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Begin New Search Topic Neoliberalism Political Geography South America

1. The Impact of the 21st Century Commodity Supercycle on Natural-Resource Dependent Economies: The Case of Bolivia and Peru

Author:
Daniel Agramont-Lechín
Publication Date:
01-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Postgraduate Program on Sustainable Development and Social Inequalities in the Andean Region (trAndeS)
Abstract:
In the early 21st century, Bolivia and Peru experienced remarkable economic growth, coupled with notable reductions in poverty and inequality. However, the subsequent economic slowdown triggered by declining international commodity prices raised concerns about the sustainability of their progress. Historically, both nations have been vulnerable to fluctuations in global commodity prices, often resulting in social unrest and political instability. This study examines whether the significant influx of resources to Bolivia and Peru from 2003 to 2013, attributed to the commodity boom, fostered structural transformation or, on the contrary, reinforced their dependence on the global economy. Analyzing macroeconomic and productivity data, the research indicates a strong correlation between their economic performance and the commodity supercycle trend. A primary finding suggests that rather than fostering a more self-reliant economic integration, the 21st-century economic boom exacerbated the reliance of both nations on natural resource extraction. However, a more nuanced examination reveals divergent medium-term impacts driven by each nation’s development model. Peru, through diversification of international revenue streams and prudent macroeconomic policies, managed to mitigate the effects of declining commodity prices. In contrast, Bolivia’s economy bore the brunt of diminishing income, not only due to the end of the commodity boom but also due to insufficient investments in productive sectors.
Topic:
Natural Resources, Economy, Neoliberalism, Commodities, Extractivism, Economic Dependence, and Post-Neoliberalism
Political Geography:
South America, Peru, and Bolivia

2. Going Against the Tide: Towards Binding Environmental Regulation of Mining in Chile

Author:
Johanna Jarvela and Lotta Aho
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Business and Development Studies (CBDS), Copenhagen Business School
Abstract:
Mining industry is one of the only industries not subjected to any international environmental agreement. Thus, only national laws, Corporate Social Responsibility, industry standards, and other forms of self-regulation govern the mining industry. However, there are increasing concerns about the sustainability and social responsibility of this business. In Chile, neoliberal policies were implemented to a great extent during ϭϵϳϬ’s and ϴϬ’s and the legacy of these policies was an almost absent environmental regulation until 2010. This makes Chile an interesting case to investigate the workings and consequences of voluntary environmental regulation based on neoliberal paradigm. Whereas multinational corporations largely influence the current development of environmental regulation, and hence it is increasingly based on voluntary measures and industry guidelines, the socio-environmental conflicts have forced Chile to go against the current and move from soft law towards binding regulation. A situation where a country needs to move from non-regulation or fully privatized regulation back towards hard law and command and control has been less investigated than deregulation and different forms of capitalist influence on governance. We wish to address this gap in literature with this study. Based on our findings, we argue that following neoliberal theory in environmental regulation leads to increasing socio-environmental conflicts.
Topic:
Environment, Regulation, Neoliberalism, Mining, and Industry
Political Geography:
South America and Chile

3. Rethinking Polanyi’s Fictitious Commodities Based on the Brazilian Nuclear Segment

Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to show evidence of the undetermined expansion of Polanyi’s fictitious commodities within the Brazilian nuclear context. The issue of the marketification of social agendas has drawn a lot of attention to the data, collected through in-depth interviews. The analytical process was guided by the decolonial theory approach and by critical discourse analysis. Among the analysis’ main findings, it is possible to point out the elaboration of a framework which reveals the mechanisms employed by the Brazilian nuclear segment as a way of exercising parallel power and silencing social agendas. The main contributions are the temporal and geopolitical updating of Polanyi’s thesis; and the definition of the mechanisms used by the company Eletronuclear and by institutions as a way of co-optation, naturalisation and marketification of social and political agendas.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Neoliberalism, Decolonization, and Nuclear Energy
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

4. The Fall of Chile

Author:
Axel Kaiser
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Following the failed Marxist experiment of Chilean President Salvador Allende, a free‐​market revolution led by the so‐​called Chicago Boys in the 1970s and 1980s created the conditions necessary for the country to experience an “economic miracle” that captured worldwide attention.1 As Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker (1997) put it, Chile became “an economic role model for the whole underdeveloped world.” This performance, said Becker, “became still more impressive when the government was transformed into a democracy.” Along the same lines, Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman argued that the reforms introduced by the Chicago Boys “proved highly successful and were preserved intact when Chile finally returned to democracy in 1989” (Krugman 2008: 31). Indeed, from 1990 to 2010 a left‐​wing coalition called “Concertación” came to power. Despite having been comprised of opponents to the military dictatorship and by many former members of Salvador Allende’s government, Concertación kept in place the foundations of the free‐​market system. A pragmatic view prevailed, leading to the recognition and adoption of the economic legacy of the Pinochet years.
Topic:
Economics, Reform, Neoliberalism, Ideology, Crisis Management, Transparency, and Free Market
Political Geography:
South America, Chile, and United States of America

5. Pacifying Police Units and private interests in Brazil

Author:
Mayane Dore, Gabriel Bayarri, and Daniel Marías
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
This article analyzes a concrete policy in the framework of Brazilian Public Security: the Pacifying Police Units (UPPs). It describes this policy and justifies, through an ethnographic case study, how the so-called “pacification of the favelas” articulates a logic of neoliberal urbanism and police infrastructure, understanding the residents of the favelas as potential consumers of their services. The article contextualizes the UPPs model as a paradigmatic case of public security in Latin America in which the discourse of violence/pacification is the main catalyst for private investments. More specifically, the article demonstrates how private companies resort to proximity conflicts mediation as a way of avoiding the judicialization of conflicts with the residents after the “Pacification”. With this case, we expect to illustrate the patrimonialism and clientelism that shapes the Brazilian State and its ambiguous relationships between private and public interests.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Neoliberalism, Violence, Urban, Police, and Patrimonialism
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

6. The Political Economy of Inequality in Chile and Mexico: Two Tales of Neoliberalism

Author:
Giorgos Gouzoulis and Collin Constantine
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
This article offers a historical and econometric study on the determinants of functional income inequality in Chile and Mexico between 1980-2011. This is the first study on the determinants of the labour share in developing economies using single- country analysis that covers the historical period before 1990. We find robust evidence that government consumption is a positive driver of the respective wage shares. Since Chile has experienced persistent cuts in government welfare as opposed to Mexico, fiscal austerity is a fundamental explanation for its falling wage share. Private debt is the second most important explanation for why wage shares have fallen in Chile. We find no evidence of this channel in the Mexican case. However, globalisation has exposed Mexico’s labour-intensive industries to wage competition and this lowers its wage share. In contrast, Chile’s commodity exports and wage share have benefitted from trade globalisation. These comparative results demonstrate the importance of country-level studies as each country’s historical evolution and varied implementation of neoliberalism can tell unique distributional stories and provide more accurate policy insights for an inclusive growth strategy.
Topic:
Political Economy, Labor Issues, Inequality, and Neoliberalism
Political Geography:
South America, North America, Mexico, and Chile

7. Geopolitics and the Constitution in Light of the Democratic Constitutional State

Author:
Guilherme Sandoval Goes
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
This article is the result of research carried out in the postdoctoral stage of the Postgraduate Program in Aeronautical Sciences at the University of Aeronautics (PPGCA), whose theme was “Geopolitics, Culture and Law: Epistemological dialogues needed in times of postmodernity” Thus, it collimates to examine the scientific connections that unite geopolitics and law, disciplines that overlap in such a way that they end up guaranteeing fundamental rights for ordinary citizens, aiming to analyze the geopolitical control of law from the influence of neoliberal geopolitics on constitutionalism. of the countries of late modernity, as is the case of Brazil, thus it was possible to demonstrate the influence of real factors of world power in the legislative process of the countries of the Global South of neoliberal globalization, whose leadership is being disputed by the United States and China.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, Government, Governance, Law, and Neoliberalism
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Brazil, South America, North America, United States of America, and Global South

8. Latin America Under CoronaShock: Social Crisis, Neoliberal Failure, and the People’s Alternatives

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
The emergence of COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean has accelerated – sometimes dramatically – a series of economic and social processes that had long been underway and revealed the result of decades of neoliberal policies. The increasingly authoritarian policies, precariousness of labour, and the current social crisis are among the consequences of the neoliberal model, which puts capital before people.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Neoliberalism, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Political Crisis
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and North America

9. The Amazon Wildfires and Environmental Conservation: What Can the EU do?

Author:
Helder Hermani
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Europeum Institute for European Policy
Abstract:
Helder Hermani published a EU Monitor in which he focuses on the ways EU can contribute to the conservation of Amazon rainforests. He provides analysis and proposes 5 specific steps. The European Union is arguably the global power most devoted to the environmental conservation and combating climate change. However, isolated actions tend to prove ineffective in achieving these objectives. "The neoliberal policy oriented to private investments, coupled with the bulky military composition at the highest level of officials, has driven Brazil to pursue two goals in regards to international bodies: a permanent seat in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and the status of major non-NATO ally.“ "The EU [...] must make it easier for suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, consumers and public authorities to identify products from deforestation-free supply chains.
Topic:
Environment, Neoliberalism, Investment, Conservation, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
Europe, South America, and Amazon Basin

10. Peace, Neoliberalism, and Political Shifts in Colombia

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
For Colombia and for the people of Latin America, a genuine and comprehensive notion of peace has become a central axis in the dispute between neoliberalism and popular aspirations. This dossier examines the structural causes of the social, political, and armed conflict in Colombia and how the country has come to play a key role in the regional geopolitical dispute that favors the interests of the United States.
Topic:
Politics, Neoliberalism, Conflict, Peace, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America