T(m>ard a Critique of

Latin American Neostructuralism

Fernando Ignacio Leiva
ABSTRACT
This article offers a critical assessment of the first postneoliberalism
development framework that emerged in Latin America after 1990.
The ability of neostructuralism to present an attractive narrative
about a twenty-first-century "modernity with solidarity" is based on
abandoning key tenets of ECLAC's structuralism and the thinking of
Ral Prebisch and Celso Furtado; namely, a focus on the distribution and appropriation of economic surplus and a framing of Latin
American development problems in a world capitalist system. This
article argues that Latin American neostructuralism's discursive
strengths, as well as its analytical weaknesses, stem from the marginalization of power relations from key dimensions of the region's
political economy. Since 2000, neostructuralism has exacerbated its
descriptive, short-term perspective, further dulling its analytical
edge, by focusing on policies that promote social cohesion and
state intervention in the cultural and the socioemotional realm.

new development approach has gained ascendancy among policymakers in Latin America. Officially launched in 1990 with the publication of Changing Production Patterns with Social Equity by the
United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC), Latin American neostructuralism has gradually
replaced neoliberal market fundamentalism as the prevailing economic
development perspective in the region.^
Eighteen years since its 1990 debut and six decades since the founding of ECLAC, neostructuralism has garnered widespread intellectual
and political influence, successfully moving from the margins to the very
center of economic development policy formulation. Neoliberalism's
failure to deliver high rates of economic growth and its role in causing
widespread popular discontent and massive mobilizations, along with
electoral victories by center-left coalitions, point to the decline in the
hegemony of neoliberal economic ideas in the region. The election of
progressive candidates like Ricardo Lagos (2000) and Michelle Bachelet
(2006) in Chile, Luiz Incio Lula da Silva in Brazil (2002), Nstor Kirchner (2003) and Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner (2007) in Argentina, and
Tabar Vsquez in Uruguay (2005) raises hopes that an alternative
development path shaped by Latin American neostructuralism can successfully deal with the unresolved socioeconomic problems faced by the

2008 University of Miami

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majority of almost six hundred million Latin Americans. As a 2005 Wall

Street Journal article acknowledged, a "new breed of pragmatic leftists."
dedicated to combining "the left's traditional warm-hearted social goals
with a newfound appreciation for cold economic calculus" now occupies key economic posts in Latin America (Luhnow 2005). In academia,
such shifts have been seen either as a welcome quest for the "high road"
to globalization (Korzeniewicz and Smith 2000) or as a more problematic "revival of structuralism" among economists (Weyland 2007).
Whether one agrees with such interpretations or not, it is indisputable that since 2000, the election of progressive governments in Chile,
Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and
more recently Guatemala, along with the continued presence of powerful social movements, suggests that a historically significant political
and intellectual realignment is under way.
The emergence and rise to predominance of a new, more pragmatic
approach to economic development, known as Latin American neostructuralism, is an important factor, though clearly not the only one, behind
Latin America's "postneoliberal" turn. Yet despite growing intellectual
influence, no systematic and comprehensive critical appraisal of the new
postneoliberal development approach is currently available.^ Major questions posed by Latin American neostructuralism's displacement of neoliberalism remain unaddressed: What are the key strengths and weaknesses
of this new development discourse? What scope of transformations can
Latin American neostructuralism really enact? How are we to assay the
internal consistency and overall impact of the emergent Latin American
neostructuralist framework? How can a critical evaluation of Latin American neostructuralism proceed at a time when it enjoys widespread intellectual and political support and its lines of defense seem impregnable?^
Using Terry Eagleton's apt metaphor, this essay attempts to look behind
neostructuralism's "imposing tapestry" to "expose in all its unglamorously
disheveled tangle the threads constituting the well-heeled image it presents to the wodd" (Eagleton 1986, 80).'*
THE MANY FACES OF LATIN AMERICAN
NEOSTRUCTURAUSM
Latin American neostructuralism is the first fully articulated development
discourse to challenge directly the hegemony of neoliberal ideas. While
calling Latin American neostructuralism a new paradigm might seem to
some an overreach, just calling it a package of economic policies is misleading.5 Even before Anthony Giddens, Britain's New Labor, or European Social Democracy had formulated the Third Way, Latin American
neostructuralists working at ECLAC had laid the intellectual foundations
for contesting neoliberalism's supremacy (Giddens 1998).^ Over the

LEIVA: LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM

course of its ascent, neostructuralism recast conceptions about the relationship among economy, state, and society; it introduced a new development lexicon that was increasingly embraced by international development institutions, such as the World Bank and the Inter-American
Development Bank; and it advanced a program of action for establishing a new relationship among institutional reform, modernity, social
cohesion, and globalization in the twenty-first century.
What is Latin American neostructuralism, then? Its discursive potency
derives from being simultaneously an alternative vision to neoliberal
dogmatism, a comprehensive development strategy, an integrated policy
framework, and a grand narrative about the path toward modernity that
the twenty-first century allegedly offers to Latin American and Caribbean
societies. To reduce it to just one of these dimensions is to misrepresent
and underestimate it. Precisely because it is more than just an economic
policy approach, Latin American neostructuralism has been able to influence policy planners and international development agencies and to suffuse the discourse of center-left political coalitions, such as those
presently governing in Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay.
An Alternative Vision to Neoliberal Market Dogmatism
Latin American neostructuralism is the first counterdiscourse to confront
neoliberal dogmatism and to surface in the wake of the profound
processes of capitalist restructuring experienced over the past decades.
It is the response by thinkers at ECLAC to the intellectual offensive of
neoliberalism, and to the perceived deficiencies of structuralism and
state-led industrialization development strategy that neoliberalism supported from the late 1940s to the 1960s. Whereas during the second half
of the 1970s and 1980s, neoliberals insisted that market and price signals alone remained the fundamental tools for reforming Latin American
economies and achieving international competitiveness, neostmcturalists countered that though market forces continued to be primary, politics and government intervention were imperative for constructing the
societywide "systemic competitiveness" necessary to compete successfully in world markets (ECLAC 1990). Political and institutional intervention, they argued, were essential for generating the synergy, coordination, and social harmony indispensable for fluid and speedy
integration into the globalization process.
By replacing the market dogmatism of the 1970s and 1980s with a
more holistic approach that restores the political, institutional, and cultural
dimensions to economic development, Latin American neostaicturalism
promises to transform Latin America. To recouple economic growth with
social equity in the new historical context, ECLAC argues, intellectual and
political leadership, not just laissez-faire policies, are needed (see table 1).

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Table 1. Structuralism, Neoliberalism, and

Latin American Neostructuralism
Latin American
Neostructuralism
(1990-present)

Paradigm

Structuralism
(1950-1970)

Neoliberalism
(1973-present)

Motto

Structural change

Structural
adjustment

Productive
transformation with
social equity

Purpose

Modernization via
industrialization

Modernization via
privatization

Modernization via
internationalization

View of
development

Requires explicit
political will and
state intervention
rationalized
through planning
process

Spontaneous outcome of market

forces and free
operation of prices
as allocative
mechanism

Deliberate process
in which social and
political energies are
focused in support
of export drive and
achieving dynamic
entry into world
economic flows

Key agent of State

development

Market

Technical change
resulting from
dynamic insenion in
world economy

Obstacles

Legacy of historical
power relations
and institutions that
erode efficiency
of price system
International
market that
reproduces centerperiphery
asymmetries

Mistaken domestic
policies that hobble
market allocation:
inward-looking
growth strategies.
overvalued currency, protectionist policies; state
role that suffocates
private initiative

Pattern of external
insertion: uncoordinated productive
apparatus that traps
countries in "low"
road (competing via
cheap labor and
currency devaluations) rather than
through productivity
increases and
innovation

Role of the
state

Staictural reforms
Steer capital
accumulation
Develop key
industrial sectors
Protect economy
from external
fluctuations

Provide minimum
conditions for
market to function:
private property;
enforce contracts;
maintain order.
collect data.
provide limited
safety net

Generate social and

political consensus
Increase competitiveness of exports
(clusters, publicprivate partnerships)
Facilitate adaptability
and upgrading of
labor force
Produce social
cohesion

LEIVA; LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM

Table 1 {continued)

Paradigm

Structuralism
(1950-1970)

Social conflict State absorbs

pressure from conflicting social
groups politically to
regulate economic
variables

Outcome

Economy is
subordinate to
politics

Neoliberalism
(1973-present)

Latin American
Neostructuralism
(1990-present)

Repression to disarticulate collective

social actors
"Trickle down"
effect
Targeted subsidies

Channel/subordinate
social conflict to
"common goal" of
competitive insertion
in world economy
Tap social capital
Link civil society to
export drive

Politics is
subordinate to
economy

Political and cultural

space is shaped by
requirements of
globalization

Source: Adapted from Petras and Leiva 1994.

A Development Strategy Offering Economic Growth,

Equity, and Democracy
In contrast to the trauma and suffering brought by laissez-faire economics and dictatorial rule during the "lost decade" of the 1980s, Latin American neostructuralism hoists the highly seductive notion that intemational
competitiveness, social integration, and political legitimacy can synergistically be attained by swimming along with, not against, the swift currents unleashed by globalization. Through a conceptual and policy
framework wherein econotnic growth, equity, and democracy mutually
reinforce one another, it offers the region a new path through which to
remake the countenance of globalization and Latin American countries'
economic insertion into it (Ocampo 2000; Ocampo and Martin 2002).
Without challenging the power of transnational corporate capital, but by
relying on a lucid policy and political intervention, neostructuralism
makes it possible to fashion a new "globalization with a human face."
Neostructuralists argue that if Latin America and the Caribbean are
to travel down this more desirable path toward globalization, a broader
vision of economic development is required; governments, institutions,
and political systems must prepare themselves to play a qualitatively different leadership role in ensuring international competitiveness. Productive development policies, in addition to social pacts and explicit initiatives to sustain social cohesion, must become part of an integrated
menu of development policies. Through this more holistic approach,
individual export enterprises, as well as entire economies, can be trans-

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formed into radiating hubs propagating globalization's economic, technological, and social benefits. Chile since 1990 has been the launching
site, testing ground, and, arguably, showcase for this new postneoliberal
development approach.
An Integrated Policy Framework That Supports
a "Post-Washington Consensus"
Latin American neostructuralism has also been called a package of economic measures that will help remedy the crises spawned by neoliberalism through policies that "will prove viable politically and socioeconomically but also promote democratic regimes and greater social
justice" (Meiler 1991,1). Neostructuralism's main premise is that through
a different set of economic policies, more attentive to institutional, political, and cultural factors too long excluded by free market reductionism,
countries can attain the high road to globalization.
This requires a shift toward exports with higher value-added and an
international competitiveness based on increased productivity and innovation. If Latin America is to gain the economic, social, and political
benefits offered by globalization, it must abandon its current export profile, based mainly on the export of natural resources with low levels of
processing and produced by low-wage workers. Switching from the current, unfavorable low road to the promising high road to globalization
requires exporting ketchup instead of tomatoes; modular, ready-toassemble furniture rather than sawn wood; frozen and packaged food
instead of fresh fish and produce.
Instead of radical reforms, Latin America's massive problems of
poverty, inequality, and disappointing economic growth rates can therefore be better addressed by ensuring a more dynamic entry into world
markets. On the basis of "reforming the reforms" and improving policy
design, international competitiveness, economic growth, social equity,
political democracy, and legitimacy can be made to mutually reinforce
one another in an ever-expanding virtuous circle.
Latin American neostmcturalism therefore represents an explicit
awareness that if market forces are to operate effectively, they need to
be complemented by non-market-based forms of coordination. Economic policies must be conceived with an eye to the role that institutions, culture, and social capital play in economic coordination. Economic growth, social equity, democratic governance, and governability
consequently require a much expanded policy mindset and palette. The
main characteristic of the neostructuralist policy framework, then, is the
active promotion of new forms of social coordination beyond those
offered by market forces alone. Neostructuralist policies acknowledge
the importance of institutional intervention, civic-state alliances, and

LEIVA; LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM

trust-based networking to overcome market imperfections, asymmetrical

information, and transaction costs, and most important, to win the race
of international competitiveness.
In terms of economic policies, neostructuralists believe that without
active export promotion policies, exports would tend to concentrate on
a few firms and a few products vulnerable to fluctuations in international demand, trapping a country's exports in a tranche of raw materials with low levels of processing. Among policies considered in this
area, neostructuralists call for supporting technical innovation through
partial subsidies and the promotion of strategic alliances between local
and transnational firms, along with programs aimed at training the labor
force and improving its skills through firm-specific training programs
(ECLAC 1994). Such a framework represents a significant departure from
neoliberalism's market-reductionist, laissez-faire approach.
A Narrative About "Progressive Modernity" in
the Twenty-first Century
It is, however, as a grand narrative about how to reach that perennially
elusive goal of modernity that Latin American neostructuralism displays
its greatest discursive potency and enacts its most relevant political practices. Latin American neostructuralists and ECLAC have constructed a
discourse and operational guidelines aimed at promoting modernization
(the means) to achieve modernity (the goal) at a time when other paths,
those offered by socialist revolution in the 1960s and neoliberalism in
the 1980s, have shown themselves to be seriously flawed, particularly in
light of the technological and cultural transformations and challenges
brought about by globalizing capital.
The thrust of neostructuralism's discourse and policy efforts is to
midwife the region's transition to a "progressive modernity," one in
which "macroeconomic equilibrium, and productive modernization,
coincide also with macrosocial and macroenvironmental equilibria"
(Rosales 1995, 99). To achieve it, one needs to understand that
A solidarity-based modernization will be possible only insofar as it
emanates from solid social accords, supported by institutions that
promote informed debate among those social actors who are most
representative and have a greater technical component in their proposals, engaged not only in the diagnosis, but also in the solution,
with a culture of shared compromises and of negotiated solution to
conflicts." (Rosales 1995, 98-99)
ECLAC argues that such a progressive or solidarity-based modernity
requires a new pragmatism that places social cohesion at the essential core
of international competitiveness, and ergo, as the beacon guiding the

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design of social policy (ECLAC 2007). Instead of focusing on redrawing

property rights or redistributing the economic surplus, this framework displaces the center of gravity in policy intervention from economics to the
realm of subjectivity, symbolic politics, and the cultural dimension. The
actions of the state and political institutions must serve to create a new
type of expectations, new citizens, and ways of understanding citizenship
congaient with this new master narrative. Policies are thus increasingly displaced to operate at the symbolic, socioemotional, and subjective levels;
to produce identities, behaviors, and modes of regulation in tune with the
region's transnationalized, export-oriented regime of accumulation.
THE PASSAGE EROM STRUCTURAUSM
To NEOSTRUCTURALISM
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, in the face of the neoliberal onslaught,
ECLAC policymakers were on the defensive, unable to articulate a
coherent counterproposal as neoliberal policies supported by the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the repressive power of
much of Latin America's military imposed far-reaching programs of
structural reform inspired by neoliberalism. As Gert Rosenthal, then
secretary-general of ECLAC, recalls, "the institution was frankly on the
defensive, both in terms of the collective imaginary as well as in the
academic world" (Rosenthal 2000, 74).
Caught between neoliberal orthodoxy and the exhausted import
substitution industrialization pattern of accumulation, the ECLAC leadership confronted the daunting task of providing the answer to a key
question: what development paradigm could be offered to the region?
Eacing increasing pressure, ECLAC found itself intellectually disoriented
and theoretically unarmed to respond to the new challenges and the
new conditions. Rosenthal describes the intellectual climate among the
staff he directed: "Some staff members leaned toward defending the
cepalino message of yore, while others were finding some merits to the
theoretical winds that were starting to blow, especially in the Southern
Cone" (Rosenthal 2000, 74). Buffeted by these crosswinds, ECLAC found
itself without a theoretical rudder for a good part of the 1980s. "Eor
many years, there was no synthesis of the internal debate into a renovated and coherent message, but it led to different proposals that
offered ambiguous and even contradictory signals regarding the institutional stance" (Rosenthal 2000, 75).
It was not until ECLAC stole neoliberalism's thunder, thanks to the
intellectual leadership of Eernando Eajnzylber in the 1990 publication,
that the defensiveness, perplexity, and internal disarray could be overcome. During its subsequent upward trajectory, Latin American
neostructuralism challenged neoliberal market-reductionist thinking;

LEIVA: LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM

reconceptualized the relationship between economy, state, and society;

and introduced a new development discourse that, over the coming
years, would be increasingly embraced by governments and international development institutions.
In its metamorphosis from structuralist to neostructuralist policies,
however, ECLAC jettisoned the "core-periphery" paradigm, which,
despite its shortcomings (emphasis on circulation and not social relations of production), had the merit of conceptualizing that "the process
of development and underdevelopment is a single process: that the
center and periphery are closely interrelated, forming part of one world
economy" (Kay 1989, 26).
Thus, although it is a step forward in relation to dogmatic neoliberalism, Latin American neostructuralism represents a significant theoretical and political retreat in comparison to the best traditions of Latin
American critical thinking (see table 1).
SEVEN CRITICAL PROPOSITIONS ON
LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM
Since its 1990 debut, Latin American neostructuralism has gained intellectual and political influence in the region at an impressive speed.^ Its
discursive innovations, its ability to nourish the political discourse of
center-left electoral coalitions intent on channeling rising popular discontent with neoliberal dogmatism, and the absence of fully formed,
more radical alternatives have shielded Latin American neostructuralism
from a critical evaluation. Such a critique is long overdue. It can provide
greater insight into the nature of the emerging economic development
approach, the current narrative about globalization and Latin America's
path to modernity, and the progressive project for recasting the relationship between the state, society, and subjectivity.
A comprehensive assessment of Latin American neostructuralism is
undoubtedly a vast and multidimensional endeavor. As a contribution to
a necessary debate, this essay presents the following insights in the form
of theses on Latin American neostructuralism.
Proposition 1. Latin American neostructuralism differentiates itself
from neoliberalism through five foundational core ideas that operate as
foundational myths.
Latin American neostructuralism makes five central assertions about
the prospects of Latin American countries. These assertions, and the
assumptions behind them, act as the five "foundational myths" that
enable Latin American neostmcturalism to differentiate itself from neoliberalism and to construct a discourse that has seduced policymakers
and voters. These five "myths" allow neostructuralists to frame the prob-

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lem of Latin American development, in the context of the current globalizing processes, fundamentally as one of deciding and applying more
holistic policies, so that the region may reap the fruits of a more
dynamic and equitable development. The five core assertions are the
following:
The prospect of a relatively easy on-ramp to the high road to
globalization
The promotion of open regionalism, which makes the global economic rules of the World Trade Organization compatible with the
aspirations for regional integration
The possibility of delinking distribution from accumulation, so
that "productive transformation with social equity" can be
achieved within the confines of (and on account oO the current
export-oriented regime of accumulation
The purported dichotomy between "spurious" (cheap laborbased) and "genuine" (productivity- and innovation-based) competitiveness at the firm and country level
The desirability of building a national consensus behind the export
drive and the effectiveness of political interventions and "new
social contracts" in the context of the region's open economies
Each one of these ides-forces starkly highlights major differences
from neoliberalism. Instead of a dismal economic future determined by
an export-oriented economy that competes via superexploited workers
and unprocessed natural resources, neostructuralism raises the prospect
of reversing the deindustrialization of Latin American economies produced by neoliberal policies by achieving a different export profile, one
based more on manufactures, productivity increases, and technical innovation. Instead of betraying Bolivar's dream and deepening neocolonial
subordination to U.S. geopolitics and U.S.-based transnational capital,
economic globalization, as promoted by the WTO, NAETA, and the
ETAA, when seen through the lens of open regionalism, is transformed
into an adjutant to the dream of Latin American integration. Instead of
the neoliberal "trickle-down" theory, in which equity and the well-being
of entire generations have to be sacrificed at the altar of market-centric
policies, neostructuralists promise that sensible economic and social
policies can offset the exclusionary and wealth-concentrating dynamics
of markets and export-oriented growth.
Under neoliberalism, participation in global markets became socially
destructive because international competition was achieved through
"spurious" meanslowering of wages, artificial devaluations. Neostructuralists offer an alternative path, one that can engender virtuous circles.
Instead of authoritarian regimes, which imposed the laws of the market

LEIVA: LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM

11

through state terrorism and the threat of imprisonment, neostructuralists

propose an alternative form of participatory and democratic governance
of the economy and the efforts to make a country more competitive.
Increased public-private sector partnerships, state-civil society alliances,
and taking advantage of existing social capital are all new forms of coordination that increase a society's capacity to innovate and participate in
the race to achieve international competitiveness.
In sum, each of these five assertions is highly attractive not only for
political reasons, but because each is presented as also responding to
sound economic theory and to a more comprehensive understanding of
the economy than what prevailed when neoliberalism predominated.
Deeply embedded in each of these five notions, however, are profound contradictions, which stem precisely from the acts of omission
and marginalization of power relations from economic analysis. Such
acts of exclusion should be understood not as responding to "sound
economic analysis" but as stemming from the trauma-induced commitment to "social harmony" after the "Greek tragedy" of the 1970s.^ One
economist who suffered, in the flesh, the experience of Pinochet's concentration camps explains the neostructuralists' mindset and their hypersensitivity to conflict.
The experience of the Southern Cone countries led a number of
social scientists and political leaders to explain the crumbling of
democratic systems at least partially in terms of the rupture of certain minimum social agreements and the unleashing of a struggle
over the appropriation of state surplus. . . . These experiences have
influenced the neostructuralist paradigm, promoting the search for
a modality of consensuses, concerted action and participation tbat
makes it possible either to reduce conflicts, or at least subordinate
them to the attainment of a common goal. (Bitar 1988, 60)
Like the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome, the traumas of the 1970s
suffuse the theorizing of neostructuralists, impairing their ability to question their founding myths. Although in Chile, such pragmatism allowed
them successfully to negotiate a political transition from military to civilian regimes, it is not proving as effective in navigating the challenges of
twenty-flrst-century capitalist globalization. How will the high road be
achieved when Latin American states have become even more subordinated to domestic conglomerates and transnational capital than in the
1960s, losing all political and administrative capacity to "discipline capital"? To what extent does open regionalism legitimate foreign capital
control of assets and WTO rules that gut the possibilities for activist
industrial, trade, and technology policies essential for achieving the high
road? Do a transnationalized economy and a capitalist class constrain
fiscal social policies from counterbalancing the poverty and inequalities
intensified in global economies? Given the nature of the labor process

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and large firms' competitive strategies, does a dichotomy really exist

between "spurious" and "genuine" competitiveness? Have consensus
and participatory governance become a way of building capitalist hegemony instead of popular sovereignty (Schild 2000; Greaves 2004; Leiva
2005)? Answering each of these questions requires a theoretical perspective that explicitly incorporates power relations into economic,
social, and political analysis, a step that Latin American neostructuralism
so far has refused to take.
Proposition 2. Latin American neostructuralism's mode of theorizing
marginalizes key power relations from the analysis of the economy and
society.
A critical assessment of the emergent approach must focus not only
on those concepts that differentiate it from its neoliberal predecessor
systemic competitiveness, open regionalism, technical progress, proactive labor flexibility, virtuous circlesbut must also account for Latin
American neostructuralism's own "inconsistency syndromes" (Stallings
and Peres 2000).' These inconsistencies are rooted in two linked
processes intrinsic to Latin American neostructuralism's formulation.
First, neostructuralist theorizing commits critical acts of omission, marginalizing key dimensions of social reality from careful analytic consideration.^ In the construction of systemic competitiveness, proactive
laborflexibility,and the high road to globalizationthe foundations for
the virtuous circleneostructuralism excludes critical aspects of Latin
American social reality from theorization.
Specifically, neostructuralism excises fundamental analytical categories dealing with power and those power relations that constitute the
realm of labor-capital relations, the increasingly transnationalized circuits of accumulation of capital, and the capital accumulation-social
reproduction nexus. It excludes categories such as class and labor
process from discussions about productivity and technical change. It
ignores the gendered nature of the economy and social reproduction in
countries that have undergone drastic, many times violent, transformations of social arrangements at the level of the household, workplace,
and community. Latin American neostructuralism fails to delve deeply
into the nature of power relations that characterize the current dynamics of the international political economy, where transnational productive and finance capital exercise ever-increasing control over the
region's resources, economies, and societies, deepening the asymmetries in today's global economy.
Second, neostructuralist theorizing engages in more than just acts of
exclusion; it explicitly characterizes key economic relations as essentially nonantagonistic. More than an "attempt to come to terms with a
new reality" (Kay and Gwynne 2000, 62), neostnicturalism radically

LEIVA: LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM

13

breaks with its structuralist intellectual origins by postulating, a priori, a

mutually beneficial relationship between global flows, the export-oriented regime of accumulation established by neoliberalism, the growth
of Latin American economies, and equity and social development of
Latin American societies.
It is this marginalization of power relations from production, the
sphere of social reproduction, and international economic relations,
along with a Utopian, sanitized vision of corporate-led globalization that
emphasizes management over explanation, which lies at the base of
neostructuralist conceptualization. If the intellectual roots of neoliberalism's "practical set of recommendations" can be traced to the economic
liberalism of previous centuries, the forefathers of neostructuralism and
neostructuralist policies are of a much more recent origin: the 1950s and
the work of Ral Prebisch and ECLAC, which came to be known as
structuralism." Whereas neoliberals resuscitate their ancestors' conceptions, however, neostructuralists forswear the ideas of their progenitors.
Proposition 3. Latin American neostructuralism's capacity for seduction (its discursive and policy formulation strengths) and its inherent
contradictions (its weakness) have the same root: an analysis of Latin
American economy and society sanitized of conflict and asymmetrical
power relations, an approach that abjures core tenets of critical Latin
American thought.
By accepting the status quo (the export-oriented regime of accumulation) and by rejecting core ideas from its structuralist pastthe
main one being that transnational corporations and the internationalization of productive structures helped to reproduce Latin America's underdevelopmentneostructuralism proceeds to hyperbolize the purported
harmonious nature of Latin America's actually existing capitalism.'^ Both
neoliberalism and neostructuralism have sought thoroughly to reshape
the region's economic and social structures, at the same time that they
have actively marginalized key dimensions of economic and social life
from theorizing and policy formulation. Deeply embedded in neostructuralist conceptualization and practice, such a contradiction offers a
crevice through which both its strengths and weaknesses can be deconstructed. Ral Prebisch, the intellectual father of structuralism, in his
mature years pointed out,
the root cause of the incapacity of neoclassical thinking to interpret
peripheral capitalism lies above all in its failure to take into consideration the economic surplus, which is the hub of this system's
basic characteristics. It disregards the structural heterogeneity which
makes possible the existence of a surplus; it bypasses the structure
and dynamics of power which explain how the surplus is appropriated and shared out; it shuts its eyes to the monetary mechanism
of production which allows the surplus to he retained by the upper

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strata; and it underestimates the waste involved in the ways in

which the surplus is currently used." (Prebisch 1981, 153; also cited
by Kay 1989, 214)
By placing international competitiveness as the ultimate goal of both
economics and politics, Latin American neostructuralists not only fail to
take account of economic surplus but also tend to ignore the far-reaching set of power relations that are embedded in its production, distribution, and consumption.
Instead of being the root and propagating mechanism for economic
backwardness, internationalization of productive and commercial structures is now welcomed as the only route to modernization. Foreign capital and multinational corporations, previously considered mechanisms
for deepening technological underdevelopment, become now the indispensable promoters of productive modernization and technological
innovation. ^^
Therefore, neostructuralists do not disagree in principle with the
"outward-oriented" development strategy defended by their erstwhile
opponents, but criticize neoliberals' tendency to "attribute export and
output success to a fairly narrow set of policy instruments being manipulated in a tightly defined way. Their analysis takes account of very little
else" (Colclough 1991, 11). In the words of Sergio Bitar, neoliberals
"emphasize fiscal, monetary, tariff, and tax instruments but neglect structural, institutional and political factor' (Bitar 1988, emphasis added).
Proposition 4. Despite its claim of deploying a more holistic methodological approach than that of neoliberalism, Latin American neostructuralism remains incapable of fully understanding the strategic transformations Latin American capitalism has experienced over the past decade.
Its omission of power and power relations from economic analysisand its tendency to mollify conflictsrender Latin American
neostructuralism incapable of adequately explaining the transnationalization and financialization of the region's economy and the growing
informalization of labor-capital relations. Moreover, in the context of
increasing transnationalization of capital, social classes, and social
reproduction practices, neostructuralism tends to rely on describing the
situation and to emphasize short-term policies, instead of formulating
explanations that attempt to reveal the deep structure of Latin American
economies (Osorio 2002; Robinson 2003, 2004). Consequently, its promises of virtuous circles and productive transformation with social equity,
grounded more in ideological motives than in observed material dynamics in the political economy, dull neostructuralism's intellectual edge.
This impairment is especially evident when it confronts the task of
explaining different phenomena, such as the continuous reorganization

LEIVA: LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM

15

of the social and technical basis of production brought about by the

rising transnationalization of Latin American capitalism, the financialization of the economy, the increasing informalization of labor-capital relations and precariousness of employment that accompany the expansion
of globally integrated systems of production, and the transnationalization of the capitalist class, capitalist productive structures, and arrangements for the social reproduction of the population. Each one of these
understudied trends undermines the possibilities of productive transformation with social equity as originally conceived by ECLAC. Moreover,
they seriously undermine and condition the chances of deploying policies to produce social cohesion and effective, not just back-room, social
accords negotiated among elites.
Each one of these processes is qualitatively changing the economic
and social structure and dynamics of the region, yet they remain outside
the scope of neostructuralist concerns. Although they are partially and
tangentially reflected in ECLAC studies, the neostructuralist approach
has so far failed to place these processes at the center of analysis, much
less to explain how each of these three qualitative transformations
transnationalization, precarization, and financializationis inextricably
linked to one another, and how they all increasingly undermine the possibility of achieving economic development and social equity in the
region. The weight of these ignored dynamics also undermines the consistency of the key claims of neostructuralism and the possibility of
achieving the high road to globalization under the current status quo
and in the current constellation of power.
To reverse such a situation would mean returning to the critical
spirit and not the specifics of the discarded center-periphery paradigm; namely, the notion that Latin American development can be
intelligible only when it is inscribed within the expansion of a single
world capitalist system as a whole. In other words, it is not just in the
ups and downs of the external sector of a particular Latin American
country where fruitful explanations are to be found. Instead, it is in
understanding the development of capitalism as a whole, and in elucidating how this process shapes the production, appropriation, and
distribution of economic surplus in Latin America in a concrete historical moment, where the key insights about Latin American development are to be found.
Proposition 5. Latin American neostructuralism is not an alternative
to neoliberalism; instead, it completes the historical task initiated by neoliberalism, the consolidation and legitimation of a new, export-oriented
regime of accumulation.
Neoliberalism and neostructuralism are not wholly conflicting economic models or economic development strategies; thanks to their dif-

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ferences, they have played complementary roles at different stages in the

process of capitalist restructuring in the region. Armed with the concept
of comparative advantage and zealously defending the free market,
neoliberals helped to topple and destroy those institutional and societal
mechanisms that, under ISI, provided individuals and social groups
important levels of autonomy from the iron laws of the market. Neostructuralists, on the other hand, wield the concept of systemic competitiveness. They emphasize social harmony and political interventions to generate consensus, participatory governance, and nonmarket-based forms
of coordination, and to constitute individualistic risk-assuming subjectivities. They contribute later on to the consolidation of the new order and
the establishment of an appropriate mode of regulation. Instead of protecting individuals, communities, and firms from the market, neostructuralists deploy a vast palette of policies to ensure the adaptability of
those people to the laws of an increasingly asymmetrical, concentrated,
and transnationalized system of capital valorization. Neoliberals and
neostmcturalists can be seen as a tag team rather than as antagonists;
they deploy policies that radically transform the class and gender correlation of forces in society, making it possible to complete the transition
from ISI to an export-oriented (EO) regime of capital accumulation.
By situating Latin American neostructuralism in a concrete historical
context in the process of capitalist restructuring and transition from one
regime of accumulation to another, and by examining the impact
neostructuralism has had on existing social power, it is possible to state
that it is not a genuine alternative to neoliberalism. Neostructuralism
does not "cave in" to neoliberalism, but neither does it bring about a
sharp rupture with the existing economic model or regime of accumulation; nor does it radically redefine its international insertion. Due to its
theoretical and policy innovations, it contributes to consolidating and
legitimating the export-oriented regime of accumulation. As the recent
experiences of Chile and Brazil demonstrate, such a political project can
be supported by a wide array of social actors, even those previously
marginalized from shaping public policies. By opening up the management of the state apparatus to a new set of actors, by deploying policies that draw on the social capital and social energy of the excluded
while leaving unquestioned the main constellation of class power and
the bloc in power, Latin American neostructuralism contributes to consolidating and legitimating the new regime of accumulation.
Thanks to its political imaginary and more holistic approach,
neostructuralism is better equipped to construct and shape the new set
of institutions, behaviors, and expectations that the new regime of accumulation demands. Therefore it can be situated in the realm of politics
more than strictly that of economics, where neostaicturalist conceptualizations currently seem to be having their greatest impact. It is in the

LEIVA: LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM

17

political realm that we find the most politically and ideologically potent
of Latin American neostructuralism's core foundational ideas: namely,
that concerted action, effective leadership, and promotion of participatory governance can best ensure society's adaptability to the requirements of international competitiveness, while at the same time deepening equity and social cohesion.
It is here that neostructuralism fully assumes its role in providing a
grand narrative for Latin America's path toward modernity in the twentyfirst century. This grand vision promotes the active though carefully circumscribed agency of a broad spectrum of social actors, ranging from state
managers, capitalist exporters, and unionized workers to leaders of political parties, nongovernmental organizations, and communities. Neostructuralism sees participation and concerted action as the most effective
means of marshaling the forces of cooperation in a society thrust into the
raging fires of competition, constantly fanned by globalization. Leadership,
provided by a restructured state and supported by the concerted action of
a political system, is essential for orchestrating and guiding the cultural
transformations required; such state intervention constitutes the linchpin
guaranteeing that the virtuous circle of international competitiveness,
social cohesion, and political stability can take root and prosper.
To achieve these goals, public policies formulated by Latin American neostructuralism include the promotion of different modalities of
consensus building, participatory governance, public-private sector partnerships, taking advantage of and nurturing social capital, and constructing new forms of citizenship that rely on state-civil society
alliances. Although these policies are not uniquely ECLAC creations, the
merit of Latin American neostructuralism lies in using these to formulate
a seemingly coherent framework for strengthening the political and ideological role of the state and for establishing aciton-oriented guidelines
through which politically to direct the state's contribution to the longterm stabilization of the export-oriented regime of accumulation.
History has had a way of ironically twisting the pretensions of the
economic development paradigms that have prevailed in the region
over the past three decades. In this sense, neoliberalism gave rise to the
"orthodox paradox"; namely, that "economic policy reforms aimed at
expanding the role of markets appear to strengthen the power of the core
of the state, the executive branch, and to enhance its control over key
economic policy variables which affect the outcome of key economic
activity" (Bates and Krueger 1993, 463, emphasis added). Latin American neostructuralism, in turn, gives rise to what may be called the heterodox paradox; namely, that economic and social policies aimed at
expanding the role of participatory governance and civil society result
in reinforcing the subordination of the public sphere and the noneconomic realm to the logic of transnational capital.^'' The outcome is the

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weakening of popular sovereignty and citizenship and the consolidation

of transnational capitalist hegemony.
Proposition 6. Latin American neostructuralism should not be seen
as fixed or unchanging but instead as being in a constant fluid state,
given that it must constantly strive to negotiate and overcome the gaps
between its rhetoric and socioeconomic reality.
Just like many perishable commodities stamped with a clearly visible "sell by" date, economic discourses also possess a comparable "shelf
life," a span of time after which their ability to perform appears to
decline. Alas, unlike yogurt or sour cream, economic discourses do not
come to us with a previously embossed expiration date. No public service regulatory agency performs such a beneficial task. The shelf life of
economic discourses is the outcome of a complex set of conflicting factors, not the least of which is each discourse's ability to negotiate its
own internal inconsistencies and adapt to changing circumstances. Latin
American neostructuralism has deployed many strategies to extend its
own shelf life since its 1990 debut. It has evolved as it confronts the
recalcitrant realities of Latin American capitalism.
Although its headquarters are in Santiago, ECLAC has offices
throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and employs scores of
economists and social scientists, who regularly produce an impressive
amount of research and data on the economy and societies of the
region. Like any large bureaucracy and international organization, it has
its internal currents and cliques, and its discourse is highly sensitive to
political pressures and realities. All of this further underlines the necessity of understanding Latin American neostructuralism as being in a constant state of change and adaptation. Divergent voices continue to
speak, and new research problematizing Latin American neostructuralism's initial assumptions and different aspects of its foundational myths
is constantly being produced (see, e.g., Bouzas 2005).
Instead of moving in a more status quotransforming direction,
however, Latin American neostructuralism's official discourse is moving
backward. With the publication of ECLAC's Productive Development inOpen Economies in 2004, Latin American neostructuralism attempted to
plug the gaping holes in its analytical apparatus. It finally discarded the
exuberant optimism supporting "productive transformation with social
equity" that had prevailed during much of the 1990s. This shift took the
form of dusting off and updating the old structuralist notion of structural
heterogeneity through a new characterization of Latin America as a
"three-speed" economy.
This three-speed model sought better to capture the diversity of
Latin America's productive structure. Using a classification based on the
size and legal status of enterprises, it identified three sectors: informal

LEIVA: LATIN AMERICAN NHOSTRUCTURALISM

19

enterprises, which, "because of their structure and capacity, are of lower

productivity and operate in an environment that offers them little opportunity for development and learning" (ECLAC 2004, 21); formal small
and medium-sized enterprises, which face difficulties "accessing
resources (particularly financial) and gaining access to certain markets";
. and large national and foreign enterprises, with "productivity that often
rivals businesses operating on the global scale, but with few links to the
rest of the economy, and in some cases, with poor capacity for innovation" (ECLAC 2004, 21). Besides sharing a common space bounded by
the nation-state, nothing structurally or dynamically connects these three
sectorsnot the underlying process of capitalist accumulation or its
unfolding on a world scale. All pretense of situating the existence, structure, and reproduction of these three sectors as rooted in the overarching logic of capitalist accumulation on a world scale has been discarded.
After 2004, neostructuralists further acknowledged that equity
would not easily flow from productivity-led export growth and globalizing processes, as originally thought. A more focused set of differentiated policies was necessary as neostructuralism shifted emphasis toward
"society-creating" and social cohesion-enhancing policy interventions.
In "Elusive Equity in Latin American Development: A Structural
Vision, A Multidimensional Approach," a document originally presented to the Eourth Meeting of Eormer Presidents of Latin America in
June 2005, Jos Luis Machinea, the current executive secretary of
ECLAC, and Martin Hopenhayn, from ECLAC's Social Division, identify
the "strategic lines of action for a pro-equity agenda" conceived
according to ECLAC's new three-speed model. This document is of
interest because the authors identify those specific key policies "whose
effects can be more encompassing over society, such as policies
toward the productive sector, employment, education, and conditional
transfers" (Machinea and Hopenhayn 2005, 35). The root explanation
for persistent inequality is the refurbished notion of structural heterogeneity, which tended to intensify during the 1990s, not because of
transnationalization per se, but as a result of "segmented transnationalization," defined as the "segmented incorporation of the productive
sector into the information and knowledge economy" (Machinea and
Hopenhayn 2005, 8). In other words, unequal and differentiated development is the product not of capitalist globalization but of not enough
capitalist globalization.
ECLAC's 2007 publication Social Cohesion: Inclusion and a Sense of
Belonging in Latin America and tbe Caribbean, prepared for the November 2007 Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government,
illustrates the current directions of Latin American neostaicturalist thinking (Ottone and Sojo 2007). This document seeks to relink economics,
politics, and culture by showing that "in terms of economic rationality.

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societies with higher levels of social cohesion provide a better institutional

framework for economic growth that constitutes an attractive factor for
investment by offering an environment of confidence and clear rules"
(ECLAC 2007). From an analytical point of view, such policy design
reveals that Prebisch's key questionhow the economic surplus is being
captured, distributed, and used by enterprises owned by the domestic
conglomerates, transnational corporations, and banks making up the
"high speed" sectorhas not even been imagined, much less raised as a
possible component of ECLAC's "forward-looking" new policies.
Proposition 7. The only effective antidote to the cycle of illusion,
disenchantment, and crisis accompanying Latin American neostructuralism is a revitalization of a theoretically self-conscious and critical political economy.
As the neostructuralist paradigm gains predominance and the
center-left gains electoral support, strong incentives come into play to
foster and prolong a climate of intellectual complacency and pragmatism. In the aftermath of the massive poverty and persistent inequality
left by neoliberal policies, the promises of Latin American neostructuralism, its broader perspective and intellectual sophistication, make it
sound soothingly seductive; it is able to tap into broadly based unrealized expectations and desires for inclusion and change. On an individual level, intellectuals and economists who have been marginalized for
decades have seen in Latin American neostructuralism the possibility of
leaving behind their condition as outcasts and actually administering
key levers of power The silver coin demanded is acceptance of the
"existing realities" of the global economy and a commitment to envision
only policies that do not undermine the present structures constituting
the current status quo.
The subordination of intellectual activity and economic analysis to
the parameters permitted by "social consensus," or subordination to a
"common goal," is a recipe for analytical mediocrity and obscurantism.
Such a climate can be altered only by engaging in creative and rigorous
analysis of the region's political economy and increased theoretical selfawareness about how we construct our meanings; in other words, a
revitalization of critical political economy that does not avoid the analysis of power relations or conflict but that locates these at the center of
analysis is the pressing intellectual challenge of the moment.
CONCLUSIONS
The meteoric rise of Latin American neostructuralism, its expanding
influence in shaping public discourse, its capacity to advance debates
on economic policy and development strategy merit acknowledgment

LEIVA: LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM

21

and careful study. The delay in critically engaging the new paradigm is
partly based on the misplaced belief that Latin American neostructuralism indeed offers an alternative to neoliberalism, or at least retains the
power to realize the hope that the dramatic social and economic costs
of neoliberal policies can be assuaged within the parameters of the current status quo. It is also rooted in the persistent, weak theoretical selfawareness on the part of economics in general, and development economics in particular.
Given the dearth of critical assessments, this essay has oudined one
possible approach for exploring the nature of Latin American neostructuralism, its conceptual and policy innovations, and the role it is currently playing in the development of Latin American capitalism. Subjecting Latin American neostructuralism to a critical and comprehensive
assessment remains a pressing task in the study of the history of economic ideas and of development models in Latin America and elsewhere. Such an approach,seems possible only once social scientists,
policymakers, and particularly economists become more self-aware as
to how they construct their claims to knowledge and truth.
This self-awareness, however, does not seem enough. It is also necessary that in the process they strive to become conscious of the role of
economic ideas and theories in the reproduction or transformation of
the existing constellation of power. Until such an awareness becomes
predominant in economics and especially development economics,
neoliberalism, and the allegedly more benevolent Latin American
neostructuralism, will remain instruments at the service of dominant
social power, despite their repeated claims to objectivity, scientific rigor,
and more recently, a promised capacity to deliver modernity without
immiseration or social dislocation.
NOTES
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimers apply. All translations are mine.
1. Neoliberalism has become an omnipresent term, employed with vastly
different meanings in the literature to denote alternatively a set of economic
ideas, a policy regime, an economic model, and the all-encompassing mode of
experiencing economic, political, and cultural existence under the current era of
globalization. This study uses neoliberalism in a tightly restricted sense of indicating a particular set of economic ideas and policies. It employs the term
transnationalized export-oriented regime of accumulation when referring to the
"new economic model" that replaced import substitution industrialization (ISI)
in most countries of the region. Ergo, declining influence of neoliberal economic
ideas or election of center-leftists does not necessarily mean that the export-oriented regime of accumulation (erroneously called the neoliberal model) that
neoliberals helped implant is being questioned. Clarity on this difference is key

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for understanding the historical political-economic and ideological role of Latin

American neostructuralism.
2. The literature on Latin American neostructuralism is woefully outdated.
Most authors (e.g., Meiler 1992; Colclough 1991; Sunkel 1993; Green 2003) have
focused on comparing the policy bundles endorsed by each of these two
schools of thought. For the most part, these authors are wholly partial to and
uncritical of the neostructuralist approach, and acknowledge it as an "alternative" to neoliberalism. More recent works, such as Gwynne and Kay 2004 and
Kirby 2003, offer useful descriptive treatments of Latin American neostructuralism but avoid critically probing its origins, conceptual underpinnings, or societal outcomes.
3. This essay draws on a broader research project. See Leiva 2008.
4. See Leiva 2008 for detail on how the study combines political economy with elements from literary theory, and specifically the work of Terry
Eagleton (1986, 1991, 1996). The method deployed consists of a series of connected analytical steps, which can be described as identifying its core concepts, historicizing Latin American neostructuralist economic discourse,
revealing acts of omission, studying how economic discourse interacts with
existing power relations, and tracing efforts to prolong the "shelf life" of
neostructuralist concepts.
3. Calling Latin American neostructuralism a paradigm is justified if we
follow Thomas Kuhn's definition. Ben Fine's work (2000) highlights the notion
that a paradigm has three components: an exemplar, a world vision, and a body
of professionals. Even though it is not an academic creation but has emerged as
a collection of policy orientations and proposals to deal with concrete problems,
in my opinion, Latin American neostructuralism meets all of these criteria.
6. Though neostructuralism pioneered the formulation of an alternative
development discourse, it later incorporated many of the Third Way's recommendations on how the role of the state and public policies needed to be reconceptualized and reconfigured.
7. For expository purposes, this essay treats Latin American neostructuralism as a monolithic entity. The analysis presented here is based on those writings that have received ECLAC's institutional nihil obstat or that have been published by key staff members. These publications appear in the list of institutional
publications on the ECLAC website. This assumed uniformity, however, is far
from the truth. Latin American neostructuralism has experienced significant
modifications since its launching in 1990, as evidenced in various ECLAC publications (1992, 1994, 2004) and the impressive amount of research and policy
papers produced. At the same time, a number of ECLAC authors have attempted
to address some of the omitted issues, but have done so mostly indirectly, without challenging neostructuralism's core tenets.
8. Rosales argues that their structuralist past was to blame for the "Greek
tragedy of social change" (Rosales 1991, 5).
9. Stallings and Peres identify three inconsistency syndromes (policies that
operate at cross-purposes) that were embedded in Latin America's neoliberal
reform process. These syndromes revolved around capital account liberalization
and the short- and long-term effects of reversible capital inflows; financial liberalization and monetary policy that resulted in higher interest rates; and reduc-

LEIVA: LATIN AMERICAN NEOSTRUCTURALISM

23

ing fiscal deficits at the same time that tax reform lowered fiscal revenues by
lowering tax rates on corporations and individuals.
10. Every discourse inevitably commits certain acts of omission and exclusion in the process of its formulation; what becomes relevant is identifying these
and determining their impact on the discourse's internal coherence and, more
important (following Eagleton), the impact that such omissions have on the
maintenance or challenge of social power and the status quo.
11. For an excellent discussion of structuralism, see Kay 1989, chap. 2.
12. The rupture with the structuralist past is evident in four dimensions.
Internationalization of productive staictures is now welcomed and no longer
seen as helping to reproduce international asymmetries. Foreign capital and
multinational corporations are envisioned as a key positive force in economic
development. Private capitalists and the market, not the state, are celebrated as
the key actors in development; and distribution is now conceived of as
autonomous from accumulation. For a discussion of the transition from structuralism to neostructuralism see Petras and Leiva 1994, chap. 4.
13. Other key tenets of structuralism renounced by neostructuralism are
that the logic of distribution is now theorized as independent from the logic of
capitalist accumulation, and that private capitalists and the market, not the state,
are today the key and most efficient actors in economic development. See Leiva
2008, esp. chap. 2.
14. For an analysis of the Chilean case, see Leiva 2005.
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