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Makers of Democracy: A Transnational History of the Middle Classes in Colombia

by A. Ricardo López-Pedreros

Duke University Press, 2019
Cloth: 978-1-4780-0177-5 | Paper: 978-1-4780-0285-7 | eISBN: 978-1-4780-0329-8
Library of Congress Classification HT690.C6L67 2019

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK

In Makers of Democracy A. Ricardo López-Pedreros traces the ways in which a thriving middle class was understood to be a foundational marker of democracy in Colombia during the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on a wide array of sources ranging from training manuals and oral histories to school and business archives, López-Pedreros shows how the Colombian middle class created a model of democracy based on free-market ideologies, private property rights, material inequality, and an emphasis on a masculine work culture. This model, which naturalized class and gender hierarchies, provided the groundwork for Colombia's later adoption of neoliberalism and inspired the emergence of alternate models of democracy and social hierarchies in the 1960s and 1970s that helped foment political radicalization. By highlighting the contested relationships between class, gender, economics, and politics, López-Pedreros theorizes democracy as a historically unstable practice that exacerbated multiple forms of domination, thereby prompting a rethinking of the formation of democracies throughout the Americas.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

A. Ricardo López-Pedreros is Associate Professor of History at Western Washington University and coeditor of The Making of the Middle Class: Toward a Transnational History, also published by Duke University Press.

REVIEWS

"This historicization of the relationship between middle classness and democracy enables the author to deliver a potent critique of prevailing narratives of Latin America as undemocratic, while reimagining the way we think about democracy itself."

-- B. A. Lucero Choice

"[Makers of Democracy] is [a] must-read book for those who want to understand how power relations were configured in the third quarter of the 20th century in Colombia. It makes us question something that is sacred to most of us: democracy. After its thorough historization, [this book] exposes the contradictions of democracy… it finishes with a rather dark and challenging vision of what democracy means." (Translated from Spanish)

-- Catalina Muñoz Rojas Historia Critica

"On the one hand, this books rescues from historical oblivion not only the existence of the middle classes but also their importance. It discusses the middle classes and their connection —for better or for worse— with democracy and development… On the other, it highlights the active role in which the middle classes…radicalized themselves against the [developmentalist] imperatives coming from a Global capitalist north. In this way, we find a new reading of the 'invention of development' … during the 1960s and 1970s. At the core of this historiographical originality, [this book] also proposes a methodological approach that highlights the discourses and practices that shaped certain men and women and their efforts to be part of a middle class in Bogotá. We hope this book will soon be translated into Spanish, so that more readers can get familiarized with these transnational stories, uncommon methodological approaches in [Colombian] historiography." (Translated from Spanish)

-- Mauricio Archila Neira Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura

“In Makers of Democracy, A. Ricardo López-Pedreros offers a multidimensional approach to the disputed processes through which particular social actors came to represent the middle classes and the promises of democracy…. This book is a key contribution to the contemporary history of the middle classes, democracy, and processes of political polarization.”

-- Ingrid Bolivar Hispanic American Historical Review

“Makers of Democracy is an important contribution to twentieth-century Colombian and Latin American history. For specialists of Colombia, it offers a novel interpretation of the conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s, including the role of gender in class formation and political struggle. It will also appeal to a broader audience interested in histories of democracy, class, gender, and US empire in Latin America and the global South.”

-- Laura Correa Ochoa H-Nationalism, H-Net Reviews

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Abbreviations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction. "There Is No Other Class in Democracy" 1
Part I. Conscripts of Democracy: The Alliance for Progress, Development, and the (Re)Formation of a Gendered Middle Class, 1958–1965
1. A Bastard Middle Class 21
2. An Irresistible Democracy 42
3. The Productive Wealth of This Country 62
4. Beyond Capital and Labor 86
Part II. Contested Democracies: Classed Subjectivities, Social Movements, and Gendered Petit Bourgeois Radicalization, 1960s–1970s
5. In the Middle of the Mess 109
6. A Revolution for a Democratic Middle-Class Society 139
7. A Real Revolution, a Real Democracy 172
8. Democracy: The Most Important Gift to the World 225
Epilogue. A Class that Does (Not) Matter: Democracy beyond Democracy 255
Appendix 263
Notes 271
Bibliography 303
Index 333

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