ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the historical sociology of modern states in Latin America, moving away from certain developmentalist assumptions and Eurocentric biases. It deals with two leading interpretations of political modernity in Latin America, namely Centeno’s “blood and debt” hypothesis and Francois-Xavier Guerra’s argument on a cultural mutation associated with Spanish American independencies. In the logic of Centeno’s argument, the initial portrait of Latin American reality as a kaleidoscopic sequence of poverty, corruption, violence, clientelism and racism has a decisive role: it places Latin America in the bottom of the ladder of state development. A basic step for Latin American historical sociology should be to reconcile with different historical approaches that in the last half century had tried to move beyond national-scale narratives and decentre Eurocentric diffusionism. The struggles for political independence in the Americas, Africa and Asia, despite their enormous differences, are parts of the ongoing contentious politics of sovereignty in modern world-system.
