Is the Periphery a fate for Latin America? Brazil and Mexico since 1980

• In Event: Modes of development, socio-economic and political sustainability in Latin America II

Abstract

The paper aims to discuss the declining economic trajectory of some countries in Latin America since 1980 and to formulate some hypothesis about it. The paper will focus mainly on Mexico and Brazil which, despite having adopted different and even opposite economic policies, have lost economic dynamism and became increasingly distant of the developed countries in terms of per capita wealth. This trajectory seems compatible with the usual hypothesis of wealth polarization formulated by the authors committed to the world system approach. However, I will argue that external factors are not sufficient to explain the declining trajectory of Mexico and Brazil. Domestic factors, mainly political ones, have been important to reinforce the external factors role. If it is true, domestic factors may be capable of moving the countries in different trajectories, helping some of them to escape from the periphery.

Author

• Brasilio Sallum Jr