Modelli di politica economica e processi decisionali in America Latina

PATTERNS OF ECONOMIC POLICY AND DECISIONAL PROCESSES IN LATIN AMERICA. Political economies in Latin America (before and after 1989) have been classified into the models of the four democratic political cultures: conservatism, liberalism, social-democracy, populism Then, the empirical analysis has focused on 6 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela. Finally, these models have been linked to four decision-making processes of Latin America. Conservative and liberal reforms (with a moderate or radical laissez faire) have usually been applied through neo-oligarchic decision-making processes (by the so-called “technopols”). Social-democrat economic policies (with more emphasis on social policies) have often been implemented with neo-corporatism. When “soft” populism prevailed, partitocrazia was the typical political instrument of leftist governments, either if they governed or if they were at the opposition. Thus, they usually vetoed rightist presidents, who had been trying to introduce market reforms. The political consequence of “hard” populism has been authoritarianism, like in Venezuela with Chavez and Maduro. Party government has been absent. In “hybrid” economic policies, incoherently combining different models of political economies, there is not a stable decision-making process, and political conflict is usually very strong.