ABSTRACT
Latin American economies have been transformed by industrial expansion during the twentieth century, and particularly during the latter half of the century. This chapter will be broadly structured in terms of a structuralist or political economy approach to regional industrial development in Latin America. At this general level, the premise is that global economic processes and macro-economic decisions at the national level will inform social and political structures at the national, regional and local levels. The value of a political economy approach for such research is that while giving significance to economic processes it recognizes that existing social and political structures matter greatly.
