ABSTRACT
The patrimonial-bureaucratic tradition in Latin America transforms the processes into an exceptionally complicated enterprise. The changes that were forced on Latin American society as a result of the 1929 collapse of export economies led to a new development model, one directed toward the internal market. Political support was drawn from the economic elites and the middle sector, and in some instances the composition of the alliance turned out to be rather similar to the one that initially had supported the bureaucratic-authoritarian regime. The process of state formation was limited by the ability to mobilize the financial resources that would enable it to build an institutional apparatus capable of defining and implementing the regulations and infrastructural arrangements supporting economic growth. The economic crisis of the 1980s, the demise of the authoritarian regimes, and the trend towards democratization presented certain changing environments.
