Indigenous Self-Reliance.
Chiapas, Mexico.
read moreEnduring Reform examines the connections between the new face of progressive, civil-society-based reform in Latin America and new kinds of openness to reform on the part of the private sector. The project's original and exciting contribution grows out of the interviews our authors have done with businesspeople in five Latin American cities where innovative reformist projects have been working on-the-ground for substantial periods of time. The five case studies analyze these striking examples of reform and show how, in a democratic context, businesspeople must grapple with and at times endure changes they do not welcome.
Enduring Reform
Chiapas, Mexico.
read moreZacatecas, Mexico.
read morePorto Alegre, Brazil.
read moreRio de Janeiro, Brazil.
read moreBuenos Aires, Argentina.
read moreEnduring Reform
Co-Director
Researcher on Participatory Budgeting case study, Porto Alegre and Afro Reggae case study, Rio de Janeiro.
Co-Director
Participatory Budgeting case study, Porto Alegre.
Worker-owned Factories case study, Buenos Aires.
Economic Growth and Democratization in Latin America
Indigenous Self-Reliance case study, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas.
Three-for-One Migrant Remittances case study, Zacatecas, Mexico.
Indigenous Self-Reliance case study, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas.
Three-for-One Migrant Remittances case study, Zacatecas, Mexico.
Social Movements in Latin America.
Enduring Reform
--Successful, progressive, civil-society-based reforms have improved people's lives in tangible ways across Latin America.
--The democratic context of Latin America today presses businesspeople to endure, accept, and at times promote progressive change in unprecedented ways, even as they also seek to channel or outmaneuver it.
--Businesspeople's responses to reform are shaped not only by economic interest, but also by the ways reforms become visible to them, how they conceptualize innovation, how they characterize poor and marginalized people, and how they understand society and politics.
--Our cases illustrate five distinct configurations of reform and business response that can serve as models in understanding the interaction between business and reform in democracies.
(...)
In this context, elites speak of the need for urban planning, where there was none before, using it to keep decision-making in their hands; and they propose new though limited political and economic rights for Indians, believing that such rights are theirs to give. In turn, the city's increasingly educated Mayans, many of whom have lived and worked in the US, envision expanding their own marketing, transportation, and policing networks, competing in conventional economic and political arenas, and eventually governing the city. Thus in San Cristóbal, Ladino and Mayan visions constitute competing alternatives for the future of the city that play out in urban spaces the two groups occupy in overlapping ways. Ladinos and Mayans negotiate this new terrain in the Chiapan context of uncertainty over both democratic procedures and public violence.
Business Language That Limits Reform
With Afro Reggae, we see widespread acceptance of a reform initiative by high level business actors, coupled with significant modification of Afro Reggae's language and goals in accord with a business model of organization and marketing. The use of a "business language" made reform acceptable to business, but contributed to limiting the scope and outcomes of the reform itself.
Even as businesspeople praise the effectiveness of Afro Reggae's groundbreaking initiatives, the same businesspeople insist that only government can make big changes and that the Brazilian government is incapable of carryout out effective social policy. Businesspeople's narrow conceptualization of the problem of favela poverty and inability to envision broad solutions - together with Afro Reggae's own emphasis on business practices - create barriers to deeper social change.
Transnational Interactions that Facilitate Reform
In Zacatecas, the success of the three-for-one Migrant Remittance Program has transformed the old worldview that cast migrants as invisible and corruption as inevitable. In this case, the use of a business language in describing and enacting reform promoted rather than circumscribed the expansion of the reform initiative, with businesspeople finding the language of three-for-one compatible with their own (changing) worldview. This synergy resulted from the transnational position of Mexican migrants, who became visible in new ways because of their dual identities and their growing economic clout. Migrants' insistence on new rules regarding transparency and accountability was heeded because they controlled the initial remittances that were the foundation of the program. These factors together - the use of a business language, the transformed identity of migrants, and the economic clout that resulted from the pooling of resources - led to broader and more audacious programs than those initially envisioned by three-for-one activists and policymakers.
Enduring Reform
Photo: Jan Rus
Photo: Jacob Rus
Photo: Alex Rivera
Photo: Alex Rivera
Photo: Jeffrey W. Rubin
Photo: Jeffrey W. Rubin
Photo: CIDADE
Photo: CIDADE
Photo: CIDADE
Photo: Jeffrey W. Rubin
Photo: Graciela Monteagudo
Photo: Graciela Monteagudo
Enduring Reform
Indigenous Self-Reliance. San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.
Three for One Migrant Remittances. Zacatecas, Mexico.
Participatory Budgeting. Porto Alegre, Brazil.
The Afro Reggae Cultural Group. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Worker-Owned Factories. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Co-Director
Co-Director