State Infrastructural Power and Nationalism: Comparative Lessons from Mexico and Argentina

Vom Hau, Matthias

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1204718

Download This Paper

Open PDF in Browser

Add Paper to My Library

State Infrastructural Power and Nationalism: Comparative Lessons from Mexico and Argentina

Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper No. 11

20 Pages Posted: 6 Aug 2008

See all articles by Matthias Vom Hau

Matthias Vom Hau

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Date Written: October 30, 2007

Abstract

This paper focuses on the nexus between state infrastructural power and legitimacy. A comparative case study of nationalism in mid-20th century Mexico and Argentina provides the basis for theorising the impact of state infrastructural power on transformations of official national ideology. Both countries experienced a transition from liberal to popular nationalism. Yet, the extent to which popular nationalism became a regular product of state organisations varied between the two cases, depending on the timing of state development. The temporal congruence between the expansion of state infrastructural power and ideological change, as exemplified by Mexico under Cýrdenas, facilitated the full institutionalisation of the new official ideology, whereas a disjuncture between state development and ideological change, as exemplified by Argentina under Perýn, inhibited such a comprehensive transformation of nationalism.

Keywords: Mexico, Argentina, nationalism, institutionalisation, education, schooling, state formation

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Vom Hau, Matthias, State Infrastructural Power and Nationalism: Comparative Lessons from Mexico and Argentina (October 30, 2007). Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper No. 11, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1204718 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1204718