Dilemas da condição periférica: formação dos estados argentino, brasileiro e chileno

Abstract

Over the last decades, the field of studies on State formation and episodes of change has gainedprominence. Understanding the dynamics of the peripheral condition is a relevant step in the analysis of state trajectories in Latin America. Using an historical-conceptual framework, the political development of Argentina, Brazil and Chile is analyzed comparatively, considering the political geography of power that prioritizes the experiences in the West. This results in three formative dilemmas: mismatch, peripheral self-representation and form versus content. The mismatch derives from the distinctions of temporality in the state trajectories between the stages of development in the periphery and the center. By observing these differences, local elites consider themselves as backward and responsible for instituting civilization and building stable states. Based on this diagnostic, modernization theories that fill the centric political forms were imported in response to local circumstances. For this purpose, in addition to analyzing the context, we will use central authors for the debate in each country: Domingo Sarmiento (1811- 1888) and Juan Alberdi (1810-1884) in Argentina, Tavares Bastos (1839-1875) and Visconde do Uruguai (1807 -1866) in Brazil and José Victorino Lastarria (1817-1888) and Mariano Egaña (1793-1846) in Chile. Understanding the dynamics of these three dilemmas that make up the peripheral condition contributes to reaffirming the intrinsic value and the emancipatorycapacity of political ideas in Iberian America.