“The Roots of Developmentalism and Integration in Latin America”

Radical Americas, United Kingdom, 1 - 04 January 2013, pp.29, (Summary Text)

During the last decade of Latin America it is seen that alternatives to neoliberal

policies is simply defined under two main titles as neo-developmentalism and 21st century

socialism. Furthermore, within these framework, the historical roots of regionalism,

integration and cooperation has been widely discussed and defined.

As it is known, in Latin America the developmentalist approaches and integration policies

have strong historical roots that goes back to 19th century. The aim of creation “Our

America” (Nuestra América,1891) against to Monroe Doctrine(1823) in some ways reflects

the ideas based on colonialism and independency. Again in the 20th century, it seems that

the divergence and convergence of independency and developmentalism ideas lead to the

emergence of two important schools (structuralism and dependency) from Latin America that

also have worldwide influences.

Based on these this paper aim to define the roots of neostructuralism, development within,

endogenous develeopment and integration concepts in today’s Latin America and aim to

analysis the links of related titles with the past and differentiate the changing conditions both

on internal and external level.

Love (1996,2005) and Kay’s(1989) contributions on economic ideas and institutions of 20th

century would be considered in order to define the main pillars of structuralism and

dependency. Addition to these, structuralism and dependency would be analyzed in

comparison of today’s dominant ideas and institutions in Latin America. Rather than

discussing the relevancy of these ideas, the continuity and discontinuity of these ideas in

today’s environment would tried to be investigated.