Latin American

Perspectives
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Introduction : Globalization and Social Change in Latin America

Gary Hytrek
Latin American Perspectives 2002 29: 3
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X0202900501
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Introduction
Globalization and Social
Change in Latin America
by
Gary Hytrek
The reemergence of formal democracy in Latin America during the 1980s
and 1990s was but one step in the most recent attempts at constructing
democracy. Beyond the creation of formal democratic institutions lies the
more difficult task of democratic consolidation, which involves the extension
of substantive social, political, and civil rights to the entire population. This
outcome does not easily follow from the institutionalization of electoral competition. A critical dimension of democracy-the presence of autonomous
and empowered citizens-is often undermined by clientelist social relations.
Indeed, clientelism has historically coexisted with a variety of social and
political forms, from a formal system in feudalism to more subtle forms in
contemporary democracies.
In the Third World, clientelism began most forcefully with incorporation
into the expanding international economy. As capitalism expanded and new
regions were incorporated as primary-product producers, the process inhibited industrialization and the growth of an organized working class. As a
result, subordinate-class enfranchisement and political participation were
often initiated and constrained by segments of the dominant classes competing for control of the state. In Latin America, the principal forms of political
participation have continued to follow this logic. Embedded in contemporary
Latin American societies are &dquo;rituals of marginality&dquo; whereby the relations
between the dominant capitalist class and the popular classes are expressed in
the favor-producing exchanges of patron-client relations. These relations,
through which goods and services are exchanged between classes of unequal
power, serve to maintain unequal power relations.
Organizing and mobilizing the subordinate classes in order to undermine
clientelism and prioritize the needs and interests of the majority have proved

Gary Hytrek teaches sociology at Georgia Southern University. His most recent work, with GilWook Shin, "Social Conflict and Regime Formation: A Comparative Study of South Korea and
Costa Rica," is forthcoming in International Sociology. He is currently examining the intersection of class and gender in institutional formation in Costa Rica during the 1890-1950 period.
The collective thanks him and Miguel Sobrado Chaves for their work in organizing this issue.

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politically difficult and even dangerous. Latin American history is replete

with examples of the dominant classes using the military and paramilitary
groups to halt these efforts. Equally important, clientelist relations have often
served as a technique for the dominant classes, allied with foreign capital, to
co-opt, divide, and ultimately control the popular classes. Elite-led multiclass
populist movements of marginal or previously excluded groups are variants
of clientelism. In these cases, communities and social groups exchange support, often as votes, for community and personal benefits. Thus the relationship is based on the monopoly and selective distribution of public goods and
the protection and expansion of political turf.
As global restructuring alters the internal structures and social relations of
Latin American societies, new opportunities are emerging to forge new political alliances. But this raises a fundamental question: is there a strategy capable of undermining clientelism and engendering autonomy and empowerment from below? One possibility, according to Miguel Sobrado, is the
organizational workshop developed by the Brazilian Clodomir Santos de
Morais. Unlike microenterprise or World Bank-designed participatory strategies, the Morais strategy ignores neither the socio-historical context nor the
least powerful segments of the population. Based on communal cooperative
enterprises and investment on the part of local communities, the program
empowers participants through a cooperative process of analyzing problems
and designing and implementing solutions. By contrast, traditional programs
tend to individualize and atomize participants, ultimately placing them in
competition with each other for jobs that either do not exist or are low-wage
and unstable. As Sobrado argues, participation in an organizational workshop not only imparts the vision and capabilities necessary to exploit local
and global markets but empowers the subordinate classes to break with existing clientelist social relations and create the foundation for substantive,
inclusive democracy.
As Sobrado shows, Moraiss strategy has been successful because it
empowers the least powerful segments of the population to create by themselves and for themselves jobs and a future. By contrast, as Cristina Escobar
details in her analysis of Sucre, Colombia, projects based on market mechanisms often reinforce clientelism. Such reforms too often fail to address the
underlying structural conditions and as a result fall squarely into the logic of
clientelism. In this case, even though the peasants in Sucre were successful in
inducing democratic and land reforms, clientelist relations have not been broken. Part of the problem, Escobar argues, is the absence of full social, political, and civil rights (a la T. H. Marshall). In Sucre, reforms may have
expanded political and even civil rights, but the failure to ensure social rights
has undermined the initial reforms and reinforced clientelism.
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Implicit in Escobars analysis is the importance of the historical and cultural context within which struggles for democracy are positioned. Serena
Cosgrove takes up this point in her study of two cases of NGO-sponsored
microenterprise projects in El Salvador. In the literature on NGOs, a sharp
dividing line exists between those who see NGOs as sellouts and those who
view them as a panacea for all developmental problems. Cosgroves study,
however, shows that there is often considerable middle ground between the
two positions-that NGOs can contribute to various levels of empowerment
but this depends on the specific social context. In so doing, Cosgrove enriches
our understanding of the dynamic between NGOs and local actors.
The importance of the historical context is further illustrated by Amanda
Sivess analysis of the emergence of the drug don in Kingston, Jamaica. Sives
shows that decentralization and state restructuring alone are not sufficient for
the creation of democracy. In Jamaica, a conjuncture of events-declining
state resources, state restructuring, and the growth of the international
cocaine trade-conditioned a shift only in the nature of clientelism. As
neoliberal reforms decentralized the state, the drug don moved in to fill the
vacuum created by the retreat of the political don. Similar to the case of
Sucre, the Kingston case suggests that where social citizenship rights are
ignored, the development of democracy is threatened. Both studies clearly
show that neither competitive elections nor neoliberal reforms are sufficient
to create a fully inclusive democratic society.
The question of decentralization and its effects on political relations is
taken up in Maria Pilar Garcia-Guadillas study of state restructuring in Caracas. She examines how political reforms altered the relationships between the
state and civil society, in particular the relations between the political class
and the middle and working classes. As she shows, the middle and working
classes have adapted differently to the political reforms, but rather than deepening or leading to a more inclusive democracy the reforms have evolved
within the logic of clientelism. Whether one focuses on the middle or on the
working class, the political relationships remain clientelist. Her analysis
shows that when reforms ignore the structural conditions giving rise to previous political practices, resolving future problems of democratic participation
will be impossible.
Taken together, the analyses of Caracas, Sucre, and Kingston challenge
arguments that neoliberal reforms and decentralization will automatically
and necessarily create autonomous and empowered citizens. My review
essay on globalization, social change, and democracy makes a similar point;
local-level politics are conditioned by the historical context and the complex
interaction between subordinate groups, local leadership, the dominant ideology, and the political and economic structure at the community, national,
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and international levels. One thread in these books is an emphasis on the

emergence of formal democracy as a historic but relatively small victory in
the struggle for a more substantive democracy.
Overall, these case studies, combined with the theoretical/strategic paper
by Sobrado and my review essay, will be of special interest to activists, policy
analysts, scholars, and students concerned with the local effects of globalization. They not only contextualize debates over structural reforms but caution
us against easy solutions to complex problems of material, political, and
social inequality. In the end, these articles show the necessity for locally
designed and managed programs to induce self-sufficiency, improve living
conditions, and engender democracy.

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