ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book starts with two unpublished articles by Celso Furtado, one of the most remarkable Latin American economists of his generation, whose thought has influenced policymakers and social movements in the region since the 1950s. Furtado argues that enabling economic theory to grasp sectorial heterogeneity results in models that more realistically deal with the conditions of subordinated countries, showing results that contradict ‘common wisdom’. Prebisch was an important contributor to Latin American Structuralism and a strong advocate of an economic theory that grasps the historical specificities of peripheral countries. The book discusses Nepal’s experience with both liberal and developmentalist policies in the past century from a feminist institutionalist perspective to demonstrate that policies based on universal models tend to fall short from reducing inequality and social injustice.
