Miraculous Metamorphoses

This volume examines a central conundrum of Latin American politics. How is that the triumph of neoliberal-inspired economic restructuring in the 1980s and 90s did not cause the political demise of populist movements? What is remarkable, as these scholars show, is that Latin American populist parties, which had long been associated with statist, quasi-Keynesian, even demagogic economic policies, have survived the transition to the much harsher era of free markets, privatisation, unemployment and increasing inequality. And without apparently losing their political popularity, in contrast both to the far left and traditional oligarchic parties. Indeed Latin American populist forces seem to have made neoliberalism their own.

The Editors have carefully chosen from South and Central America a representative set of countries through which to explore this phenomenon - Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

What emerges is an up-to-date, nuanced modern political history of Latin America which does full justice to the distinctive political paths of each country while at the same time making clear the significant extent to which the region's populist tradition as a whole has adapted to the new economic realities. This is in marked contrast to the very different political trajectories of Africa and Asia in the past two decades.

Table of Contents

1. The Transformation of Latin American Populism - Demmers, Fernández Jilberto and Hogenboom
2. From Import Substitution Industrialization to the ‘Open’ Economy in Argentina - Miguel Teubal
3. The Neoliberal Ideological Transformation of Chilean Populism - Fernández Jilberto
4. The Cardoso Administration and Brazil’s Transition to the Third Millennium - Karla Lemanski-Valente
5. Populism and Authoritarianism: An Old Vice of Peruvian Politics in the Neoliberal Era - Giuseppe Solfrini
6. Neo-liberalism, Economic Crisis and Popular Mobilization in Ecuador - Jean Carriere
7. Neoliberal Reform and Populist Politics: The PRI in Mexico - Demmers
8. The Double Defeat of the Revolutionary Left in Central America - Kees Biekart

About the Authors:

Jolle Demmers (PhD at the University of Utrecht) studied Political Science (International Relati-ons) at the University of Amsterdam and conducted her PhD research at Utrecht University and research school CERES. She is lecturer in Development Studies and Urban Sociology at the Department of Cultural Anthropology of Utrecht University and Managing Editor of the Thela Latin America Series of Thela Thesis, Amsterdam. She has published on neoliberalism, regio-nal politics, and political culture in Mexico. She is author of Friends and Bitter Enemies: politics and neoliberal reform in Yucat<n, Mexico (Thela Thesis, Amsterdam, 1998).

Alex E. Fernandez Jilberto (PhD at the University of Leiden) visited and worked as senior lecturer and researcher at several institutes such as the Uuniversidad Cat\lica de Chile, the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), the University of Amsterdam, the Free University (Amsterdam), the Universidad Aut\noma de Barcelona (Spain), the Universidad de la Habana (Cuba) and the Instituto de Estudios Avanzados of the Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina). Currently, he is Senior Lecturer in the Insternational relation Section at the Department of Political Science of the University of Amsterdam. He published various articles and books on the political economy of development of Latin America and Third World countries in general. Next to publishing a range of articles on Latin American and international politics, he edited various major books and volumes of journals, including Liberalization in the Developing World. Institutional and economic changes in Latin America, Africa and Asia (London: Routledge, 1996), 'The Political Economy of Open Regionalism in Latin America' of the International Journal of Political Economy, vol 26, no 3 (M.E. Sharpe, 1997), and Regionalization and Globalization in the Modern World Economy. Perspectives on the Third World and transitional economies (London: Routledge, 1998). His research and teaching interests include the political economy of regional integration processes (NAFTA and MERCOSUR), the relationship between regionalisation and changes in labour relations, liberalization of economic relations in Third World countries (deregulation and privatization) and the change of the state-society complexes in Latin America.

Barbara Hogenboom (PhD at the University of Amsterdam) is a lecturer at CEDLA, the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation in Amsterdam. After studying political science, she lectured and performed her Ph.D. research at the University of Amsterdam. She has publis-hed on transnational politics, financial libe-raliza-tion, and on regionalizati-on and neoliberal restruc-turing in Latin America. She is author of Mexico and the NAFTA Environ-ment Debate: The Transnational Politics of Economic Integrati-on (International Books, Utrecht, 1998) and guest-editor of 'The Politi-cal Economy of Open Regio-nalism in Latin America' of the Inter-natio-nal Journal of Political Economy, vol. 26, no. 3 (M.E. Sharpe, New York 1997). Her dissertation was granted the Dutch Political Science Award 1998.