Politics Latin America

Gavin O'Toole

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138245013
• eBook ISBN: 9781351996402
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Politics Latin America examines the role of Latin America in the world and its importance to the study of politics with particular emphasis on the institutions and processes that exist to guarantee democracy and the forces that threaten to compromise it.

Now in its third edition and fully revised to reflect recent developments in the region, Politics Latin America provides students and teachers with an accessible overview of the region's unique political and economic landscape, covering every aspect of governance in its 21 countries. The book examines the international relations of Latin American states as they seek to carve out a role in an increasingly globalised world and will be an ideal introduction for undergraduate courses in Latin American politics, comparative politics, and other disciplines. This new edition will include:

• updated references to scholarship and debates;
• new themes such as environmental rights, women presidents, the Latin American Pope, Afro-Latinos, and the politics of sexual diversity;
• examination of demographic change and social movements;
• a new chapter on environmental economics and sustainable development.

This book is essential reading for undergraduates taking courses in Latin American Politics.

Part I

AN INTRODUCTION TO LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY

Chapter 1
From Independence to the 1930s

This chapter examines the historical development of Latin America from the era in which new countries emerged out of the struggles for independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century until the birth of mass politics in the early twentieth century. The political history of modern Latin America begins with the quest for independence by countries that had been moulded for three centuries by Spanish and Portuguese imperial control. By the time of Independence, uniquely Latin American societies were developing from the fusion of Iberian, indigenous, and African peoples and cultures. Nonetheless, the Iberian encounter with indigenous societies and the colonial era in Latin America left important legacies that had an important bearing on political development. Landmarks in the development of indigenous society between Conquest and Independence are summarized in Table 1.1.

Indigenous society contributed to political development in many ways, creating complex and ethnically divided societies in which the desire for stability among post-colonial elites – members of powerful social groups ranging from landowners, soldiers, and merchants of European origin in the early nineteenth century to career politicians, military officers, industrialists, financiers, and professionals by the late twentieth century – has been at least as powerful as their desire for democracy and development (see Fisher and O’Hara, eds, 2009). Institutional characteristics of some of the more powerful indigenous societies, such as that of the Aztecs, may also have been reflected in the development of politics since the early nineteenth century. The celebrated writer Octavio Paz, for example, likened the Mexican president to a tlatoani – an Aztec emperor who combined legal and sacred symbolic powers making him supreme in every respect (Paz, 1970). During the late colonial era prior to Independence, indigenous themes became prominent in the writing of non-indigenous priests and intellectuals developing early ideas of nationhood that rejected Spanish control (see Chapter 13). The fear among people of European descent of indigenous rebellion has also remained a feature of political culture into the twenty-first century, and was in evidence during the 1980s in Peru during the guerrilla war conducted by the Maoist organization Sendero Luminoso (see Boxes 12.4, 13.9); during the 1990s, when a mainly indigenous guerrilla army rebelled in Chiapas, Mexico (see Boxes 12.6, 13.5); and in Bolivia in the reaction among elites within resource-rich eastern provinces to political reforms that greatly empowered the country’s indigenous majority (see Chapter 8; Boxes 8.6, 12.11, 13.6).

The relationship of indigenous societies with their natural environment also left enduring legacies that have influenced political and economic development in Latin America. The Spanish Conquest was as much an ecological conquest as a political one, transforming ecosystems and landscapes and spawning narratives about nature that influence politics to this day. In 1492 the European invaders encountered sophisticated empires in Mexico and Peru with large populations that had established large cities, built roads and earthworks, cleared fields, and shaped forests. Indigenous societies had changed their surroundings to such an extent that a body of research on the Amazon sub-region, for example, now conceives of a ‘natural-cultural’ or ‘biocultural’ landscape (see, for example, Hecht and Posey, 1989). In turn, the Iberian impact on the natural environment was significant, and Spanish and Portuguese conquest and colonization resulted in the demographic collapse of indigenous society, changed how resources were used and managed, and ‘Europeanized’ flora and fauna. Scholarship generally agrees that the indigenous population declined by 90 per cent, mostly as a result of disease within the first decade of the Europeans’ arrival, from 50–100 million people in 1492 to 5–12 million at its lowest point in the seventeenth century. This demographic collapse had a major impact on the natural environment, enabling the Iberian conquerors to occupy farmland and pasture now abandoned. They brought plants, animals, and pests that had few natural predators and reproduced easily. Spanish colonial approaches towards managing resources such as water also had an enduring influence on the evolution of urban areas such as Mexico City (see Candiani, 2014). Moreover, the colonization of the Americas transformed the natural environment in Europe by making available to European farmers new species such as maize, potatoes, and tobacco and influencing population patterns (see Worster, 1990).

LANDMARKS
Table 1.1 Indigenous history prior to Independence

Year or period	Development
c.35,000–20,000 BC	People from Asia settle in the North American region and spread south
c.9000 BC	Communities are now established as far south as Tierra del Fuego in modern Argentina
c.6000–2000 BC	Intensive agriculture leads to the emergence of civilizations, particularly in Mexico, where hieroglyphic writing develops, and the Andes
AD c.990	Inca empire begins to expand in the Andes, eventually including modern Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and parts of Argentina and Chile
1325	Aztecs found Tenochtitlán, the site of modern Mexico City, and this becomes the capital of an expansive military empire
1492	Christopher Columbus lands in what is now the Bahamas, convinced he has found the route to Asia. He makes four voyages between 1492 and 1504. There are between 50 and 100 million indigenous people in the Americas and they have transformed their natural landscape
1494	The Treaty of Tordesillas shares out the ‘Indies’ between Spain and Portugal
1495	The Spaniards begin a brutal enslavement of the indigenous people of Hispaniola, mainly in their search for gold. By 1502 so few survive that they start to import African slaves
1519–40	The main period of Spanish conquest of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca civilizations and the escalation of the demographic collapse of indigenous society
1542	Spain tries to end the worst cruelty against indigenous people with the New Laws of the Indies
1560	The celebrated friar Bartolomé de las Casas estimates that by now up to 40 million indigenous people may have died
1600	At least 15 major epidemics have reduced the native population of the Americas to between 5 and 12 million, a fraction of its size prior to 1492
1697	The Spaniards finally conquer a Maya free-state, Tayasal, in the Petén jungle
1761	Mayas rebel against the Spaniards near Chichén Itza, Mexico
1780	Túpac Amaru II (José Gabriel Condorcanqui) leads a bloody revolt against the Spaniards in Tinta, Peru
1809–10	Indigenous people in Mexico rally behind the priest Miguel Hidalgo as creoles across Latin America initiate struggles for Independence against Spanish rule

Important ideas about indigenous people and their relationship with the natural environment that emerged during this period continue to have an influence on our attitudes towards Latin America today. Particularly potent ideas, for example, have been those of the ‘noble savage’ in which indigenous societies were attributed moral virtues lacking among Europeans, who corrupted their development; and what Denevan (1992) called the ‘pristine myth’, the notion that in 1492 the Americas were a sparsely populated wilderness where indigenous societies lived in a harmonious equilibrium with their environment, subsequently corrupted by European conquest (see Sale, 1990, 2000). These concepts continue to exercise an influence over contemporary attitudes towards indigenous people and Latin America’s natural environment.

The institution of slavery became an important mainstay of colonial society in some parts of Latin America and also had an enduring influence on political and economic development (see Klein, 2010). Slave labour was the basis of colonial economic growth and the feudal social structures constructed around the large country estates of aristocratic Hispanic families (see Fradera and Schmidt-Nowara, eds, 2013). Debates over slavery and race equality had a bearing on the political forms that were adopted in the post-Independence era and on subsequent immigration and development policies (see Chapter 13). The legacy of slavery informed the principle of racial and social equality enshrined in some of the early liberal constitutions of the independent republics of Latin America.

The Iberian colonizers established extractive economies in the region that served overseas markets. Colonial policies aimed at satisfying European demand explain many of the ecological changes in the Americas (see Mintz, 1991). Economic exploitation of natural resources – and competition for them between foreign states – has been at the heart of subsequent development in the region.

The Iberian imperial elite of aristocratic landowners, colonial officials, soldiers, and members of the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy maintained control over these divided and differentiated societies by force of arms, but also by the force of ideas. Populations wedded to tradition were inculcated with deeply rooted notions of racial and social hierarchy. Although members of wealthy Hispanic families had the resources to travel and so were exposed to cosmopolitan influences, most of the population remained isolated until the late eighteenth century from some of the social and ideological influences that were reshaping Europe and parts of North America. However, the subsequent independence of the Latin American territories and their evolution from conditions of anarchy to orderly control under modern states overseeing mass political participation would be determined as much by events outside the region as within it. The conquest of the New World also had profound implications for European development by exacerbating rivalries over trade between European powers, which began to compete for a share of the New World, inaugurating the age of imperialism that would ultimately shape global development. Many historians have argued that it was the Spanish Conquest that enabled Europe to gain global dominance and, eventually, established the basis for modern industrial capitalism.

Independence

Two centuries after the Conquest, the attitude of imperial Spain and Portugal towards their colonies had become one of neglect. During the seventeenth century Spain was also growing economically weaker while her colonies were becoming more prosperous. A new dynasty of French Bourbons succeeded to the Spanish throne in 1713 holding ‘absolutist’ ideas – a belief that the monarchy had a divine right to rule without restrictions – that made them less willing to share power with the Roman Catholic Church. The Bourbons wanted to reverse Spain’s decline and extract more from its colonies, and embarked on reforms that were felt most strongly in the Americas during the reigns of Carlos III (1759–88) and Carlos IV (1788–1808) (see Pearce, 2014). Angry at British forays into its Caribbean colonies, the Spanish crown reorganized administration and commerce so as to stimulate the economy. Similar reforms were undertaken in Portugal by the Marquis of Pombal (1750–77), a powerful prime minister who saw Brazil as key to Portugal’s revival.

Although Bourbon policies were successful because administration was more efficient, trade and government revenues grew, and military defences were strengthened, they generated discontent in the colonial population at a time when Enlightenment ideas also began to inform elite opinion (see Box 1.1), and so weakened the Spanish crown’s legitimacy – its enjoyment of consent for its authority. Economic reforms damaged local traders and administrative reorganization seeking to enhance the authority of Madrid meant people who had been born in Spain itself (peninsulares) replaced American-born whites, creoles (criollos), in official positions. Bour...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Brief Contents
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures, Tables, Boxes
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Publisher’s Acknowledgements
• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I An Introduction to Latin American History
• Part II Institutions, Processes, and Actors
• Part III International Relations
• Part IV Political Ideas
• Part V Economic Ideas
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index