ABSTRACT
The central focus of debate on the political economy of multinational corporations in Latin America in the last decade has centered on the insights of a "new wave" of dependency theorists. This literature has explored in great empirical detail the complex relationships between foreign and local capital in Latin America. The determinants of host-firm bargaining have also come in for closer scrutiny, and although dependency theorists tend to overemphasize the structural constraints on host bargaining power, the focus on bargaining itself is an advance over earlier dependency thinking. In this chapter, the author argues that the "new wave" remains weak on the domestic politics of regulating foreign direct investment. Early dependistas considered industrial interests weak, co-opted by agrarian elites, subservient to foreign capital, and subject to the continual threat of denationalization. Peter Evans sought to develop a more nuanced portrait, in which state, foreign, and local capital constituted a "triple alliance".
