MEXICO AND ARGENTINA - ECONOMIC-REFORM AND TECHNOCRATIC DECISION-MAKING

This article examines the Mexican and Argentine cases of market reform and argues that despite important differences in regime type and in r ecent economic and political trajectories, the decision-making process in the two countries came to display important common features. In bo th cases, economic crises and debt negotiations played key roles in pr opelling technocratic reformers into positions of policy predominance; both exhibited exclusionary technocratic decision-making styles in wh ich small technocratic elites insulated themselves from both extra and intra state pressures. While policy isolation was no doubt necessary for the successful implementation of market reforms, this style may be counter-productive to political stability over the long term.