Comparative capitalisms and Latin American neodevelopmentalism: A critical political economy view

This article engages critically with an emerging Brazilian research programme, ‘varieties of capitalism and development in Latin America’, a perspective which seeks to ascertain the institutional chances of, and limits to, the implementation of state-led ‘national development strategies’. Adopting a critical political economy viewpoint, the text discusses the deficiencies inherent in this perspective and its neoinstitutionalist and neodevelopmentalist fundamentals. In particular, it questions the vision of the world economy as an arena of free competition and that of the nation-state as a ‘collective actor’, both of which are politically and analytically problematic. These criticisms are substantiated through evidence drawn from a case analysis of the recent trajectory of the Argentinian neodevelopmentalist project.