Globalization & the Latin American Coffee Economies:

John Talbot and Steven Topik propose a special issue of Latin American Perspectives devoted to studying the transformations of the Latin American and world coffee economies under neo-liberalism. The end of the Cold War, decline of popular revolutionary movements in Latin America, and the spread of  "free market" ideologies and U.S. anti-state pressures have seriously affected the world coffee economies. This is particularly important to Latin America which still produces most of the world's coffee. 

            In 1989, the International Coffee Agreement, which had regulated the world market, broke down. In the early 1990s, pressures from the international financial institutions and other sources led to the weakening or the demise of national coffee agencies and marketing boards which had regulated coffee production within the producing countries. Deregulation and the rise of new producers, particularly Vietnam, have caused a chronic oversupply of coffee and historically low prices for most of the 1990s and into the 2000s. At the same time, the oligopolization  of roasting and distribution by a small number of United States and western European conglomerates as well as the advent of new coffee products such as bottled coffee and the boom in coffeehouses has meant that an ever greater share of the final price is added in  consuming countries.

            Some Latin Americans have responded by revolting or emigrating and immigrating  as in Mexico and Central America, or diversifying into other crops (such as coca in Colombia and flowers in Costa Rica). In other places such as Brazil and Costa Rica, the response has been greater productivity and the growth of the domestic market.

            The world market reflects the same diversity of responses. While transnational  corporations such as Philip Morris treat coffee as simply a raw material in-put to be obtained at the lowest possible price, The growth of small specialty coffee roasters has meant an increased demand for the highest quality coffees. In response to the low prices of the 1990s and the environmental impacts of technified coffee production, NGOs such as Oxfam, Global Exchange, Equal Exchange and Transfair have developed alternative trading networks stressing fair trade and sustainable production.

            We invite submissions of articles on the changing nature of the world coffee economy and its consequences for Latin America. We hope to consider such questions as:

1) What role can the International Coffee Organization and other intergovernmental institutions play in the coffee trade under these new conditions?

2) How have state coffee agencies been restructured or reinvented since the late 1980s?

3) What have been the environmental impacts of recent developments?

4) How have indigenous peoples been affected by the changing coffee market?

5) What impacts have the strategies of the transnational trading and coffee manufacturing companies had on the organization of coffee production in producing countries?

6) What impacts have specialty coffee, fair trade, and sustainable production had on the world coffee economy?

7) What is the relationship between the Starbucks Revolution in the US and the growth of coffeehouse culture in western Europe and restructuring of the Latin American coffee economies?

8). Have there been important technological changes in coffee production, and what are their social/economic/ political consequences?

9) Have the transformations of the coffee economies had gendered consequences?

This issue is being coordinated by Steven Topik.  For more information about the issue, please contact Steven Topik (sctopik@uci.edu).

Manuscripts should be no longer than 25 pages of double-spaced text in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. If possible, submit two copies along with a cover sheet and basic biographical information. With these items, we also require that the manuscript be sent on a CD-R, by e-mail, or on a floppy disk if the other formats are not available. The LAP style guide is available on request or online.

Please send any manuscript submissions to:
Managing Editor, Latin American Perspectives¸ P.O. Box 5703, Riverside, California 92517-5703