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Judith A. Teichman. The Politics of Freeing Markets in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. xviii + 273 pp. ISBN 0-8078-2629-4, $55.00 (cloth); 0-8078-4959-6, $19.95 (paper).
In her previous books and articles, Judith Teichman has focused primarily on Mexico. In this book, she expands her horizons to include interesting comparative analyses that reveal complex story lines about the evolution of globalization, market reform, and democratization in Chile, Argentina, and Mexico during the last third of the twentieth century. Those who believe that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank dictate economic policy to emerging nations will come away from this book with an appreciation of how powerful indigenous political groups are in the negotiations over economic support and reform, and how complex the interaction between economic reform and democratization has been in Latin America. Although Teichman is very informative on the politics of reform, she does not tie her insights clearly to economic forces and changes in the markets over time.
In chapter 1 she establishes the...