War and Nation Building in Latin America: Crash Course World History 225 Video Lecture | A Complete Guide to World History : 2 - World Knowledge

Hi, I'm John Green.
This is Crash Course World History, and today
we're gonna return to two of our favorite
themes: the creation of nation-states and
the role of war.
And we're gonna focus on a region that often
gets overlooked in world history, Latin America.
Me from the Past: Wait, Mr. Green, Mr. Green--there's
another America?
Where they speak Latin?
Well, yes and no, Me from the Past.
In fact, the United States is not America.
This is America.
And no, people in Latin America do not speak
Latin.
We call it Latin America because, you know,
European hegemony in naming things.
[Intro]
So I know this will lead me to being accused
of Eurocentrism, but if we're going to talk
about nation-states in Latin America, we do
have to begin in Europe.
Specifically, I want to talk about a controversial
theory about how nation-states emerge, coming
from a book called Coercion, Capital, and
European States, by Charles Tilly.
It's a pretty dense book, but the basic theory
is that some European states were able to
transform themselves into what Tilly calls
"national states" between the 16th and 20th
centuries, because their rulers were able
to develop the coercive institutions--you
know, like police and especially the army--that
protected their populations from outsiders.
And also to protect from internal revolutions.
So you have the army, that keeps you safe
from outside threats, and then the police,
keeping you safe from inside threats.
At the same time, these national states developed
the economic institutions to extract revenue
to pay for this coercion, which allowed the
state to flourish.
So the state needs revenue to make its army
and police work, and the key to that, of course,
is war.
Or, at least, the threat of war.
But for this cycle that we've talked about
in the past to work, it has to be a specific
kind of war, right?
It has to be an international war, a war against
a different foreign power.
Because civil wars are not good for the economy,
and also obviously bad for like, the institutions
of the state.
Okay, let's go to the Thought Bubble.
So Tilly starts with the highly debatable
proposition that war creates states, which
then fight wars, which further enhance the
power of states.
For the most part, European wars were over
control of territory, right?
With the state either trying to extend its
territory, or prevent its neighbors from extending
theirs.
To expand your territory, or defend against
someone else's expansion, rulers needed armies.
And this became the state's first large-scale
organization.
Armies required additional organizations,
especially ones that collected taxes, so states
with large armies tended to bureaucratize.
According to this theory, wars also helped
in the transition to more direct rule by the
state.
Before 1750, most European states relied on
intermediaries, like local clergy and landlords,
to do what governments do.
But these intermediaries could get in the
way, so the rulers started bypassing them
and instituting more direct forms of rule.
But direct rule was intrusive in citizens'
lives, especially when they were required
to serve in the army or pay taxes to support
the army.
Now, forced conscription into the army is
generally unpopular, but it does allow citizens
to have some leverage over the state--because,
you know, then they make up the army.
Citizen soldiers and citizen taxpayers can
use this leverage to extract concessions from
the state, usually in the form of greater
political participation, which has been a
hallmark of classical European liberal democracy.
Now of course, this is all highly theoretical,
but as a model for state formation, it's also
somewhat elegant.
And more importantly, because it applies to
Europe, and particularly to post-industrial
Europe, Eurocentric versions of history will
often hold this theory up as one of the reasons
for Europe's success in world history.
Especially compared to other regions like,
say, Latin America.
Thanks, Thought Bubble.
So, there's this persistent stereotype of
Latin American states, that for most their
history, most of them have been ruled by military
strongmen who use their armies to create strong
states that oppressed the people.
And like many of the stereotypical historical
narratives we've seen, there's some truth
to that picture.
But Latin America encompasses a lot of states
and has been around for a long time, so generalizations
aren't going to apply equally to all places
at all times.
Like, in general, generalizations just don't
work that well.
And while there is a lot of shared history
and culture in Mexico and Central America
and South America, it's worth remembering
that Venezuela is as far away from Uruguay
as Mali is from Romania.
So anyway, we've got this stereotype of the
strong man ruling these strong Latin American
states, but it's not that simple.
In his book Blood and Debt: War and the Nation
State in Latin America, historian Miguel Angel
Centeno posits that while Latin American has
had more than its share of military regimes,
this is a reflection of the weakness of the
state.
And then goes on to argue that this may be
the result of the absence of international
wars in Central and South America.
I mean, yes, there have been wars between
Latin American states, but they've been surprisingly
brief, and, compared with 20th century European
wars, not particularly destructive.
Part of the reason for that, is that while
Latin American countries have frequently been
ruled by military leaders, they often lack
the capacity to raise large numbers of troops
and the taxes to pay for them.
And thus their armies can't fight long, drawn-out
wars.
Another reason is geography.
Latin America's huge and geographically diverse,
but the borders of many of its countries tend
to be inhospitable for settlement.
And without a lot of people living on the
frontiers, there's less opportunity and less
reason for conflict.
It's the same reason the U.S. hasn't gotten
in a war with Canada for like, a hundred seventy
years.
There's just nothing up there.
No offense, Canada.
Well, some offense.
What do you have that we need, trees?
Snow?
Hockey?
We've got hockey in Dallas.
Also, in general, Centeno argues that Latin
American nation states tend to see themselves
as sister republics, as he wrote, "The continent
is seen as a larger community over and above
the nation state."
But, Latin America has seen a lot of civil
wars in the last two hundred years, and this
is the crucial distinction; when Latin American
states mobilize their military, it's usually
against their own citizens.
As Centeno puts it, "the enemy of 'La Patria'
was perceived not as the nation next door,
but as those in the population who threatened
the social and economic status quo."
Often, these enemies have been indigenous
people, or especially during the Cold War,
communists, and other leftists.
So, that's one way of thinking about Latin
American states and comparing them to European
states.
You know, maybe relative international peace
in Central and South America has contributed
to the states of Latin America being less
successful economically and politically than
those in Europe.
But, as usual in World History, and also everything
else, the truth resists simplicity.
So, according to Tilly's theory, "Wars can
be beneficial because they provide the potential
to create states, but that process doesn't
really work unless there's some institutional
foundation to build on," and most of the countries
in Latin America didn't have that, partly
because colonization was designed to make
sure that people couldn't put those institutions
into place in their homelands.
And partly because the wars for independence
were so destructive to the region.
Then, the small-scale wars in Latin America
after independence didn't require states to
build up their tax collection apparatus, or
the accompanying financial structures.
Because one, they had a steady source of revenue,
in the form of taxes on the exported commodities.
And secondly, like, if you're just gonna have
little wars, you can pay for them with loans
from Britain, or the United States, which
are happy to help, and all they ask in exchange
is that the CIA be allowed to run your country.
And also that multi-national corporations
be allowed to extract all of your resources
and keep the profits.
So, because these loans and taxes on trade
were available to these states, they didn't
have to tax their populations.
Now, that may seem like a good thing, but
taxes, and yes, I know that I'm a huge fan
of taxes; I'm biased toward taxes, TAXES are
good.
Without taxes on individuals, the state didn't
have to bargain with its citizens and develop
the important bonds between the government
and the population that we find in stronger
states.
Like, when a government needs money from its
people to function, it kind of has to listen
to them.
And then there's the oft cited fact that wars
are really good for fostering nationalism,
and nationalism can, in fact, help build a
state as it did in 19th century Germany, which
everyone agrees was a great development.
Anyway, without a lot of international wars
and especially without a sense of a threatening
enemy, the nation-states of Latin America
just aren't as nationalist as their European
counterparts.
Well, I don't know about that, actually, have
you seen Brazil play Argentina at The World
Cup?
Okay, now I wanna turn to another challenge
for would-be nationalists in Latin America:
Latin America's legacy of racial and class
division.
Viewers of the first Crash Course World History
series will remember that Latin American society
was divided into a pretty rigid hierarchy,
with Spanish-born peninsulares at the top,
indigenous people and slaves at the bottom,
and Creoles and mestizos in the middle.
When Latin American countries achieved independence,
these divisions became a source of anxiety
for the new ruling class of Creoles; class
and racial distinctions were intertwined,
but in general, the ruling class was afraid
of losing too much of its power to the lower
classes.
One finds in world history very few examples
when the ruling class is, like, totally psyched
to give its power over to the lower classes,
but these race and class divisions also prevented
the armed forces from bringing people together.
Like, in many countries, the army was one
of the first places where people from different
regions and of different social classes would
mingle together.
And despite diverse backgrounds, they would
start to feel like citizens of the same nation,
fighting for a common cause.
But Latin American armies were small, and
the social and economic hierarchy between
the officers and the enlisted rank were even
more pronounced than they were in, say, the
United States or in European countries.
Another reason for the relative lack of state
nationalism in Latin America is the absence
of an external enemy, like, if you look at
European nationalism, one of the common features
is a clearly identifiable other, used to build
up nationalist feelings and a sense of common
identity.
Like, Creoles in one Latin American country
likely saw themselves as different from their
own indigenous populations, but not so different
from the Creole elites in neighboring nations.
As Miguel Centeno put it, in Latin America,
"The gulf between white, black, and Indian
within countries was always greater than the
differences between any of these groups across
borders."
So to me, all of this suggests that the connection
between war and building a national state
is not as simple as Tilly suggests, and maybe
there's something else to learn here as well.
In comparison with strong European states,
like the UK or France or Germany, Latin American
countries like Argentina and Peru and Mexico
can often appear unstable and violent, like
they're failing to provide the main thing
that a successful state gives its citizens:
safety.
But those European states are also a lot richer,
and a big part of the reason that they are
a lot richer is colonialism.
One of the central advantages that European
states have over Latin American states is
that European states were able to begin their
lives by extracting lots and lots of value
from Latin America, whereas most Latin American
states had to begin their existence with extremely
destructive wars for independence.
So because after the 19th century, most of
the European states became more concerned
with providing for the welfare of their citizens
than using their security forces against those
citizens, and because these states have achieved
undeniable economic success along with internal
peace, there's a tendency in historical literature
to hold them up as the greatest possible example
of the nation-state.
And I wanna be clear that many states in Europe
have been really successful.
People tend to live long lives; crime rates
are relatively low; people report feeling
safer and happier, but the conditions in which
European nation-states arose were specific
to the region and to the time, and it's a
bad idea to try to universalize them as a
model for the rest of the world.
I mean, thinking about Latin America, where
most of the independent nation-states are
older than either Italy or Germany should
remind us that, as Miguel Centeno puts it,
"The process that occurred most successfully
in northwestern Europe beginning in the 16th
century and culminating in the 19th was the
true exception."
And I think it's also worth noting the tremendous
growth in many Latin American countries in
the past couple decades, which reminds us
that when it comes to history and picking
winners and losers, we should remember that
we are not at the end of history, --we're
in the middle of it.
Thanks for watching.
I'll see you next week.
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