Luigi Manzetti fills an important gap in the literature onmarket reforms in Latin America by providing a comparativeanalysis of privatization in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru. Heengages the literature on economic reform in developingcountries by focusing on the implementation of this singlepolicy and complements a burgeoning scholarship on theeconomics of privatization in the region. The main contribu-tion lies in underlining the relevance of political factors forexplaining the success of privatization policies. The "SouthAmerican" style, he suggests, reinforces the view of thosewho, like John Williamson and Stephen Haggard ("ThePolitical Conditions of Economic Reform," in Williamson,ed. The Political Economy of Reform, 1994) and GuillermoO'Donnell ("Delegative Democracy," Journal of Democracy 5[January 1994]: 53­69), associate the rapid implementationof market reforms with the concentration of executive au-thority at the expense of the checks and balances of liberaldemocracies.