As Kurt Weyland points out in his introduction, we have a rich scholarly literature on the causes and processes of neoliberal reforms in Latin America and elsewhere. In contrast, much of the debate about the effects of neoliberal reforms in Latin America has been carried out at a political and ideological level. The image of an overblown and inefficient state that stifles market forces and private initiative has been contrasted with the model of a lean and efficient state that relies on the market to set free productive energies and thus stimulates growth and solves social problems (e.g., Larroulet 1993). With this research note, we aim to make a contribution to the emerging empirically based scholarly literature that investigates the effects of neoliberal policy reforms (e.g., Stallings and Peres 2000).

This research note investigates class tension between rural women in the context of a grassroots women's development project in the village of Guadalupe in the Mexican state of Querétaro. These tensions affected the cooperative's internal dynamics, economic choices, and inevitably its lack of success. My study found these class tensions to be gendered in that they were manifestations of patriarchy as well as dependent capitalism.

More than half a century has passed since structuralism appeared as an “indigenous” program of economic development in Latin America. Given the poor performance of the region's economies largely under the guidance of neoliberal doctrines since 1980, the question of whether structuralism—associated with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America, or CEPAL—still has any relevance is a legitimate one. In any event, structuralism's influence during the third quarter of the last century is admitted by friend and foe alike. My intent is not to determine whether structural analysis was “correct,” but to examine some of the forms it took and show why they were important. These were structuralist approaches to import substitution, informality, and economic historiography. I further consider structuralism as a movement, and the reasons for its success and subsequent decline. The essay closes with a brief consideration of how structuralism survives today, given the vast changes in economic development theory over the last half century.

Violence has permeated the Central American landscape for much of its history. Of the Central American republics, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua have suffered most from violence in recent decades, and they are also the countries that have received the most scholarly attention. Recent analyses of violence have emerged from an array of disciplines ranging from ethnohistory to political economy and have focused on subjects as divergent as cold war politics and the problems of land tenure.

The economic history of Latin America has become more voluminous, complex, and fascinating in the past decade. The new work has already provoked noteworthy commentaries; one could even write an historiography of the historiography. The purpose of this essay is to comment on (and applaud) the re-emergence of political economy in the economic history of the region. By this I mean the renewal of interest in the Big Questions that inspired the structuralists, “cepalinos,” Marxists, dependentistas, and modernizationists of the post-World War II generations. Economic historians are again worrying about the long, long run, about the connections between social stratification, political power, and economic strategy, and about the relative impact of structures, endowments, and institutions on economic growth and development.

Consensus is growing about the fundamental principles underlying economic policy reforms. In addition, a series of recent comparative studies have increased scholarly understanding of the political conditions necessary for launching such reforms. Yet understanding of the factors that make reforms sustainable over the longer term is far less developed. A wide-ranging and unresolved debate continues over the roles played by institutions, politicians, interest groups, and the popular sectors. The influence of such groups tends to be marginal during the initial implementation of policies, a process involving an insulated group of technocrats. As the reforms proceed, the opposition of different societal groups to specific policies may have some impact but is less critical to the success or failure of the adjustment program than overall economic performance (see Geddes 1995). The primary strength of these groups is retrospective and collective: they can vote reforming governments out of office. Elections—and therefore voter behavior—are critical in sustaining economic reforms over the long term. Voters can reverse economic reform programs, and at times they do. Yet they also can play a major role in making programs more sustainable by legitimating their continuation at the ballot box.

The new democracy in Chile provides an interesting test case for two influential lines of thinking on Latin American political economy. Both these perspectives have claimed that the recently installed civilian regimes would find it exceedingly difficult to effect equity-enhancing change. One hypothesis has stressed the impediments posed by a capitalist free-market system to measures favoring the poor. The other has emphasized the obstacles presented by a transition to democracy that avoids a rupture with the preceding conservative dictatorship. Because the democratic government led by Patricio Aylwin (1990–1994) faced both types of constraints, it should have been particularly unlikely to achieve greater social fairness.