The ‘Democracy’ of the Caudillos in Latin America, 1810-1880 Part II

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Were nineteenth-century ‘caudillos’ identified with ‘democracy’ by the contemporaries in Latin America? This double panel aims at revising that prominent protagonist in the historiography of the region, the ‘caudillo’, in relation to the language of democracy that developed during the first decades of independence. Did caudillos appropriate the language of ‘democracy’ for their own purposes? If so, how did they use it? How did their opponents react to the ‘democratic’ features attributed to caudillos? To what extent did Latin American liberals become hostile to ‘democracy’ in reaction to the dominant rule of caudillos, within or outside their own countries? Our panel will try to engage with some of the recent literature that has been revising the history of democracy elsewhere, including John Keane’s The Life and Death of Democracy, and Joanna Innes and Mark Philp, ed., Re-imagining Democracy in the Age of Revolution.

Sub Track

• History and Historiography

Session Organizers

• Eduardo Posada-Carbo, St Antony's College, Oxford University

• Paula Alonso, George Washington University

Chair

• Eduardo Posada-Carbo, St Antony's College, Oxford University

Discussant

• Ana María Otero Cleves, Universidad de los Andes

Individual Presentations

• Education, Citizenship and Democracy in Latin America, 1800-1860 - Nicola A Miller, University College London

• The Brazilian National Guard in Rio de Janeiro: soldier and officer participation in the provincial elections, 1850-70 - Vitor Izecksohn, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

• Archbishop Rafael Valentín Valdivieso, the Catholic Church, and the Emergence of Chilean Democracy, 1848-1878 - Lisa M Edwards, Univ. of Massachusetts Lowell

• Caudillo Democracy and Constitutionalism in Argentina’s National Organization (1850s-1880s) - Eduardo A Zimmermann, Universidad de San Andrés

• Los caudillos y la democracia en México en el siglo XIX - José Antonio Aguilar Rivera, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas