The University of Sheffield
Department of Politics

PhD Student - Jewellord Nem Singh

Details

email : j.nemsingh@sheffield.ac.uk

Jewellord

Thesis Title: States, Markets and Labour Unions: The Political Economy of Natural Resource Extraction in Brazil and Chile

Start Year 2008

Supervisors

Jean Grugel

Graham Harrison

Research Topic

The PhD thesis explores the political economy of post-neoliberalism in Brazil and Chile. I do this in two ways. First, I explore the extent institutional change within extractive sectors has occurred in the post-dictatorship era, and how far this constitutes a break away from neoliberal politics. Taking into account ideological and pragmatic politics that shape the design and implementation of neoliberalism, my argument is that we can clearly see political continuity with marked changes throughout the twenty years of reforms in Brazil and Chile. Second, I place domestic politics within the broader context of the global political economy and show how these models of resource governance are constitutive of state strategies in managing globalisation. That is, far from the generally claimed convergence towards a neoliberal model and its logic of no alternative, these states have developed, employed, and appropriated their state transformative capacity to respond to the challenges of a globalised world system.

Therefore, I challenge three main claims as regards the theories of the state. First, Brazil and Chile posit cases discrediting what Terry Karl calls the `paradox of the plenty´. I argue that resources do not necessarily hollow out the state and in fact some states successfully transform their resource sectors into competitive industries and it is the state that crucially does this. Instead of reducing state capacity to manage change, resources as strategic sectors have become the new engine of economic development. Second, globalisation is not a unilinear process that leads to convergence of economic production and social organisation. Contrary to the claims of the competition state and its logic of necessitarianism, productivism, and competitiveness, there is sufficient evidence showing divergent policy choices and outcomes in managing the contentious process of liberalisation. Consequently, it brings us back to the question of post-neoliberalism. Because globalisation takes multiple forms and substance, there exists no single development model of post-neoliberalism in the Americas. Simply put, there is no single way of managing the transition from the Washington Consensus. Finally, rather than viewing globalisation as an inexorable force with no agency, the policy choices of actors within these states demonstrate the capability to adapt to discourses and structures of globalisation and shape them based on what constitutes `national interest´. As such, I claim that globalisation logically implies the need for state agency, and therefore, theorising post-neoliberalism requires paying close attention to the structure, contingency, and politics of development.

Theoretical Framework:

The research employs historical institutionalist and critical International Political Economy (IPE) perspectives to theorise post-neoliberalism in Latin America.

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Office Hour: Wed 13:00-14:00 (Room 1.41)

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