ABSTRACT
A distinguishing feature of the Latin American state and of its relations with civil society has been the almost permanent absorption and incorporation of global sources of influence, including ideologies, institutional design, economic models and development strategies. An offspring of the first wave of globalization (circa 1870–1914), the state has developed historically in tandem with external variables that, in many countries in the region, have included foreign military intervention. It is no wonder, then, that scholarship too has long emphasized the intimate (and dependent) relation of the state with the global system of economic and political power (Cardoso and Faletto 1979). Similar to dependency theory and to the thinking developed by the Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA), more recent analyses of globalization and neoliberal reform have reinforced the idea that regional states are inextricably tied to the ups and downs of the international environment.
