The World that Latin America Created: CEPAL in the Development Era

After the Second World War demolished the old order, a group of economists and policymakers from across Latin America imagined a new global economy and launched an intellectual movement that would eventually capture the world. They charged that the systems of trade and finance that bound the world’s nations together were frustrating the economic prospects of Latin America and other regions of the world. Through the UN Economic Commission for Latin America, or CEPAL - the Spanish and Portuguese acronym - cepalinos challenged the orthodoxies of development theory and policy. They eventually established their own form of hegemony, outpacing the United States and the International Monetary Fund as the agenda setters for a region traditionally held under the orbit of Washington and its institutions. By doing so, cepalinos reshaped both regional and international governance and set an intellectual agenda that still resonates today. In “The World That Latin America Created”, Margarita Fajardo, Professor of History at Sarah Lawrence College, draws on unexplored sources from the Americas and Europe to reveal the diversity of an often-oversimplified movement and the fraught relationship between cepalinos, their dependentista critics and the regional and global Left. Fajardo presents a story of ideas that brought about real change. On Tuesday, September 26, we hosted a webinar discussion with Margarita Fajardo on her book and how Latin America transformed development economics. The webinar was moderated by Rebecca Ray. This event is part of the Fall 2023 Global Economic Governance Book Talk series. This event is cosponsored with the Boston University Center for Latin American Studies.