State Formation and Democracy in Latin America, 1810-1900

Lopez-Alves, Fernando. State Formation and Democracy in Latin America, 1810-1900. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. 295 pp.

Most social scientists have scrutinized historical events between 1870 and 1914 to understand Latin American institution-building experiences. However, Fernando Lopez-Alves, a political scientist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is part of a small, but growing, group of scholars that contends that the foundation of the oligarchic states of the early twentieth century is to be found in the period immediately following independence. Rather than stressing the impact of the Iberian cultural tradition, the rise of the Latin American export-led economies, or the elite's fear of the masses, Lopez-Alves argues that "when either political parties or armies took the more active role in institution building, the resulting regimes were more or less democratic" (p. 4). Without denying the tremendous impact of Latin America's integration into the global economy and the extraordinary footprint of three centuries of Spanish colonial rule, the author attempts to reveal the limitations of economic and cultural determinism as a paradigm to explain Latin America's political woes during the nineteenth century.

Clearly, the Latin American societies that emerged from the nineteenth century differed in levels of economic development and the use of organized labor. Lopez-Alves, however, illustrates that the most striking differences were political in nature. The author reminds the reader that political parties prevailed in Chile, Uruguay, and Colombia. In Argentina and Brazil, weaker parties confronted serious obstacles to influencing government. In terms of state institutions, Chile, Mexico, and Argentina were able to monopolize coercion, whereas Uruguay, Colombia, and Venezuela maintained only a weak presence in the countryside. A political elite created the state in Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile, whereas the military created the state in Paraguay and Venezuela. In State Formation and Democracy in Latin America, Lopez-Alves explains these political differences by examining the complexities of state formation, power centralization, and the design of government institutions. The author also seeks to uncover the conditions under which more open and democratic regimes may occur.

Lopez-Alves argues his point by providing an in-depth comparison of Uruguay, Colombia, and Argentina from approximately 1810 to 1900. Although many historians and political scientists have suggested that these countries constitute exceptions to the common trajectory of the Latin American political and historical experience during the nineteenth century, Lopez-Alves states that Uruguay, Colombia, and Argentina "follow comparable and recognizable patterns of nation building" (p. 6). Lopez-Alves chose these specific case studies because the differences between Argentina and Uruguay were institutional, whereas "the gap that separated Uruguay and Colombia was fundamentally structural and cultural" (p. 9). As a result, Uruguay is the central comparative study.

Lopez-Alves uses his case studies to explain why political parties developed into sturdy organizations that could shape the state in some countries, but not in others. The author contends that an important part of the answer lies in "the competition that developed between parties and the military in mobilizing the rural poor" (p. 32). When the militias in the wars for independence recruited heavily in the rural areas, as in Colombia and Uruguay, the author argues that the military did not identify itself with the central power. As such, the state grew weaker and the parties grew stronger. As a result, Colombia and Uruguay were more democratic than Argentina at the beginning of the twentieth century. When the military remained associated with the urban elites, the state grew stronger and the parties weaker, as in Argentina. The author clearly points out that the allegiance of the rural labor force was essential "not only for economic development but also for political control" (p. 44).

These three case studies lead the reader to question some commonly held assumptions about the nineteenth century Latin American historical experience. For example, historians have argued that the process of power centralization was slow in Colombia because of diverse geography and cultural diversity. Yet, Colombia differed greatly from the more homogeneous ethnic and cultural landscape of Uruguay, which also experienced a delayed process of power centralization. Perhaps most surprising is the fact that Argentina, the largest of the three countries, was the first to centralize power. The three case studies presented in State Formation and Democracy in Latin America are well-researched examinations of an intriguing period of Latin American history. Although the book's lack of a chronological development can cause the reader some confusion and annoyance, the information to be gathered from Lopez-Alves' work is worth the struggle.