Guardians of the Nation? Economists, Generals, and Economic Reform in Latin America

Latin American Politics and Society, Summer 2004 by Nunn, Frederick M

Biglaiser's discussions of "orthodox" and "gradual" approaches to economic reform by neoliberals are quite convincing and well documented. His evidence of the sequence and dynamics of decisionmaking, appointments, and policy formulation and execution is simply incontrovertible. One needs to recall, though, that this is a cleterminist argument. Other factors yield to economic and rational choicemaking when he dissects and analyzes military rule. This is the purport of his scholarly scrutiny, after all, and he should be commended for it.

In the final analysis, what happened in South America between 1964, when Brazilians came to power, and 1990, when government devolved on civilians in Chile, depended on who made appointments in the first place and what policies appointees carried out. Sometimes the author has countries making decisions: Chile "initiates "and "reintroduces" in chapter 2, but Pinochet "finesses" and "appoints" in chapter 3. This lends an unnecessary tone of vagueness to a sophisticated study of policymaking as a byproduct of the desire to retain power. Readers, therefore, may wonder whether it is the military's strategy for retention or an individual's lust for power, when more often than not it is both-and a lot more. Pinochet's dominance in Chile, especially in contrast to what passed for governance across the Andes in Argentina, comes out looking like an idiosyncratic professional outcome of both historical forces and contemporary influences, with an unmistakable tone of chilenidad. Given the history of the military profession in the countries treated by Biglaiser, the type of military rule they endured was to be expected.

Early on, in this vein, Biglaiser argues that statism was a response to the Great Depression. What, then, of YPF and COSACH, the Argentine and Chilean responses to natural resource exploitation born in the 1920s? Indeed, these protostatist agencies date from the same era as does military involvement in political affairs based on a desire to provide elemental economic and social reform. The assertion (in chapter 3) that except for the years 1927-32, Chile's military was subservient to civilian authority ignores the military movements of 1924-25 and conflates both the socialist experiments of 1932 and the 1927-31 administration of General Carlos Ibanez del Campo. In Guardians, involvement sometimes means a revolt as well as an institutional golpe, and they just are not the same.

There is a deeper history to military political action and the appeal of statism in southern South America than is reflected in this book; economic woes, political incompetence, and military professionalism are not new, and they still can combine to produce volatility. Too, factionalism may be confused in these pages with the plain old interinstitutional governance that stemmed from the military movements of 1964, 1966, 1968, 1973, and 1976.

These concerns aside, this is a remarkable book, one that combines throughout meticulous treatment of case studies with overarching theoretical projections. Chapters 3 and 4, dealing with the interrelationships of military institutions and economists regarding appointments and policy decisions, are impressive. So is chapter 6, in which Biglaiser enters the realm of the post-World War II professionalization of economists. We already knew that such processes had gone on in the other social sciences, and that South American intellectuals and fictioneers were concomitantly being taken seriously in Europe and North America, and elsewhere. Biglaiser's discussion of economists adds to a growing literature on the appearance of Latin American professional-intellectuals on the policymaking stages, and on the role outsiders have played in the professional development of a region where true guardians and philosophers have been few and far between.