Appendix I: Dataset of Causal Process Observations: Case Discussions

Appendix I: Dataset of Causal Process Observations: Case Discussions

This appendix contains discussions of each case in terms of the coding of monopoly on violence, administrative effectiveness, and citizenship agreement as well as the seven mechanisms. The purpose of the appendix is to provide background knowledge for the reader of my application of the criteria for stateness presented in Chapter 2 (Figure 2.1) and the causal mechanisms as presented in Chapter 4 (Figures 4.2-4.8). The coding of stateness is based on the questions in the bottom panel of Figure 2.1 whereas the coding of mechanisms is based on the observable implications presented in the sections of Chapter 4 and summarized in Figures 4.2-4.8.See also the procedures for setting up the dataset of causal process observations in Chapter 6.

The appendix is organized as follows: Each analytical period (interwar, Cold War, and post-Cold War) is the superstructure. Under each period, both democratic survivors and breakdown cases are included. As an example, Argentina figures in all three periods since it was democratic (but unconsolidated) at some point during all of them. In the dataset and coding process, a case is excluded if its democracy breaks down or remains stable. Stability may apply to one of the following scenarios: continuation without consolidation; continuation by consolidation; the state ceases to exist; the state is occupied by a foreign power. The democratic spell(s) of each case is marked in brackets after the country name. As a matter of simplicity, the last year of analysis in each period is marked in both cases of stability and breakdown but by ‘*’ in the case of stability (or consolidation). For instance, Ireland is included in the interwar period as democratic from 1922 through 1945 but excluded from the next periods as it came out of WWII as a consolidated democracy.

If a democratic spell extends beyond either the interwar or Cold War period, it is either split between the two periods or placed in one of them only. For each case, my assessment of the stateness attributes, including their components, and the mechanisms (for the breakdown cases only) is discussed. The actually present mechanisms are discussed and presented in their empirical particularity. I also discuss the mechanisms which I eventually assess to be absent. However,if, for instance, monopoly on violencewas strong in a given case of breakdown, then logically neither the mechanism of authoritarian restoration nor of security delegitimationcan be present. Most often, such mechanisms are thus not discussed. Due to greater levels of disagreement among scholars on the interwar cases, the case discussions of the interwar cases are typically longer.

The interwar Period (1918-1945), incl. WWII

ARGENTINA (1918-1931)

Monopoly on violence:

Monopoly on violence was disputed throughout the period. With the end of the Paraguayan War in the early 1880s, a national Argentine army established sovereignty over the rebellious provinces, including indigenous tribes. Territorial borders were established with Uruguay whereas disputes continued but were settled with Chile in 1902 (Rock 1986; Romero 1994: 3). Resource supremacy thus stabilized.

Much like in contemporary Chile the army was built on the Prussian model of professionalized, hierarchical bodies with relative success eradicating political appointments and heightening corporate consciousness by 1910 (Goldwert 1972: 3, 8). However, the inauguration of the Radical Party Yrigoyen as President in 1916gradually undermined the professionalism of the army.Distrust in and contestationwith democratic government rose and led to more general internal splits.

First, Yrigoyen assaulted military professionalism already from 1916 by delaying planned seniority promotions and instead appointing his own loyal officers (Goldwert 1972: 4). While direct executive interventions stopped under President Alvear (1922-1928), the practice of forcing political criteria into military appointments was continued in Yrigoyen’s second presidency from 1928 until the democratic breakdown in 1930, alongside cuts in officer salaries (Norden 1996: 22). Yrigoyen’s politicization was even more extensive in the police forces whose directors, during the whole period from 1916 to 1930, were dismissed and appointed as part of the Radical Party’s patronage machine (Potter 1981: 100; Horowitz 1999: 25).Second, Yrigoyen’s politicization was strongly resisted in the military and led to an open conflict between the military and the presidency. According to Pion-Berlin (1997), the military was generally ‘outraged’ by Yrigoyen’s intervention in what was seen as strictly military affairs as well as his more or less tacit glorification of popular, working class rebellion from 1919-1921. Until 1930, the military was split in at least three groups on how to handle labor unrest and the interaction with the presidency: Some sided with the radical right (8 % of the entire Ligas and 17 % of their leaders were military officers, see Deutsch 1999: 89), some with the liberal right (the Conservative oligarchic opposition), and others remained neutral and supportive of the Radical government. Ironically, these factions only crystallized when Alvear attempted to subsume the army and the officers who had joined the paramilitary Ligas under his control because this sharpened the political awareness and attitudes of the officers (Romero 1994: 54).

Bottom line was that the army largely distrusted the middle class and their support they gave to Radical Party policies (Rock 1991: 443-444; see also O’Donnell 1973: 85). Severe contestationtherefore dominated the executive-military relationship throughout the 1920s.

Administrative effectiveness:

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Problems of territorial penetration of state authority, low quality and weak professionalism of bureaucrats as well as unresponsiveness were dominant features of the civil service and very much three sides of the same coin. Institutional development and penetration of state institutions started in 1861-1881 with Buenos Aires’ as center and remaining provinces as periphery(Rock 1986: 62; Kurtz 2013: 105) but the actual functioning of the federal system was never settledas the interior provinces could not get a share of the export taxes coming through the harbor of Buenos Aries (Gustafson 1990; Romero 1994: 4; Kurtz 2013: 105). One strong indication has been a comparatively weak history of tax revenue collectiondespite extraordinary wealth (Bergman 2003: 613; vom Hau 2008).Another indication is the extensive use of interventions in provincial politics, including the ousting of unresponsive senators and appointment of party loyalists as governors via local caudillos, which were common under Yrigoyen (Rock 1986: 377; Horowitz 2008: 70).

Regarding meritocracy, there is little doubt in the literature that provincial resistance and the early consolidation of middle and working class political power caused, first, patronage and clientelism in the civil administration from the late 19th century through most of the 20th century generally, and, second, a particularly extensive use by Yrigoyen in both his presidencies (1916-1922 and 1928-1930) of political appointments to the civil service with a direct purpose of politicization and control (see e.g. Rock 1972; Rock 1991: 436, 441, 450; Romero 1994: 50; Horowitz 2008: 65-67; Kurtz 2013: 192, 195). The party used its local ‘bosses’ or caudillos to distribute public sector jobs and funds for electoral purposes (Horowitz 2008: 69-70), and despite the judicial system’s relative autonomy from political pressure (see Iaryczower, Spiller, and Tommasi 2000: 3; Jouet 2008: 419), they managed at several occasions to hinder people’s imprisonment (Horowitz 2008: 74).

Despite the intensions of Yrigoyen (Rock 1986: 389), popular support for the Radical Party and control of public sector growth was not obtained (Horowitz 2008: 65). The tax administration was generally inefficient, particularly when it reached the western outskirts or interior of the country (Bergman 2003: 613) and the period until 1930 was generally known for factionalism between center and periphery (Gustafson 1990: 166-169) as well as petty corruption and inefficiency of the public sector (Rock 1991: 450-451).

Citizenship agreement:

Citizenship agreement existed throughout the period. In terms of mutual acceptance between the population groups of the state, this was obtained in late 19th century as in Uruguay with the assimilation of the indigenous people and settlement of borders with Uruguay and Chile in late 19th century and 1902, respectively (Thies 2001: 411, 415; Kurtz 2013: 176). The end of the war with Paraguay and the armed upsurges of the provinces in 1881 also consolidated Buenos Aires as common supremacy of the vast Argentinian provincial landscape (Rock 1986: 360-362; Trindade 1988: 92). However, the road to state legitimacy was arguably more bumpy as it was not finished when European immigrants came in large numbers from the last decades of the 19thcentury until around 1914 (Germani 1970: 323). Thus, it could be argued that the Argentinian state was illegitimate and national identity only weak until 1930 because of the preservation of two conflict lines. First, elite Argentinosin the countryside (first immigration wave caudillos) clashed with new immigrants who settled almost exclusively in urban settings, particularly Buenos Aires. Second, the elite Argentinos clashed with the Buenos Aires elite on matters of how orientation to Europe should be conceived and executed (Germani 1970: 320; Trindade 1988: 91; Romero 1994: 13). These conflicts undoubtedly had overtones of identity and citizenship reflecting disagreements in the very foundation of the Argentine nation.Concretely, they reflected how the struggle for national unity had represented the institutionalization of political or economic domination of some groups over others (Trindade 1988: 92).

Yet, the consequences for a genuine national identity should not be exaggerated. The assimilation of European immigrants and indigenous people was rapid and relatively peaceful, as the great Argentine historian David Rock (1986: 370-372) has mentioned. In fact, European immigration was seen as inevitable by the Argentine elites and thus a strong ethnic nationalism developed in the late 19th century centered on an ‘Argentine race’, separate from the Spanish. As the decisive point for assessing state legitimacy as strong in the period until 1930, I take that the conflict lines have been explicitly stated and theorized as problems for democratic citizenship or democratic consolidation (see Germani 1970: 320). For my purposes, I need to keep a strict distinction between citizenship of the state and citizenship for participation in democratic processes. Thus, whereas the conflicts reflected disagreements on who should be participants in the democratic system as established in 1912 and the extent and type of economic resource distribution (Germani 1970: 323-326), they were not, as Rock’s assessment testifies to, issues of state illegitimacy or national cohesion.

Mechanism(s):

1918-1931

AUTHORITARIAN RESTORATION.Present. A recent analysis (Mainwaring and Pérez-Linan 2013: 134) of Argentina’s first democracy places Yrigoyen as central to the demise and breakdown in 1930. He provoked the authoritarian coalition in the military and among conservatives, and the Independent Socialists during the 1920s that eventually led to the military coup d’état in 1930 (Mainwaring and Pérez-Linan 2013: 131-132). While the analysis touches upon Yrigoyen’s use of patronage to intervene in the recruitment processes and implementation of federal and local administrations and the military’s inspiration of fascist Italy, it assumes that the undemocratic actors responsible for the breakdown acted as free agents – that we may understand their actions without knowing their context. However, we must understand the military from within.

Argentina’s democratic breakdown in 1930 is considered as one of the cases par excellence of a military coup d’état resting on problems of military autonomy(see e.g. Norden 1996: 21; Zagorski 1988). That is, we should first and foremost expect to find that at least cadres of the military were a driving force in the coup attempt. The active participants in the coup in September 1930 consisted of a few (1500) officers,led by general Uriburu, who were tacitly supported, by inaction, of the remaining security forces, including the rest of the army under general Justo (Norden 1996: 21).

The rebels in the army were among the most conservative and those antagonized by the policies of Yrigoyen and Alvear and thus, in practice, of all democratic governments so far. Besides the substantial connection with the Ligas who to some extent opposed presidential signals by violently and arbitrarily repressing any labor strike and demonstration in the early 1920s (Deutsch 1999: 83), a substantial part of the military was allegedly ready to overthrow Yrigoyen in January 1919 while rumors of a military coup d’état rose in 1928. Some remained loyal but most of the army was ‘anti-communist, anti-semitist, and chauvinist’ as Rock (1991: 442) has noted. Goldwert (1972: 4) points out that “Paradoxically, professionalization, with its emphasis on strict subordination to civilian authority and dedication to military matters, was a necessary precondition for militarism”, or what developed in the 1920s as praetorianism.The military had planned a coup d’état at several occasions from the start of the democratic spell and only waited till 1930 because they feared civil war as a consequence of a failed attempt and thus needed a suitable vacuum of declining public support for Yrigoyen (Rock 1991: 442-443). These traits seem perfectly in line with the expectations.

It would be presumptuous, however, to assume that the military was simply a disloyal force that waited for the right moment to intervene.Instead, substantial parts of the military gradually lost confidence in the democratic regime with Yrigoyen’s interventions in military affairs, his labor policies which were deemed too progressive, and his overt cuts in military salaries and budgets particularly from 1928 – that is, their loyalty towards democracydisappeared based on its performance. Already from 1916, many officers volunteered for the Ligas, which forwarded an explicit right-wing and fascist-inspired ideology (Romero 1994: 33; Deutsch 1999: 198) while Uriburu himself, when he rose to prominence in the mid-1920s, refuted Yrigoyen’s disrespect of the military and rejected democracy on grounds of the unrest and corruption it had brought along (Potash 1961: 571-572). Moreover, even though Uriburu’s rival, general Justo, remained loyal to democracy until 1930, he too expressed concerns of military cuts and corruption (Rock 1991: 451; see also Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992: 187).

The role of the military in the process of destabilization is thus murkier than claiming it to be simply disloyalist. Nonetheless, the 1930-coup was an authoritarian restoration since it was carried out by the military officers who had become generally dissatisfied withintrusions into their organizational powers. But there was also a pre-democratic attractionto fascism and, withsome of Justo’s cadres,an adherence to corporate authoritarianism along the lines of the pre-democratic oligarchic order (Rock 1991: 451; Filgueira and Rodriguez 1999: 5-6; see also Potter 1981: 196). In this way, the coup participants can be traced back to autocratic military officers of the 1910s and autonomous ones from thelate 1910s and 1920s while the inaction of the military to Uriburu’s coup attempt can be traced to the 1920s’ factionalization between Uriburu and Justo.

SECURITY DELEGITIMATION.Absent. Some violence and even a couple of assassinations of politicians in, notably, Mendoza and Rosario occurred from 1928 to 1930. Labor unrest led to counter-violence as marked by paramilitary right-wing radicals such as Klan Radical(Rock 1991: 449; Horowitz 2008: 195). This spurred some fear among politicians in 1928-1929 (Horowitz 2008: 190). However, there is no sign that this fear was dominating in the months preceding the coup of 1930. Nor was there any general perception that the violence could not be handled by democratic means (Gustafson 1990: 168; Romero 1994: 60), even though, as indicated, one component of Uriburu’s detestation of democracy was its association with social unrest.

SOCIOECONOMIC DELEGITIMATION.Present. The Great Depression hit Argentina’s export-based economy as well as other countries in 1929. The consequences undoubtedly left a strong need of government action (Romero 1994: 44). Yet, one of the leading scholars of Argentina’s democratic history, Peter Smith (1978: 5), noted that the recession first hit Argentina in 1930, too late to explain the breakdown since the civilian participants in the coup came from the cattle industry which was the least severely hit. Moreover, labor unrest was relatively weak (Smith 1978: 7). A review of the literature grappling with explaining the 1930-breakdown reveals that Smith’s conclusions are too hasty. In a central contribution to this literature, Potter (1981: 91) captures the basic mechanism in that the Depression led to a state financial crisis and general social destitution which in turn lowered support for Yrigoyen among the military, who staged the coup, and the wider publicwho largely supported it.

One primary reason for the poor handling of the economic crisis was that the administration was too weak to take over where Yrigoyen, increasingly senile in his second term, left decrees unsigned and mishandled public finances (Potter 1981: 94-95; Horowitz 2008: 196). Specifically, wages and pensions were not paid for months and patronage payment took focus away from investing in public works (Horowitz 2008: 92-93), and state cuts and petty corruption accelerated (Rock 1991: 450-451).More generally, social welfare legislation was stagnant throughout the first democratic spell because the Syndicalists, the Anarchists, and the trade unions, as the most notable representatives of the working force, distrusted the state at a very basic level. For instance, the Syndicalists rejected the pension law in 1924 because they did not believe it would ever be implemented (Horowitz 2008: 103). Similarly, reforms of tenancy in rural matters did not progress much, not just because of blockages by the congress (Gallo 2006: 268) but also because bureaucratic ineptness slowed down the decision-making process (Smith 1978: 15). All these elements came together and caused a deterioration of the authority of local party bosses and popular support for Yrigoyen and the Radical Party (Rock 1991: 450-451; Horowitz 2008: 193, 196, 198; Alemán and Saleigh 2012). Rather than mobilizing for rebellion, it was these same grievances that motivated the military cadres for adopting ideologies of economic authoritarianism and made the public support them (Rock 1991: 451; Horowitz 2008: 198).

ELITE BIAS DELEGITIMATION.Absent. The Conservative party, the traditional power of the oligarchy, played a surprisingly small role in the coup of 1930. True, the military opposition consisted of many conservative voters but the conservative party leadership did not encourage or support the coup plotters. They were among the masses that quietly stood by while democracy was abandoned (Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992: 187; Norden 1996: 21). The second notable opposition party, the Socialist Party, was neither an anti-democratic movement. Rather, the party was, throughout the entire democratic spell, a part of democratic politics and it, for instance, openly opposed the Anarchist movement (Di Tella 1981: 41-43). Even though the Conservatives and the working class organizations were certainly outraged by Yrigoyen’s patronage politics with the resulting politicization of the public sector and the dis-functioning and corruption it fed (Rock 1991: 451; Horowitz 2008: 75), and although their leaderships probably grew more and more weary of democracy (Potter 1981: 102-103; Romero 1994: 52-53), the process therefore did not involve the party dynamics expected. Indeed, government and opposition polarized under Yrigoyen and particularly from 1928 (Norden 1996: 21), among other things because of his domination of administration via patronage and his extensive use of provincial interventions (Alemán and Saleigh 2012: 6-7, 18), but this did not lead the opposition to stage a coup or the government to perceive the coming of such a coup (Potter 1981: 90).