ABSTRACT
This chapter elaborates on these domestically originated as well as externally produced but equally regionally felt dynamics to provide, through their interaction, a macro-explicatory context for resource nationalism in Latin America. For this purpose, resource nationalism is understood as the following combinations of policies: increased state apportionment of profits from extractive industries; heightened regulation to better integrate production processes with national economies; and state influence in or a determination of directions of trade of natural resources. The combination of a favourable external context of high commodity prices and a changed internal political panorama in much of Latin America created a region-wide trend towards resource nationalism. While the shift to the left in several governments during the 2000s implied a stronger state voice in how natural resources were to be extracted and commercialized, social pressures for increased public spending and the opportunities presented by high prices combined to maintain a momentum in this policy direction.
