“State and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain”

This book talk will present and discuss the unique three volume collection “State and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain”, published by Cambridge University Press in 2013, 2019 and 2023. The collection is the result of a long-term research project coordinated by the editors of the three volumes, Miguel A. Centeno (Princeton University) and Agustin E. Ferraro (University of Salamanca), with contributions by leading international scholars.

The collection represents a major intellectual achievement. One of many enthusiastic reviews described it as “among the most integrated edited collections I have read, and it ranks with the very top collections on nation-state making, bar none.” (David Cook-Martin, Contemporary Sociology 44 (5): 642-644).

Deficiencies or weaknesses of state institutions are associated with—or directly responsible for—many of the current social troubles in Latin American countries. These adversities include from poverty to outright destitution, from lack of public security to gender violence and other forms of social discrimination, from anemic economic growth to lack of opportunities and life perspectives. “State and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain” offers a vast historical panorama of state building and the formation of national identities, since the beginning of the nineteenth century in the regions under study. At the same time, the collection contributes to the development of a new, original perspective and methodology of research on the state in Latin America and Spain.

ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKERS

Miguel A. Centeno is the Musgrave Professor of Sociology and Executive Vice-Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA; on leave) at Princeton University. His latest publications are “War and Society (Polity 2016), Global Capitalism” (Polity 2010), “States in the Developing World” (Cambridge UP, 2017) and “State and Nation Making in the Iberian World” (Cambridge UP , Vol 1, 2013; Vol. II 2018, Vol III, 2023), and “When Worlds Collapse” (Routledge, 2023). He is the founder of the Research Community on Global Systemic Risk and is also working a new book project on the sociology of discipline. In 2000, he founded the Princeton University Preparatory Program, which provides intensive supplemental training for lower income students in local high schools. From 2003 to 2007, he served as the founding Director of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. From 1997-2004 he also served as Head of Wilson College at Princeton. From 2012 to 2017, he served as Chair of the Sociology Department.

Agustin E. Ferraro is a Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Salamanca in Spain. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 1994 to 1996 he was a fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at the University of Frankfurt to complete his Ph.D. dissertation. From 2001 to 2003, he was Alexander von Humboldt scholar in Hamburg and London. In 2009, he won the prestigious national award of the National Institute for Public Administration in Spain, for original research on Latin American state institutions. Ferraro was Visiting Professor at Princeton University for six months during the Spring Term 2011. He has published books, journal articles and book chapters in Spanish, English, German, and Portuguese.

This event has been co-organized with the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS).

This event is free and open to the public.