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Martín Monsalve Zanatti (ed.), Grupos económicos y mediana empresa familiar en América Latina (Lima, PE : Universidad del Pacífico , 2014), pp. 204, pb.
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The volume under review studies business groups and mid-sized family businesses in Latin America, including papers on Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. It does not deal with family-owned business groups, although a couple of chapters do dwell on the structure of such groups, considering their organisation along family lines. In his introductory essay, the editor emphasises that one of the unifying themes of the volume is the 'importance of family networks in the implementation and expansion of businesses in the region' (p. 10). The nature of these networks is explored in varying degrees in the different chapters, which approach these issues following a wide range of methodological perspectives.
Chapter 1 by Tomás Undurraga deals with how Chilean business groups and, more generally, the Chilean business sector has restructured since the establishment of a new economic model in the mid-1970s, and dealt with the transition to democracy in the country since 1990. The institutional features of the Chilean economy have led, it is argued, to a restoration of a process of economic concentration in the hands of business groups. Given the author's interest in the 'cultural circuits' of capitalism, the main part of the essay presents a general sociological interpretation of the advance (and contemporary retreat?) of the business sector as an influential political actor in Chile.
In a related fashion, that is, without...