The Political Economy of Latin America in the Postwar Period

Laura Randall, editor

Austin: The University of Texas Press,

Institute of Latin American Studies, 1997

Despite the importance of Latin America in the world economy, there is an inexplicable absence of edited collections on this region's political economy. Dr. Randall's collection is a bold effort to fill this void in the literature. The book covers eight major Latin American countries. Each country case opens with a map, provides numerous tables and charts, and concludes with a large bibliography.These are comprehensive essays (none shorter than thirty-five pages) that follow the history of industrialization, industrialization by import substitution and the neoliberal period for each of the selected countries. The persistence of social inequality is the shared concern of all contributors to the collection. Despite impressive growth rates (e.g., in Brazil and Chile), the region's income distribution pattern has not been substantially altered. Instead, social programs have declined sharply in the 1990s. The dilemma of development, argue this book's contributors, is that Latin America's income inequality is so extreme that it hampers this region's capitalist development. In this sense, underdevelopment is an economic problem rooted in the social and political structures of the region.The collection also presents the wide spectrum of methodologies within the field of Political Economy. The political science approach to political economy is represented by the case study of Chile. William Maloney skillfully combines the political as well as the economic dimensions of policy in which the role of political parties and civil society in the definition and final implementation of public policy is highlighted. Joan Anderson follows a similar methodological orientation for case study of Ecuador. In contrast, the technocratic approach to political economy is represented by the case of Brazil. Werner Baer and Claudio Paive's essay reads like a main stream report on the evolution of Brazil's economy similar to those produced by the United Nations or World Bank. Here macroeconomics takes the center stage, "Brazil" is a protagonist who makes decisions, and the reader is left to rely upon his/her own knowledge of the political actors behind major economic policies. Robert McComb and Carlos Zarazaga’s Argentine case and Carmelo Mesa Lago’s Cuban case are a combination of the first and second approaches although they lean toward the technocratic style of the Brazilian case study. Finally, the sociological approach to political economy is illustrated by the case study of Peru. Efrain Gonzales de Olarte presents his theory of Peruvian underdevelopment--a significant contribution to one of the most complex economies of the region. In the process, he breaks with the technocratic language (and framework) of conventional economics. Instead of focusing on economic policies and macroeconomic indicators alone, this essay clearly links human decisions taken at the level of the international community and the state to the average Peruvian's quality of life. Unfortunately, the language of the essay is muddled with full paragraphs that were not edited well or were directly translated from Spanish.

Given the complexity of the region and the obvious restrictions of space, collections on Latin American political economy always present some limitations and Dr. Randall's is no exception to this rule. Her logic behind the selection of country cases remains somewhat unclear. Five out of the seven essays deal with South American economies. The absence of Colombia and of Central American economies remains a shortcoming. The reader must also be aware that statistics on these essays only go as far as 1997 and in at least one case--Ecuador-- they end in 1992. This means that the authors could not incorporate the devastating impact of the Asian crisis that unfolded in 1998 and produced a significant drop in the growth trends of these economies. Overall, Dr. Randall's collection emphasizes the economic rather than the political or sociological dimensions of Latin America's underdevelopment making a good reference for any graduate student in economics interested in underdevelopment.