Creative Destruction?: Economic Crises and Democracy in Latin America
This illuminating historical study examines the political economies of three Latin American countries in their transition toward democratization.

Through most of the twentieth century, financial shocks toppled democratic and authoritarian regimes across Latin America. But things began to change in the 1980s. In this wide-ranging comparative history of Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile, Francisco E. González explains why.

Gonzalez examines how these three countries were affected by the Great Depression, Latin America’s 1980s debt crisis, and the late 1990s emerging markets’ meltdowns. He finds that democratic or not, each nation’s regime gained stability in the 1980s thanks to changes in institutions, material interests, economic policies, and other factors. Underlying these developments was a growing ease in the exchange of ideas that created a pro-democracy bias—even in Pinochet’s Chile.

With a concluding chapter on the impact of the Great Recession in other Latin American states, Eastern Europe, and East Asia, Creative Destruction? lends insight into the survival of democratic and authoritarian regimes during times of extreme financial instability.
"1111574998"
Creative Destruction?: Economic Crises and Democracy in Latin America
This illuminating historical study examines the political economies of three Latin American countries in their transition toward democratization.

Through most of the twentieth century, financial shocks toppled democratic and authoritarian regimes across Latin America. But things began to change in the 1980s. In this wide-ranging comparative history of Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile, Francisco E. González explains why.

Gonzalez examines how these three countries were affected by the Great Depression, Latin America’s 1980s debt crisis, and the late 1990s emerging markets’ meltdowns. He finds that democratic or not, each nation’s regime gained stability in the 1980s thanks to changes in institutions, material interests, economic policies, and other factors. Underlying these developments was a growing ease in the exchange of ideas that created a pro-democracy bias—even in Pinochet’s Chile.

With a concluding chapter on the impact of the Great Recession in other Latin American states, Eastern Europe, and East Asia, Creative Destruction? lends insight into the survival of democratic and authoritarian regimes during times of extreme financial instability.
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Creative Destruction?: Economic Crises and Democracy in Latin America

Creative Destruction?: Economic Crises and Democracy in Latin America

by Francisco E. Gonzlez
Creative Destruction?: Economic Crises and Democracy in Latin America

Creative Destruction?: Economic Crises and Democracy in Latin America

by Francisco E. Gonzlez

eBook

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Overview

This illuminating historical study examines the political economies of three Latin American countries in their transition toward democratization.

Through most of the twentieth century, financial shocks toppled democratic and authoritarian regimes across Latin America. But things began to change in the 1980s. In this wide-ranging comparative history of Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile, Francisco E. González explains why.

Gonzalez examines how these three countries were affected by the Great Depression, Latin America’s 1980s debt crisis, and the late 1990s emerging markets’ meltdowns. He finds that democratic or not, each nation’s regime gained stability in the 1980s thanks to changes in institutions, material interests, economic policies, and other factors. Underlying these developments was a growing ease in the exchange of ideas that created a pro-democracy bias—even in Pinochet’s Chile.

With a concluding chapter on the impact of the Great Recession in other Latin American states, Eastern Europe, and East Asia, Creative Destruction? lends insight into the survival of democratic and authoritarian regimes during times of extreme financial instability.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781421406039
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date: 04/27/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 294
File size: 3 MB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Francisco E. González is the Riordan Roett Associate Professor of Latin American Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and author of Dual Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Institutionalized Regimes in Chile and Mexico, 1970–2000, published by Johns Hopkins.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Institutions, Interests, and Ideas in Explaining Regime Change
1. Financial Shocks, Economic Crises, and Democracy: Theory and Practice
Part I: Great Depression, 1929-34
2. Economic Crisis and Democracy during the Great Depression
3. Institutions: Polarized Domestic Conflicts and Weak International Capacity
4. Interests: Foreign Capital and Domestic Coalitions against Democracy
5. Ideas: Extreme Ideological Conflict and Rise of the State in the Economy
Part II: Economic Crises and Democracy in the Late Twentieth Century
6. 1982 Debt Crisis and 1997–2002 Emerging Markets Crises
7. Institutions: Demise of Military-as-Government and Higher Costs for Action
8. Interests: Capital Flight, Pressures from Below, and Democracy
9. Ideas: Cold War Endgame, Unipolar Moment, and Neoliberalism
Conclusion: Implications for Democracy after the 2008-9 Financial Meltdown
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

"In this innovative volume Francisco Gonzalez has set out a bold comparative framework aimed at explaining how severe international economic shocks and downturns can feed into the destabilization of liberal democratic regimes. Although the core of his evidence is drawn from the 'southern cone' of Latin America (comparing the 1930s with the 1980s) his framework generates a broader understanding. It can be applied to well-established and 'developed' democracies as well as to other, perhaps more precarious, South American counterparts. And it can be extended to the global economic crisis that began in 2008 and that has yet to run its course. Moreover, although appropriately cautious about extrapolation from the past, Gonzalez highlights some provisional grounds for anticipating that liberal democracies may emerge successfully from the current severe economic setback."

Laurence Whitehead

In this innovative volume Francisco Gonzalez has set out a bold comparative framework aimed at explaining how severe international economic shocks and downturns can feed through into the destabilization of liberal democratic regimes. Although the core of his evidence is drawn from the 'southern cone' of Latin America (comparing the 1930s with the 1980s) his framework generates a broader understanding. It can be applied to well-established and 'developed' democracies as well as to other, perhaps more precarious, South American counterparts. And it can be extended to the global economic crisis that began in 2008 and that has yet to run its course. Moreover, although appropriately cautious about extrapolation from the past, Professor Gonzalez highlights some provisional grounds for anticipating that liberal democracies may emerge successfully from the current severe economic setback.

Laurence Whitehead, Official Fellow in Politics, Nuffield College, Oxford

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