The Rise and Fall of Welfare and Developmental States in the Americas with Prof. Amy Offner

In this episode, cohost Julian Gomez and I talk to Professor Amy Offner about her book, Sorting the Mixed Economy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare and Developmental States in the Americas. This is the "untold story of how welfare and development programs in the United States and Latin America produced the instruments of their own destruction". We focus on the history of Ciudad Kennedy in Bogotá, a borough in Bogotá built with support of the Alliance for Progress, and whose history reveals  how the logics of assisted self built housing has its roots in the New Deal and Cold War, and held the seed of austerity even as it required major state involvement. We also read the Colombian presidential elections - then just days away - and what the history describe in Prof. Offner's book tell us about the face-off between Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernandez.  Prof. Amy C. Offner (Ph.D. Columbia University) studies twentieth-century US history in global perspective, with special focus on Latin America.  Her research and teaching address the history of capitalism and political economy, empire and foreign relations, and social and intellectual history. You can find her book here. Julián Gómez Delgado is a PhD student in sociology and historical studies at The New School for Social Research. His research in political and historical sociology revolves around state formation, capitalist development and social conflict across Latin America, with a special focus on Colombia.. You can find him on twitter @juliangomezdel