'War outcome and state-building in Chile and Peru.'

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• Naim Bro Khomasi
• Friday 19 February 2016, 16:00-18:00
• Seminar Room 3, Alison Richards Building.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Kate Bruce-Lockhart.

This paper traces the divergent long-run institutional impacts of the Pacific War (1879-1883) in Chile and Peru. The analytical focus is on war outcome, which is different from the bellicist theory’s focus on preparation for war. Authors like Charles Tilly, Michael Mann, and others have proposed that the emergence of the modern European state results from the need to mobilise soldiers and resources for war in the Early Modern period. Students of Latin American state formation – Miguel Ángel Centeno, Fernando López-Alves, and others – question the general applicability of the European model. Nineteenth-century Latin American states, they say, were able to wage only limited wars, due to their inability to mobilise soldiers and resources. Limited wars, in turn, eroded state capabilities. My contention is that students of state formation, both in Europe and Latin America, have restricted the focus of analysis on the preparation of war, and have neglected alternative mechanisms through which war triggers constructive institutional trajectories, namely war outcomes. When successful war results in the access to new resources and to the increased legitimacy of the state, these states are likely to expand and create new institutions.

This talk is part of the Violence and Conflict Graduate Workshop, Faculty of History series.

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• Seminar Room 3, Alison Richards Building
• Violence and Conflict Graduate Workshop, Faculty of History

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