Social Foundations of Institutional Order in Latin America

Abstract:

This talk will present an account of long-run institutional development in Latin America that emphasizes the social and political foundations of state-building processes. The argument focuses on societal dynamics that 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, but highly stable distributions of state capacity in the region.

About the speaker:

Marcus Kurtz is an Associate Professor at Ohio State University. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of comparative politics, democratization, political economy and development, with a focus on Latin America. His publications have appeared in such journals as American Journal of Political Science, World Politics, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, Journal of Politics, and Politics & Society. He has written two books, Free Market Democracy and the Chilean and Mexican Countryside (Cambridge, 2004) and Latin American State Building in Comparative Perspective (forthcoming, Cambridge 2013).