State and Society in the Dominican Republic

by Betances,Emelio

• ISBN13: 9780813386829
• ISBN10: 0813386829
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1995-07-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book offers an analysis of the formation of the Dominican state and explores the development of state-society relations since the late nineteenth century. Emelio Betances argues that the groundwork for the establishment of a modern state was laid during the regimes of Ulises Heureaux and Ramon Caceres. The U.S. military government that followed later expanded and strengthened political and administrative centralization. Between 1886 and 1924, these administrations opened the sugar industry to foreign capital investment, integrated Dominican finance into the international credit system, and expanded the role of the military. State expansion, however, was not accompanied by a strengthening of the social and economic base of national elites. Betances suggests that the imbalance between a strong state and a weak civil society provided the structural framework for the emergence in 1930 of the long-lived Trujillo dictatorship.Examining the links between Trujillo and current caudillo Joaquin Balaguer, the author traces continuities and discontinuities in economic and political development through a study of import substitution programs, the reemergence of new economic groups, and the use of the military to counter threats to the status quo. Finally, he explores the impact of foreign intervention and socioeconomic change on the process of state and class formation since 1961.

Author Biography

Emelio Betances is associate professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Gettysburg College.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Introduction Historical And Theoretical Perspectives	p. 1
Nineteenth-Century Regionalism Political Struggle, And State Formation	p. 9
Capitalist Agriculture And Class-State Formation at The Turn of the Century	p. 23
Merchants and the Integration Of the State into The International Credit System	p. 41
The Beginnings of The Modern Dominican State	p. 57
State Formation and The U.S. Military Occupation	p. 77
Class and State Formation Under Trujillo	p. 95
Consolidation of the Modern State, Class Formation, And Capitalist Restructuring	p. 113
State and Class Formation In the Dominican Republic Some Conclusions	p. 135
Bibliograpby	p. 141
About the Book And Author	p. 151
Index	p. 153
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.