Participation, Violence, and Development in Four Andean Countries

Reforming Chile: Cultural Politics, Nationalism, and the Rise of the Middle Class. By Patrick Barr-Melej (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Pp. 288. $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.)

Modernization in Colombia: the Laureano Gomez Years, 1989-1965. By James D. Henderson (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2001. Pp. 508. $55.00 cloth.)

The Unidad Popular and the Pinochet Dictatorship: A Political Economy Analysis. By Patricio Meller. (New York: Palgrave, 2000. Pp. 222. $69.95 cloth.)

Searching for a Better Society: the Peruvian Economy from 1950. By John Sheahan. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. Pp. 211. $60.50 cloth, $20.95 paper.)

Towards Democratic Viability: the Bolivian Experience. Edited by John Crabtree and Laurence Whitehead (New York: Palgrave, 2000. Pp. 240. $68.00 cloth.)

Teetering on the Rim: Global Restructuring, Daily Life, and the Armed Retreat of the Bolivian State. By Lesley Gill. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Pp. 222. $49.50 cloth, $18.00 paper.)

Economic Reforms In Chile: from Dictatorship to Democracy. By Ricardo Ffrench-Davis. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002. Pp. 263. $60.00 cloth.)

Capitalismo Y Solidaridad: UNA Experiencia Empresarial Cooperativa. By Enrique Ogliastri and Patricia Camacho (Bogotá, Colombia: Editores Tercer Mundo S.A., 2000. Pp. 238. N.p.)

The present is not the happiest time for stocktaking in Latin America, at least from an economic perspective. Of the four Andean countries represented in this review (Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Peru), only Chile has performed well over the last decade. The group is, in that respect, fairly representative of the region since, although better than the 1980s, the 1990s were a far cry from the region's (most recent) golden era from the end of the Second World War to 1980. From a political perspective the balance looks better, with all four countries in the "democratic" column, as is virtually the whole of the region. In terms of social tranquility, Chile is again the only one to which one could attach the term "success" at this point, and it emerged from a nasty dictatorship only in 1989. But, if the long sweep of the twentieth century is a guide, the future may be kinder than the recent past. The books reviewed here, covering varying periods throughout the century, address many of the great issues of twentieth-century development in Latin America as seen by social scientists and historians.

Latin America achieved significant economic development over the twentieth century and the latter part of the nineteenth. Angus Maddison's (2001) summary figures reveal that the region has outgrown the world as a whole over the period since 1870, with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) having increased by a factor of 8.3 (to 1998), as compared with 6.6 times for the world and 10.8 for a group composed of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Latin America's regional growth spurt began around 1870 and ended around 1980. Life expectancy has about doubled since 1900, from 35 to 69 years. By this measure of welfare, Latin America has been slightly above the world average for the last hundred years.

The process of rising per capita income has several highly predictable correlates: most notable is the shifting of employment from primary activities (agriculture) to secondary (manufacturing) and finally to tertiary (services). This shift moves people from rural areas involved in agriculture to urban areas where they pursue other activities. It also entails new social groupings, in particular the urban proletariat and the urban middle class. How smoothly this set of interrelated transitions takes place has major implications. Whether such change is mainly "for the better" or whether much is lost even as the economy "progresses" depends in part on what happens in the other spheres of life: on how the political process resolves conflicts and charts the future course of the country; how...