Latin American History Commons^™

Administering Authoritarianism: The Birth Of The Free Market Model In Pinochet’S Chile., Meghan A. Haggerty

Senior Theses

This research paper aims to dissect the origins of the free-market in Chile and its institution through dictatorship. The purpose of this paper is to analyze privatization as an instrument of conservative governments– specifically the Pinochet regime (1973-1990). It outlines how the authoritarian government arose in the geopolitical context of the Cold War which led to a series of neoconservative fiscal policies inspired by Milton Friedman and the “Chicago Boys.” This paper goes on to analyze the structural transformation that drastically changed the economic output of the country. The case study highlighted is the Chilean Water Code and the privatization …

The Politics Of Waves: A Transnational And Cultural Surfing History Of Popoyo, Nicaragua, Jason R. Old

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the 1970s and 1980s, as surfers were carving out new international surf spaces around the globe, Nicaragua was on a much different trajectory—one that engendered the Sandinista guerrilla insurgency that deposed a four-decade-long, US-backed dictatorship in 1979. In response, the United States waged a decade-long, low-intensity counterinsurgency against the Sandinista government. While other surfing destinations were growing in popularity, notably neighboring Costa Rica, Nicaragua was, by most accounts, considered off-limits due to the conflict. In 1990, a watershed moment fostered an environment conducive to international tourism and foreign investment. The election of Violeta Barrios Torres de Chamorro ushered in …

(Re)Constructing National Memory In Neoliberal Chile Through Patricio Guzman's The Cordillera Of Dreams (2019), Mica Barrett

Scripps Senior Theses

One of the most renowned Chilean exile filmmakers is Patricio Guzmán. Best known for his documentary work regarding the Allende years, Guzmán has continued to make films regarding his homeland in the decades following his initial exile.

The Cordillera of Dreams is the concluding film in a trilogy exploring the natural lands of Chile and their relationship to physical remnants of the human past. The initial and most renowned film in the series, Nostalgia for the Light, centers the Atacama Desert and Chileans’ relationship to the geography as a gateway to revealing artifacts of Chile’s recent history of genocide …

Contextualizing The 2019 “Chile Despertó” Movement: The Impact Of Historical Relational Processes On Mobilization And Repression, Tanya Leon

International Studies (MA) Theses

To expand our theoretical and empirical understanding of mobilization and repression in Latin America, this thesis asks three critical questions. Are economic indicators sufficient predictors of social movement emergence in Latin America? What other factors contribute to large-scale mobilization in Latin America? How do government’s respond to large-scale Latin American social movements? Specifically, when, and why do democratic governments choose to employ repression against social movements? Accordingly, I construct a quantitative model to test the correlation between rise in protest and worsened economic conditions. I apply it to a comprehensive dataset of political events in multiple South American countries throughout …

Los Zetas, Neoliberalism, And Popular Opposition: A Study In Linkages, Gina R. Lyle

Master's Theses

Los Zetas are considered by security analysts to be a transformative force within transnational criminal organizations (TCO), exporting their unique model throughout Mexico. Los Zetas’ idiosyncratic interventions include their diversification of criminal operations, professionalization of TCO security, sophisticated use of media and technology, extreme forms of violent coercion, and decentralized command structure. This project aims to complicate the narrative that Los Zetas emerged because of top leaders’ sadistic tendencies or due to an inherently violent culture in Mexico by reframing the group’s evolution within historical processes. Moving beyond Los Zetas, this project examines how persons affected by Los Zetas’ indiscriminate …

Yankee Go Home: Roci In Latin America, Vitoria Hadba

Theses and Dissertations

In 1984, at an event hosted by the United Nations, American artist Robert Rauschenberg announced his most ambitious and controversial project to date: the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange—or ROCI. Blending primary source documents with social art history, I retrace the artist’s steps—and missteps—during the first leg of his tour through Mexico, Chile, and Venezuela. This thesis investigates the convoluted political implications of ROCI in Latin America during the transitional period in which binary Cold War politics were ebbing amidst the rise of a global free-market economy.

Mexico: Neoliberalism, Popular Grievances, And The Rise Of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Irving Cortes-Martinez

Honors Theses

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly referred to as AMLO, has become Mexico’s first leftist president in over seven decades. He has promised to get rid of Mexico’s problems through a peaceful but radical transformation, while placing the needs of the people first. For the past three decades, the nation’s political and economic systems have failed to create positive results. Mexico currently faces mass inequality and poverty, corruption and impunity, and insecurity and organized crime. Through his political activism and most importantly, his political narrative, AMLO has become a popular actor and is seen as the president who will implement lasting …

Evangelizing Neoliberalism Through Megachurches In Latin America And The United States, William O. Collazo

Dissertations and Theses

The most prominent and influential feature of worldwide Evangelicalism, is the megachurch. In Latin America megachurches have proliferated and grown in political influence when they first came into contact with neoliberalism during Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile. As Latin America's poor first migrated out of rural areas into Latin American cities, then north, to the United States, they have brought with them their religion. Increasingly, this religion is Protestant, evangelical, and for many, it is Pentecostalism. Misunderstood by the early literature on Pentecostalism, is the strain of neoliberalism that has become infused in the religion's most powerful institution - the megachurch. …

Literary And Cinematic Representations Of Neoliberal Forms Of Contemporary Violence In Latin America With Special Interest In Mexico And Colombia, Ivan De Jesus Iglesias

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the last decades, with an increased rhythm and greater intensity, the so-called neoliberal violence has come to play a relevant role within the history of world societies. The Latin American institutional, political, social, and economic changes of the 1970’s and 1980’s, especially those produced under dictatorships, contributed to create the conditions for the implementation of the processes of economic liberalization and global market as part of the concept of institutional modernization and cultural globalization that gave rise to the neoliberal mentality. In this context, neoliberalism becomes hegemonic as a mode of discourse and is incorporated into the way individuals …

The Fallacy Of Free Market Democracy: Marginalization Through Chilean Health Care And Education, Robin L. Young

Senior Capstone Theses

This thesis examines how neoliberal policies implemented during Augusto Pinochet’s sixteen-year military regime in Chile have affected post-dictatorship democratization. It argues that democracy has been incomplete in Chile since the fall of Pinochet’s regime, due mainly to the three neoliberal policies of deregulation, decentralization, and decreased government funding. Through the detailed analysis of Chile’s health care and education systems, this thesis demonstrates how these neoliberal policies drastically changed social welfare practices in Chile during the 1980s, leading to extreme social inequality that has only continued to increase in the last thirty years. This social inequality, as well as the marginalization …