Abstract
Latin American economic thought is known for its contributions to the theory of development and dependency studies in the mid-20th century and its more recent critiques of the region’s development model and search for new economic paradigms. Even if Latin American authors are often praised and cited in academic and political debates, some confusion still exists about their arguments and standpoints. This chapter aims to address the limits of current interpretations of Latin American economic thought by providing a critical overview of major strands of theory and policy formulation on economic development in the region since the 1940s. Due to space limitations, it will not be possible to explore each scholar and discussion visited here in full detail, nor will it be possible to discuss the majority of Latin American political economists that are relevant to the debate on development. We have selected the contributions and reflections that are key for critical analysis on development theories in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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- 1.
According to Poletto (2000: 7), “the creation of the ECLAC, by the UN, was highly controversial. Demanded by the Latin Americans, it was met with strong resistance from the United States, which did not agree with the creation of an organism in the region that could possibly escape from its control”.
- 2.
In 1984, a resolution was passed to include the Caribbean in the commission’s name. Today, it has 20 members from Latin America, 13 from the Caribbean and 11 from outside of those regions.
- 3.
At the same time as Prebisch developed his work, the British economist Hans Singer also came to similar conclusions, working separately. Because of that, the hypothesis frequently receives the name of both economists in Anglo-Saxon literature on the topic, whereas in Latin America few people acknowledge Singer’s alleged merits or even the existence of his contribution to the debate.
- 4.
The Superintendency for the Development of the Brazilian Northeast (Superintendência do Desenvolvimento do Nordeste, SUDENE in Portuguese) was conceived and headed by Furtado. BNDE is the Portuguese acronym for the Brazilian Development Bank (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico).
- 5.
He also calls the peripheral elites “cultural satellites” and blames them, in the last instance, for the regions’ underdevelopment (Furtado 1974: 88–92).
- 6.
To be rigorous, Conceição Tavares (1972: 189) already claims that ECLAC’s concept of “structural heterogeneity” is much more complex than just a “simple dualism”. Attacking “neodualist” thesis of her epoch, she doubts that “modern and primitive strata [can] dissociate from each other, tending to live ever more apart and autonomously”, arguing that “heterogeneity” was still increasing, while “duality” itself was decreasing, or might not even have been there (Conceição Tavares 1972: 190). On the other hand, she also was not satisfied with “totalizing” or holistic approaches, such as fellow ECLAC’s Oswaldo Sunkel (1970), in which he was also joined by dependency theorists, that could lead to exaggerations regarding the role of “international capitalism” on Latin American societies.
- 7.
Add to that, the costs of raw materials function as the basis of industrialized circuits, such as oil and carbon, which none of Latin American countries had (except for Venezuela), but were gradually more needed in the region as the process of industrialization went ahead.
- 8.
Even though he is not a dependency theory author, the work of Caio Prado Jr. (1976) is worth mentioning here. Prado Jr. highlights that the Brazilian economy has been geared towards the export market since the colonial period. For him, the country’s subordinate position in relation to the international market was not transformed during the so-called “economic miracle” promoted by the military dictatorship in Brazil in the 1970s. Industrialization in Brazil was driven mainly by foreign capital and benefitted transnational corporations, which generated technological dependence.
- 9.
According to Marini, industrial growth is still not tied to the domestic market since this market’s growth is stunted by the overexploitation of the labour force and the concentration of income.
- 10.
Other countries in similar conditions are Spain and Israel.
- 11.
One element that differentiated the politics of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador in relation to other countries in Latin America was the resumption of state control over the production of oil and natural gas to increase social investments. The approval of new constitutions that expanded social participation also differentiated the policy of these countries.
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Garcia, A.S., Mendonça, M.L., Sá, M.B.d. (2016). International Political Economy in Latin America: Redefining the Periphery. In: Cafruny, A., Talani, L., Pozo Martin, G. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical International Political Economy. Palgrave Handbooks in IPE. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50018-2_22
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