Latin American State Building In Comparative Perspective

"Provides an account of long-run institutional development in Latin America that emphasizes the social and political foundations of state-building processes"--

Latin American State Building in Comparative Perspective provides an account of long-run institutional development in Latin America that emphasizes the social and political foundations of state-building processes. The study argues that societal dynamics have path-dependent consequences at two critical points: the initial consolidation of national institutions in the wake of independence, and at the time when the 'social question' of mass political incorporation forced its way into the national political agenda across the region during the Great Depression. Dynamics set into motion at these points in time have produced widely varying and stable distributions of state capacity in the region. Marcus J. Kurtz tests this argument using structured comparisons of the post-independence political development of Chile, Peru, Argentina and Uruguay.

State Building in Latin America explores why some countries in the region developed effective governance, while others did not. The argument focuses on political ideas, economic geography, public administration, to account for the development of public primary education, taxation, and military mobilization in Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.

If economic elites are notorious for circumventing tax obligations, how can institutionally weak governments get the wealthy to shoulder a greater tax burden? This book studies the factors behind the adoption of elite taxes for public safety purposes. Contrary to prominent explanations in the literature on the fiscal strengthening of the state – including the role of resource dependence and inequality – the book advances a theory of elite taxation that focuses on public safety crises as windows of opportunity and highlights the importance of business-government linkages to overcome mistrust toward government from corruption and lack of accountability. Based on evidence from across Latin America and rich case studies from experiences in Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico, the book provides scholars and policymakers with a blueprint for contemporary state-building efforts in the developing world.

The growth of institutional capacity in the developing world has become a central theme in twenty-first-century social science. Many studies have shown that public institutions are an important determinant of long-run rates of economic growth. This book argues that to understand the difficulties and pitfalls of state building in the contemporary world, it is necessary to analyze previous efforts to create institutional capacity in conflictive contexts. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the process of state and nation building in Latin America and Spain from independence to the 1930s. The book examines how Latin American countries and Spain tried to build modern and efficient state institutions for more than a century - without much success. The Spanish and Latin American experience of the nineteenth century was arguably the first regional stage on which the organizational and political dilemmas that still haunt states were faced. This book provides an unprecedented perspective on the development and contemporary outcome of those state and nation-building projects.

Latin America is a region of great diversity and a rich laboratory for understanding the processes of political development and their interaction with economic growth, social modernization, and cultural influences. Highlighting crucial periods of dynamic socioeconomic and political change, Comparative Latin American Politics provides a balanced, concise overview of select Latin American countries without underestimating the complexities of a region noted for its striking differences. The book focuses on the dominant dyad of Mexico and Brazil while also considering in detail Argentina, Chile, Peru, Columbia, and Venezuela - seven countries that contain four-fifths of the region's inhabitants as well as an even higher proportion of its economy. Recognizing that political institutions and cultures are built over generations, author Ronald M. Schneider divides his analysis into two parts. Part one examines the period from independence to 1930, when countries were coping with an array of post-independence problems and challenges of national consolidation. Part two concentrates on 1930 to the present day and fleshes out current political practices and structures. Each part devotes chapters to specific country coverage as well as meaningful comparative perspectives that illuminate the political evolution of the region and offer salient lessons for other developing parts of the world.

The process of construction of national states had a decisive moment during the period of revolutions that spanned from the end of the eighteenth century until the mid-nineteenth century. Even if it was a generalized process throughout the Western world, the majority of social scientists that have analyzed it have based their theoretical models on the European and North American experiences. This volume pays particular attention to the historical experience of Latin America and accounts for its distinctive regional and national characteristics through the analysis of cases. It also evokes the existence of certain features of the process that historiography has not sufficiently taken into consideration until now. This book provides the first detailed perspective of the formation of the State’s bureaucracies in Latin America, a long and complex process shaped by the political, economic, social, and cultural conditions of different countries in the continent. These bureaucracies absorbed and institutionalized the pre-existing configurations of power while simultaneously transforming them. The essays included in this book offer an innovative vantage point for the analysis of issues that continue to be crucial in present-day Latin America, such as those that involve the relations between the State and society.

Offers a comprehensive, region-wide analysis of the politics of taxation in Latin America to make reforms politically palatable and sustainable.