Book review: Rethinking Latin America: Development, Hegemony and Social Transformation, by Ronaldo Munck

Abstract

Ronaldo Munck Rethinking Latin America: Development, Hegemony and Social Transformation: Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2013; 264pp.: 9781137004116, 61 [pounds sterling] (hbk) It was once common to assert that poorer countries could read their futures in the development of early-industrialising nations. Growth, wealth and prosperity were a continuum on which all states rested; the adoption of responsible national-level policies would bring Latin America, for instance, into line with forms of state and economy seen in Europe and the USA. However, since the global crisis of 2007-2008, developing zones increasingly define the future of the global economy, whilst the West appears backward-looking and insular. Lacking a viable alternative, Europe and the USA seem condemned to a continuation of neoliberalism (Mirowski 2013; Crouch, 2011), whilst Latin America in particular embarks on post-neoliberal political-economic projects. The prior framework is thus set upon its head, as the past of Latin America may indicate the future of the West, and analysis of the future of the global economy must emerge within rising nations rather than outside them. Ronaldo Munck's Rethinking Latin America: Development, Hegemony and Social Transformation is a timely publication in this global climate. As the title suggests, the book deploys three core concepts, appearing in renovated forms, to examine Latin America's meaning in the global political-economy. Chapter 1 attempts to 'place' Latin America by interrogating development theories, defined by how each assigns the continent a spatial location within its conceptual geography. Munck questions whether Latin America is an underdeveloped part of the West; part of the East, being Asiatic, despotic and Oriental; or betwixt each space, both post-colonial and post-modern, but not reducible to either. Opting for this last view, Munck settles upon an analysis of how Latin America 'experiences mixed temporalities leading to multiple modernities.' (p. 32). Development and social change are thus not linear processes, but fecund and differentiated. Chapters 2 through 6 then proceed chronologically, giving a continental view of Latin America from 1510 to 2010. Finally, Chapter 7 provides an overview, based on a call to examine how 'Latin America has 'Always-Already' been globalised.' (p. 189). Rethinking Latin America is a nuanced, complex theoretical engagement with the global role of the continent. Munck is open about his intention to 'Latinamericanise' Gramsci using Mariategui (pp. 15, 47), shaping a Marxist analysis which avoids class reductionism. Karl Polanyi also plays a significant role in the theoretical framework, alongside Francisco de Oliveira's background influence, and Michel Foucault's introduction at key conjunctures. The scope of the text is prodigious, using both anglophone and Latin-language works in depth and detail, both for theory and empirics. Nonetheless, a clear thread weaving through Latin American history is picked out; passive revolution is a central concept for understanding the various national struggles for independence (pp. 45-71), just as hegemony is key to analysing neoliberalism from 1973-2001 (pp. …