Pamela K. Starr

Markets and Democracy in Latin America: Conflict or Convergence?

This text analyzes the constraints faced by Latin American countries as they seek to consolidate fragile democratic regimes and restore economic dynamism. Focusing on the relationship between the two goals, it examines the social and state-level factors, providing five country case studies.

Monetary mismanagement and inadvertent democratization in technocratic Mexico

ConclusionThe interplay between political and economic reform in Mexico has atken a path not fully predicted by neomodernization theorists or their critics. The Mexican events during these last few years demostrate that economic growth and market reform are not necessarily correlated neatly with the advance of democratic practices, During the Salinas and Zadillo administartions, political opening was not the “ultimate consequence of economic opening” as two analysts of Mexican economics and politics argued several years ago.56 It was not the case that an expansion of individual initiative and greater economic choice accompanying market opening led to the accelaration of democratic reforms in Mexico. Rather, limited democratic reforms were offered as the price of public asquiescence to the economic pain associated with Mexico’s recent cycle of economic crisis and reform. The gradual expansion of democracy in Mexico was not the consequence of market reforms but instead was the mechanism enabled the implementation of these reforms.

The Political Economy of Reform in Latin America: Politics, Institutions, Ideas, and Context

The Politics of Labor Reform in Latin America: Between Flexibility and Rights. By Maria Lorena Cook. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. Pp. xv + 231.

Government Coalitions and the Viability of Currency Boards: Argentina under the Cavallo Plan

45.00 cloth. Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes: Social Policy, Informality, and Economic Growth in Mexico. By Santiago Levy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2007. Pp. xiii + 357.

Argentina: Anatomy of a Crisis Foretold

27.95 paper. The State of State Reform in Latin America. Edited by Eduardo Lora. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press; Washington, D.C.: InterAmerican Development Bank, 2007. Pp. xxi + 446.

Neither Populism Nor the Rule of Law: The Future of Market Reform in Mexico

29.95 paper. Democracies in Development: Politics and Reform in Latin America. Revised edition. Edited by J. Mark Payne, Daniel Zovatto G., and Mercedes Mateo Diaz. Washington, D.C.: Inter-American Development Bank; David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 2007. Pp. xvi + 332.

La perspectiva económica en América Latina después del ataque

27.95 paper. Bounded Rationality and Policy Diffusion: Social Sector Reform in Latin America. By Kurt Weyland. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xii + 297.

Municiones contra Trump

24.95 paper.