PUBLIC COMPANIES IN LATIN AMERICA: HISTORY, CONCEPTS, CASES AND PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

The article highlights the need to address the history of public companies in Latin America for having played a significant role in regional development during the 20th Century, as well as for the current reappearance of these organisms in the international energy sector, for the strategic role they still play in many countries and, lastly, because decades of privatization have weakened the collective memory on these organisms, in favour of the prevailing neoliberal version which justified the sale of the public heritage. Do we have good knowledge on the history behind the importance and track record of public companies in Mexico and Latin America? How can their resistance after decades of privatizations be explained? These queries are replied in the current dossier of the Public Management Journal, which gathers a group of studies analysing the cases of Uruguay, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina between 1912 and 2012, shedding light on the entrepreneurial activities of the State under different economic models. In these countries, public companies have placed themselves in vital areas for the functioning of the economies, such as telecommunications, electricity, oil, transportation and, to a lesser extent, manufacturing. The final section is an invitation not only to read but also to initiate an agenda to analyse and allow revealing the complex history of these public organisms.