POVERTY, INEQUALITY, AND GROWTH IN LATIN AMERICA: Searching for the High Road to Globalization

Abstract

This article revisits debates concerning poverty, inequality, and development in Latin America and explores a possible “high road” to globalization capable of achieving both more rapid economic growth and significant and lasting reductions in poverty and inequality. In reconnoitering the contours of this path, the authors probe a partial convergence in theory, concepts, and policies that may offer new opportunities for bridging the yawning chasms that heretofore have divided multilateral financial organizations, local governing elites, and academics as well as Center-Left political parties, organized labor, social movements, and NGOs. The article concludes with an assessment of the capacity of this emerging political agenda and attendant “polycentric development coalitions” to deepen and extend democracy effectively beyond the electoral arena to include basic issues of justice and equity.