The international conference on corporations and authoritarian regimes in Latin America was hosted jointly by HARTMUT BERGHOFF (Institute for Economic and Social History, Georg-August University Göttingen) together with MARCELO BUCHELI (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and MANFRED GRIEGER (Corporate History Department, Volkswagen AG). It was the first time that scholars from different countries and disciplines came together to discuss questions of corporate conduct and responsibility with regard to authoritarian regimes in Latin American during the second half of the 20th century. Following a methodological and conceptual introduction, panels focused on specific countries, but engaged recurring, overarching themes of corporate collusion with military regimes, repression of labor and efforts of reconciliation.

The first panel began with a focus on methods and historical concepts which allow for the analysis of interactions between multinational corporations and political regimes in Latin America. MARCELO BUCHELI (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) started with a brief survey of the classic approaches like the “dependency theory” by A. G. Frank or the “triple alliance” concept by Peter Evans to analyze the relationship between authoritarian governments and corporations, before discussing new ways of engaging the topic, such as the “political survival approach.” Loyalty is an important factor for regimes and their relation to multinational corporations (MNCs) in this method, as he showed with the example of the United Fruit Company in Central Amerika. Bucheli concluded that scholars in this research field need to pursue new concepts and historical framework.

Calling for a more complex and differentiated perspective on “the corporation,” MANFRED GRIEGER (Corporate History Department, Volkswagen AG) investigated the relationship between Volkswagen and its subsidiary “Volkswagen do Brasil” with the Brazilian state from 1950 to 1965. The pursuit of an actor-centered approach, Grieger argued, sheds new light to the entanglement of companies like Volkswagen with the military regime in Brazil. While a structural analysis of the relationship between enterprises and state should still accompany such an actor concept, it challenges the notion of a single, unified “VW point of view.” Instead, research on the internal communication and the decision making processes shows that there was internal dissent over the question whether Volkswagen should develop political ties or not. It was, furthermore, primarily the local management, which determined the political involvement of the company in the country and less the management board from Germany. Focusing attention on the difficult relationship between institutional change in individual countries and the actions of MNCs, CHRISTINE HATZKY and CHRISTIAN HELM (both Leibniz University Hannover) presented first considerations and insights into their new research project on the pharmaceutical giant Hoffmann-La Roche’s engagement with Latin American markets. They focused on the case of the Argentinian branch and its ambivalent stance towards the military dictatorship as evidenced by reports of their CEO. After the military coup in 1976, Hoffmann-La Roche’s local management initially had a favorable view of the military regime as their profits grew, but as early as 1982 with mounting economic problems in Argentina their enthusiasm for the new regime quickly vanished.

The second panel put the spotlight entirely on Argentina’s 1976–1983 dictatorship. Labor historian VICTORIA BASUALDO (FLACSO Argentina-CONICET) gave insights into an Argentinian project documenting human rights violations committed against workers under military rule, demonstrating how deep the entanglement between corporations and the regime ran. Basualdo aims to clarify the responsibility of local business men in committing human rights abuses and to this end she investigated 25 enterprises with 900 individual cases of abuse and violence against workers. The project concludes that the relationship of corporations in the military dictatorship lay not alone on “cooperation,” but often they had a direct “responsibility” for the crimes. So she called for further investigations with a detailed case study designs to fill the gaps left open by the macro perspective of existing research. Several German companies were actively engaged with the Argentinian state as well. EDWARD BRUDNEY (Indiana University) demonstrated the violent excesses at the Deutz factory in Argentina to discuss questions of labor relations, the transformation of capital regimes and state policy and during Argentina’s Proceso de Reorganización Nacional. He proposed a historically-grounded, conjuncturally-focused approach to investigate such interactions between different actors and the regime. Bruchey emphasized the interaction between workers, unions and the church, which as an institution played an important role in the authoritarian regimes of heavily catholic Latin American countries.

META STEPHAN (Humboldt University Berlin) looked at Siemens and Daimler-Benz under the Argentine dictatorship. Assessing degrees of interaction, she proposed a new typology to (re-)appraise the entanglement between military regimes and MNCs in Argentina. In distinguishing between “doing business with advantages through the junta,” “creating acceptance for the military regime in Germany,” “collaborating with the Argentine military apparatus” and “using German political support to do business in Argentina” as categories of cooperation she went a long way towards fulfilling Bucheli’s call for new historical paradigms in evaluating the involvement especially of MNCs with authoritarian political regimes.

A third panel offered comparative perspectives on smaller Latin American economies such as Columbia and Peru. STEFANO TIJERINA (University of Maine) showed that beside the United States, whose political involvement in Latin America has been long a focus of historiographical attention, countries like Canada were also active in providing arms to Latin American regimes. He used a case study of Canada Air’s involvement with the Rojas Pinilla administration in Columbia in the 1950s to support his argument. More generally, the paper turned attention to the role played by North American and European governments and their use of corporate partners when dealing with in the regimes in Latin America. His presentation also showed how Cold War ideology infused military and political support for authoritarian regimes – in Columbia, Rojas Pinilla became a central figure within the US-American anti-Communist policies during in Latin America.

MARTIN MONSALVE ZANATTI (Universidad del Pacifico) presented an alternative approach to investigate the function of authoritarian regimes for companies especially for MNCs. He presented a network analysis of the business associations within the inner circles of the Peruvian military dictatorship 1968–1980. The military government strongly altered the structure of economic cooperation in Peru by establishing a new power elite and a new network of business groups. The fact that by the end of the 1970s this network imploded together with the military regime, Zanatti argued, shows that both were heavily linked to each other. By bringing in state actors and political ideology or by relying on network analysis, both papers of the panel introduced new approaches to analyze the interaction of Latin American regimes with MNCs and other business organizations.

The conference’s fourth panel concentrated on the Brazilian military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985. EYAL WEINBERG (University of Texas at Austin) started the panel with a look at the medical industry in Brazil, which showed the strong connection between health and the authoritarian regimes, a theme, which had also been apparent in Hatzky and Helm’s paper of the pharmaceutical industry. Weinberg emphasized the role of doctors as an important group of professionals within military regimes and he revealed the historical roots of Brazil’s current health care system. From Collaboration, to disengage and breaking with the state, the doctors stood between shifting politics and social activism. According to Weinberg they were essential for introducing a new health environment. ANTOINE ACKER (University of Turin) engaged the question whether there was a systematic involvement of Volkswagen in human rights abuses during the military dictatorship. In doing so he analyzed the ideological convergence between company and state. Acker re-conceptualizes the military dictatorship as regime which came to power and remained in power in part because of the help of economic actors like Volkswagen. The significance of the brand Volkswagen in Brazilian society has to be taken especially into account, according to Acker, because in the eyes of many Brazilians, Volkswagen was effectively a domestic brand and not a foreign firm. Acker’s work draws on the report from the “Truth Commission” (“Comissão Nacional da Verdade”), which was established in 2011 to investigate the crimes committed by companies during the military regime.

FREDERIK SCHULZE (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster) analyzed the relationship between corporations and the military in domestic development projects, investigating the case of the state owned company Electronorte and the energy project Tucuruí Dam in the Amazon region. Bringing in state-owned companies further broadened the perspectives of the conference where MNC dominated much of the attention. Schulze concluded that the technocratic rather than democratic launch of a large scale project threatening a unique ecological environment led to fierce protests of international NGOs and local inhabitants. Even under the conditions of military rule, this forced Electronorte to take up a new, ecological agenda. Taking a more general perspective, JANAINA FERREIRA DOS SANTOS (Universität Würzburg) discussed the critical remembrance of the military regime in Brazil and demonstrated that Brazilian society still has an ambivalent relationship with that period. She argues that the necessity of public remembrance was and is evident in Brazil’s society. Reconciliation through forgetting, i.e. avoiding the topic human rights abuse altogether, cannot be the right path to a transparent commemorative culture in Brazil, Ferreira dos Santos warned. The Truth Commission established in 2011 which published its final report in 2014 can be seen as a necessary first step towards a policy of remembrance. Nevertheless the discussion about the crimes committed during the dictatorship has not yet reached the broad masses of Brazilian society.

The final panel focused on the view from Europe. CLAUDIA MÜLLER-HOFF (European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Berlin) presented a paper on the legal debate and the development of international law relating to corporate responsibility in authoritarian regimes, asking how corporations can be placed in the context of transnational justice. Müller-Hoff notes that the Nuremberg trials, which litigated and punished also companies, were in some respect far more progressive than recent litigation efforts connected to crimes committed by companies under dictatorships. The paper concluded with the notion that there is a democratic deficit in transnational law, which can be explained by the “Revolving Door Effect” of actors in legislative and regulatory positions switching into the corporate world and vice versa. The legal debate showed that to prevent these actions a general and international framework of compliance based on business ethics has to be build up to force companies to act different and learn from the past.

In the concluding discussion conference participants summarized the different approaches to the subject that help and supplement each other. The use of new methodological frameworks such as the network analysis of Peruvian business groups by Zanetti or the typology of forms of ‘entanglement’ proposed by Stephan enriched the conference as did the detailed country-specific case studies. The non US-centric approach to transnational relations was highlighted as particularly productive because as U.S. corporations had long been at the center of research on foreign corporate actions in Latin America. The discussion also noted important omissions, including the Central American dictatorships and the important case of Chile which received only cursory attention in the papers presented. Further research, participants suggested, should look into the role of the 1970s “oil crises” and into phenomena such as the “professionalization of managers” and changes in “management culture” as they pertain to questions of corporate responsibility and compliance.

Conference Overview:

Hartmut Berghoff (Georg-August University Göttingen): Welcome Address

Panel 1: Methods and Concepts, Questions and Problems
Chair: Uwe Spiekermann (Georg-August University Göttingen)

Marcelo Bucheli (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign): Shifting policies while keeping the ideology: Latin American military regimes' differing policies towards multinational corporations in the 1970s

Manfred Grieger (Corporate History Department, Volkswagen AG Wolfsburg): Volkswagen in Brazil, 1950–1965. A German Company and the Brazilian Policy of Development

Christine Hatzky / Christian Helm (Leibniz University Hannover): Risks and Side Effects. A Transnational Pharma Corporation in Latin America

Panel 2: Argentina
Chair: Jan Logemann (Georg-August University Göttingen)

Victoria Basualdo (FLACSO Argentina-CONICET, Buenos Aires): Business responsibility in repression against workers in Argentina (1976–1983): an interdisciplinary study

Edward Brudney (Indiana University Bloomington): In Defense of Our Livelihood: Deutz Workers, Community, and the ‘Proceso de Reorganización’

Meta Stephan (Humboldt University Berlin): Siemens and Daimler-Benz under the Argentine dictatorship (1976–1983)

Panel 3: Comparative Perspectives: Colombia and Peru
Chair: Marcelo Bucheli (University of Illinois)

Stefano Tijerina (University of Maine): Canada Air and the Rojas Pinilla Administration: Canadian-Colombian Relations in the 1950s

Martin Monsalve Zanatti (Universidad del Pacifico de Lima): New Economic Groups and Changes in the Peruvian’s Corporate Network and Business Groups during the Military Regimes (1968–1980)

Panel 4: Brazil
Chair: Manfred Grieger (Corporate History Department, Volkswagen AG Wolfsburg)

Eyal Weinberg (University of Texas at Austin): Medical Business and Medico-Politics under the Brazilian Military Regime (1964–1985)

Antoine Acker (University of Turin): VW and the Military Dictatorship in Brazil

Frederik Schulze (Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster): State-Owned Companies during the Military Dictatorship in Brazil. The Case of Eletronorte and the Tucuruív Dam

Janaina Ferreira dos Santos (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg): A culture of forgetting? Transition to Democracy and Political Memory of the Military Dictatorship in Brazil

Panel 5: The View from Europe
Chair: Hartmut Berghoff (Georg-August University Göttingen)

Claudia Müller-Hoff (European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Berlin): Transitional Justice – Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations

Concluding Discussion