Introduction

The new military government of Ecuador attempted after 1972 to carry out a nationalist revolution, somewhat along the lines of the Peruvian one of four years earlier. This chapter focuses on two aspects of the policy role of the industrialists: their general policy preferences; and actions with regard to a number of key aspects of industrial policy—protected import substitution and the market for industrial goods, capital supply, labor relations, and the operations of the parastatal sector. It considers the industrialists' perception of conflictive or complementary elements in their relation to the policy interests of other social groups, for example, land reform and wage policy areas, where zero-sum-type perceptions may prevail, and export expansion and infrastructure as areas in which positive-sum-type perceptions may predominate. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.