In recent years first Chile, then Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico have abandoned decades-old authoritarian political regimes and state-directed economic strategies and moved toward democratized politics and freer markets. This volume seeks to understand the key roles of "technopols"--technically skilled, politically savvy leaders--in these transformations. It is based in part on elite interviews with each of the leaders discussed: Domingo Cavallo of Argentina, Pedro Aspe of Mexico, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, and Evelyn Matthei and Alejandro Foxley of Chile. All are major social scientists turned politicians who, the authors argue here, have themselves contributed to the formulation of the ideas that they eventually came to implement in their respective governments. Contributors are Jorge I. Domínguez, Javier Corrales, Stephanie R. Cobb, João Resende-Santos, Delia M. Boylan, and Jeanne Kinney Giraldo.

"This book is the first systematic survey of technopoles in all its manifestations: science parks, science cities, national technopolis and technobelt programmes. Detailed case studies, ranging from Silicon Valley to Siberia and from the M4 Corridor to Taiwan, relate how global technopoles have developed, what each is striving to achieve and how well it is suceeding."--Back cover.

The rise of populist parties and movements across the Western hemisphere and their contempt for ‘experts’ has shocked the establishment. This book examines how the ‘post-industrial’ technocratic regime of the 1980’s – of managerialism, depoliticisation and the politics of expertise – sowed the seeds for the backlash against the political elites that is visible today. Populism, Esmark augues, is a sign that the technocratic bluff has finally been called and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exasperate existing problems. This book sets a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, showing that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation.

"The transformation of politics in Latin America, the consolidation of a democratic consensus in the Anglophone Caribbean, and the able performance of many democratic governments in fashioning economic policies made this book intellectually possible. Most of Latin America's democratic governments have carried economic reforms more effectively than their authoritarian predecessors and have remained stunningly resilient despite many problems. The naysayers have not been proven right. Indeed, even if democratic governments were to be overthrown tomorrow, the history of democratic politics in the 1980s and 1990s is already noteworthy." -- from the Introduction In Democratic Politics in Latin America and the Caribbean, Jorge Domnguez focuses on the successful accomplishments of democratic politics in the region -- a process that nations in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa seek to emulate. Domnguez considers the role of British colonial rule and United States policies. But he also examines the development of parties, other civil institutions, and competitive markets, which lend permanence to democracy. He also discusses the prospects for democracy in Cuba and Mexico. Despite recurrent problems, Domnguez concludes, the outlook is good for stable democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In this timely and provocative study, William I. Robinson challenges received wisdom on Central America. He starts with an exposition on the new global capitalism. Then, drawing on a wide range of historical documentation, interviews, and social science research, he proceeds to show how capitalist globalization has thoroughly transformed the region, disrupting the conventional pattern of revolutionary upheaval, civil wars, and pacification, and ushering in instead a new transnational model of economy and society. Beyond his focus on Central America, Robinson provides a critical framework for understanding development and social change in other regions of the world in the age of globalization. Demonstrating how the very forces of capitalism have brought into being new social agents and political actors unlikely to acquiesce in the face of the emerging order, Transnational Conflicts shows why the Isthmus, along with other regions, is likely to return to the headlines in the near future.

Collecting and synthesizing a series of essays on the political economy of trade and development policy, this book explores the following research questions: to what extent is the global trading regime reducing the ability of nation-states to pursue policies for financial stability and economic growth; and what political factors explain such changes in policy space over time, across different types of trade treaties and across nations? Gallagher presents intriguing findings on the policy constraints on the Uruguay Round, as well as the significant restrictions that the USA places upon the ability of developing nations to deploy a range of development strategies for stability and growth. Analyzing the factors that have led to twenty-first-century trade politics being characterized by a “clash of globalizations,” this volume explores the role of economic power, institutional structure, domestic politics, currency fluctuations and ideas about globalization in effecting changes to global trade policies.

The first detailed historical account of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations, this book covers the genesis of the project in the early 1990s to its demise in late 2003. It examines how the FTAA, an Inter-American policy idea, was incompatible with the predominant ideas and beliefs of Brazilian and American decision makers as to how they could and should conduct their countries' foreign trade policy in the Western Hemisphere.