Twists and turns of land reform in Latin America: From predatory to intermediate states?

Abstract

Land reform has significantly evolved over time in Latin America. In the early decades of the 20th century, the ‘agrarian question’ involved different national paths of agrarian capitalism and their contributions to industrialization. Later in the century, agriculture played a secondary role, while market-led reforms were implemented from the early 1990s in the region. The agrarian question is now related to a new range of global and national inequalities, whereas the land problem remains unresolved. This paper deals with the role of the state and social dynamics in understanding the twists and turns of Latin America's land reforms from the 1900s to the Global Era.