Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T06:07:02.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Toward a Critique of Latin American Neostructuralism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Fernando Ignacio Leiva
Fernando Ignacio Leiva*
Affiliation:
University at Albany (SUNY). [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article offers a critical assessment of the first postneoliberalism development framework that emerged in Latin America after 1990. The ability of neostructuralism to present an attractive narrative about a twenty-first-century “modernity with solidarity” is based on abandoning key tenets of ECLAC's structuralism and the thinking of Raúl Prebisch and Celso Furtado; namely, a focus on the distribution and appropriation of economic surplus and a framing of Latin American development problems in a world capitalist system. This article argues that Latin American neostructuralism's discursive strengths, as well as its analytical weaknesses, stem from the marginalization of power relations from key dimensions of the region's political economy. Since 2000, neostructuralism has exacerbated its descriptive, short-term perspective, further dulling its analytical edge, by focusing on policies that promote social cohesion and state intervention in the cultural and the socioemotional realm.

Type
Research
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , Winter 2008 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bates, Robert, and Krueger, Anne. 1993. Political and Economic Interactions in Economic Policy Reform: Evidence from Eight Countries. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bitar, Sergio. 1988. Neoliberalismo versus neoestructuralismo en América Latina. Revista de la CEPAL 34 (April).Google Scholar
Bouzas, Roberto. 2005. El nuevo regionalismo y el área de libre comercio de las Américas: un enfoque menos indulgente [the New Regionalism and the Free Trade Area of the Americas: a Less Complacent View]. Revista de la CEPAL 85 (April): 7–12.Google Scholar
Colclough, Christopher. 1991. Structuralism versus Neoliberalism: An Introduction. In States and Markets: Neoliberalism and the Development Policy Debate, ed. Colclough, and Manor, J.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. 1986. Against the Grain: Essays 1975–1985. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. 1991. On Ideology: An Introduction. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. 1996. The Illusions of Postmodernism. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). 1990. Changing Production Patterns with Social Equity. Santiago: United Nations.Google Scholar
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). 1992. Social Equity and Changing Production Patterns: An Integrated Approach. Santiago: United Nations.Google Scholar
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). 1994. Latin America and the Caribbean: Policies to Improve Linkages with the Global Economy. Santiago: United Nations.Google Scholar
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). 2004. Productive Development in Open Economies. Santiago: United Nations.Google Scholar
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). 2007. Social Cohesion: Inclusion and a Sense of Belonging in Latin America and the Caribbean. Press release. February 16. <http://www.eclac.org>..>Google Scholar
Fine, Ben. 2000. Economic Imperialism and the New Development Economics as Kuhnian Paradigm Shift? World Development 30, 12: 2057–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1998. The Third Way and the Renewal of Social Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Greaves, Edward F. 2004. Municipality and Community in Chile: Building Imagined Civic Communities and Its Impact on the Political. Politics and Society 34, 2: 203–30.Google Scholar
Green, Duncan. 2003. Silent Revolution: The Rise and Fall of Market Economics in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Gwynne, Robert, and Kay, Cristóbal. 2004. Latin America Transformed: Globalization and Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kay, Cristóbal. 1989. Latin American Theories of Development and Underdevelopment. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kay, Cristóbal, and Gwynne, Robert. 2002. Relevance of Structuralist and Dependency Theories in the Neoliberal Period: A Latin American Perspective. In Critical Perspectives on Globalization and Neoliberalism in Developing Countries, ed. Harris, Richard L. and Seid, Melinda J.. Leiden: Brill Academic.Google Scholar
Kirby, Peadar. 2003. Introduction to Latin America: Twenty-First Century Challenges. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Korzeniewicz, Roberto P., and Smith, William C.. 2000. Poverty, Inequality, and Growth in Latin America: Searching for the High Road to Globalization. Latin American Research Review 35, 3: 7–54.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Leiva, Fernando Ignacio. 2005. From Pinochet's State Terrorism to the Politics of Participation. In Democracy in Chile: The Legacy of September 11, 1973, ed. Nagy-Zekmi, Silvia and Leiva, . Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.Google Scholar
Leiva, Fernando Ignacio. 2008. Latin American Neostructuralism: The Contradictions of Post-Neoliberal Development. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Luhnow, David. 2005. Latin America's Left Takes Pragmatic Tack. Wall Street Journal, March 2: A15.Google Scholar
Machinea, José Luis, and Hopenhayn, Martin. 2005. La esquiva equidad en el desarrollo latinoamericano: una visión estructural, una aproximación multifacética [Elusive Equity in Latin American Development: A Structural Vision, A Multidimensional Approach]. Informe y Estudio Especial no. 14. Santiago: United Nations. June.Google Scholar
Meller, Patricio, ed. 1991. The Latin American Development Debate: Neostructuralism, Neomonetarism, and Adjustment Processes. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Ocampo, José A., ed. 2000. Equidad, desarrollo y ciudadanía: visión global. Vol. 1, Visión global; vol. 2, Agenda social; vol. 3, Agenda económica. Santiago/Bogotá: CEPAL/Alfaomega.Google Scholar
Ocampo José, A., and Martín, Juan, eds. 2002. Globalization and Development. Santiago: United Nations.Google Scholar
Osorio, Jaime. 2002. Sobre las recetas para salir del subdesarrollo. Política y Cultura 17: 69–98.Google Scholar
Ottone, Ernesto, and Sojo, Ana. 2007. Cohesión social: inclusión y sentido de pertenencia en América Latina y el Caribe [Social Cohesion: Inclusion and a Sense of Belonging in Latin America and the Caribbean]. Santiago: United Nations.Google Scholar
Petras, James, and Leiva, Fernando I.. 1994. Democracy and Poverty in Chile: The Limits to Electoral Politics. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Prebisch, Raúl. 1981. Dialogue on Friedman and Hayek from the Standpoint of the Periphery. CEPAL Review 15: 153–74.Google Scholar
Robinson, William I. 2003. Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and Globalization. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Robinson, William I. 2004. A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Rosales, Osvaldo. 1991. Posibilidades y desafíos de una estrategia de desarrollo alternativo [Possibilities and Challenges for an Alternative Development Strategy]. In Chile: problemas y perspectivas del actual modelo de desarrollo, vol. 2. Santiago: Sociedad Chilena de Economía Políitica.Google Scholar
Rosales, Osvaldo. 1995. Hacia una modernización solidaria: el debate entre progresismo y neoliberalismo. Debates y Propuestas: Revista del Instituto Fernando Otorgués 3: 98–126.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Gert. 2000. Los años ochenta y noventa. In La CEPAL en sus 50 años: notas de un seminario conmemorativo. Santiago: United Nations. 73–80.Google Scholar
Schild, Verónica. 2000. Neoliberalism's New Gendered Market Citizens: the “Civilizing” Dimensions of Social Programmes in Chile. Citizenship Studies 4, 3: 275–305.Google Scholar
Stallings, Barbara, and Peres, Wilson. 2000. Growth, Employment, and Equity: The Impact of the Economic Reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution/ECLAC.Google Scholar
Sunkel, Osvaldo, ed., 1993. Development from Within: Toward a Neostructuralist Approach in Latin America. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Weyland, Kurt. 2007. The Political Economy of Market Reform and a Revival of Structuralism. Latin American Research Review 42, 3: 235–50.Google Scholar