Armas y política en la Argentina

Following independence, Argentina experienced decades of conflict and unstable alliances between national and provincial authorities. Throughout this period, violence and armed intervention became useful ways to achieve and secure political power. As the national state became consolidated during the second half of the nineteenth century, the use of force lost legitimacy and the different political actors developed new ways to compromise and negotiate with their opponents. Political and institutional studies of this period abound, and Flavia Macías's Armas y política en la Argentina should be inscribed in this extensive tradition. However, the book's focus on the province of Tucumán and the author's compelling analysis of the political role played by the provincial armed forces provide an alternative and complementary view to the existing scholarship that enhances our understanding of this period in a multitude of ways.Armas y política en la Argentina is fundamentally a study of the role of violence in the construction of republican politics that addresses one Argentine province, Tucumán. In four chapters masterfully written, the study uses the province as a lens to uncover the interactions between different actors at the provincial, regional, and national levels. Avoiding the traditional periodization in Argentine history that presents the Battle of Caseros as a watershed, the analysis traces local political developments during the five decades that extend from the 1830s to the 1870s. As the analysis alternates between nation and province, it successfully uncovers the dynamic processes that characterized the consolidation of a modern national state in Argentina. Furthermore, at the provincial level the study reveals how the process of constructing a new republican order was fraught with tensions between competing local groups. The author convincingly argues that violence played a significant role in the construction of the provincial postrevolutionary order as the authorities relied on militias and later on the National Guard to consolidate their political power.The analysis opens in 1832 with the administration of Alejandro Heredia. During this period, the authorities struggled to create a stable and legitimate institutional order in Tucumán. The author examines the links between the provincial executive, the legislature, and the local militias in the process of consolidating the provincial state. The administrations of Alejandro Heredia and Celedonio Gutiérrez established the foundations for the active role that the armed forces would play in provincial politics until the late 1870s. During the decade following Caseros, the national state attempted to establish a more centralized military system. The creation of the National Guard played an important part in this process. However, since the electoral law required registration in the National Guard as a condition to vote, the institution reinforced the close association between participation in the army and political citizenship at the provincial level. The National Guard maintained significant preeminence in local politics, as the analysis of the political developments of the 1860s clearly demonstrates. During the 1870s, the national authorities made a more effective attempt to monopolize violence. The professionalization of the army and the redefinition of the relations between national and provincial authorities were important aspects of this process. Domingo F. Sarmiento's administration redefined participation in the National Guard from a right to a duty, with the final blow to the connection between citizen and soldier given by the new electoral law in 1877.Flavia Macías has relied on a wide array of archival sources that she uses meticulously to create a persuasive narrative. The attention to detail and the erudition with which the analysis is presented make this a wonderful read. One important merit of this work is the author's ability to keep sight of national politics while examining the provincial reality, thus providing relevant context to those not familiar with the history of Argentina. Even though the author displays an impressive understanding of the national and local historiography of the period, the book could have benefited from more engagement with the expansive body of literature on Latin America's institutional history. This minor flaw, however, does not undermine the important contributions of this work to the existing scholarship on the political history of Argentina.Armas y política en la Argentina represents a welcome addition to the literature of Argentine history that will appeal to scholars interested in Argentine political history not only because of its province-centered focus but also because of the themes addressed by the author. The analysis uncovers the contested arenas in which the processes of republican construction took place in nineteenth-century Argentina, providing an excellent example of political and institutional regional history. The analysis ties the political evolution of the province of Tucumán to regional and national politics, thus clearly connecting provincial and national affairs and confirming that the national political history of Argentina is unintelligible without reference to regions and provinces

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