It is well known that Latin American development is territorially uneven, a multidimensional and multiscalar phenomenon. As an object of public policy, this issue was already central to regional planning during the classic developmentalist period, whose objective was to reverse the territorial concentration generated by what De Mattos (1993) termed the “territorial dynamics of peripheral Fordism” in the context of import substitution industrialization. At that time, the strategy focused on creating growth poles strategically located in depressed regions (polarized development), with the aim of improving the distribution of economic activities, employment, and population. This was achieved through a series of credit and tax incentives, subsidies, and public infrastructure. 

Recently, the problem of territorial inequalities has once again taken center stage in the public development policies of the countries in the region. This is partly due to the fact that the period of growth their economies recently experienced—thanks primarily to international commodity prices—while allowing for poverty reduction through cash transfers and, in some cases, through improved labor income, did not significantly impact the territorial gap.

These meager results led to this form of inequality becoming a political objective (in the sense of a goal) for international multilateral development cooperation organizations, which meant that it automatically became part of the agenda of national governments. Currently, this agenda is structured around achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), one of which specifically refers to reduce inequality within and between countries (SDG 10).

Regarding the approach, this concern with respect to the territorial issue within the framework of public development policy is carried out on the assumption that the local scale is the best to think about the processes of overcoming inequalities.

This implies setting aside the central State, which is seen as inefficient, bureaucratic and distant, to focus attention on a specific area, of "real" relationships, and where the participation of the actors can be an effective tool from which to influence the course of the processes that affect them, that is, the territory.

But while this is happening at the local/community level, that same nation-state, which is assumed to have ceased to be a protagonist of development in contexts of globalization, quite the contrary, continues to play a significant role in a strategy that, under the assumption neoclassic The idea that development depends on economic growth, specifically on "the increase in the productivity of the factors, and especially the productivity of the labor factor," focuses its actions on attracting foreign investment in a competitive environment with other states in the region.

From an analytical point of view, this dual approach to development policy contains quite a few contradictions with regard to overcoming the territorial gap.

While on the one hand there is a commitment to a territorial economic development (TED) model, which aspires to be environmentally and socially sustainable (green economy, green jobs, etc.), and structured around a network of small and medium-sized territorially based enterprises; on the other hand, the relationships of dependence on transnational capital are deepening within the framework of the current phase of accumulation of neoliberal globalization, which is linked to the territory in a neo-extractivist modality, giving rise to enclaves with little impact on local or regional development, which is contrary to the idea that "development from below therefore requires that most of the surpluses created by the successive specialization of territorially contiguous activities be invested in the same region in order to diversify the regional economy" (Stóhr WB in Boisier S., Cepeda F., Hilhorst J., Riffka S. and Uribe-Echevarría F., 1981:187)

Furthermore, while the need for active participation of local actors in development planning is emphasized—particularly in the case of large corporations locating in areas where accountability mechanisms and social license to operate (SLOs) are required—the influence of local actors in negotiations regarding the location of major investments is virtually nonexistent. This creates a paradox: the decentralizing discourse associated with territorial development processes contrasts sharply with the highly centralized nature of decisions concerning economic and productive policy strategies at the national level. This highlights the political weakness of local actors compared to exogenous actors, both institutionally and economically, primarily the central government and transnational capital.

These evident contradictions are considered to be resolved in the debate on development, and this is possible to the extent that the debate is stripped of its eminently political character—in the sense of a redistributive struggle for power—and is instead conceived as a process where all territories, eventually, and if their actors make proper use of endogenous capacities and external opportunities, can experience virtuous cycles of growth and well-being. The problem, then, is development itself, not unequal development.

The ongoing strategies, which will be discussed, can be analyzed as the result of the production of territoriality in peripheral contexts, where territorial integration policies at the sub-national level coexist with the processes of penetration of the dynamics of global capital in those same spaces, the former fulfilling a functional role insofar as the conflict is ignored (for example, that part of the foreign exchange that enters through extractive activities of FDI is turned over to social policies).

This is possible to the extent that the discourse built around endogenous development, while incorporating inequality as a problem to be combated, eliminates it as an explanatory category derived from the relationships established between territories that occupy different places in the regional hierarchies resulting from the division of labor in the current phase of capitalist accumulation.

By focusing attention on the potential that must be exploited, on the fact that this is achieved through broad agreements between actors in the territory, on the fact that the focus is on the efficiency in the use of resources, which includes an efficient state playing a role as an articulator, rather than as an actor, they shift the focus away from the structural relationships that are at the root of the phenomenon.

Therefore, the Working Group proposes reflecting on the extent to which the initial diagnosis of inequality can be overcome through endogenous development strategies, which dominate the landscape of state actions at the local level. While redistributive actions of scarce resources, whether in the form of transfers to local governments for decentralization plans or improvements to living conditions, may have positive aspects, they do not address the structural (productive and institutional) causes of inequality.

The central question is not whether policies are defined from within the territory or for the territory, but rather which policies have the capacity to produce substantial transformations in territorial hierarchies. This implies recognizing that while some actions implemented under the territorial development approach may improve the situation of disadvantaged local environments, for example, in terms of infrastructure or services provision, as well as the participation of residents in decision-making bodies regarding domestic community matters, this does not necessarily have an effect on the indicators that reveal the territorial gap.

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Unlike the regional planning experience of the first developmentalism, now it is no longer about directing state actions towards problem territories that had to be addressed, but to design and implement a development strategy focused on the idea that “… the productive system of the countries (…) is transformed using the development potential existing in the territory (…) through the investments made by companies and public agents, under the growing control of the local community” (Vázquez Barquero A., 1999:36).

The idea that development depends primarily on the internal capacities of territories finds its earliest mentions in the proposition of the need for "another" regional development strategy,

“…that would tend to increase the overall efficiency of all productive factors in the region, in a territorially integrated manner. The integration of territorial resources, together with the mobilization of territorially organized social and political structures, should constitute the basis for the endogenous generation of development impulses from below. Such development should be oriented first towards the equitable satisfaction of the basic needs of all strata of the population in the least developed areas and secondly towards longer-range development objectives.” (Stóhr WB Op. cit.,1981:187)

Regarding the cause of territorial inequality and how to combat it, the territorial development perspective is connected with the flexible storage currentAccording to this view, overcoming regional inequalities is related to the productive capacities of each region, and their growth is primarily due to their internal conditions and dynamics (Piore, M. and Sabel C., 1993). As a response to the exhaustion of the Fordist model, it argues that “the economic growth of the regions requires a complete change in industrial structures: from mass production of standardized goods aimed at homogeneous markets, to manufacturing with small runs of products made to the customer's specifications. From large, monopolistic companies to small, medium, and small companies, linked to each other through cooperative relationships and division of labor, which would generate external economies” (Cuervo M. and Morales F., 2009:373).

These approaches to local development also require changes in the political-institutional sphere, the axis of which is the process of decentralization of the State, which is carried out on the assumption of its inability to be efficient in globalized scenarios, productive relocation, real-time financial transactions and new forms of relationship with work.

The post-Fordist context is considered to challenge the very reason for the nation-state's existence, proposing the concept of territory instead. While globalization was supposed to be homogenizing, territory embraces diversity, highlighting the unique characteristics of each community. There, the state also finds its place, but now at the local level, not as a sole actor (a central, hierarchical, bureaucratic state), but within a multi-level governance model characterized by “…the existence of a plurality of public actors—at different levels of government—and private actors—business organizations and civil society—who interact through state coordination…” (Pemán, I. and Jiménez G., 2013:8), giving rise to a new way of conducting development policy from within the territory itself.

But while it is argued that the decentralization process “has the potential to transform regions and localities into active agents of their own development. “... local and regional governments can take the initiative on behalf of their populations and can participate in development strategies in the face of the global system, thus entering into competition with their own parent states” (Castells, 1997:301), the truth is that global dynamics force us to relativize such an assertion.

Territorial production by global market agents reaches previously unaffected areas, thanks to "changes in relative distances caused by development in transport and communication" (Massey D. and Meegan RA, 1979:2), integrating these into global accumulation dynamics.

This cannot be possible without the actions of the nation-state, no longer as a container of economic and productive processes, much less financial ones, nor as the economic actor of the Fordist phase, but rather as the entity that holds the legitimacy of political control over the territory, and is therefore necessary for transnational capital to operate within it. This does not mean that the weakness of nation-states in the face of the political entity constituted by that entity is not recognized. transnational capitalist class The issue at hand is not what Robinson (2007) discusses, but rather the recurring idea that the nation-state is no longer a key reference point when considering development within the context of neoliberal globalization. Following Robinson, one could argue that, just as during the Fordist-Keynesian phase nation-states generated “national circuits of accumulation and production that were externally linked to other similar national circuits through exchanges of goods and flows of capital” (Ibid., 26), in the globalization phase these states participate in “globalized circuits of accumulation” controlled by the new transnational capitalist class, which has “objective class existence and identity in the global system, above any local territory and politics” (Ibid., 2007: 65).

The above confirms the political nature of unequal development, insofar as inequality can only be understood as an asymmetrical power relationship.

In this regard, the proposal is to recover Latin American scholarship on unequal territorial development associated with the conditions of subordinate insertion within the context of the global capitalist system, where it is assumed that “development and underdevelopment constitute differentiated and opposing realities that are structurally articulated” (Enríquez, I., 2010:116). According to De Mattos,

 “This problem is linked to a set of systemic, historical and structural interrelationships, specific to the way the region is inserted into the world economy and the productive structures associated with it, in which territorial inequalities are part of the general dynamic of Latin American development, and must therefore be explained within a more global perspective (De Mattos, 1983:98)” (ECLAC, 2015:18)

The center-periphery perspective also serves as an explanatory framework for the production and reproduction of asymmetries within the subcontinent, between dynamic and depressed areas; or between regions within countries, which to a greater or lesser degree present inequalities in terms of economic indicators, population well-being, opportunities, as well as being reflected in unequal access to spaces of participation, which affects the quality of democracies.

In this context, the GT aims to create a space for reflection and knowledge generation about how the State acts, or fails to act, in the process of territorial production in the current phase of capitalist accumulation.