Democracy in Latin America, 1760–1900 – Civic Selfhood & Public Life in Mexico & Peru V 1: Volume 1, Civic Selfhood and Public Life in Mexico and Peru (Morality and Society Series) - Hardcover

Forment, Carlos A

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226257150 ISBN 13: 9780226257150

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2003

Synopsis

This work provides a Tocquevillian account of democracy in Latin America. Drawing on a wealth of archival research, Carlos A. Forment demonstrates how citizens of Latin America established strong democratic traditions in their countries through the practice of democracy in their everyday lives. This volume compares and contrasts the development of democratic life in Mexico and Peru from independence to the late 1890s. Forment traces the emergence of hundreds of political, economic and civic associations run by citizens in both nations and shows how these organizations became models of democracy in the face of dictatorship and immense economic hardship. This democratic tradition was stronger in Mexico than in Peru, but its basic outlines were similar in both nations and included a unique form of what Forment calls civic Catholicism in order to distinguish itself from civic republicanism, the dominant political model throughout the rest of the Western world. Highly innovative and extensively researched, this study should rewrite the history of democracy in Latin America.

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Review

"Forment calls on a significant array of archival and periodical documentation to demonstrate the wide spectrum of social, economic, and political organizations by which Latin Americans engaged in participatory democracy, even in the absence of electoral democracy. . . . A refreshing view of identity- and nation-building that is rich in political sociology and theory."--Mark Szuchman "Journal of Latin American Anthropology "

"This impressive work of both research and theory deserves to be read widely by scholars of political culture in various disciplines. Like the best historical sociology, Forment's book combines a synthesis of historiography on nineteenth-century Latin America with a provocative interpretation. . . . [The book] can serve as a bridge between South and North for all scholars interested in the historical development of democracy."--Sarah C. Chambers "Journal of Social History "

"In a style, for the most part, lively and engaging, Forment offers readers an exhaustively researched view of democracy from below, and shows how Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Peru have a rich democratic heritage to feed into current debates about governance."--Patience A. Schell "Bulletin of Spanish Studies "

"The historical evidence unearthed means the work constitutes important reading . . . not just for social and political theorists but also for historians of Latin America. . . . At times the author even begins to sound like Tocqueville."

--Jonathan Eastwood and John Stone "Theoretical Sociology "

"A richly documented and immensely learned study of associational life in Mexico and Peru from 1760 to 1900. It compellingly shows that evidently vibrant civil societies did not always produce strong or stable democratic states. . . . [Forment's] book challenges readers to reconsider most of what they think they already know about Latin America."--Omar G. Encarnación "Comparative Politics "

"[This book] combines serious theoretical discussions in the opening and closing chapters with an incredible amount of data spread and analyzed throughout the central chapters. . . . [It] will undoubtedly become a central text in the discussion on democracy, not only in the area stuidied, but as a general topic."

--Mario Sznajder "International Sociology Review of Books "

"Forment provides scholars and students of Latin America's Middle Period with a challenging study of the nature and extent of democracy in what has generally been considered an authoritarian political landscape. . . . Forment's creative and evidentially expansive approach employs scale and subject to rebut the commonly held historiographical wisdom that the postindependence world of politics and public life consisted of unstable government, authoritarian rule, and an exclusionary, personalist, and clientelistic politics. In scale, he digs down to the community and local level, relying on newspapers, essays, books, pamphlets, and other forms of published writing. In subject, he breaks public life down into civic, economic, and political components. . . . In making such a broad, innovative interpretation, boldness is required. Using an abundance of primary sources, Forment reveals a world of increasingly vibrant civic, associational life, and multistrata agency in nineteenth-century Mexico and Peru up to 1880."

--Stuart F. Voss "American Historical Review "

About the Author

Carlos A. Forment is the director of the Centro de Investigaci n y Documentaci n de la Vida P blica in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0226257150
• ISBN 13: 9780226257150
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 456