Free Market Democracy and the Chilean and Mexican Countryside PDF Download

Author: Marcus J. Kurtz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139451804
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book examines the relationship between free markets and democracy. It demonstrates how the implementation of even very painful free-market economic reforms in Chile and Mexico have helped to consolidate democratic politics without engendering a backlash against either reform or democratization. This national-level compatibility between free markets and democracy, however, is founded on their rural incompatibility. In the countryside, free-market reforms socially isolate peasants to such a degree that they become unable to organize independently, and are vulnerable to the pressures of local economic elites. This helps to create an electoral coalition behind free-market reforms that is critically based in some of the market's biggest victims: the peasantry. The book concludes that the comparatively stable free-market democracy in Latin America hinges critically on its defects in the countryside; conservative, free-market elites may consent to open politics only if they have a rural electoral redoubt.

Author: William C. Smith
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405197587
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
Latin American Democratic Transformations explores the manner in which Latin American societies seek to consolidate and deepen their democracies in adverse domestic and international circumstances. The contributors engage recent debates on liberal and illiberal democracy and probe the complex connections between democratic politics and neoliberal, market-oriented reforms.

Author: Katherine Isbester
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442601965
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
What becomes clear throughout is that there is a paradox at the heart of Latin America's democracies. Despite decades of struggle to replace authoritarian dictatorships with electoral democracies, solid economic growth (leading up to the global credit crisis), and increased efforts by the state to extend the benefits of peace and prosperity to the poor, democracy - as a political system - is experiencing declining support, and support for authoritarianism is on the rise.

Author: Ruth Berins Collier
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271075686
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
A historic shift has occurred in the organizational structures through which the lower classes in Latin America express voice and find political representation. With the political and economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, networks of community-based associations and nongovernmental organizations replaced party-affiliated labor unions as the predominant organizations to which the lower classes turned. This volume examines the new “interest regime” in Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela through two extensive surveys—one of individuals and one of associations—undertaken in those nations’ capital cities. Contrary to common perceptions, the new interest regime is neither a vibrant, autonomous civil society nor a set of weak, atomized organizations. Participation in associations is generally high, compared to “direct action” as a strategy for pursuing collective interests, and associations more frequently coordinate and engage the state than has sometimes been assumed. However, various forms of interaction with the state pose a classic trade-off between representation and state control, and the new interest regime is marked by representational distortion, in that the lower classes are less likely to use the new structures than the middle classes. Within these general patterns, distinct national models are emerging. This volume represents the most ambitious and systematic effort to date to examine individual participation and associational life in Latin America and to carry out a cross-national analysis of new forms of political representation.

Author: Juan Pablo Luna
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421413914
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
This comparative study of Latin American conservative politics over the past twenty years analyzes right-of-center actors, electoral movements, parties, and economic policy dynamics. Since the late 1990s, when Latin American countries began making a “turn to the left,” political parties and candidates on the right end of the partisan spectrum have had a difficult time achieving electoral success. Although the left turn can be seen as a natural reaction to the public’s general dissatisfaction with the conservative modernization policies of the 1980s and 1990s, left-of-center politics are by no means permanent. In The Resilience of the Latin American Right, Juan Pablo Luna and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser seek to “right” this view by explaining the strategies conservative political parties have used to maintain a foothold in the region’s electoral and governance processes. The editors provide an analytical framework for conceptualizing the right that works for both historic and contemporary politics, and the volume’s contributors use the framework to evaluate right-of-center political activity across the continent. They find that conservative forces are pursuing a range of adaptive strategies, including nonelectroral and nonpartisan tactics. The book’s four thematic sections include an analysis of parties and elections in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Students and scholars of both Latin American politics and comparative politics will find The Resilience of the Latin American Right of vital interest.

Author: Peter Kingstone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135280290
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
Latin America has been one of the critical areas in the study of comparative politics. The region’s experiments with installing and deepening democracy and promoting alternative modes of economic development have generated intriguing and enduring empirical puzzles. In turn, Latin America’s challenges continue to spawn original and vital work on central questions in comparative politics: about the origins of democracy; about the relationship between state and society; about the nature of citizenship; about the balance between state and market. The richness and diversity of the study of Latin American politics makes it hard to stay abreast of the developments in the many sub-literatures of the field. The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Politics offers an intellectually rigorous overview of the state of the field and a thoughtful guide to the direction of future scholarship. Kingstone and Yashar bring together the leading figures in the study of Latin America to present extensive empirical coverage, new original research, and a cutting-edge examination of the central areas of inquiry in the region.

Author: Erin A. Snider
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110884426X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
By focusing on the construction and practice of democracy aid, this book shows how democracy aid can reinforce, rather than challenge authoritarian regimes.

Author: Liisa L. North
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319532553
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
This volume examines the ways in which the socio-economic elites of the region have transformed and expanded the material bases of their power from the inception of neo-liberal policies in the 1970s through to the so-called progressive ‘pink tide’ governments of the past two decades. The six case study chapters—on Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador, and Guatemala—variously explore how state policies and even United Nations peace-keeping missions have enhanced elite control of land and agricultural exports, banks and insurance companies, wholesale and import commerce, industrial activities, and alliances with foreign capital. Chapters also pay attention to the ways in which violence has been deployed to maintain elite power, and how international forces feed into sustaining historic and contemporary configurations of power.

Author: Eleni Braat
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351379925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Back in 1989, many anticipated that the end of the Cold War would usher in the ‘end of history’ characterized by the victory of democracy and capitalism. At the thirtieth anniversary of this momentous event, this book challenges this assumption. It studies the most recent era of contemporary European history in order to analyse the impact, consequences and legacy of the end of the Cold War for Western Europe. Bringing together leading scholars on the topic, the volume answers the question of how the end of the Cold War has affected Western Europe and reveals how it accelerated and reinforced processes that shaped the fragile (geo-)political and economic order of the continent today. In four thematic sections, the book analyses the changing position of Germany in Europe; studies the transformation of neoliberal capitalism; answers the question how Western Europe faced the geopolitical challenges after the Berlin Wall came down; and investigates the crisis of representative democracy. As such, the book provides a comprehensive and novel historical perspective on Europe since the late 1980s.

Author: Francisco E. González
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 080188800X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Dual Transitions from Authoritarian Rule -- PART I. THE 1970S: DIVERGENT POLITICO-ECONOMIC TRAJECTORIES -- 1. Chile, 1970-1982 -- 2. Mexico, 1970-1982 -- PART II. THE 1980S: SURVIVING THE CRISIS YEARS AND CONVERGENCE OF TRAJECTORIES -- 3. Chile's Decisive Decade, 1982-1990 -- 4. Mexico's Lost Decade, 1982-1988 -- PART III. THE 1990S: VERSIONS OF ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY AND FREE MARKET ECONOMIES -- 5. The New Chile, 1990-2000 -- 6. Mexico in North America, 1988-2000 -- Conclusion: Dual Transitions in Chile, Mexico, and Beyond -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z.