중남미

This paper utilised and builds upon the critical junctures framework developed by Hogan and Doyle (2007; 2008). That framework consists of three separate elements that must be identified in sequence in order for the researcher to be able to declare, with some degree of certainty, if an event constitutes a critical juncture. These three elements are crisis, ideational change, and radical policy change. The framework out here constitutes an even more rigorous approach to clearly identifying crisis, and ideational and radical policy changes. As Thelen (2003, 234) argues that few tools exist in political science to enable us make sense of institutional/policy change, a framework such as this should be of significant value. The framework is employed here in examining the economic debacles in Brazil in 1999 and in Argentina in 2001, to determine if there were critical junctures in their privatisation policies at the start of the 21 st century. Privatisation policy is examined as it constitutes a core tenet of conservative economic restructuring. A significant change in privatisation policy may be indicative of wider changes in macro-economic policy. Prior to the existence of this framework we would have had to wait for decades pass before we would be able to determine if a critical juncture had taken place.