Key Issues and Texts: Development and Policy in Latin America
Seminar 1: Industrial policy and catching-up in Latin America (PML)
This session examines recent development strategies in Latin America, interrogating their views regarding what economic policies should be adopted to reach fast and sustained growth. The session discusses how different strategies see the role of manufacturing versus resource-based development; advocate for export-orientated versus domestic-focused growth; analyse global value chains and how climb to their higher links; and integrate growth into a larger policy and development framework. The focus, throughout, is specifically on the role that industrial policy has played, historically, and that it could play, normatively.
Key issues
- New/neo-developmentalism & neostructuralism
- Export-orientated growth
- Resource-based development
- Global value chains
- Industrial policy
Required readings
- Kay, C 2002. Why East Asia overtook Latin America: Agrarian reform, industrialisation and development. Third World Quarterly, 23(6), 1073-1102.
- Leiva, F. I. 2008. Toward a Critique of Latin American Neostructuralism. Latin American Politics and Society, 50(4), 1-25.
- Ocampo, JA and Porcile, G, 2020. Latin American Industrial Policies: A Comparative Perspective. In: Oqubay, A ed. The Oxford Handbook of Industrial Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 811-841.
- Perez, C. 2016. Could Technology Make Natural Resources a Platform for Industrialization? Identifying a New Opportunity for Latin America (and Other Resource-Rich Countries). In: Noman, A. and Stiglitz, J. E. eds. Efficiency, Finance, and Varieties of Industrial Policy: Guiding Resources, Learning, and Technology for Sustained Growth. Columbia University Press, 353-389.
Seminar 2: Social Movements and the Policy Process in Latin America
This session explores the relationship between social movements and the policy process in Latin America. It begins with defining social movements using the Political Opportunity Model and New Social Movements Theories, offering an integrated conceptualization for SM in the region. The session examines how social movements transform the policy process, analysing their substantive and institutional outcomes, as well as direct and indirect impacts. It also discusses the limits of these outcomes. Finally, it proposes an analysis of the policy outcome in LA, exploring the advances and limitations of social movements action, focusing on their role in processes of democratisation, their impact under neoliberal politics, and their influence on policy agendas and the expansion of rights.
Key issues
- Social movements
- Social policies as political devices
- Social movements outcomes in LA: democratization, political participation and policy impact
Required readings
- Amenta, E. (2014). How to Analyse the Influence of Movements. Contemporary Sociology, 43(1), 16-29.
- Guzmán-Concha, C. & Ciccia, R. (2020) The Contentious Politics of Social Policy expansion in Latin America. Revista Española de Sociología, 29 (3, supl. 2), 189-205.
- Roberts, K.M. (2009). Beyond Neoliberalism: Popular Responses to Social Change in Latin America. In: Burdick, J., Oxhorn, P., Roberts, K.M. (eds) Beyond Neoliberalism in Latin America? Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Seminar 3: Social policy under the (Post-) Washington Consensus (PML)
This session examines the main changes to social policy frameworks in Latin America since the 1990s. It explores how income-supporting policies and the provision of key goods and services have been envisioned, following the main policy frameworks since the transition to neoliberalism and from the 2000s onwards. Policies are investigated not only in terms of their expected and actual results, but also placed in the theoretical and normative underpinnings that are used to justify them and their future potential. Some of the key processes this session discusses are the rise of conditional cash transfer (CCT) schemes, the muted rise of universal social protection networks, the ‘financialisation’ of social policy, and the rationales and visions that underpin these different frameworks and their dynamics.
Key issues
- Social protection, social policy, and the welfare state
- Conditional cash transfers
- Universal and targeted social protection networks
- ‘Financialisation’ of social policy
- (Post-)Washington Consensus
Required readings
- Filgueira, F., 2015. Models of development, the welfare state matrix and Latin American social policy tools. In: Cecchini, S., Filgueira, F., Martínez, R. and Rossel, C. eds. Towards universal social protection: Latin American pathways and policy tools. Santiago: ECLAC, 47-80.
- Franzoni, J. M. and Sánchez-Ancochea, D., 2018. Why and How to Build Universal Social Policy in the South. In: Paus, E. ed. Confronting Dystopia: The New Technological Revolution and the Future of Work. Cornell University Press, 230-250.
- Lavinas, L. 2018. The Collateralization of Social Policy under Financialized Capitalism. Development and Change, 49(2), 502-517.
- Roberts, KM, 2021. The Inclusionary Turn and Its Political Limitations. In: Kapiszewski, D, et al. eds. The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 518-538.
Seminar 4: Mass Incarceration in Latin America (BA)
This session examines the reality and context of prisons in Latin America, especially the current scenario of mass incarceration and prison failure. There is an investment in prison as the main response to crime in the region, leading to distinctive traits of overcrowded prisons, human rights violations, and lack of access to justice. The ‘war on drugs’ justifies and stimulates actions that have led to this state of increasing incarceration. The Latin American prison reality will be analysed considering the causes and consequences of mass incarceration, taking into account social markers such as class, race and gender.
Key issues
- Mass incarceration in Latin America
- criminalization in Latin America
- war on drugs in Latin America
- gender, race, class and prison
Required readings
- Sozzo, M. (2018). Beyond the ‘Neo-liberal Penality Thesis’? Punitive Turn and Political Change in South America. In: Carrington, K. et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. 659-685. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65021-0_32
- Bergman, M. Fondevila, G. (2021). Prisons and Crime in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-86. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108768238
- Telles, V., Godoi, R., Brito, J.G.M., Mallart, F. (2020). Fighting Mass Incarceration, Fighting for Life: Elements for a History of the Present in Brazil. Champ Penal. 21. 1-16 https://doi.org/10.4000/champpenal.12143
Seminar 5: Public Policy and Gender (BL)
This session explores public policy and gender in Latin America, beginning with an overview of public policy from a gender perspective, and the role of policies in shaping citizenship, social roles and the social contract. It then delves into gender public policies, examining the idea of politics and public policies aiming at gender justice by exploring the political, social, economic, and physical dimensions. The session reviews three historical moments of gender policies in the region, the influence of feminist and women's movements, and the advances and limitations in current gender policies. It also discusses the constraints of achieving full citizenship for women under neoliberal socio-political conditions, emphasising the ongoing struggle for gender justice.
Key issues
- Public Policy in LA
- Gender and politics
- Gender and public policies: towards gender justice
- Historical moments for gender policies in LA
- Limits of women’s full citizenship in LA
Required readings
- Lascoumes, P., Le Gales, P. (2007) Introduction: Understanding Public Policy through Its Instruments—From the Nature of Instruments to the Sociology of Public Policy Instrumentation. Governance, 20: 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2007.00342.x
- Molyneux, M. (2008) The ‘Neoliberal Turn’ and the New Social Policy in Latin America: How Neoliberal, How New? Development and Change 39(5): 775–797.
- Waylen, G. (2007) Engendering Transitions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 4.
Seminar 6: Social conflict and illegal economies (PML)
Whilst Latin America has not experienced ‘classic’ forms of inter-state war as much as other regions, domestic forms of conflict abound. This session deals with how social conflict and its dynamics – from punishment to the inequalities that surround it – permeate the reproduction of capitalism in Latin America, drawing on the previous discussion about mass incarceration. It focusses on how different forms of conflict are integral aspects of the reproduction of capitalism in and through the region, interrogating the boundaries between legal and illegal economies and questioning the alleged marginality of the latter. In doing so, it also discusses the normative regimes that surround social conflict and (il)legal economies, seeking to legitimate, disrupt or reproduce these categories.
Key issues
- Forms and dimensions of social conflict
- The imbrication of legal and illegal economies
- Normative readings of conflict and (il)legality
Required readings
- Feltran, G., ed., 2022. Stolen Cars: A Journey Through São Paulo’s Urban Conflict. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. (available in the library). There are long descriptive sections. Don’t get fixated on the detail, but look for the bigger picture.