Bleeding Wounds: periods in modern Latin American history

Periodization of an entire regional history is always a controversial affair. It inherently requires a level of generalization that can disfigure national and local idiosyncrasies in the procrustean name of creating neat intellectual compartments. Nevertheless, conceptually demarcating history creates a common framework for academic exchange. It also helps keep scholars from getting lost in the chaotic sprawl of events. At best, periodization provides meaningful reference schema, at the meso-level between eventism and the longue durée, with which to debate concepts and to build theory; at worst, it reifies history in a stylized way in which guiding temporal premises predicate subsequent concept formation and empirical findings. Scholars must be conscious of the fact that milestones are social constructs so that post hoc periodization does not irreversibly ossify certain interpretations of history. They must not equate the historical with the historic.

The chronological contours of any given periodization depend on the subject matter at hand. For post-war Latin America, the parameters of periodization should vary in accordance with whether the focus is on shifts in class structures (Portes 1985; Portes & Hoffman 2003), economic productivity and standards of living (Astorga et al. 2005), political regimes (Schneider 2006), relations with the US (Grandin 2006), gender construction (Dore & Molyneux 2000), or any other area of significance. Obviously, there is great interdependence between these types of phenomena: extant economic and social conditions bring about certain regime types which, facing imperial pressure, choose particular development policies that engender economic and social structural outcomes—which, in turn, feedback into new political projects. Taking account of interconnected subject areas fleshes out the causal chains that produce social change.

A useful periodization of Latin America would delimit historical eras in a way that best captures the fullness of these multidimensional processes and truncates as little as possible. The main assumption would be that the preponderance of change occurs between, not within, periods. Such a necessary evil of the art of periodization exaggerates the existence of stability and the static duration of the status quo. The decisive fabrication of certain moments of change as historical boundaries also suggests that social scientists are more interested in explaining change; however, investigating the determinants of equilibrium maintenance—why things don’t change—is an equally interesting part of sociology’s mission (Pierson 2004, 141-142).

This essay does not propose a novel matrix for classifying and investigating the history of Latin America in the second half of the 20th century. Rather it attempts to sketch the orthodox (if uncodified) version as transmitted by the mainstream of Latin American Studies. As such, this periodization is influenced, not only by what happened in Latin America, but also by how scholars treated those occurrences. The focus is on political changes and regime types, United States interference, as well as political economy and development styles, with the unit of analysis being the nation-state more so than classes, strata, or supranational systems. The first period extends from World War Two to the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. The second period covers the authoritarianism and rebellion of the 1960s and 1970s. The third period runs from the explosion of the debt crisis in 1982, through the third wave of democratic transitions in the 1980s. The neoliberal era of the late 1980s and 1990s, which consists of structural adjustments, popular protests and government failures, is the fourth period. The fifth and final period entails the electoral victories of left currents and the constitutional refounding of republics that has occurred in the beginning of the 21st century.

The distraction of US and European productive forces in the Second World War incidentally served to remove temporarily Latin America from its position of disadvantage in the capitalist world system. This breathing room and forced self-reliance resulted in economic growth for much of the region (Hoogvelt 2001, 242). Dependency theorists later cited this as proof that intimate integration with the advanced industrial economies inhibited peripheral development. In the immediate post-war years, policy makers institutionalized economic isolation in a set of protectionist industrial policies known as Import Substitution Industrialization (Prebish 1950). Such measures meant both to mitigate the uneven terms of trade that Latin American nations received as exporters of raw materials and primary products and importers of manufactured goods and capital tools, and to incubate indigenous industry until it could become competitive in the domestic market and beyond (Prebisch 1959). Of course, such policies were not as feasible for smaller agricultural countries that lacked infant industries, let alone a sizeable domestic market to exploit.

The economic autonomy enjoyed in the early stages of ISI was coupled with a semblance of geopolitical independence, as the US had not yet entirely abandoned the Good Neighbor Policy that advocated noninterference and instead sought influence through trade and cultural ties. Such a hands off attitude would not last, as the Cold War dictated renewal of the Monroe Doctrine.

The political regimes found in Latin America in this period tended toward populist administrations backed by cross class alliances that sought nationalist development in the form of equitable economic growth. Peronism in Argentina, the second coming of Vargas in Brazil, and the MNR in Bolivia embody this type of regime.

Another nationalist development project occurred in Guatemala under the presidencies of Arevalo and Arbenz, who advanced education and land reform. However, such leveling of society encroached on US corporate interests that controlled Guatemalan plantations, so the CIA organized overthrow (Gleijeses 1992). This signal event in Latin American history showed aspiring revolutionaries across the hemisphere that peaceful reform was not viable; in the face of US dominance, people would have to turn to armed revolution.

Heeding this lesson were the Cuban revolutionaries who developed revolutionary theory through action. Instead of urban revolution, they started in a rural foco, empowered peasants and rural proletarians with arms, land, and literacy, and overthrew the Batista regime in 1959. This milestone event would inspire revolutionaries across the hemisphere and inform a change in US foreign policy.

The second period in this periodization scheme begins with the fallout from the Cuban Revolution and Cuba’s forced turn toward the Soviet Union. As the US began to worry about further revolution and the specter of communist infestation in Latin America, Kennedy rolled out the Alliance for Progress. This aid program meant to preempt revolution by encouraging modest land reform and other social policies.

In the 1960s, some form of rebellion erupted in almost all Latin American countries (Wickham-Crowley 1991, Table 1). This unrest, combined with a renewed US willingness to meddle in domestic affairs, and the end of the easy stage of ISI led to a wave of takeovers by authoritarian regimes.

Early ISI measures had produced consumer goods, but the limited domestic markets were soon saturated. Furthermore, the poor terms of trade for agricultural products did not bring in enough foreign currency to pay for the capital goods and production machinery necessary to continue the industrial policy. To continue industrialization, worker demands would have to be repressed to make the environment attractive to multinational corporations. Thus was born the bureaucratic-authoritarian state in places like Brazil and Argentina (O’Donnell 1978), where a “triple alliance” was made between state technocrats and the military, foreign capital, and select local bourgeois junior partners (Evans 1979). Cardoso called this associated-dependent development—proof that under the right circumstances semi-peripheral nations could develop in a dependent position in the world capitalist system (So 1990, 137-143). The path was paved for such regimes by the violent toppling of democratically initiated socialist reformers like Allende in 1973 Chile.

Another kind of authoritarianism of this period was found in Central America. “Reactionary despotism” existed in enclave export economies, where small oligarchies maintained de facto power, wielding veritable vetoes over government administrations, be they civilian or military (Baloyra-Herp 1983). Only after the traditional social control mechanism of the hacienda gave way to the agribusiness plantation attuned to the demands of globalization did a rural proletariat develop more prone to revolutionary organizing (Paige 1983). In our third period of the 1980s, such revolutionary movements in Central America met with violent reactionary resistance from military regimes (El Salvador, Guatemala) and counterrevolutionaries (Nicaragua) supported by the United States.

The budgetary policies of the regimes of our second period (1960s & 1970s) led to the debt crisis that marks the start of third period (1980s). Cash imbalances produced by (i) having to import capital goods, (ii) corporate remittances back to the core, and (iii) capital flight from nervous local bourgeoisie resulted in developmental states having to borrow from abroad in order to fund their legitimating projects and services (Walton 1989). The massive debt accrued in Latin America debilitated governments—first and notably bankrupting Mexico in 1982. It left governments with little option but to borrow more to make their payments and to continue meager social services. Soon international loan agencies such as the IMF were instituting austerity requirements for additional borrowing. The mandated spending cuts, wage retrenchments, privatization, and lowering of trade barriers reflected the neoliberal ideology ascendant in the Reagan and Thatcher administrations (Harvey 2005).

The resulting hard times for the underclass and former state employees weakened the foundations of dictatorships across the region. Their delegitimation prompted elites to make pacts in controlled transitions to democracy (O’Donnell & Schmitter 1986; Karl 1990) facilitated by ripening public spheres (Avritzer 2002). This third wave of democracy concludes the third epoch of our periodization.

The fourth period of the late 1980s and 1990s featured mostly democratically elected governments implementing neoliberal political economic programs that did not serve the immediate interests of the majority of citizens. With tightened budgets, politicians tried to buy support from narrowly targeted groups with ad hoc partisan-branded social programs (eg. PRONASOL in Mexico). Citizens initially accepted the neoliberal turn because they felt it would protect them from further loses (Weyland 1998)—even when candidates had promised heavy state intervention before getting elected (Stokes 2001).

The consequences of neoliberal reforms included drastic increases in socioeconomic inequality and a sharp surge in the unprotected informal sector, which was filled by floating labor that the shrunken public and disappointing private sectors failed to reincorporate (Portes & Hoffman 2003). The fallout included mass disenchantment with political elites and traditional parties and institutions. The Zapatista movement in Chiapas was a most dramatic incarnation of this widespread sentiment. Over the course of the 1990s occurred a rash of presidential interruptions (Kim & Bahry 2008; Marsteintredet & Berntzen 2008), government failure, and a general “unraveling of representative democracy” (McCoy & Myers 2006).

The event signaling the dawn of our fifth period was the 1998 election of Hugo Chavez as president of Venezuela, whence ensued a string of new left-leaning presidents across the region (Medina Nuñez 2008). These were the political repercussions of forced structural adjustment, unbridled free trade, and the moral bankruptcy of previous institutions. Chavez and his followers refounded the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to create re-legitimated institutions more in line with the needs of the people. This model of presidential election followed by constitutional assembly has been followed in Bolivia and Ecuador, resulting in “the friendly liquidation of the past” by instituting more participatory, inclusive, and environmentally conscious magna cartas (Van Cott 2000).

The rise and survival of Chavez is also significant because he survived a coup attempt and a mass strike in the oil sector. Bolivia’s latest president, nationalist reforms, and new constitution have also survived internal revolt and US promotion of so-called “decentralization”. It seems as if, finally, democratically elected left governments can peacefully survive within the direct sphere of US hegemony. Even the current coup in Honduras shows signs of elite fracture and revitalized social movements.

Finally, the fifth period is marked by new integration initiatives aimed at achieving efficiency and cooperation in the fields of energy, communications, finance, health and education (Martinez 2008).

This essay has attempted to review the last six decades in Latin America by way of a periodization based around the most significant interconnected political and economic trends and their social scientific interpretations. To summarize the periodization essayed above: the nationalist developmentalist trends of the early post-war years gave way to US-supported authoritarianism during the Cold War. The debt crisis helped usher in democracy; but only after the negative effects of neoliberalism destabilized governance did left leaning forces take hold of power and refound the state.