Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps and tables
- Preface to the third edition
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Map 1 Latin America
- Map 2 Per capita gross domestic products 1987, measured in 1986 U.S. dollars. (Source: Inter-American Development Bank, Economic and Social Progress in Latin America, 1988, p. 540.)
- Part I Understanding Latin American politics
- 1 The Latin American predicament
- 2 The rules of the Latin American game
- 3 Players – I
- 4 Players – II
- 5 The stakes in the game
- Part II The political games played in Latin America
- Appendix: Tables
- Index
5 - The stakes in the game
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps and tables
- Preface to the third edition
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Map 1 Latin America
- Map 2 Per capita gross domestic products 1987, measured in 1986 U.S. dollars. (Source: Inter-American Development Bank, Economic and Social Progress in Latin America, 1988, p. 540.)
- Part I Understanding Latin American politics
- 1 The Latin American predicament
- 2 The rules of the Latin American game
- 3 Players – I
- 4 Players – II
- 5 The stakes in the game
- Part II The political games played in Latin America
- Appendix: Tables
- Index
Summary
Politics obviously involves much more than winning elections and launching military coups. Players also want to influence people who manage the economy, administer justice, educate citizens, provide social services, and protect the nation against foreign adversaries. Seldom, however, does everyone agree on how all of these tasks should be done. Commonly, entrenched elites contest with the middle and lower classes over how wealth should be distributed and justice delivered, and persons who represent agriculture, industry, commerce, and labor frequently disagree with one another on how to achieve economic development.
There are many kinds of public policy worthy of study, but limited space prohibits our looking at all of them. Consequently, we will confine ourselves primarily to policies designed to affect economic development and social welfare. Few things stir more controversy or are more important to the well-being of citizens than the ways that wealth is created and distributed. This is what much of the political contest in Latin America is about today, so in limiting ourselves to economic and social policy we need not worry about missing the most important political conflicts being fought in the region.
Economic underdevelopment
Latin America's economic and social maladies are no secret. Poverty is immense in most nations despite substantial economic development throughout the region during the past half century. Evidence of modernity is not hard to find anymore, but only a few blocks from the skyscrapers, modern hotels, and enormous factories sits some of the world's worst squalor. Poverty as well as affluence are basic features of Latin American life and will remain so well into the future.
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- The Politics of Latin American Development , pp. 104 - 136Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990