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Title: Markets & Democracy in Latin America: Conflict or Convergence? by Philip Oxhorn, Pamela K. Starr ISBN: 1-55587-716-8 Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers Pub. Date: November, 1998 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $27.00

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Summary: The double transition in Latin America
Comment: As the title clearly indicates, this book deals with the question of what literature calls the double transition: to market economy and democracy. This is a very important problem for two reasons: the fact that in the Latin American transitions, economic liberalization closely followed the transitions to democracy; the new democratic regimes in Latin America have generally had to deal first with the debt crisis and then with the neoliberal economic project. More recently, the East European transitions, and in certain respects the Mexican one, have had to handle both transitions simultaneously. This has raised important practical and theoretical questions. What is the relationship between both transitions, do they reinforce each other, or on the contrary do they contradict each other? The mere fact that this problem is dealt with in this book, is highly significant because, on the one hand, most studies on transitions refer to one or the other thematic, but rarely to both of them simultaneously. In so doing, they generally restrict their analysis of political transitions to elections and elite interest accommodation. When they address the economic questions, they usually treat them as a pre-condition for democracy. On the other hand, studies in economics, excepting the neo-institutionalists and the French regulation school, rarely take politics into consideration as one of the main variables that affect economic behavior. This series of articles, by their focus on the relations between economics and politics, fills an important gap. It is also very significant that, because the book deals with the relation between politics and economics, it has to refer in a thorough manner to society, to civil society as a mediation between both spheres, distancing itself from most studies that deal exclusively with the transition from the political or the economic point of view. This book addresses these questions from three different perspectives. In the first part, "The logic of liberalizing", the theoretical question of the relationship between economic and political liberalization is addressed. In the second part, on "Market constraints to the consolidation of democracy", the articles on Chile and Brazil deal with the effects that the new economic model, established in these countries after the ISI model was abandoned, is having on the newly founded democratic regimes. In the third part, based upon these previous cases as well as on those of Mexico, Argentina and India, the reverse side of the medal is studied, the political constraints on neoliberal reform. In their opening article, Oxhorn and Ducantenzeiler clearly state their disagreement with the idea that there is a necessary relation between economic liberalism and democracy. Although this idea is based upon the studies of Lipset, the tenants of neoliberalism have diffused it with more ideological intentions. A careful historical analysis shows that most of the past history of Latin America proves the contrary. The periods of economic liberalism have been more authoritarian than democratic. This is because in the past liberalism has been unable to alleviate the high levels of inequality that characterize Latin American societies, which in turn determine an inherent weakness of civil societies; a key factor threatening democratic stability (p.15). In fact, the present moment is one of the rare ones in which liberalism and democracy coincide. The most important moment of high growth with income distribution "...coincided with extensive and growing state intervention in the economy, considerable economic protectionism, and the region's previous wave of democracy"(p. 16). If according to Oxhorn and Ducatenzeiller there is no clear-cut relationship between liberalism and democracy, it is in the last resort because there has been no clear-cut relationship between development and democracy in the region. As development is more closely related to economic inequality. And in a highly unequal society, the stakes in politics are so high, that democracy goes against the interests of the ruling minority. These arguments will lead Oxhorn and Starr to state in their conclusions to the book, that because the shift to market based development strategy is leading to further differentiation and fragmentation of civil society, this may result, on the one hand, in that the political regime fail to respond to popular grievances, and push popular opinion to be disillusioned with democracy (p.243). Or, on the other hand, as the sociopolitical matrix is going through such a deep upheaval, Latin America may fall back on its history when liberalism has coincided with authoritarianism (p.244). Both of these structural situations are further aggravated by two conjunctures: simultaneous transition has occurred in a situation of economic crisis and of institutional blockages that are crucial obstacles for the efficient management of the State.

Nevertheless, the most important presupposition of this study is that although important, these structural situations and historical recurrences do not determine the future development of the relation between markets and democracy in Latin America. What will determine this relationship, if it can develop into a virtuous circle of development and reinforcement of democracy or on the contrary, will be the ability of civil societies to develop strongly and influence both spheres. Although liberalism tends to atomize and desegregate civil society, this latter is an autonomous realm. "Where civil society is strong, economic liberalism is likely to be inclusionary and to lay the foundations for viable democratic regimes [...] where civil society is weak, economic liberalism is likely to be exclusionary(p. 37-38).