Labour Control and Developmental State Theory: A New Perspective on Import-Substitution Industrialisation in Latin America

Drawing on historical research on the period of import-substitution industrialisation (ISI) in Chile and Argentina between the 1930s and 1960s, this article claims that developmental state theory (DST) on Latin America obfuscates a crucial feature of state intervention in the region. Specifically, despite a long-standing interest in state-society relations, it has thus far been unable to adequately incorporate labour-state relations and labour control in the workplace. This is because, in various guises, DST privileges state-society relations mediated by institutions from which labour is implicitly or explicitly excluded. In seeking to extend the analytical lens of DST, I combine critical labour relations and labour process theories to identify the purposive establishment of ‘regimes of labour control’ via changing institutional and workplace relations. Using this framework, I show how the often-vacillating strategies pursued by the state under ISI in Chile and Argentina and its inefficient outcomes can be better understood by incorporating these efforts designed to exert control over labour.