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Papers can be theoretical, empirical, interdisciplinary, comparative or case studies. Though the conference focuses on the period of import-substituting industrialisation or ‘inward-looking’ development (roughly from World War I and especially the Great Depression to the 1970s), analyses of earlier attempts to rationalise political decision-making and of the long-term legacy of the developmentalist State of the 1930s and 1940s are most welcome. We are very pleased that Professor Whitehead has accepted our invitation to deliver the keynote address.
The following questions are designed to provide some ideas but are not conclusive:
Statistics:
When did the systematic collection of statistical data begin and in what form
was it institutionalised at national, regional and local levels? How often were
censuses carried out and how were they organised? Were land, commercial, bank,
school or electoral registers regularly updated and therefore reliable? Given
the increasing complexity of the economy and the ‘massification’
and differentiation of society, how adequate were the procedures guiding statistical
surveys? What were the qualifications of the statisticians and other técnicos
and tecnoburocratas they relied on for gathering and processing data? Did foreign
experts or governments influence or participate in this process? Were the officials
politically independent and impartial, were they honest and responsible? What
kind of information was the State interested in? What was the socio-economic
and political purpose for assembling the various types of information and how
transparent were these motives for the bureaucracy? Was it actively involved?
To what extent did an increasing knowledge about the country and its population
actually inform public policies and how were the latter implemented? What scope
for corrections existed? Did the State consciously falsify or “engineer”
statistics?
Mapping:
Did the central government have efficient control over the entire national territory
and resources? To what extent did the geographical milieu influence state organisation?
What impact did external or internal wars; the failure of confederative experiments;
border conflicts and intra-hemispheric rivalries; experiences with regionalist,
separatist and irredentist movements; the challenge of the State by squatters,
social ‘bandits’ and guerrillas; and international demands for the
recognition of First Nations and global ecological reserves have on the cognitive,
economic and infrastructural conquest of a country’s ‘hinterland’,
the incorporation of rural areas into state and nation-building, and the acceptance
of political decentralisation? Moreover, under what circumstances could the
elites of border and ‘frontier’ states (Rio Grande do Sul, Táchira,
Coahuila), with their awareness of the risks of political instability and the
limits of peripheral modernisation, gain influence at national level? In what
way does mapping reflect the increasing territorial cognition of the public
administration and the nature and difficulties of this ‘conquest’,
i.e. what types of maps were produced, when, by whom, and with what purpose?
How were they used in the formulation and implementation of public policies?
Did the existence of a geopolitical school or Social-Darwinist ideas influence
the push for territorial control and the subordination of ‘fanáticos’?
Under what conditions were foreign expeditions authorised? How was geographical
and cartographical knowledge disseminated and institutionalised?
Organogramas for a Rational Institution-Building:
Was the Great Depression an independent or an intervening variable in the formation
of a ‘modern’ interventionist state and how did the latter enforce
the exploration, mobilisation, and reallocation of natural, financial, and human
resources? What were the normative ideas guiding state and nation-building during
the period of ‘inward-looking’ development? How strong were the
Iberian centralist and corporatist traditions and the legacies of 19th and early
20th cc. liberal-federalist experiments and Positivist dictatorships? What role
did foreign ideas and models, especially European state corporatism and American
administrative theories, play in the (allegedly ‘organic’ and ‘scientific’)
reorganisation of state and societal structures in Latin America? Applying Kalman
Silvert’s yardstick for measuring political development, what options
did the region’s elites have for ‘rationalising’ policy-making
and institution-building and what choices did they make for what reasons? Who
were the (old and new, civil and military) elites, how united were they, and
to what extent could they co-opt new socio-political groups? Did civil service
reforms and new career patterns actually make competence, rather than patronage,
the primary criterion for access to public offices? How stable, integrated,
and durable were the various new institutions, planned in organogramas, and
could they fulfil the functions attributed to them? Was the state bureaucracy
able to develop and implement standardised administrative procedures throughout
the national territory and was it willing to include broad parts of the population
into the political process?
Perceptions, Images and Representations:
What can archival sources, oral histories, radio and TV broadcasts, visual art,
contemporary theatre, popular culture, and (regionalist) literature tell us
about the perception of a more active and increasingly visible state by those
affected by its policies? How were interventores and comandantes militares in
the regions, land surveyors, city planners, tax inspectors, registrars of voters,
health officials responsible for vaccination programmes, pedagogical orientadores
in the school regions, teachers in the colônias-escolas of the ‘hinterland’
and in the compulsorily ‘nationalised’ schools in the zones of ‘foreign’
colonisation depicted? How orderly or incoherent did the socio-economic and
political progress of their country appear to political protagonists and common
people? To what extent did different regions, social classes, and ethnic groups
actually benefit from public policies and in what way was citizenship regulated?
Were the rules of inclusion or exclusion transparent? Given the pluri-lingual,
multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and regionally diverse character of Latin American
nations, could the language, codes, and symbols of administration be understood
by the broad population? How did this influence statistics, for instance racial
self-classification? How did textbooks, especially in Geography and History,
acknowledge diversity or generate the image of a culturally ‘homogenous’
nation represented by the State?
We have started planning this conference very early in order to
• allow colleagues to engage in new research on the topic
• give you enough time to apply for (various) grants
• help us to publicise the conference, organise funding from British sources,
and win a publisher for a selection of papers
Papers should be 20 minutes long. Please, send your proposals in English (abstracts of not more than 300 words containing your central argument) before 1 March 2006 to the following address:
Jens R Hentschke, Ph.D., Habil.
Conference Chair
University of Newcastle
Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies
Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE1 7RU
U.K.
Cognitive-Capacity.Conference@ncl.ac.uk
++44 (0)191 222 5442