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Authoritarian El Salvador: Politics and the Origins of the Military Regimes, 1880–1940 by Erik Ching (review)
- The Latin Americanist
- The University of North Carolina Press
- Volume 58, Number 3, September 2014
- pp. 67-68
- Review
- Additional Information
BOOK REVIEWS AUTHORITARIAN EL SALVADOR: POLITICS AND THE ORIGINS OF THE MILITARY REGIMES, 1880–1940. By Erik Ching. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014, p. 488, $55.00. It is a truism among scholars of Latin America that research on Central America must confront questions of relevancy far more often than studies that focus on Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, or Brazil, to name only a few of the regional giants who receive significant academic attention both for their own sake and as a means to explore themes and trends of regional (and global) significance. If the broader applicability of their work is an issue that Central Americanists often face, it is a far more acute concern for the even smaller number of scholars within that community who study El Salvador, perhaps the most atypical of the isthmian republics. Yet, in his most recent work, Erik Ching makes a powerful case in favor of the surprising relevance of the modern political evolution of El Salvador to the wider Latin American experience and beyond. Authoritarian El Salvador stands upon years of careful research and draws heavily on multiple Salvadoran archives, plus repositories in Russia, the United States, and England. The secondary bibliography is equally comprehensive. Ching’s references include not only the essential works of Salvadoran and Central American historiography but also a broad range of scholarship on Latin American political history. Ching makes effective use of this material throughout his narrative and frequently draws upon it to conduct a running debate on democratization theory with scholars such as Paul Drake, Charles Tilly, and Carlos Forment. The end result is a tightly drawn and narrowly focused case study on Salvadoran political culture that ends up as something more than the sum of its parts. Within the context of Salvadoran historiography, this work does not so much break new ground as confirms through a preponderance of the available evidence contemporary perspectives on the political development of the country. Few scholars would be surprised that Ching views the 1931 military coup which placed General Maximiliano Hernández Martı́nez in power as the pivot point around which El Salvador’s modern history turns. Few scholars would question the extended analysis of the Hernández Martı́nez regime and its operations, though some might be surprised to note that Ching concludes that the general had reformist tendencies that in some respects balanced his more notorious repressive nature. Few scholars would doubt Ching’s description of this administration as the bridge between traditional Salvadoran politics, carefully defined here as a series of civilian/military dictatorships built around informal and competing patron-client relationships, and the modern military regimes that evolved to dominate the country during the second half of the twentieth century. Perhaps more academic debate would arise from Ching’s argument that C 2014 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 67 The Latin Americanist, September 2014 El Salvador’s indigenous and ladino peasants, who he describes as skilled bargainers within the established order, were therefore often willing participants in and sometime beneficiaries of these traditional patron-client networks. (This parallel focus on the Salvadoran masses extends into an investigation into the causes and consequences of the 1932 uprising, which Ching sees as the culmination of the practice of bargaining.) Still, students and scholars of Central America have good reason to appreciate the proficiency with which Ching has dissected the unique socio-political features of El Salvador, the links between nineteenth-century elite politics and twentieth century military dictatorships, and the solid evidentiary foundations he has constructed to support his conclusions. Yet, Authoritarian El Salvador deserves a wider audience than its natural constituency of isthmian specialists. Via his analysis of Salvadoran political culture, Ching makes an innovative and valuable contribution to the broader regional discussion of democracy and authoritarianism. In many respects this work is an exploration of the electoral process as it emerged in post-independence El Salvador, a theme which allows Ching to generalize on the theory and practice of democracy. He argues that El Salvador developed a unique and widely accepted political culture during the nineteenth century that held two ostensibly contradictory components. On the one hand...