Table Of ContentLandlord & Peasant
in the Making of Latin America
Evelyne Huber and Frank Safford, Editors
Pitt Latin American Series
Agrarian Structure
& Political Power
landlord & Peasant
in the Making of Latin America
Evelyne Huber and
Frank Safford, Editors
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS
Pittsburgh and London
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260
Copyright© 1995, University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Eurospan, London
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Agrarian structure and political power : landlord and peasant in the
making of Latin America I edited by Evelyne Huber and Frank Safford.
p. cm.-(Pitt Latin American series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8229-3880-4 (d) .-ISBN 0-8229-5564-4 (pb)
1. Landowners-Latin America-History-Congresses. 2. Peasantry
-Latin America-History-Congresses. 3. Agriculture-Economic
aspects-Latin America-Congresses. I. Huber, Evelyne, 1950-
II. Safford, Frank, 1935- . III. Series.
HD133l.L29A39 1995
333. 33'554' 098-dc20 95-16082 CIP
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
Contents
vn Preface and Acknowledgments
3 Introduction
Evelyne Huber
21 Landlord and Campesino in the Chilean Road to Democracy
Arnold J. Bauer
39 The Buenos Aires Landed Class and the Shape of Argentine
Politics (1820-1930)
Tulia Halperin Donghi
67 Authoritarianism, Political Culture, and the Formation of the
State: Landowners, Agrarian Movements, and the Making of
National Politics in Nineteenth-Century Mexico and Peru
Florencia E. Mallon
111 Agrarian Systems and the State: The Case of Colombia
Frank Safford
151 Lord and Peasant in the Making of Modern Central America
Lowell Gudmundson
177 Applying Moore's Model to Latin America: Some Historians'
Observations
Frank Safford
183 Conclusion: Agrarian Structure and Political Power in
Comparative Perspective
Evelyne Huber and John D. Stephens
233 Notes on Contributors
235 Index
Preface and Acknowledgments
The intellectual origins of this book lie in an interdisciplinary seminar on
Latin America and the Caribbean for faculty and graduate students that ran
over several years at Northwestern University. The seminar sessions were
alternately devoted to presentation of the research of participants or to
discussion of common readings. The four core members of the seminar
were Josef Barton and three of the contributors to this volume, Frank
Safford, John Stephens, and Evelyne Huber. Early on we decided to focus
our reading on the relationship between agrarian structures and social and
political structures and processes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
as this focus accommodated our various research interests.
The interdisciplinary nature of the seminar gave rise to an interesting
and productive division of labor. The two social scientists, Huber and
Stephens, were always in search of patterns and generalizations and became
the presenters of theses and fourfold tables, whereas the two historians,
Barton and Safford, assumed the role of skeptics and defended the diversity
of historical experiences from being put into the straitjackets of general
models. One of these debates, inspired by Barrington Moore's Social Origins
of Dictatorship and Democracy, centered around the importance of large
landowners engaged in labor-intensive agriculture for the problems of
democracy in Latin America. Huber and Stephens pressed the relevance
and substantial validity of applying to Latin America much of Moore's
analysis of the relationship of agrarian structures to forms of political power.
Barton and Safford were more skeptical, believing that the categories
employed by Moore (landlords, bourgeoisie, labor-repressive agrarian sys
tems) were likely to dissolve, or at least become fuzzy, under the close
inspection of cases. They also believed that agrarian systems were likely to
be quite varied, within a given country, and that the relationships between
agrarian systems and the state were also likely to be quite variable among
and within the various countries. Thus, we decided to extend the dialogue
by inviting other scholars, particularly historians, to present conference
papers in which they would examine the applicability of elements of
Moore's analysis to Spanish American countries in which they had per
formed historical research.
The idea was to bring together experts on agrarian structures and
political developments in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a
vii
viii Preface and Acknowledgments
number of Latin American countries, and ask them to address a number of
specific questions on the topic, in the hope that, if there were any patterns
to be found, they would be revealed in a set of comparable studies of a
variety of country experiences. The conference took place on April28, 1990,
and this volume is the result. Again, the historians explored the specific
ways in which agrarian structures influenced political structures and proc
esses in the countries they know so well, and the social scientists attempted
to tease out of their essays those aspects that fit into systematic patterns of
relationships. As expected, some, though not all, of the historians tended
in various ways to question (or at least to complicate) the application of
Moore's analysis to Spanish America. Nonetheless, as the introduction and
conclusion indicate, the social scientists responded to these challenges with
'modifications, resilience, and firmness. No doubt, the discipline-specific
preferences among the contributors will be reflected to some extent in the
reactions of the readers. However, we hope that the readers will share our
experience and find the tension between the two approaches to be fruitful.
In the course of organizing this conference, we benefited from the
support of many people and institutions. Generous financial support was
provided by the Alumnae of Northwestern University and by the Fulcher
Fund of the Department of Political Science, administered by Ben Page,
Fulcher Professor, and Jay Casper, former chair of the department. The
History Department hosted the conference. Theresa Parker of the Depart
ment of Political Science provided invaluable logistical support.
In addition to the authors of the essays in this volume, several commen
tators made important contributions to the conference. Josef Barton, John
Coatsworth, Paul Gootenberg, Mark Szuchman, and J. Samuel Valenzuela
engaged all of the participants in interesting discussions and forced us to
sharpen our arguments. We wish to express our gratitude to all of these
people and institutions. Last but not least, the editors want to thank the
contributors for being patient about the inevitable delays in bringing an
edited volume to publication.
Agrarian Structure
& Political Power
