Marketing systems and national development: The Sucre region of Bolivia

This study uses the regional marketing system of Sucre, Bolivia as a point of entry to examine the interconnections between national development policies and the outcomes of those policies at the local level. The study examines a specific marketing network to understand how the government's attempt at modernization through market reform had affected its intended beneficiaries and why participation in the marketplace has not brought the tangible benefits promised. Two groups participating in the marketing of agricultural goods in southern Bolivia are given special attention: peasant producers, and at the opposite end of the marketing chain, urban informal sector market retailers.;In the early 1980s, in the midst of political instability and economic uncertainty, a government program was initiated to help reduce the perceived exploitative practices of market intermediaries, who were seen to rob both the rural producers and urban consumers. This program, known as the Mercado Campesino project, provides a current, local-level case study of marketing relations and demonstrates how the institution of the market can be used to examine a number of relationships and changes in peasant society.;The study demonstrates how the relationships that place peasants and informal sector workers at the lower end of an occupational and social hierarchy do not emerge from their roles per se, but are reflections of other social divisions. The market has not achieved the goals of economic development and social progress because inequalities in the society, played out in the structure of the marketing system, allow the benefits of greater integration and market participation to be unequally distributed. Although government policies stress reducing the role of market intermediaries, the intermediaries do have a positive role to play, both in providing employment and in helping the urban poor meet their food needs in the midst of national crisis.