Economic Crisis and the Emergence of the Non-Traditional Agricultural Exports,
 (NTAEs)

 Globalization, which could be defined as "the rapid and massive movement of

capital, goods, people, ideas, institutions and images across the globe" (Fakir 2001), and

neo-liberalism have close ties in the sense that both economic processes are congruent in

their goals of free markets without government "interference", freedom of trade in goods

and services, freer circulation of capital, and freer ability to invest (Robbins 1999).

These two processes are reshaping Latin America's economies.

 The failure of the import substitution paradigm and the debt crisis that has affected

the Latin American countries since the 1980's were two of the main factors that provoked

an array of economic measures taken by these countries. In addition, politically the

world was experiencing a big change during these years. From the Keynesian ideas of

active government participation in the market economy, which were commonly followed

by most of the governments in the non-communist system, there was a shift to the neo-

liberalism that has dominated thinking since the 1980's.

 The most important proponent of neoliberalism, and also the controller of the debt

process, was the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF imposed certain

conditions on indebted countries. To keep a status of loan eligibility, these countries

have had to follow the so-called "structural adjustments" measures. These measures

were basically the following: unilateral opening to foreign trade, extensive privatization

of state enterprises, deregulation of goods, services, and labor markets, liberalization of

capital markets, reduction of public outlays, downscaling state-supported social

programs, and the end of "industrial policy" and any other form of state capitalism

(Portes 1997: 358, Deere and Leon, 2002: 6).