Guatemala in the Global System

Abstract

A Critical Macrosocial Analysis Recent change in Guatemala is part of a complex transition that has continued in Central America since the 1960s. It involves the region's ongoing, gradual, highly conflictive, and contradictory entrance into the global economy and society. The transnational model of society in the Isthmus is inherently unstable, with contradictions internal to global capitalism. The constraints of the exclusionary socioeconomic system undermine efforts to open up the political system as contemplated in the peace accords. Authentic democratization requires a radical redistribution of wealth and power toward the poor majority; but the accords ratify existing property relations and rule out such a redistribution.