Bolivia and the paradoxes of democratic consolidation

In Bolivia from the 1990s on, two presidents were ousted by popular protests, and protests were rampant. The protests expressed a growing discontent not only with successive administrations and their policies but with politics itself. The polity failed to built trust in democracy, ignored or repressed protests, and thus contributed to a process of democratic "deconsolidation." The main factors were corruption and the reluctance of the traditional political parties to discuss the neoliberal economic model. As a result, the current administration of Evo Morales faces two challenges: to change economic policies and to repair the support for democracy

State, market and civil society: Latin American development in comparative perspective

In the 1980s Latin America made a radical break with the model of development that had been pursued by most countries on the continent for the last fifty years and implemented a new development strategy, defined along neo-liberal lines. These changes have taken place under conditions of increasing globalization, e.g. they had to be realized increasingly within globally defined parameters and structures. The relationship between the state, the market and civil society was redefined. The traditional structures of interest representation of groups and classes, their legitimacy and effectiveness underwent significant changes in many countries. In this article we will explore the nature of these changes and their consequences for state reform and the relation to problems of national development. We will do so in a comparative perspective, including experiences from South East Asia. The debate about the relationship between state, market and civil society has received a new impetus from the 2008 crisis of the international financial system and the widely spread criticism of the workings of the market capitalism that it has generated. For Latin American development the conclusions of this debate and their possible translation into concrete policies are of the utmost importance

Economic internationalisation and regional response: The case of North Eastern Mexico

Economic internationalisation and globalising processes have a dialectical appearance. The trend towards homogenisation in an economic, social, political and cultural sense will meet with regionally generated production, innovation and knowledge systems that, while responding to these external influences, develop their own manifestation of the global-local nexus. The developments in Mexico's North East, with the industrial city of Monterrey as its core centre, present an example of the impact of these forces. Until 1988 Monterrey industries were operating on a protected domestic market. This situation changed with the opening up of the Mexican economy in that year and the signing of the NAFTA agreement with the USA and Canada in 1993. This paper analyses this insertion in the world economy and the regional response, first on an institutional level where the special brand of family capitalism - as found in Monterrey - is confronting the exigencies of international competitiveness and the organisation of business practice it requires. Second, on a sub-regional level, we observe the reaffirmation of regional idiosyncracies in the social, political and cultural sphere. The interaction between these two processes has been creating a most interesting case of glocalisation within the context created by NAFTA. Copyright Royal Dutch Geographical Society 2000.

La politique économique des enclaves minières au Pérou

Kruijt Dirk, Vellinga Menno. La politique économique des enclaves minières au Pérou. In: Tiers-Monde, tome 18, n°72, 1977. pp. 797-832

Industrialización y desarrollo regional

Lo primero que se le ocurre al lector al incluir la lectura de este trabajo es que su título debe haberse referido a la industrialización y al desarrollo regional del Valle del Cauca, u otro título similar que señalara la región específica del estudio. El propósito anunciado por los autores del trabajo es encontrar respuesta a una serie de preguntas que ellos planteasn en la presentación o prólogo (pág. 6); para encontrar las respuestas los autores deciden concentrarse en dos grandes temas: 1. El Valle de Cauca como caso específico y 2. Las políticas de descentralización y desconcentración propuestas por el gobierno nacional