The twenty-first century in Latin America witnessed a turn to the Left. One after the other, leftist candidates gained the support of the masses by hoisting the flags of wealth distribution in a continent historically plagued by poverty and concentration of income and land. This process coincided with an international commodity boom that provided leftist governments with the material conditions to carry out their progressive programmes, expanding social expenditure and in some cases changing the constitution. However, the progressive move finished abruptly once export prices plummeted, economic growth stagnated and reduced fiscal revenues curtailed governments’ capacity to negotiate concessions with business and pro-market coalitions. The retreat of the Left was then followed by a resurgence of the Right, threatening the distributive promises and the accomplishments of the progressive tide.

To what extent did these policies have an impact on the underlying distribution of power? Dominant Elites in Latin America, edited by Liisa L. North and Timothy D. Clark, is a timely and fascinating consideration of the ways in which the structures of domination have endured or changed after a decade of progressive governments in Latin America. Such a question requires a historical consideration, which the introduction and the chapters of the book masterfully provide. Latin America has a long-standing structure of class domination based on unequal access to land and assets that dates from colonial times. Distilling broad historical trends going back to the developmental import substitution industrialisation period that pre-dates the era of neoliberal major adjustments, North and Clark set the stage for the chapters to come: class domination structure in Latin America is very much characterised by a diversification of the economic activities of the traditional landlord classes; their capacity to systematically block agrarian reforms; the penetration of family networks in the state and decision-making apparatus; and the willingness of the dominant class to rely on the armed and police forces to repress the claims of peasants and urban working classes.

The remaining seven chapters of the book rely on differing methods and data sources, but they share a historical approach to elucidating the way in which states and markets ‘structured patterns of privilege, domination, and concentration of economic power’ (p. 11). The chapters speak in unison: yes, Latin America experienced an important reduction in poverty and an improvement in the life conditions of many. Nevertheless, these improvements left the distribution of land and wealth untouched and traditional elites maintained and even expanded their power. In this process, moreover, all cases show that class domination in Latin America is sustained, reinforced or configured through the state and not in spite of it.

The first case, analysed by Clark, is Chile. By focusing on elite reconfiguration under Pinochet's dictatorship in the 1970s–80s, the chapter seems at odds with the general timeframe of the book. However, by sketching the complete re-configuration of the Chilean elite in the context of a ‘capitalist revolution’ guided ‘from above’, the chapter provides an historical account that still explains elite power in the most neoliberal setting in the Southern Cone. Capitalist revolution in Chile consisted of the construction of a ‘capitalist elite capable of subordinating the state and integrating civil society into its socio-economic and ideological networks’ (p. 24). Paradoxically, said elite was forged with the help of pro-market Chicago Boys who acted as ‘central planners’ seeking to empower a new export-oriented agrarian sector and emergent financial elites. The Chicago Boys, who extended their influence within both the state and civil society, played a key role in completing the reconstruction of this elite prior to democratisation in 1990. As long as the financial and export-oriented elite that arose during the Pinochet regime still exert their dominance, this configuration will continue to play a crucial role in explaining wealth and income inequality well into the twenty-first century.

Simone Bohn analyses in Chapter 3 the case of ‘quasi-post-neoliberal’ Brazil. Brazil represents the paradoxical nature of the supposedly post-neoliberal turn in Latin America, whereby two seemingly contradictory forces unfolded. On the one hand, after two mandates of the Workers’ Party (PT), the ‘new social contract’ promoted by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva resulted in a considerable improvement in the material conditions of the poor. On the other hand, distributive policies, which included land distribution, monetary transfers, extension of citizenship, expansion of education and reduction in income inequality, did not contravene the interests of capital nor resulted in a class conflict, as many observers predicted in the early 2000s. Instead, capitalist elites seemed to have reorganised and adapted in a way that concentrated their power and wealth even further, and the government carried out its progressive programme without violating the principle of fiscal conservatism demanded by financial markets. As Bohn puts it, ‘neither did financial capital suffer in Brazil under Lula. Rather the opposite. It blossomed’ (p. 77). The commodity boom, the financial crisis of 2008 and the resulting rise in food prices all contributed to create a scenario in which the state channelled resources to the financial sector and fostered the expansion of large-scale agribusiness, which did not prevent the government from implementing national social programmes. Thus, as Bohn convincingly shows, connecting current developments with historical trends in Brazil, the re-organisation of elite power under Lula's governments stands as ‘another chapter in elite adaptation and metamorphosis’ (p. 58).

Carlos A. Larrea and Natalia Greene describe a similar trend for the case of Ecuador in Chapter 4, though to some extent relying on a more quantitative estimation of wealth concentration. As in Brazil, Rafael Correa's progressive government benefitted from the increase in the price of commodities – mostly petroleum – and successfully deployed a wide range of social policies that aimed at fighting poverty (income support, health services and housing), as well as several kinds of exclusionary patterns in the fields of education, gender and citizenship. The result: an impressive improvement of the material conditions of the population between 2007 and 2014. And yet, the underlying distribution of land and capital remained the same. The authors rely on five data sets drawn from internal revenue agencies and various censuses to show that the ‘political capacity of landed interests to resist the implementation of even modest agrarian reform laws remained formidable’(p. 99). In contrast to the agrarian reforms of previous decades, for example, indigenous movements in the twenty-first century were not able to influence agrarian law promoted by Correa in any substantive way. By the same token, indices of concentration of income show that business revenue remains extremely concentrated in a reduced number of big companies, and that these inequalities have a regional and sectorial articulation that resembles the oligopolistic structure of the agro-industry.

From Chapter 5 onwards, the book seems to inaugurate a second part in which the remaining cases share an additional layer of complexity provided by the role of armed conflicts and peace transitions in the reconfiguration of elite power. As Luis van Isschot shows in Chapter 5, disentangling the historical reconfiguration of elite power in Colombia is a difficult task, as it is characterised by a highly heterogeneous group with a strong regional component that is to be understood within the frame of a long-lasting process of militarised entrepreneurship in rural areas. The configuration of Colombian elites is shaped by land-grabbing processes in the context of an increasing liberalisation of the economy and a long-lasting armed conflict that includes drug lords, paramilitary groups, international agencies, elected officials, leftist guerrillas and transnational capital. The author analyses the historical militarisation of the agrarian conflict in two regions that served as laboratories for local elites, armed groups and social movements (Antioquia and Magdalena Medio), all the way up to the recent peace process. The chapter thus shows that regional elites supported the peace process to different degrees, depending on whether they benefitted from armed conflict and on their relation to drugs, extractive business and agribusiness, among other elements.

Carlos Velásquez Carrillo analyses in Chapter 6 the reconfiguration of elite and oligarchic rule in El Salvador after the 12-year civil war. Similar to the Chilean case, elite power in El Salvador was renewed from ‘above’ and in line with neoliberal policies. However, unlike the Chilean case, the configuration of elite power occurred under the rule of the democratically elected party that represented the interests of national elites (ARENA), and it resulted not in the replacement of old elites but in a reconfiguration of the old coffee oligarchy that had ruled the country throughout the twentieth century. As the author shows, a new ‘oligarchic neo-liberal’ power bloc consolidated around eight financially based entrepreneurial groups that benefitted from structural adjustments, entailing a transformation of the economic mentality of Salvadorean elites. Almost two decades after the pacification of the country, elite rule led to a further concentration of wealth and exclusion, which paradoxically was the main trigger of the civil war itself. As Velásquez Carrillo puts it, ‘the historical features that characterized “the oligarchic”, based on privilege and massive inequalities, remained largely intact’ (p. 175). For this reason, once the party of the former guerrillas FMLN won the elections in 2009, it could hardly introduce any initiative to improve the living conditions of Salvadoreans, not least to redistribute wealth in any significant way.

As Simon Granovsky-Larsen argues in Chapter 7, the reconfiguration of elite power in Guatemala needs to be located in the intersection of peace negotiations after decades of conflict, the role played by the military during the post-conflict period that began in 1996, and the diversification of the traditional elite now also linked to finance and services. Peace negotiations in Guatemala were instrumental for the rising neoliberal elites, which managed to influence the main socio-economic and agrarian agreements. By strengthening property rights and blocking distributive initiatives, said elite reached a dominant position in Guatemalan society and became the main motor of a ‘passive revolution’ that relegated social change to minimal concessions. This process was accompanied by the expansion of extractive projects in rural areas, supported by the repressive forces of the military and foreign companies that sought to rely on violence to repress waves of resistance to the extractive economy.

After more than 200 pages, the editors offer a concluding chapter that depicts what for many could be considered a pessimistic panorama. Even though the period under scrutiny is characterised by optimism and a substantive improvement in the life conditions of many, the persistence of structural obstacles leads to the reinforcement of historical trends. In their words, ‘In many ways Latin America today remains the same as it ever was: a region trapped in a postcolonial cycle of hierarchy and domination, violence and exclusion, ruled by a small elite with little interest in inclusive “national development”’ (p. 206). In this way, the book invites us to re-think the resilience of neoliberalism in the region and to what extent the ‘post-neoliberal’ turn in Latin America was useful to the neoliberal elites by attenuating the salience of wealth distribution without really changing the distribution of power. Moreover, it will become a key starting point for scholars investigating the mechanisms through which elites assure their position by mobilising both their instrumental and structural power in a globalised world.