While the neoliberal model continues to dominate economic and political life in Latin America, people throughout the region have begun to strategize about how to move beyond this model. Twelve cutting-edge papers investigate how Latin Americans are struggling to articulate a future in which neoliberalism is reconfigured.

The 1980s in Latin America saw the implementation of a sweeping programme of economic reforms, either imposed as a condition for securing new loans or to embrace the neoliberal doctrine of structural adjustment, the ideology of a newly formed transnational capitalist class. However, the structural adjustment programme also generated widespread resistance, especially from within the popular sector of civil society. This book analyses both the politics of the adjustment process and the political dynamics of this resistance in Latin America.

Latin America has changed dramatically over the past few years. While the 1990s were dominated by the politically orthodoxy of the Washington Consensus and the political uniformity of centre right governments the first decade of the new century is being characterised by the emergence of a plurality of economic and political alternatives. In an overview of the history of the region over the past twenty-five years this book traces the intellectual and political origins of the Washington Consensus, assesses its impact on democracy and economic development and discusses whether the emergence of a variety of left-wing governments in the region represents a clear break with the politics and policies of the Washington Consensus. Clearly written and rigorously argued the book will be of interest to academics, students of Latin American politics and anybody interested in understanding contemporary Latin America.

Since the 1970s, neoliberalism has evolved from ideology to political programme, from political programme to public policy, and from public policy to constitutional rule. This process of change has been made possible through the endorsement of an uncritical, a-historical, and apolitical economic theory that legitimized technocratic despotism, financial deregulation, precarious labour, and constitutional-political emptying. This book examines critical perspectives in mainstream neoliberal development analysis. It examines the neoliberal experiment as a global historical construct through the cases of Africa, Latin America, and Europe. The analysis begins in 1980 with the Structural Adjustment Plans in Latin America and Africa, followed in 1990 by Maastricht in the case of Europe and the euphoric shift that took place, typified by the Africa Rising narrative, which attempts to promote the idea of an economically emerging continent. It also considers the weakness of the state resulting from neo-liberal austerity and fiscal stabilization policies, which have amplified the inability to collectively deal with the social, economic, and political impact of the COVID-19 crisis. One of the key features of the book is the extensive comparative analysis between regions, using case studies, including examples from African countries. The authors connect the different regional perspectives, included in the book, in a clear and coherent way, such that it will appeal to students and scholars interested in the social, economic, and political outcomes of globalization and will also be of interest to official development agencies and third sector organizations in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.

The world is at the crossroads of social change, in the vortex of forces that are bringing about a different world, a post-neoliberal state. This groundbreaking book lays out an analysis of the dynamics and contradictions of capitalism in the twenty-first century. These dynamics of forces are traced out in developments across the world - in the Arab Spring of North Africa and the Middle East, in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America, in the United States, and in Asia. The forces released by a system in crisis can be mobilized in different ways and directions. The focus of the book is on the strategic responses to the systemic crisis. As the authors tell it, these dynamics concern three worldviews and strategic responses. The Davos Consensus focuses on the virtues of the free market and deregulated capitalism as it represents the interests of the global ruling class. The post-Washington Consensus concerns the need to give capital a human face and establish a more inclusive form of development and global governance. In addition to these two visions of the future and projects, the authors identify an emerging radical consensus on the need to move beyond capitalism as well as neoliberalism.

"The essays collected here explore how global, regional, national, and local structures of power produce angry politics. They go beyond conventional academic debates about populism to explore the different kinds of anger that shape politics today, and to make legible the multiplicity of forces, antagonisms, conflicts, and emergent political forms that mark the present"--

Latin America has experienced a profound transformation in the first two decades of the 21st century: it has been fully incorporated into the global economy, while excluding regions and populations devalued by the logic of capitalism. Technological modernization has gone hand-in-hand with the reshaping of old identities and the emergence of new ones. The transformation of Latin America has been shaped by social movements and political conflicts. The neoliberal model that dominated the first stage of the transformation induced widespread inequality and poverty, and triggered social explosions that led to its own collapse. A new model, neo-developmentalism, emerged from these crises as national populist movements were elected to government in several countries. The more the state intervened in the economy, the more it became vulnerable to corruption, until the rampant criminal economy came to penetrate state institutions. Upper middle classes defending their privileges and citizens indignant because of corruption of the political elites revolted against the new regimes, undermining the model of neo-developmentalism. In the midst of political disaffection and public despair, new social movements, women, youth, indigenous people, workers, peasants, opened up avenues of hope against the background of darkness invading the continent. This book, written by two leading scholars of Latin America, provides a comprehensive and up-do-date account of the new Latin America that is in the process of taking shape today. It will be an indispensable text for students and scholars in Latin American Studies, sociology, politics and media and communication studies, and anyone interested in Latin America today.