Liisa North

Grassroots-based rural development strategies: Ecuador in comparative perspective.

International donors are providing increasing amounts of assistance to grassroots-based economic initiatives in Latin America and elsewhere. The question is: can such initiatives prosper and generate widespread improvements in living standards in the context of the prevailing neoliberal economic policy agenda? The paper responds to this question, from comparative Latin American and East Asian perspectives, by analyzing how economic diversification and improved living standards were achieved in two rural parishes in highland Ecuador. We find that, in both cases, access to landownership and other assets was a critical factor in permitting small-scale producers to participate in market exchange in a manner that allowed them to improve their living standards. Hence, to the extent that neoliberal policies freeze into place the highly inequitable overall structure of asset and income distribution in Ecuador and elsewhere, such policies inhibit the widespread replication of the two successful cases.

Neo-extractivism and the new Latin American developmentalism: the missing piece of rural transformation

Abstract What, if anything, is actually new about political and economic transformation in twenty-first century Latin America? Here we explore how ostensibly ‘new’ policies are being built on two ‘old’ foundations that may be mutually exclusive. These are ‘extractivism’ and ‘developmentalism’, concepts that have been used rather loosely to describe current economic policies. The new developmentalism, however, may not only be contradicted by extractivism; it may be more constrained than its predecessor by fortified capitalist class interests and new global conditions. Moreover, it pays little attention to the employment-generating potential of rural areas or to the agricultural sector.

Introduction—Reconfiguring Domination: Case Studies from Latin America

The Introduction identifies key elements of the current political economic context of the region and reviews outstanding works on the historical constitution of dominant elites in each of the case study countries. It then discusses the central themes that emerge from the case studies: the reconfiguration of dominant elites under state tutelage and through financial, service, and commercial enterprises; lack of land and asset redistribution and even new patterns of increased concentration and regional corporate expansion; the importance of neoliberal economic thought as an anchor to these processes and the role of international institutions in promoting them; and the leading role of local elite groups in preventing redistributive reforms, even under the so-called “pink tide” governments. Country-specific themes, such as the role of criminal networks, are also identified.

The Limits of Democratization and Social Progress: Domination and Dependence in Latin America

This chapter first reviews the record of social progress and policy reform in Latin America during the export boom decade of the twenty-first century. It then turns to the obstacles that block deeper and more sustainable transformation with respect to national and international power structures that are discussed or identified in the case studies. In the domestic realm, reconfigured elites continue to oppose redistributive reforms and the taxation levels necessary to finance social programs; they participate in the formation and expansion of latino transnationals, especially in “flex crop” sectors that engage in often violent land grabbing; and they sponsor the criminalization of social protest against extractivism. With reference to the international context, powerful region-wide criminal networks have integrated into elite networks while old patterns of economic and military dependence persist.

Review: Third World: Understanding Central AmericaUNDERSTANDING CENTRAL AMERICABoothJohn A., WalkerThomas W.Boulder CO: Westview, 1989, xvi, 208pp, US

of changing ideological understandings of international economic change. Donald Zagorias foreword addresses the current Soviet and Chinese focus on domestic economic priorities within a stable international environment. The author, however, declines to incorporate related historical perspective into his analysis, and thus the book fails to transcend the narrowly based military conception of security which at times has so tediously informed the mainstream American study of national security policy and threat perception.

32.50 cloth, US

Crisis and Transformation Poverty and Its Causes The Common History Individual Histories of Central American Nations Revolution, Regime Change, and Democratization: A Theory Revolution and Democratic Transition in Nicaragua Insurrection and Regime Change in El Salvador Insurrection and Regime Change in Guatemala Maintaining Stability in Costa Rica and Honduras Power, Democracy, and U.S. Policy in Central America Reflections and Projections

13.95 paper

Not only was the old security regime in Central America experiencing decay in the 1980s but it was also being challenged by both regional and hemispheric states, variously supported by extra-regional actors.1 The situation was particularly complex and unstable because interstate disputes among regional and extra-regional states (including the dominant superpower in the area) were linked to major conflicts within the Central American nations. Consequently, any discussion of security regimes in the region has to begin with the recognition that the Central American crisis is made up of a series of overlapping internal, regional, and extraregional conflicts. Nevertheless, at the core of the crisis lay the issue of the declining hegemony of the United States and the legacy of the Reagan administrations attempts to reassert that hegemony against the will of various states and actors seeking alternative arrangements. The key parties to the conflict, which held opposing concep-