What conditions contribute to the success or failure of reformist policies in Latin America is a question which structures Catherine Conaghan’s analysis of politics during the 1970s and early 1980s in Ecuador. Beginning with a comparative examination of Peronism (1946-55), the initial Popular Front governments in Chile (1938-46), and the populist phase of Batllismo in Uruguay (1946-50), the author argues that successful reformist policies have depended on the “reactive participation” of the industrialist class. This grudging support for reform on the part of industrialists derived from the conjuncture of their interests in broadening the market for domestically produced consumer goods, and their concerns for containing the growth of populist demands.
In the light of these earlier reformist initiatives, Ecuador in the 1970s appeared to be ideally situated to implement the reform program advocated by the military government of General Rodríguez Lara. Import-substituting industrialization had accelerated: populist leaders, notably five-time president José María Velasco Ibarra, appeared to have mobilized a lower-class constituency; and large petroleum revenues had increased the relative autonomy of the state. Nevertheless, the reformist efforts failed to achieve even the relative successes the author attributes to earlier governments elsewhere in the region.
Drawing on interviews with industrialists conducted during 1979-80, as well as a rich set of secondary sources, Conaghan argues that, in contrast to earlier reformist initiatives, 1) the structural position of Ecuador’s industrialists limited their interest in the domestic market; 2) petroleum revenues united rather than divided Ecuador’s economic elites; 3) Ecuadorian populism had not bequeathed an organized constituency for reform; and 4) the military was neither united in its support for reform nor willing to organize a popular constituency for its reform proposals. This fine book (a revised and updated version of the author’s 1983 dissertation) is important reading for anyone seriously interested in Ecuadorian politics, or in the broader questions of reformist politics in Latin America.
