Crisis, desarrollo e integración. La CEPAL y la cooperación y concertación económica regional durante la década de 1980 en América Latina

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the regional economic integration and cooperation initiatives
deployed during the 1980s in the face of the economic and debt crisis that hit the region. In
this context, the place displayed by the proposals of the Economic Commission for Latin
America (ECLAC) that articulated a diagnosis of the crisis, the need for development to
overcome it and the possibility of regional integration as a catalyst vehicle for the above is
addressed. In general, studies on the evolution of ECLAC's ideas, as well as on regional
initiatives, jump from the Second Post-War stage to the 1990s where, through the application
of the neoliberal reform program of the Washington Consensus there were strong changes in
the region, but they have not paid much attention to the 1980s. Consequently, we study here
the changes introduced in the integration and economic cooperation schemes as well as the
place of ECLAC in them. Through the analysis of documents of the initiatives and two special
issues of the ECLAC magazine, as well as through interviews with officials of the time, weobserve and the novel deployment of regional political cooperation and agreement forums,
such as the Economic Conferences of Quito and Cartagena that sought a joint solution to the
problems of the region, the transformation of the Latin American Free Trade Association
(LAFTA) into the Latin American Integration Association (ALADI) and the development of
bilateral and subregional agreements such as those deployed between Argentina and Brazil
from 1985.