In Greek mythology, the Gods condemned Sisyphus to the absurd task of repeatedly rolling a boulder to a mountaintop only to have the rock fall back to the ground. Sisyphus has freedom, but it is limited by divine circumstances. He can brace the boulder with his shoulder, thrusting the rock with all of his body's momentum arduously up to the peak. But the rock's fate is beyond his control, rushing back down the mountain with boundless fury.

In a financially globalized world, politicians in developing countries suffer a similar fate. Hoping to lift their countries to development's pinnacle, they toil against the fierce force of globalization. They repeatedly roll the policy boulder up the mountain. Hoping to please mercurial markets, governments cut spending, hike interest rates, and balance budgets. With each economic crisis, however, the rock repeatedly tumbles back down the mountain. In this manner, financial volatility has wreaked havoc on the economies of developing countries over the last two decades.

Why are some countries able to surmount the gravity of globalization, whereas others suffer from Sisyphus-like misfortune? Let us begin by taking a brief South American sojourn to Argentina and Venezuela. With the rise of the Latin American left over the last decade, many scholars and the popular press have often placed these two countries under a similar radical or populist banner. They share other political and economic characteristics too.