Globalization and austerity politics in Latin America

"Developing country politicians in a financially globalized world suffer a similar fate. Hoping to lift their countries to development's pinnacle, they toil against the .erce force of globalization. The repeatedly roll the policy boulder up the mountain. Hoping to please mercurial markets, governments cut spending, hike interest rates, and balance budgets. With each economic crisis, however, the rock repeatedly tumbles down the mountain. In this manner, financial volatility has wreaked havoc on developing country economies over the last two decades. Why are some countries able to surmount the gravity of globalization, while others suffer from a Sisyphus-like misfortune? Let us begin by taking a brief South American sojourn to Argentina and Venezuela. With the rise of the Latin American left over the last decade, scholars and the popular press have often placed these two countries under a similar radical or populist banner. 1 They share other political and economic characteristics too. They are both presidential, upper middle-income countries that feature comparatively sized economies and populations.2 In terms of their macroeconomic approaches, however, their policy stances 1Roberts and Levitsky, 2011; Weyland 2009; Lynch 2007; Castaneda, 2006; Panizza 2005"--