Seminar: Business og hierarkisk kapitalisme i Latinamerika

Time: Thursday, March 10 at 13 -15

Venue: Danish Institute for International Studies, Main Auditorium, ground floor, Strandgade 71, Christianshavn, 1401 Kbn K

Background

Time: Thursday, March 10 at 13 -15

Venue: Danish Institute for International Studies, Main Auditorium, ground floor, Strandgade 71, Christianshavn, 1401 Kbn K

Background

We know that industrial policy is imperative for economic development. Industrial policy simply refers to any type of selective government intervention that attempts to alter the structure of production in favour of certain economic activities.

As Harvard economists Ricardo Hausmann and Dani Rodrik put it, countries are ‘doomed to choose’. However, the politics of industrial policy are less talked about and less understood. One way of analyzing the politics of industrial policy is through business-state relations.

This topic will be explored in the Business-State Relations and Economic Development seminar series at the DIIS, which runs from March through early June 2011.

The seminar series brings together academics from Denmark, Europe and the United States, who will present their research on business-state relations and their impact on economic development.

The speakers will cover a wide range of developing countries and employ different analytical approaches.

Ben Ross Schneider will open the seminar series with a paper that explores business politics in Latin America. Sprawling family-owned business groups (or conglomerates) and multinational companies dominate the corporate landscape in hierarchical capitalism in Latin America.

Few doubt that these major firms have power, but we need to probe further to examine what big firms want and how they invest in politics to get it.

Among other things, diversification, family ownership, internationalization strategies, and sectoral concentration affect firm preferences on a range of policy issues.

Understanding how firms pursue these preferences, requires an analysis both of their advantages in political activities like lobbying, campaign contributions, personal networks, and business associations as well as the distinctive institutional features of political systems in the region – such as appointive bureaucracies and proportional representation – that favour business influence.

SPEAKERS
* Ben Ross Schneider, Professor, MIT, USA
* Lindsay Whitfield, Project Senior Researcher, DIIS

PROGRAMME
12.30-13.00
Arrival and Coffee

13.00-14.00
Business Politics and Hierarchical Capitalism in Latin America – Ben Ross Schneider, Professor, MIT, USA

14.00-15.00
Open Discussion

Chair: Lindsay Whitfield, Project Senior Researcher, DIIS

The seminar will be held in English.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use the online registration form

And do so no later than Wednesday March 9 at 12.00 noon

Please await confirmation by e-mail from DIIS for participation.

Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), The Conference Section, Strandgade 56, 1401 Kbn K, tlf. 32 69 87 51, e-mail: [email protected] og web: www.diis.dk