Economic Regulation as Materialization of Development Ideology in Latin America

Abstract

This article is part of an extensive research project that aims to verify the particularities of social and economic development in Latin America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. We work with the hypothesis that, although the countries of the Latin American continent present different degrees of development, their economies still remain linked to a type of external regulation that induces them to believe in the possibilities of development, without, however, reversing the levels of dependence on the countries of central capitalism. It is, therefore, an ideology of development that enables topical, occasional, and specific advances, but does not overcome the economic and political subordination of the Latin America. In this article, we present the two main assumptions of the research: firstly, we explain what we mean by development ideology and, secondly, we summarize some aspects that demonstrate how development ideology is expressed in Latin America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries through diversified economic regulation processes.