When politicization is a step up

2 hours writing, 1 hour phone meeting, 1 hour reading, 0.5 hours processing data, 0.5 hours administrivia, page count = 181

Focused today on the Nicaragua comparison case. Thanks to a referral from Villager Marco Mojica, I had a great conversation this morning with a Nicaraguan researcher who works on security and defense issues. He had a very helpful perspective on the history and evolution of the Nicaraguan security forces, and kindly offerred to make contacts with local historians who can help me understand better the timing and evolution of the security forces in the early part of the 20th century. Nicaragua is an interesting contrast case for at least two reasons: 1) rather than going from politicized to militarized, its security forces went from personalized to politicized -that is, under the Somoza dictatorship, they were an extension of the ruling family, rather than of the ruling party, a form of capture that would only emerge under the Sandinistas (wow, politicization a la Colombia as a step up); and 2) international factors had a decisive role, in this case the U.S.'s interest in, at first, possibly building a canal across Nicaragua instead of Panama, and once it chose Panama, in stopping anyone else from building a second canal in Nicaragua. This contrasts with the general indifference concerning Colombia in 19th-century world politics.

Ana María got me the second of her products, photos of ministerial reports from 1916-46. It took some logistical wrangling to find a way to transfer the photos efficiently, but we figured it out in the end. I took a quick look at the data, and eager to examine the photos more closely tomorrow.

In terms of reading, I did some background reading on Nicaragua and Central America, as well as consulted Daniel Pecaut's excellent Order and Violence, on Colombian politics 1930-53. He makes an interesting point that the parties were the only venue in which social differences could be expressed in Colombia, which makes for a peculiar and disjointed politics.