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The industrialization of developing countries has fundamentally transformed work, employment, and labor for millions. Despite the industrialization of most of the developing world, we present evidence that Latin America has experienced stagnating industrial employment in the past few decades. Benefiting from recently available data on industrial employment as a percentage of total employment from 1980 through 2006, we analyze fixed-effects models for 20 Latin American countries. Specifically, we examine three theoretical explanations: productivity/comparative advantage, institutionalism, and dependency/world-systems. Our analyses demonstrate that the prevailing productivity/comparative advantage explanation has limited value. By contrast, we find supportive evidence for a combination of institutional and dependency/world-systems variables. In particular, the stagnating industrial employment share in Latin American countries has been driven by the negative effects of (in order of magnitude) the Mercosur trade agreement, mineral and ore exports (as a percentage of total exports), the duration of the current political regime, military spending (as a percentage of GDP), and inward foreign direct investment flows (as a percentage of GDP). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There has been considerable concern in Latin America over the implications of increased competition from China for local industry. These concerns include the possibility of “deindustrialization,” the increased “primarization” of the region's exports and the difficulties of upgrading manufactured exports into higher technology products. This article examines the impact of Chinese competition both in the domestic market and in export markets on Brazilian industry. It documents the increased penetration of Chinese manufactures in the Brazilian market and the way in which Brazilian exports have lost market share to China in the US, European Union and four Latin American countries. Brazil, because of its more developed and locally integrated industrial sector, is not typical of other Latin American countries and the article also discusses the relevance of the Brazilian experience for the region as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract Capitalist globalization has accelerated technological development but the result has been to intensify global inequalities and reproduce the structures of underdevelopment in entire world regions. In Latin America, the era of Keynesian developmentalism sought to overcome foreign domination that prevailed in modernization-style development regimes. Advances made in that era were halted and later reversed through the imposition of neoliberalism throughout the region. Neoliberal development increased developing country dependency upon foreign technologies and reproduces the structures of underdevelopment. Anti-neoliberal alternatives are possible even under conditions of severe economic crisis as illustrated by the Cuban socialist model. Other countries will likewise need to pursue more endogenously oriented technology policies if they are to overcome the crippling impact of the neoliberal period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This inquiry explores crises facing developmental states in Latin America related to their national strategies for economic growth. Some patterns commonly associated with an import substitution strategy are argued to be rooted in structural and institutional variables related to an abundance of natural resources. However, with the demise of national development strategies after the 1980s, external and internal efforts and measures stemming from big business and financial capital challenged the developmental state. During the 1990s countries in Latin and South America followed similar patterns toward financial integration. Failures related to this recent strategy opened space for a new development policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a strengthening of collective labor rights in Latin America over the last 15 years, most labor movements in the region have lost power because neither the content nor the enforcement mechanisms associated with the labor reforms fully took into consideration the challenges presented by economic restructuring. Reforms facilitating union formation did not strengthen unions but instead increased union fragmentation. Collective bargaining structures did not respond to the exigencies of international outsourcing; and the initial round of reforms in the 1990s did not contemplate the need to strengthen labor law enforcement mechanisms at a time when heightened international competition created a need for greater state vigilance of labor standards. Recent reforms or proposed reforms hold more promise for labor, but truly union-friendly labor relations regimes require deeper changes. A review of several Latin American cases is followed by a closer examination of Brazil and El Salvador. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the nature of modern military dictatorship in Latin American, particularly in Argentina. The country became an important battle area for imperialism after the demise of the communist threat in Chile. The nature and contradictions of the military authority came to power in 1976, emphasizing on political economy. Argentina's military revolution closed a counterrevolutionary cycle in the Southern Cone of Latin America, which begun with Brazil's military intermediation in 1964 and continue with the fall of the Popular Assembly in Bolivia in 1971 and Uruguay and Chile's military revolution in 1973.

The article presents in formation on a thesis titled, "Open for Business: The Roots of Foreign Ownership in Canada," by Gordon Laxer. The 1970s witnessed the "rebirth" of Canadian political economy as a new generation sought to explain the paradox of Canada as a "rich but underdeveloped" country. Canada's relatively high standard of living and well-entrenched liberal democratic institutions place it among the advanced capitalist economies. Its continued dependence on the export of raw materials and the truncated character of its branch plant manufacturing sector point to characteristics shared with third world countries, especially in Latin America. For many, the paradox could only be explained by critically re-examining Canada's past in light of insights drawn from Innisian political economy as well as contemporary developments in the field of dependency and state theory. Laxer's thesis is a very interesting one which builds on the work of earlier political economists who emphasized the connection between agriculture and industry. Any assessment of the prospects for autonomous development must of course go beyond the economic to the political, much as Laxer did in his analysis of the earlier period, and this involves a consideration of which agents stand the greatest chance of countering the power of capital.