Promoting Governance in Developing Countries: The Need for a New Compromise

Abstract

For the past 25 years, the neoliberal ideology underpinning the IFIs-sponsored governance reform initiatives throughout Latin America has been both influential and pervasive. The monetarist and neoliberal economic policies which drove the changes in Latin America — from autarchic statism to indiscriminate open economies — during this period carried the expectation that these changes would make the relevant economies more efficient and more effective. However, by the mid-1990s disillusionment with the charms of open markets and of neoliberalism began to creep in. Economic growth in Latin America remained erratic, widespread employment problems were undiminished, new rounds of unpopular adjustment often led to undemocratic practices and social distribution worsened.