Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
Spanish America Has Moved From The Status of Debt crisis region to that of emerging market in the past few years, and has done so without great political upheaval. So can economic liberalism and democratic institutions work together in the region? Neither phenomenon is really new in Spanish America. However they have often been regarded as potentially antagonistic or even mutual exclusive. Indeed there have been times when the two concepts seemed to be competitors rather than allies. If they are now (mostly) allies, this is not primarily because old-fashioned modernization theory has been proved right all along, but because of changes in both the internationalenvironment (political as well as economic) and in the character of democratic politics in much of Spanish America.
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