Business Politics and the State in Twentieth-Century Latin America

Despite the new prominence of business in the political economy of post-reform Latin America, business politics remains a relatively neglected area of research. Schneider's book is the first systematically comparative and historical analysis of the incorporation of business into politics in Latin America. This book examines business organizing and political activity over the last century in five of the largest, most developed countries of the region to construct an explanation for why...
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Despite the new prominence of business in the political economy of post-reform Latin America, business politics remains a relatively neglected area of research. Schneider's book is the first systematically comparative and historical analysis of the incorporation of business into politics in Latin America. This book examines business organizing and political activity over the last century in five of the largest, most developed countries of the region to construct an explanation for why business ended up better organized in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico than in Argentina and Brazil. The explanation for the surprising cross-national variations lays neither in economic characteristics of business nor broader political parameters, but rather in the cumulative effect of actions of state actors.