1Latin American Development and the Globalization Imperative: New Directions, Familiar Crises

Globalization has emerged as the defining conceptual and contextual socioeco-nomic framework of analysis for the early 21st century. Throughout Latin America, glo-balization has become a buzzword for profound structural change, as well as the focus of vociferous and rigorous criticism by those sectors of society disadvantaged, damaged, or bypassed by the forces of global restructuring. This article examines the theoretical and practical implications of globalization for Latin America development, analyzes key re-gional and local conditions, discusses ‘glocalization, ’ and argues for a policy approach that rethinks the extant framework and restructures the analytical context in a mor