Latecomer State Formation: Political Geography and Capacity Failure in Latin America

Abstract

As of late, political scientists have ventured into studying the historical dynamics of state building in Latin America, a trend that has not gone unnoticed among historians. Such works have focused on the capacity of states to wage war and their bureaucratic development but have thus far abstained from offering a general theory regarding state formation in the region. Sebastián Mazzuca takes this leap by offering a wide theoretical approach that seeks to analyze the diverse political geography of Latin American countries and to understand why, in Mazzuca's words, these “states were born weak” (p. 1).Mazzuca eloquently argues that in Latin America, early success regarding state formation meant failure at state building. Unlike Max Weber's and Charles Tilly's “pioneer” European states—where the processes of state formation and state building ran in parallel—Latin American “latecomer” countries first formed states, which in turn inhibited their state-building capacities (pp. 29–32). With states already in place, Latin American leaders did not become strong through conflict with their neighbors. Rather, statesmen opted to establish coalitions with their peripheries, which maintained autonomy as they were never subdued militarily by the center. The will to pursue—or reject—such coalitions was determined by the desire to pursue what Mazzuca terms “trade-led state formation,” as countries sought to increase their revenues not through taxation but by inserting themselves in the global economy, an opportunity offered by the nineteenth-century Pax Britannica.Within this framework, both geography and politics determined the three different “pathways of state formation” taken by the region's various countries, summarized by Mazzuca as “port-driven” (Argentina and Brazil), “party-driven” (Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay), and “lord-driven” (Central America, Peru, and Venezuela). The pathways chosen explain why some states emerged as “colossuses” and why others were geographically smaller or, indeed, why other political units never came into existence or disappeared altogether. For the port-driven pathway, “entrepreneurs” incorporated unruly peripheries to foster a favorable climate for foreign trade. The party-driven pathway had an “expansionary” tendency via the establishment of coalitions to widen the basis of party support. Finally, the lord-driven pathway shows a “reductionist propensity,” as caudillos did not wish to weaken their power by enlarging their territories.Mazzuca's theory of “trade-led state formation” is intriguing, and not only for political scientists. After all, few historians will decisively argue that Latin American states devoted more time to war than to trade. Likewise, his exploration of potential “alternative” states (the Republic of Tucumán and the Republic of Piratini, among others) that faded from history also illustrates how the different pathways available to Latin American leaders determined the region's current political geography. It also offers historians the opportunity to study these forgotten political relics.Yet the book's organization is problematic. Argentina generously receives two extensive chapters in which a conventional political narrative is employed to ground Mazzuca's arguments, while Mexico and Brazil receive one chapter each, equally characterized by such traditional histories. Colombia and Uruguay are combined into a single chapter as states driven by party dynamics, although the difference in size and capacity between them is not decisively explained by this pathway. Finally, Central America, Peru, and Venezuela are lumped together in the final pages of the book. Latin American historians will be disappointed to see such disparate countries put together; furthermore, in the case of port-driven states, an interesting but limited way of looking at geography prevails.More importantly, by relegating some states to a second tier, Mazzuca loses a golden opportunity to further explore his theory. Peru is a good example of this. Barely ten pages are used to analyze the only Andean country in his study. Following the lord-driven pathway, Ramón Castilla is primarily seen as a “state-breaker” due to the collapse of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation (p. 380). This conclusion will be surprising to experts on the period, for whom Castilla is seen as a state maker (who also had access to a port, albeit a Pacific one). Castilla was a secondary figure during the years of the confederation, with no power to break states. Furthermore, by centering his analysis on that failed political union, Mazzuca forgoes the chance to fully analyze the arrival of the guano boom, which would strengthen his trade-led state formation theory.In his conclusion, Mazzuca ventures the ambitious remark that the colonial legacy ought to be “deemphasized but not ignored,” as it was essentially obliterated after independence (p. 399). This might be true in the peripheries of the Spanish empire, such as Argentina, but for the centers few will decisively argue that colonial structures—material or psychological—had the limited impact that Mazzuca argues. Despite these controversies, the book provides a solid theory from which one can build on—or against—Tilly's famous dictum. If approached with nuance, it offers a useful conceptual framework to explore future histories of the Latin American state.