Latin American Politics: Dynamics of State Formation, Reform, and Revolution

This course will focus on the dynamics of state formation and social conflict in Latin America in global, regional, and local contexts from colonialism to the present day. Empirically, this course will emphasize a comparative perspective of Latin American state formation as the outcome of endogenous and transnational power dynamics. This examination of the evidence will be informed by Latin American contributions to postcolonial theory, particularly as described by Argentinean Walter Mignolo. This will allow us to consider the state as a set of institutions that reflect and reinforce axes of economic, racial, and gendered domination in Latin America. Ethnographic case studies and documentary histories will be combined with a consideration of geopolitical intervention to construct a critical analysis of state formation as a historically contingent process for consolidating power in societies rather than, necessarily, a political technology for modernization and the provision of security. Major issues to be covered include endogenous political formation as an ongoing outcome of colonial and neocolonial economic processes, liberal and conservative approaches to indigenous politics, and gendered aspects of reform and revolution in Latin America. Special attention will be paid to the Mexican, Bolivian, and Cuban revolutions; bureaucratic authoritarianism, particularly in Chile; and the contemporary “Bolivarian revolution” in the region.