict 124, 134, 1423, 151, 2278,
2467
see also land struggles
312

conservation 128, 180, 206


constitutions 2034, 248
consumerism 9, 1314, 27, 32, 120,
1624
consumption, minimization 212
contagion 12
control 124
copper 51, 58, 120, 123, 124, 126, 147
corporatism 195, 207, 208
corruption 162, 1667, 169, 203
Costa Rica 37, 39, 51, 60, 80, 87, 89,
117, 121, 132, 144, 155, 166, 167,
175, 178, 1812, 185, 218, 220,
224, 246
cotton 234, 236
Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (CMEA) 84
Counter-Reformation 29, 31
criminality 167, 266
Cuba 73, 74, 846, 87, 90, 96, 97, 146,
219, 225, 226, 253
cultural change 2238
cultural difference 194, 198202
cultural institutions 28
cultural resistance 31
culture 789
da Silva, Luiz Incio 13, 1819, 37, 157,
164, 247, 262, 266, 267
debt 187
crisis (1980s) 1213, 18, 27, 457,
48, 49, 67, 767, 89, 97, 102, 103,
105, 106, 108, 111, 113, 115, 159,
215, 257
foreign 77, 118, 159, 262
forgiveness 47
social 1589, 2578, 260
socialization of private 456
Decent Work agenda 2289
deconcentration 258
deforestation 128, 247
democracy 37, 91, 14155, 15769,
193, 202, 257, 258, 266
and civil society 202, 207
consolidated 14951, 152, 153, 169,
218
disenchantment with 1667
and neoliberalism 25960
and the peasantry 243, 246, 247
Schumpeterian view 169
technocratic 1646, 168, 169, 259
democratic governance 17, 18, 19
democratization 31, 151, 153, 25960
denationalization 6
dependency 262
economic 46, 6974, 75, 76, 91, 124
export 1202, 136, 255
nancial 1213
geopolitical 73
technological 1314
dependency theory 1114, 17, 19,
1467, 148, 1545, 173, 1745,
176, 260, 261
depoliticization 15962, 163, 167, 169
Depression 25, 43, 46
deregulation 218
deterritorialization 87
development 14155
see also sustainable development
associated dependent 146
from within 264

and livelihoods 1759, 1858


socialist routes 734, 846
uneven 63, 65, 195, 1989
dictatorships 2731
see also authoritarian regimes;
military regimes
disappeared persons 2001
discouraged worker effect 220
discrimination 199, 265
see also racism
diversication 2445
Dominica 69, 76, 81, 82
Dominican Republic 77, 82, 87, 88,
223, 225, 226, 227
drug economy 90, 104, 111, 112, 113,
122, 150, 167
Dutch disease 123
East Asia 9, 10, 1112, 16, 19, 44, 51,
52, 263, 267
Eastern Europe 10, 16, 219, 260
economic
crisis 439, 846, 142, 143, 146, 148,
1523, 193, 194, 210, 21114,
215, 218, 265
growth 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 502, 58,
63, 65, 85, 86, 95, 96, 98, 1056,
110, 111, 115, 118, 120, 126, 129,
131, 133, 136, 137, 143, 144, 147,
151, 234, 255, 258, 260, 262, 266
integration 3941, 45, 46, 59, 78, 91,
102, 148, 260, 262
reform see neoliberal economic
reform
spaces 5763, 65
stability 17, 97, 164, 1656
Economic Commission for Latin
America (ECLA) 26, 260
Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC) 166, 260, 264
ecosystems 120, 127, 136, 206
Ecuador 8, 27, 39, 51, 55, 76, 96, 100,
120, 149, 151, 153, 157, 166, 167,
168, 179, 181, 1835, 187, 1901,
195, 199, 200, 2038, 2378,
2468, 258, 267
education 184, 186, 1945, 214,
22930
El Salvador 8, 39, 72, 87, 89, 97, 100,
161, 205, 218, 226, 233, 246
elites 30, 144, 145, 149, 150, 151,
1523, 154, 155, 175
employment 59, 60, 21030, 255
see also labour
conditions 91, 21718, 2201,
2289, 232
neoliberal reforms 52, 546, 57
squeeze 240
state 19, 56, 21516, 219, 255
urban 21528
enclave economies 1234
energy 99, 122, 1234, 128, 130
Enlightenment 24, 29, 31, 34, 194
entrepreneurs 20, 43, 45, 56, 146, 158,
176, 229, 253, 255, 256
environment 120, 128, 180, 206, 267
browning of 131
movements 2469, 259, 267
and sustainable development 117,
118, 127, 12832, 136, 137

families 99
see also households
farmers 85, 232
capitalist 232, 233, 234, 235, 240,
241, 2434
large 127, 233
medium 127, 232, 233
parceleros 233, 244
small 83, 124, 1267
feminism 200
fertility 96, 113
rms 579, 65
see also transnational corporations
shing 51, 60, 117, 118, 123, 128
ower industry 100, 179, 237, 238
food import substitution (FIS) 2445
food security 124
forestry 51, 117, 120, 123, 130, 132
plantation 60
France 88
free market (laissez-faire model) 31,
123, 150, 1512, 159, 176, 194,
195, 2023, 205, 207, 2425, 263
see also neoliberal economic
reforms
Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA) 39, 41, 88, 89
fruit industry 1248, 179, 234, 236,
237, 244
Fujimori, Alberto 18, 162, 167, 168, 203

Index

equity 36, 145, 265, 267


see also asymmetries; inequalities
ethnic rights 2034, 206
see also indigenous peoples; racism
Europe 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 43, 74,
756, 87, 95, 97, 112, 145, 147,
188, 190
see also Eastern Europe
European Economic Community
(EEC) 88
European Union (EU) 7, 10, 69, 75, 76,
78, 123, 150
exchange rates 13, 48, 50, 123
exclusion 36, 267
export processing zones (free zones)
82
exports 1011, 13, 24, 31, 57, 589,
601, 63, 65, 678, 69, 73, 756,
77, 78, 803, 84, 8890, 97, 100,
102, 1045, 109, 110, 113, 114,
115, 1203, 130, 179, 1823, 215,
253
agricultural 74, 756, 77, 83, 122,
1248, 2345, 2368, 2435
competitiveness 50
dependency 1202, 136, 255
diversication 51, 52
growth 9, 512, 54, 5960
industrial 121
manufacturing 60, 613, 105, 253
mineral 105, 111
non-traditional (NTE) 19, 601, 78,
813, 89, 91, 11718
non-traditional agricultural (NTAE)
83, 122, 1248, 2345, 2368,
2435
trade reform 514
volumes 43, 44
extinction 11820
extractive reserves 133, 134

functional dualism 174


fusion effect 33

hyperglobalist thesis 6
hyperination 445

Garca, Alan 1667


GATT 123
gender issues 210, 211, 212, 214, 216,
220, 2218, 230
see also women
genocide 201
global economic integration 3941, 45,
46, 59, 78, 91, 102, 148, 260, 262
global village concept 779
globalization 320, 23, 39, 49, 6791,
141, 144, 146, 215, 22930, 253,
259, 2615
and agriculture 122, 126, 232,
23440
and civil society 193, 194, 2067,
208
constraints/opportunities 14
differentiation of 79
inclusionary 2667
inequalities of 6, 78, 11, 102, 110
and livelihoods 173, 17980, 181,
18891
and place formation 17980
resistance to 5, 157, 1634, 166
and rural livelihoods 232, 23440,
248, 249
and sustainable development 117,
135
and urbanization 94, 98, 110, 112,
114, 115
and worker rights 218
gold mining 120, 189
governance 17, 18, 19
grassroots politics 193208, 232,
24650
Grenada 74, 76
Guadalajara, Mexico 106, 212, 227
Guatemala 8, 37, 39, 60, 69, 72, 74, 87,
89, 96, 122, 149, 161, 1668, 201,
218, 244, 259
guerrilla movements 111, 2056
see also Zapatistas
Gutirrez, Lcio 37, 157, 248
Guyana 39, 74, 77

identity 301, 199200, 205


Baroque 31
and modernity 2238
oppositional 26
personal 32
identity theory 197
ideological traditionalism 33
IMF riots 185
import substitution industrialization
(ISI) 13, 14, 17, 67, 88, 89, 97, 101,
102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 111,
112, 113, 115, 148, 159, 242
imports 10, 50, 51, 52, 69, 75, 77, 845,
235, 2445
Incas 94, 189
incomes 212, 237, 241
see also wages
distribution 412, 567, 108, 259,
260, 265
polarization 109, 110
independence 23, 87
Indians 24, 30, 34, 35, 37, 1889, 204,
247
indigenista 25
indigenous peoples 131, 133, 134, 166,
169, 184, 185, 1889, 197, 201,
203, 204, 205, 2067, 208, 232,
233, 24650, 267
individualism 32
industrialization 1314, 24, 257, 31,
434, 58, 745, 77, 82, 96, 110,
121, 136, 148
see also import substitution
industrialization
inequality 6, 78, 11, 57, 78, 79, 80,
1024, 1078, 110, 11315, 124,
1267, 159, 166, 193, 195, 242,
246, 255, 2568, 259, 260, 263,
265, 266, 267
see also asymmetries
ination 15, 445, 148, 253
informal sector 36, 97, 174, 175, 210,
214, 21821, 225, 229
information technology 215, 22930
institutionalization 2045, 207
institutions 178
see also international nancial
institutions
intellectuals 25, 30
Inter-American Development Bank
(IADB or IDB) 47, 166, 2578
interest rates 46, 77
interests 142
international development agencies 80
international nancial institutions (IFIs)
9, 16, 217, 262, 2667
International Labour Organization
(ILO) 55, 206
International Monetary Fund (IMF) 15,
16, 45, 46, 47, 77, 88, 89, 97, 104,
150, 158, 165, 1901, 215, 266
investment 10, 45, 501, 52, 58, 78, 85,
90, 104, 105, 124, 126, 253, 255,
263
inward-orientation 17, 435, 46, 56, 61,
63, 262
see also import substitution
industrialization

Haiti 8, 72, 77, 80, 82, 87, 88, 168


health care 214
hegemony 9, 734, 78, 84, 91
Helms-Burton Amendment 1996 73
Hispanic culture 25, 26
Honduras 8, 39, 77, 87, 89, 96, 167
Hong Kong 11
households 223, 2268
Human Development Index (HDI)
701, 72, 76
human rights 37, 91, 159, 1601, 166,
168, 1946, 2034
civil 194, 205
ethnic 2034, 206
material/economic 198
political 25, 194
property 233
social 194, 205
womens 196, 199201, 2034, 206,
233
workers 2289
hustling 86
hyper-politicization 161

313

Index

Italy 95, 100


Jamaica 39, 74, 77, 82, 834, 86, 87
Japan 9, 11, 61, 78, 106
labour 58, 127, 147
see also employment
casualization 236
laws 21718
low cost 61
markets 16, 556, 2218
mobility 6, 7, 11, 48, 89, 98, 99, 264
neoliberal reform of 16, 546, 57,
255
reproductive 227
rural 232, 23540
seasonal 235, 236, 237, 241
as social actor 142, 152
and the state 143, 152, 153
temporary 235, 236, 238
tenant 235, 236
lack of alternatives argument 259, 266
Lagos, Ricardo 262
land 182, 1834, 233
collective rights 203, 2067
hunger 131, 133
invasions 1834, 196, 246
reforms 147, 183
squeeze 240
struggles 1834, 196, 197, 203,
2067, 233, 242, 246, 2467, 249
landlessness 180, 233, 242, 2467, 267
latifundia system 232, 233, 235, 236
learned hopelessness syndrome 36
legalism 345
liberalism 30
Lima, Peru 95, 101, 1756, 17980,
199
liquidity 12
literature 245, 27, 289, 32
livelihoods 17391, 193208
asset-based framework 1768, 181,
183, 1845, 186, 21012, 241
cultural issues 177, 1801
denition 181
dependent 1745, 176
politics 177, 1801, 1835
rural 23250
strategies 1759, 210, 21114, 253
transnational 207
urban 21030
vulnerability 264, 265, 266
living standards 412, 100, 102, 114
local 23, 115, 181, 197, 258
Lom Conventions 75
lost decade 2731, 97, 195, 223
Lula see da Silva, Luiz Incio
macondism 289
malnutrition 99
manufacturing 10, 13, 58, 59, 60, 613,
82, 83, 889, 90, 101, 102, 105,
1056, 109, 110, 123, 253
maquilas (assembly factories) 61,
1067, 179, 206, 208
Marshall Aid Plan 46
Marxism 26, 146, 148
see also neo-Marxism
Mayan people 94, 247
media 789
mediazation 28
314

Menem, Carlos 164


Mercosur 11, 39, 40, 41, 67, 123, 267
mestizaje 25, 35
metals markets 120, 122, 123, 124,
130, 1889
see also copper
Mexico 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 28, 31, 3965,
67, 69, 72, 82, 8690, 94, 96, 97,
99, 100, 102, 1049, 111, 115,
121, 123, 124, 132, 136, 149, 150,
151, 155, 157, 159, 162, 179, 185,
198, 200, 203, 2058, 212,
21718, 220, 224, 2267, 233,
237, 241, 246, 253, 258, 267
Mexico City 95, 101, 102, 106, 1089,
115, 199
micro-enterprises 59
migradollars 87, 241
migration 79, 87, 182, 183, 1901,
1945
barriers to 265
European to Latin America 956
from Latin America to the USA
967, 100, 108, 182, 190, 191, 241
illegal 11
rural-urban 95, 96, 98100, 103,
114, 236, 238, 241
transnational within Latin America
241
military coups 27, 367, 104, 125, 161,
167, 168, 265
military regimes 146, 1489, 152, 153,
158, 15961, 163, 1645, 167,
193, 194, 195, 196, 198, 200, 201,
203
mineral economies 105, 111, 122, 123,
124, 128, 130
minifundia system 232
mining 117, 120, 1234, 128, 1889,
21516
modernity 3, 2238
ambivalence of 2830
as external 31
Latin American 2338
oligarchic 245
subordinate/peripheral 22
modernization 1579, 163, 167, 169,
174, 193, 2423, 249, 259, 260
modernization theory 26, 1446,
1478, 14951, 154
Montserrat 84, 88
morality 33
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo 201,
202
Movimento Sem Terra (MST)
(Landless Rural Workers
Movement) 180, 233, 2467
multiculturalism 203
nation-state 6, 1112, 15, 16, 1920,
193, 195, 196, 198, 205, 2067
nationalism 195
natural resources 11722, 1289, 136
non-renewable 118, 120, 128
renewable 60, 120, 128
needs 118, 119, 258
neo-indigenismo 30
neo-Marxism 6, 260
neoliberal economic reform 1516,
1718, 3966, 6791, 104, 105,
110, 111, 11415, 150, 1512,

155, 1579, 162, 163, 164, 1656,


169, 175, 181, 185, 1978, 203,
2056, 208, 25360
aggressive/cautious reformers 48, 50
agricultural 23240, 242, 2448
consolidation 50, 59
debt crisis 767
economic spaces of 5763
historical context 436
impacts 507
income polarization 109
and place formation 179
problems 527
stages of 50
and sustainable development 122,
1245, 128, 132, 136
neoliberal multiculturalism 203
neoliberal populism 27, 148, 151, 165,
174, 175
neoliberalism 1420, 312, 6791, 173,
1813, 189
alternatives to 253, 25967
and civil society 193, 194, 1978,
203, 2056, 208
contradictions to 2589
crisis 15769
cultural effects 15769
and democracy 25960
development model 804
evaluation 2539
historical context 436
hyperglobalist thesis 6
implementation 27
and labour 16, 546, 57, 255
and Latin American modernization
24
migratory response to 87
political base 1819
resistance to 157
and rural livelihoods 2323, 23440,
242, 244, 245, 246, 249
social base 1719
socio-political impacts 15769,
2557
success of 1617, 31
and urban livelihoods 210, 21114,
218, 219, 2246
neostructuralism 2616
Netherlands 182
Netherlands Antilles 84, 88
New Economic Model (NEM) 97,
1012, 107, 108, 115
New Economic Policy (Bolivian) 216,
217
new peasant movement 232, 24650
new social movement (NSM) theory
197
New World Order 205
newly industrializing countries (NICs)
9, 10, 1112, 44, 263
Nicaragua 37, 39, 72, 74, 77, 81, 87, 89,
96, 112, 121, 149, 161, 166,
199200, 205, 215, 219, 233, 253
non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) 132, 133, 134, 135, 159,
173, 1858, 190, 193, 195, 2045,
205, 242, 243, 245, 246, 248, 258,
264
North America 9, 10, 22, 23, 25, 26,
28, 29, 35, 39, 41, 67, 78, 147, 188,
190, 246

occupational density 212


offshore nance 10, 45, 84
oil 51, 58, 120, 122, 124, 147
open regionalism 264
Operation Bootstrap 745
opium 111
Ortega, Daniel 74
outward-orientation 4763, 67, 80, 91,
111, 253, 255, 264
see also neoliberal economic
reforms; New Economic Model
ownership 124
Panama 87, 88, 218
Panama Canal Zone 73
paradox of plenty 120, 137
Paraguay 37, 39, 51, 149, 168, 199, 218,
244, 246
parceleros 233, 244
participation 132, 143, 144, 154, 193,
199, 202, 206, 208, 258, 264, 265
peasants 147, 151, 181, 182, 185, 186,
196, 197, 198, 203, 23250
economy 175, 234, 2406
patrols 198
proletarianization 234, 2406
social movements 289, 232,
24650
pensions 2256, 253, 258
Pentecostal movement 378
Prez, Carlos Andrs 167
periphery 8, 9, 1112, 63, 79, 120, 137,
144, 264, 265
see also centre-periphery; semiperiphery
Peru 15, 16, 18, 27, 357, 39, 50, 51,
55, 57, 58, 98, 101, 122, 124, 147,
149, 151, 153, 155, 161, 162,
1668, 1756, 17980, 182, 185,
186, 189, 198, 203, 205, 208, 217,
233, 257
petroleum 77, 121, 128
pharmaceuticals 745
Pinochet, Augusto 19, 34, 104, 110,
125, 158, 1601, 202, 265
place formation 17980
Plan Piloto Forestal, Quintana Roo 132
plantations 60
polarization 109, 110, 114
political
see also grassroots politics
agency 173
base of neoliberalism 1819
economy 3, 16, 11737, 1413, 144,
146, 147, 148, 1515, 173, 175,
176, 178, 182, 253, 259
fatigue 161
indifference 167
instability 367, 153
legitimation 1624
sociology 1446
political parties 18, 147, 153, 154
pollution 118, 120, 127, 128, 129, 131
poor 37, 159

see also poverty


livelihoods 1745, 176, 181, 1824,
1867
organizations for 173
urban 199, 21014, 216, 21920,
226, 228, 230
popular
culture 28, 32
economy see informal sector
politics 25, 27, 148, 151, 165
religiosity 31
population 41, 42
Central America and the Caribbean
69, 701
growth 96, 101, 107, 10910,
11213, 117, 136
and sustainable development 117,
136
urban 93, 94, 95, 96, 101, 107
Portugal 94, 95
Positivism 24
postmodernism 312
Potos, Bolivia 1889
poverty 36, 567, 80, 150, 169, 1745,
176, 181, 212, 218, 228, 253,
2578, 264, 265, 267
see also poor
feminization 200
rural 96, 97, 1034, 108, 110, 113,
115, 131, 133, 135, 175, 232, 233,
2412, 245
and sustainable development 129,
131, 133, 135, 1367
technocratic approach to 166
urban 95, 978, 99, 100, 1024, 108,
109, 11011, 11315, 1745
power 142, 2456
preservation 128, 131
prices 7, 1223, 127, 255
primary products 9, 10, 13, 19, 24, 31,
523, 601, 73, 756, 77, 78, 83,
84, 102, 105, 109, 111, 113, 118,
12032, 136, 137, 179, 253, 255
see also natural resources
private sphere 198, 199, 210
privatization 15, 58, 218
productivity 58
proletarianization 234, 2406
property rights 233
protectionism 43, 49, 50, 52, 123
Protestantism 190, 200
pseudo-modernity 29
public sphere 15, 489, 57, 801, 98,
182, 1956, 198, 199, 205, 210,
214, 228, 242
Puerto Rico 73, 745, 90, 223, 225,
226
race 24, 25
see also ethnic rights; indigenous
peoples
racism 24, 199
masked 356
rainforests 247
ranching 120, 129, 133
Reagan, Ronald 67, 74, 81
real marvellous 27
realism 25
magic 27, 32
recession 27, 123
reconversion 2434

regional integration 3941, 89, 264


regional trading blocks 8790
regionalism 123
religion 378
see also Christianity
fundamentalism 30
resource mobilization theory (RMT)
1967
revolution 146, 151
risk-aversion strategies 12
Roman Catholic Church 24, 27, 29, 30,
31, 33, 34, 35, 159, 18990, 200,
201
Romanticism 24
rubber tappers 247
rule of law 149, 150, 1534, 155, 160
rural areas 1267, 131, 135, 136, 178,
179, 1812, 183, 1858
livelihoods 23250
migration 95, 96, 98100, 103, 114,
236, 238, 241
poverty 96, 97, 1034, 108, 110,
113, 115, 131, 133, 135, 175, 232,
233, 2412, 245
rural non-agricultural income
(RNAI)/rural non-farm income
(RNFI) 239
rural non-farm employment
(RNFE)/rural non-agricultural
employment (RNAE) 236,
23940
St. Kitts and Nevis 87
St. Lucia 69, 76
St. Vincent 69, 76
Samper 111
Sandinista regime 81, 89, 199200,
215, 219, 253
Santiago, Chile 63, 100, 109, 110, 161
So Paulo, Brazil 95, 100, 1012, 199,
200
savings 45, 253
scepticism 67
secularization 31, 37
security 124, 2656
self-help 195
semi-periphery 8, 9
semi-proletariat 234, 2406
service industries 59, 109
shantytowns 195, 199, 200, 2589, 267
shrinking world 78
silver mining 124, 1889
Singapore 11
slavery 35, 98
social
capital 176, 181, 182, 183, 186, 187,
210, 211, 212, 229, 241, 264
cohesion 265
conict 124, 134, 1423, 2278,
2467
debt 1589, 2578, 260
difference 1946, 2027
exclusion 36, 267
expenditure 15, 489, 57, 801, 98,
182, 214, 228, 242
hierarchies 194
mobility 163
order 148, 152
policy 48
question 25
vulnerability 266
315

Index

see also United States of America


North American Free Trade Area
(NAFTA) 10, 11, 39, 40, 41, 61,
67, 82, 8990, 104, 1067, 108,
115, 123, 246
North Atlantic region 74, 76

Index

social movement theory 1999


social movements 173, 178, 181, 183,
189, 190, 195208, 2469, 267
ecological 259, 267
institutionalization 2045, 207
new 196202
peasant 289, 232, 24650
of the urban poor 2589
social sciences 26
socialism 26, 734, 846, 161, 248,
253, 260
solidarity 36
South Korea 9, 11, 51, 61, 232
Southern Cone 39, 94, 95, 148, 161,
198, 2001
Southern Consensus 267
Soviet Union (USSR) 10, 16, 84, 219
Spain 29, 31, 34, 73, 86, 87, 94, 95, 96,
98, 100, 182, 1889, 190
spatial segregation 11011
squatter settlements 195, 199, 200,
2589, 267
state 1413, 165, 178
see also nation-state
authoritarian capitalist 143
autonomy 151, 152
bureaucratic-authoritarian 148
and civil society 1936, 198, 200,
2023, 204, 205, 207, 208, 245
crisis 1478
democratic capitalist 142, 143, 146,
148, 14950, 151, 1523, 154
and the economy 434, 47, 58,
635, 678, 131
employment 19, 56, 21516, 219,
255
form 1412, 143, 1467, 148,
14950, 151, 1523, 154
and labour 255
and land use 233
modernization 434, 145, 151, 259
neostructuralist view of 263, 265
and the peasantry 2425, 246
reduction in the roles of 159, 203,
204, 2578, 259, 261, 263
and sustainable development 131,
132, 134
state managers 141, 142, 143, 144,
1523, 154, 155
street vendors 17980
strikes 142
structural adjustment programmes
(SAPs) 12, 98, 102, 158, 159, 165,
167, 168, 181, 206, 2412
structuralism 1114, 17, 19, 260
structure
reform 3965
rigidities 217
subsidies 265
sugar 84, 86, 147, 234
Surinam 39, 88
sustainable development 11737, 176,
2445
Taiwan 9, 11, 51, 232
tariffs 43, 49, 50, 52
tax exemptions 745
technocracy 1718, 1646, 168, 169,
253, 259

316

technology 1314, 58, 79, 100, 207,


215, 22930, 235
telenovelas (soap operas) 28, 32
television 27, 28, 32, 162
tenant labour 235, 236
Tequila crisis 1994 108, 115
textile industry 74, 82, 113
third sector 193, 2045
see also non governmental
organizations
tourism 85, 86
trade
dependency 6973
embargos 73
liberalization 16, 4950, 514
surplus 74
vulnerability 264
trade unions 61, 81, 200, 207, 218,
246, 255
trading blocks 7, 8790
traditional societies 33, 145
training 22930
Transamazon Highway 247
transformationalist thesis 7
transnational corporations (TNCs) 6,
9, 10, 14, 16, 45, 47, 50, 54, 58, 59,
60, 61, 65, 67, 77, 88, 122, 124,
126, 130, 146, 198, 215, 249, 262,
263, 264, 266
transnationalism 87
networks 207
transport 100, 113
Trinidad and Tobago 39, 77
tripolar world 911
truncated convergence 8
Turks and Caicos Islands 84
uncertainty 45, 50
under-development 1467
underemployment 21517
unemployment 54, 556, 97, 102,
21517, 255
unequal exchange theory 13
United Kingdom (UK) 69
see also Britain
United Nations Conference on Trade
and Development (UNCTAD)
267
United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) 2656
United Nations Economic Commission
for Latin America (UNECLA) see
Economic Commission for Latin
America; Economic Commission
for Latin America and the
Caribbean
United Nations (UN) 134, 150, 166,
206, 260
United States of America (USA) 5,
911, 14, 24, 25, 32, 39, 412, 45,
46, 52, 58, 61, 67, 69, 725, 789,
81, 838, 90, 91, 967, 100, 106,
108, 112, 123, 133, 144, 145, 149,
150, 152, 157, 165, 168, 182, 189,
190, 191, 241, 260
see also North America
urban areas 1745, 181, 182, 183,
1867, 1989
employment 21521

labour market 2218


livelihoods 21030
poverty 95, 978, 99, 100, 1024,
108, 109, 11011, 11315, 1745,
2589
urban informal sector (UIS) 210, 214,
21821, 256
urbanization 93116, 10414
of affluence 109
and civil society 195
explanations for 958
and globalization 94, 98, 110, 112,
114, 115
and poverty 95, 978, 99, 100,
1024, 108, 109, 11011,
11315
rural-urban migration 95, 96,
98100, 103, 114, 236, 238, 241
successes of 93, 94
Uruguay 8, 27, 39, 95, 96, 98, 103, 115,
123, 144, 146, 148, 154, 155, 158,
15960, 216, 265
Venezuela 8, 16, 28, 37, 39, 45, 88, 89,
98, 121, 123, 124, 142, 144, 146,
147, 149, 151, 153, 154, 155, 157,
161, 166, 167, 168
violence 245, 11113, 131, 161, 167,
182
intra-household 2278
state 201
volantes 238
voting 143, 167, 169, 199, 203
vulnerability
financial 1213, 264, 265, 266
social 266
trade 264
wages 57, 21618, 2256, 227, 236
see also incomes
minimum wage 256
real 256
Washington consensus 12, 15, 16, 18,
479, 54, 97, 157, 261
water supply 120, 127, 128, 198
wealth 109, 143, 154, 256
windfall profits 1223
wine industry 179
women 33, 198, 199200, 232
labour 127, 206, 210, 211, 212, 214,
216, 220, 2218, 230, 2368, 239,
255
rights 196, 199201, 2034, 206,
233
rural 2368, 239
and social movements 2001,
248
urban 98, 99, 210, 211, 212, 214,
216, 220, 2218, 230
World Bank 5, 8, 12, 16, 46, 47, 501,
77, 80, 88, 89, 94, 102, 104, 111,
130, 133, 134, 150, 158, 165,
166, 189, 206, 215, 233, 266,
267
world systems theory 174
World Trade Organization (WTO) 69,
76, 150, 266
Zapatistas 108, 185, 2056, 207, 246

You might also like