Paths of Development in the Southern Cone

This book analyzes the recent development paths pursued by progressive governments in Argentina and Brazil, namely deindustrialization and reprimarization, and the social and environmental consequences thereof. Two major issues which extend beyond Latin America are: the expansion of genetically modified crops and agrotoxics and the concern for global food security and sovereignty; second, how reprimarization, associated with mining, oil, soy and cattle, has been key in leading to the risk of desertification in the Argentine pampas and also causing deforestation in the Amazon Rain forest, described as the lungs of the planet, and thus has major implications for climate change for the planet as a whole.

A key part of understanding the trajectories in both Argentina and Brazil has been the role played by international institutions, especially the IMF and WTO, and also the ever-growing hegemony of transnational corporations in the global economy and significantly limiting the possibilities of genuine development for local populations. This book also engages with a number of theoretical issues: development and dependency in the periphery: neoliberal globalization, accumulation by dispossession, ecological and environmental debates and the role of extractivism and rent.

This book is aimed for both academics, activists and those politically motivated to analyze, understand and push for social change from a critical perspective, and also those interested in a radical analysis of paths of development, dependency and socioenvironmental issues in Latin America today.

Paul Cooney is a political economist, who received his Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research in 1990. He has recently taught at the UFPA in the Brazilian Amazon, at the UNGS in Argentina, and is currently a professor at the Catholic University of Quito, Ecuador. In addition to this book, his current research topics are neoliberal globalization in Latin America, and their socio-environmental impacts, and ecological economics. He is currently a member of the URPE Steering Committee and serves on the editorial boards of the following journals: Research in Political Economy, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, and Revista Ensayos de Economía.