Recent Books
178 «¬® ̄°±² ³««³°® ́
Western Hemisphere
Richard Feinberg
Unfullled Promises: Latin America Today
EDITED BY MICHAEL SHIFTER
AND BRUNO BINETTI. Inter-
American Dialogue, 2019, 166 pp.T
his eclectic collection brings
together leading scholars o
economics, social policy, public
security, and international relations in
sketching the progress and frustrations
o¤ Latin American development. The
contributors generally advocate incre-
mental approaches that build on
previous progress, rather than root-
and-branch upheaval. The separate
chapters advance sound, i at times
exacting, policy recommendations:
countries should diversify their higher-
quality exports, raise their labor pro-
ductivity, enlarge their ¥scal capacity,
target pockets o poverty, bolster their
social safety nets to safeguard their
emerging middle classes, make their
governance and regulatory structures
more eective and transparent, and
adopt comprehensive crime-¥ghting
strategies. The contributors underplay
the overwhelming pressures o popula-
tion growth and rapid urbanization in
some parts o¤ Latin America, as well as
the growing aspirations o middle
classes that current growth rates will not
soon satisfy. In highlighting the short-
comings o¤ Latin American develop-
ment, some essays inadvertently feed
the notion, employed by authoritarian
demagogues, that the region’s “unful-tive for foreign policy. Traditionally,
this turnover is also a moment for ̄º
o¾cials to establish new priorities and a
budgetary framework to pay for them.
Just such a transition is occurring now.
In this collection, analysts from Brue-
gel, one o¤ Brussels’s most respected
think tanks, review 11 issues and oer
concrete policy recommendations for
̄º leaders. Each chapter constitutes a
concise memo to the relevant o¾cials.
There are limitations: the chapters
focus almost exclusively on industrial
regulation, ¥nancial and digital services,
competition policy, and other economic
matters, areas in which Bruegel special-
izes; foreign policy, migration, Russian
subversion, homeland security, and
other important issues go neglected.
The market-oriented recommendations
are too numerous and idealistic, focus-
ing on what would increase aggregate
welfare rather than what is politically
viable. The writing is jargon laden.
Nonetheless, those who seek a succinct
overview o the ̄º’s potential course o
action over the next ¥ve years are
unlikely to ¥nd a better starting point.