Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-27T06:53:30.590Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - State organization in Latin America since 1930

from Part One - State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Laurence Whitehead
Edited by
Leslie Bethell
Laurence Whitehead
Affiliation:
Official Fellow in Politics, Nuffield College, Oxford
Leslie Bethell
Affiliation:
St Antony's College, Oxford
Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

This chapter surveys more than half a century in the development of state organization in twenty formally sovereign republics of Latin America. As a historical survey rather than an exercise in abstract theory, it pays attention to the particularities of individual cases, while of course seeking to place them in their comparative context. A number of specific aspects of state organization — territorial control, public employment, fiscal capacity, scope of economic regulation, and accountability to the citizenship — will be singled out for attention. The aim is to isolate the main long-run trends in state organization in Latin America since 1930, and to formulate some generalizations about their determinants. Clearly, we must consider not ‘the Latin American state’, but a range of state organizations in Latin America responding to quite varied conditions with respect to economic development, to geopolitical location and to socio-political context. However, there are some important limits within which these variations occur, and rather than thinking of twenty totally distinctive national experiences we can identify several clusters of states with sufficient similarities to permit commonality of treatment. But first a number of caveats are in order. This is not another account of the development of state capitalism (although all the countries under consideration developed forms of state organization intended to mediate the crucial relationship with the capitalist world market). Limitations of space have prevented much consideration of the varying ideological climate within which state organization has been shaped since 1930. In particular, changing doctrines of, and attitudes towards, nationalism would merit closer closer attention than they can receive here.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Latin America , pp. 1 - 96
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baer, Werner, Kerstenetzky, Isaac and Villela, Annibal V., ‘The Changing Role of the State in the Brazilian Economy’, World Development, I, II 1973Google Scholar
Baer, Werner, The Brazilian Economy, Growth and Development, 2nd edn (New York, 1983), ch. 9.Google Scholar
Boris, Fausto (ed), Historia Geral de Civilizaçāo Brasileira, III, 0 Brasil Republicano, 4, Eamomia e Cultura (1930–1964) (Sāo Paulo, 1984).Google Scholar
Brooks, David C., ‘US Marines, Miskitos, and the Hunt for Sandino: the Río Coco patrol in 1928’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 21/2 (1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campello de Souza, Maria do Carmo, Estado e Partidos Polílicos no Brasil (1930 a 1964) (Sāo Paulo, 1983).Google Scholar
Cavarrozzi, Marcelo, ‘Beyond Transitions to Democracy in Latin America’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 24, 3 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chacon, Vamireh, Estado e Povo no Brasil: as Experiêncial de Estado Novo e da Democracia Populista: 1937–64 (Rio de Janiero, 1977)Google Scholar
Christian, Anglade and Fortin, Carlos (eds), The State and Capital Accumulation in Latin America, 2 vols (London, 1985 and 1990)Google Scholar
Contreras, Manuel, ‘Taxes and War: The Political Economy of Bolivia 1920–1935’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 22, 25 (1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dain, Sulamis, Empresa Estatal e Capitalismo Contemporâneo (Campinas, 1986).Google Scholar
de Escobar, Janet Kelly (ed.), Empresas del Estado en America Latina (Caracas, 1985)Google Scholar
de Estadística, Dirección General, Quinto Censo de Población: 15 de Mayo de 1930 (Mexico, D.F., 1934).Google Scholar
de Estadística, Oficina Nacional, Anuario 1929 (La Paz, 1931), Vol. II.Google Scholar
Díaz-Alejandro, Carlos F., ‘The Argentine State and Economic Growth: a historical review’, in Ranis, Gustav (ed.), Government and Economic Development (New Haven, Conn., 1971).Google Scholar
Downes, Richard, ‘Autos over Rails: How US business supplanted the British in Brazil, 1910–28’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 24, 3 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Draibe, Sônia, Rumos e Metamorfoses: Estado e Industnalizaçāo no Brasil, 1930–1960 (Rio de Janeiro, 1985).Google Scholar
Echeverria, Rafael, Empleo Público en Américia Latina (Santiago, 1985)Google Scholar
Escudé, Carlos, ‘Contenido nacionalista de la enseñanza de la geografia en la República Argentina, 1879–1986’, Ideas en Ciencias Sociales, 9 (Universidad de Belgrano, Buenos Aires, 1988).Google Scholar
Faletto, Enzo, ‘The Specificity of the Latin American State’, CEPAL Review, 38 (1989)Google Scholar
Fishlow, Albert, ‘The Latin American State’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 4, 3 (1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franco, Julio Brea, Administración y Elecciones: La Experiencia Dominicana de 1986 (San José, 1987).Google Scholar
Gallo, Carmenza, Taxes and State Power: Political Instability in Bolivia, 1900–1950 (Philadelphia, Pa., 1991), ch. 5Google Scholar
Garrido, Celso (ed.), Empresarios y Estado en America Latina (Mexico, D.F., 1988).Google Scholar
Geddes, Barbara, ‘Building “State” Autonomy in Brazil, 1930–64’, Comparative Politics, 22, 2 (1990).Google Scholar
Gellman, Irwin F., Good Neighbour Diplomacy: United States Policies in Latin America, 1933–45 (Baltimore, Md., 1979).Google Scholar
George, Eder Jackson, Inflation and Development in Latin America: a Case History of Inflation and Stabilisation in Bolivia (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1968).Google Scholar
Gliejeses, Piero, ‘The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 21, 3 (1989).Google Scholar
Graham, Lawrence, Civil Service Reform in Brazil: Principles Versus Practice (Austin, Tex., 1968).Google Scholar
Gravil, Roger, ‘State Intervention in Argentina’s Export trade Between the Wars’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 2, 2 (1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grieb, Kenneth J., Guatemalan Cuadillo: The Regime of Jorge Ubico (Athens, Ohio, 1979).Google Scholar
Guerra, Francois Xavier, ‘Les Avatars de la Representation en Amérique Hispanique au XIXc siecle’, in Couffignal, Georges (ed.), Reinventer la Democratic (Paris, 1992)Google Scholar
Hamilton, Nora, The Limits of State Autonomy: Post-Revolutionary Mexico (Princeton, N.J., 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, Finch (ed), Contemporary Uruguay: Problems and Prospects (University of Liverpool ILAS Working Paper 9, 1989).Google Scholar
Hodge, John E., ‘The Role of the Telegraph in the Consolidation and Expansion of the Argentine Republic’, The Americas, 41 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, R. A., Latin America and the Second World War, Vol. I, 1939–42 (London, 1981).Google Scholar
Humphreys, R. A., Latin America and the Second World War, Vol. II 1942–5 (London, 1982)Google Scholar
,Internal World Bank Document, Brazil: Public Expenditure Subsidy Policies and Budgetary Reform (Washington, D.C., 1989).
Isuani, E. and Tenti, Emilio (eds), Estado Democrático y Político Social (Buenos Aires, 1989).Google Scholar
J. P., Deler and Saint-Geours, Y., Estados y Naciones en Los Andes: Hacia Una Historia Comparativa, 2 vols (Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima, 1986).Google Scholar
Joseph, Gilbert M., Revolution from Without: Yucatán, Mexico, and the United States, 1880–1924 (Cambridge, 1982).Google Scholar
Justica, Paz y, Uruguay Nunca Mas: Human Rights Violations, 1972–85 (Philadelphia, Pa., 1992).Google Scholar
Kling, Merle, ‘Taxes on the External Sector: An Index of Political Behaviour in Latin America’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, 3, 2 (1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, Alan, ‘Mexico, c. 1930–1946’, Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. VII (1991).Google Scholar
Kornblith, Miriam and Quintana, Luken, ‘Gesción fiscal y centralización del poder en los gobiernos de Cipriano Castro y de Juan Vicente Gómez’, Politeia, 10 (Caracas, 1981).Google Scholar
Kornblith, Miriam and Maingon, Thais, Estado y Gasto Público en Venezuela, 1936–80 (Caracas, 1985).Google Scholar
Lombardi, John, Venezuela (Oxford, 1982).Google Scholar
Lopes, Lucas, Memorias do Desenvolvimento (Rio de Janeiro, 1991).Google Scholar
Lundahl, Mats, ‘Underdevelopment in Haiti: some recent contributions’, Journal of Latin American Studies 23, 2 (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malloy, James M., The Politics of Social Security in Brazil (Pittsburgh, Pa., 1979).Google Scholar
Maria, Amparo Casat and Peres, Wilson, El Estado Empresario en Mexico: ¿Agotamiento o Renovación?, Siglo XXI (Mexico, D.F., 1988), ch. 1.Google Scholar
Marshall, Adriana (comp.), El Empleo Público Frente a la Crisis (Geneva, 1990).Google Scholar
Martins, Luciano, Estado Capitalisla e Burocracia no Brasil pós 64 (Rio de Janeiro, 1985).Google Scholar
Martz, John D., ‘National Security and Politics: the Colombia-Venezuela border’, in Herzog, Lawrence A. (ed.), Changing Boundaries in the Americas (Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1992)Google Scholar
McGreevey, William, Social Security in Latin America: Issues and Options for the World Bank (Washington, DC, 1990).Google Scholar
Mesa-Lago, Carmelo, ‘Social Security in Latin America’, special section in the Inter-American Development Bank Economic and Social Progress in Latin America: 1991 Report (Washington, D.C., October 1991).Google Scholar
Mesa-Lago, Carmelo, La Seguridad Social y el Sector Informal (Santiago, 1990)Google Scholar
Mesa-Lago, Carmelo, Social Security in Latin America: Pressure Groups, Stratification, and Inequality (Pittsburgh, Pa., 1978)Google Scholar
Meyer, Lorenzo, Historia de la Revolución Mexicana, 1928–34 (Mexico, D.F., 1978)Google Scholar
Miceli, Sergio, Intelectuais e Classe Dirigente no Brasil (1920–45) (Rio de Janeiro, 1979), ch. 3.Google Scholar
Midré, Georges, ‘Bread or solidarity? Argentine social policies, 1983–1990’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 24, 2 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morales, Juan-Antonio, ‘Inflation Stabilization in Bolivia’, in Bruno, Michael, Tella, Guido, Dornbusch, Rudiger and Fisher, Stanley (eds), Inflation Stabilisation. The experience of Israel, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Mexico (Cambridge, Mass., 1988).Google Scholar
Mueller, Dennis C. has provided a balanced survey of the academic literature in ‘The Growth of Government: a public choice perspective’, International Monetary Fund Staff Paper, March 1987Google Scholar
Musgrave, Richard A., Fiscal Reform in Bolivia (Harvard Law School, International Tax Program, Cambridge, Mass., 1981).Google Scholar
Nunes, Edson, ‘Modernizaçåo, desenvolvimiento e serviço público: notas sobre a reforma administrativa no Brasil’, in IPEA Perspectivas da Economia Brazileira (Brasília, 1991).Google Scholar
O’Donnell, Guillermo, ‘On the State, Democratization and some Conceptual Problems’, World Development, 21, 8 (1993).Google Scholar
Oszlak, Oscar, La Formación del Estado Argentino (Buenos Aires, 1990), ch. 3.Google Scholar
Peñaranda, Enrique, Mensaje al H. Congreso Ordinario de 1943 (La Paz, 1943).Google Scholar
Rafael, Villegas Antillón, El Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones y El Registro Civil de Costa Rica (CAPEL, San Jose, 1987).Google Scholar
Reynolds, Clark W., The Mexican Economy: Twentieth Century Structure and Growth (New Haven, Conn., 1970).Google Scholar
Roberto Moraes, Antonio Carlos, ‘Notas sobre identidade nacional e institutionalizaçāo da geografia no Brasil’. (Paper presented to 15th Annual Congress of ANPOCS, Caxambú, October 1991.)
Sollis, Peter, ‘The Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua: development and autonomy’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 21, 3 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorp, Rosemary, Economic Management and Economic Development in Peru and Colombia (Basingstoke, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Topik, Steven, ‘The Economic Role of the State in Liberal Regimes — Brazil and Mexico compared, 1888–1910’, in Love, Joseph L. and Jacobsen, Nils (eds), Guiding the Invisible Hand: Economic Liberalism and the State in Latin American History (New York, 1988).Google Scholar
Trindade, Hélgio, ‘A Construçāo do Estado Nacional na Argentina e no Brasil (1800–1900): Esboço do uma Análise Comparativa’, Dados (Rio de Janeiro), 28, 1 (1985).Google Scholar
,United Nations, Mission of Technical Assistance to Bolivia, 1951 (New York, 1951)
Veliz, Claudio, The Centralist Tradition of Latin America (Princeton, N.J., 1980), esp. ch. 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waisman, Carlos, Reversal of Development in Argentina (Princeton, 1987), ch. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werz, Nikolaus, ‘State, Oil and Capital Accumulation in Venezuela’, in Anglade, Christian and Fortín, Carlos (eds), The State and Capital Accumulation in Latin America, Vol. 2 (London, 1990).Google Scholar
Wilkie, James W.. Statistical Abstract of Latin America. Supplement 3, Statistics and National Policy (UCLA, Los Angeles, 1975).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×