ABSTRACT
In both Latin America and Eastern Europe economic growth slowed noticeably in the late 1960s, declined further in the 1970s, and virtually ceased in the 1980s. In both regions economic stagnation fueled demands for fundamental political and economic change. Although the economic problems of the East European nations were no more acute than those of Latin America, the Soviet liberalization produced pressures for change that could not be accommodated without explosive, even revolutionary, transformations. The solution to the productivity problem, which laid the basis for the rapid growth of manufacturing in Latin America in the 1950s, had different parts. Externally, the new states of Eastern Europe face a more competitive international environment than do most of the Latin American republics. At the end of World War II the Latin American nations had little choice but to accommodate their interests to the constraints imposed by their unequal strategic and economic alliance with the United States.
