Power in Transition: The Rise of Guatemala’s Industrial Oligarchy, 1871-1994

Power in Transition examines the history of the economic elites who engineered Guatemala’s return to constitutional rule in June, 1993. Dosal traces the changes in the country’s elites from the period of the early industrial prioneers to today’s neoliberal reformers.

The inauguration of President Ramiro de Leon Carpio in June, 1993, forms part of a historical process whereby the Guatemalan military is transferring the regins of government to the oligarchy. During the military dictatorships of the last forty years, the leadership of the oligarchy passed from the coffee barons to a relatively progressive group of industrialists, financiers, and a new breed of agro-exporters.

Power in Transition makes contemporary political dynamics understandable by examining the origins and evolution of today’s modernizing oligarchy. Dosal traces the emergence of the industrialists during the Liberal era (1871-1944), explains their opposition to the reforms of the revolutionary era (1944-1954), and analyzes their political and economic development under military rule (1954-1985). When the military initiated the return to civilian rule in the 1980s, the industrialists emerged as the dominant faction of the oligarchy. This study will be of great interest to scholars and other researchers of Central American political and economic development.