Dependency and Crisis in Brazil and Argentina: A Critique of Market and State Utopias

In the two largest countries in South America, successive waves of structural reforms adopted in the name of development invariably have ended in disappointment. The promise of development never seems to materialize. Dependency and Crisis in Brazil and Argentina examines why. Instead of looking for policy failures, F. Antunes de Oliveira’s focus is on the parameters of the public debate about ＂development＂ itself. An unfruitful dispute between neoliberalism and neodevelopmentalism has dominated Brazilian and Argentine political economy debates to the detriment of both countries. Antunes de Oliveira presents a comprehensive theoretical and empirical critique of the neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist structural reform cycles in Brazil and Argentina and applies insights from dependency theory to craft an alternative political economy framework for the analysis of development challenges.

F. Antunes de Oliveira is a senior lecturer in international relations at Queen Mary University of London and coordinating editor at Latin American Perspectives. Before joining Queen Mary, he worked as a diplomat at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.