Commissioned Book Review: Sebastián Mazzuca, Latecomer State Formation: Political Geography and Capacity Failure in Latin America
| Author | Ruth Berins Collier |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221075916 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Review |
Political Studies Review
2023, Vol. 21(1) NP25 –NP26
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
1075916PSW0010.1177/14789299221075916Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2022
Commissioned Book Review
Latecomer State Formation: Political
Geography and Capacity Failure in
Latin America by Sebastián Mazzuca.
Yale University Press, New Haven and
London 2021 xii + 448 pp., US $50, ISBN
9780300248911.
This book is a sweeping analysis of state forma-
tion in Latin America. Mazzuca is motivated by
what he sees as the under-performance of the
region’s states and finds an explanation in the
original process of state formation. The argu-
ment is rich and multifaceted. As with many
impressive comparative historical works, one
can remember a one-line summary, in this case:
war made strong European states, but trade
made weak latecomer states in Latin America.
The analysis employs deep historical accounts
to explain this regional contrast and explain pat-
terns within Latin America.
Mazzuca makes an important contribution
to empirics, theory, and conceptualization. The
study is deeply and critically embedded in
social theory, including Weberian and Marxist
perspectives. It is methodologically sophisti-
cated in its attention to causal assessment of
historical material, analysis of counterfactuals,
and the avoidance of retrospective determin-
ism. It is a superb example of historical com-
parisons of macro structures at the same time
that it is firmly rooted in the logic of micro-
foundational mechanisms.
The analysis starts with a distinction
between state formation and state building. The
conceptualizations are Weberian. State forma-
tion is defined as territorial consolidation with
violence monopolization. State building is the
transition from patrimonialism to bureaucratic
administration across the territory. Analysts
have tended to conflate these concepts, because,
Mazzuca argues, the influential European
model involved state building as part of the pro-
cess of state formation, whereas in latecomer
Latin America not only did state formation
occur without state building, but in a way that
was antithetical to state building, a “birth
defect” that has crippled Latin American states
ever since.
The explanation of the contrast between the
two regional modal patterns lies in economic
and political factors that relate to world historic
time. For Europe, the conditions were pre-capi-
talist mercantilism and war making in a context
of international anarchy. For Latin America,
these international conditions had changed with
the second industrial revolution and the interna-
tional hierarchy enforced by the Pax Britannica,
which largely imposed peace among Latin
American neighbors. Latecomer state makers
were thus incentivized to promote trade, rather
than prepare for war.
In the war-led European pattern, the state
maker incorporated those territories where he
was able to establish extractive institutions to
obtain money and soldiers. In the latecomer
trade-led patt ern, the Latin American state maker
required only pacification, which was compati-
ble with negotiations, bargains, and coalitions
with peripheral rulers. Thus, in Europe territorial
consolidation involved transforming institutions
in the periphery; in Latin American it preserved
patrimonial institutions in the periphery.
Having laid out these two contrasting pat-
terns, Mazzuca devotes the second part of the
book to analyzing differences within Latin
America. Three patterns are distinguished by
the nature of the state-making agents and of
their resources for striking bargains in the
periphery. In the port-driven pattern (Brazil and
Argentina), the agent is a political entrepreneur
based in an economically dynamic port, thereby
accruing the revenue to buy the support of
peripheral oligarchies. The party-driven pattern
(Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, Central America)
occurs where early proto-parties compete.
Territorial consolidation is not based on mate-
rial resources for buying support but rather is
based on, and limited by, the ability to expand a
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