Technopols
Freeing Politics and Markets in Latin America in the 1990s
304 pages | 5 illustrations | 6 x 9 | 1996
Cloth edition is not available
ISBN 978-0-271-01614-6 | paper: $28.00 sh
"A fascinating look at an important phenomenon in Latin American political economy, the rise of the technopols."-Choice
"This is the first 'deep' comparative analysis of the men and women who have reshaped Latin American politics and economics. The biographies make these technocrats much more than generic ideal types as they detail their intellectual and political formation."-Miguel Angel Centeno, Princeton University
In recent years first Chile, then Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico have abandoned decades-old authoritarian political regimes and state-directed economic strategies and moved toward democratized politics and freer markets. This volume seeks to understand the key roles of "technopols"-technically skilled, politically savvy leaders-in these transformations. It is based in part on elite interviews with each of the leaders discussed: Domingo Cavallo of Argentina, Pedro Aspe of Mexico, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, and Evelyn Matthei and Alejandro Foxley of Chile. All are major social scientists turned politicians who, the authors argue here, have themselves contributed to the formulation of the ideas that they eventually came to implement in their respective governments.
Contributors are Jorge I. Dominguez, Javier Corrales, Stephanie R. Golob, Joao Resende-Santos, Delia M. Boylan, and Jeanne Kinney Giraldo.
Jorge I. Dominguez is Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is the author of, most recently, (with James McCann) Democratizing Mexico: Public Opinion and Electoral Choices (Johns Hopkins, 1996).