Round tables > The configuration of public powers in the Americas: between confrontation and collaboration (19th-20th centuries)

The configuration of public powers in the Americas: between confrontation and collaboration (19th-20th centuries)

  Wednesday, October 1st from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM

 Centre des Colloques, room 3.05

Organization : Laura Brondino (CRIMIC, Sorbonne Université), Yann Philippe (CIRLEP, Université de Reims-Champagne-Ardenne)

Moderator : Alina Castellanos (CRIMIC, Sorbonne Université)

Speakers : Nicolas Barreyre (CENA-Mondes Américains, EHESS), Emmanuel Falguières (Institut National de l'Histoire de l'Art), François Godicheau (FRAMESPA, Université Toulouse 2 - Jean Jaurès), Emmanuelle Perez (FRAMESPA, Université Toulouse 2 - Jean Jaurès), Geneviève Verdo (MASCIPO, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Abstract :

Traditionally identified with central powers, public authorities are now the subject of complex, nuanced analyses by Anglo-Americanist and Latino-Americanist historiographies. Although these historiographies differ in their conceptual underpinnings, both have begun to distance themselves from the normative, ahistorical vision of a state identified with a hypothetical Weberian model. By adopting a bottom-up perspective inspired by the social history of politics, or by paying closer attention to how states actually function, these works have highlighted the processes of invention, recomposition and articulation of so-called public powers in the construction of contemporary states. In this workshop, we wish to highlight the comparative ambition and the desire to de-exceptionalize national or continental histories that have often been at the origin of these works, in order to extend the dialogue between historiographies of the Americas.

These areas have in fact been subject to the dynamics of both fragmentation and articulation of public powers. Take, for example, the oscillations common to governments in the independent Americas between fear of fragmentation, demands for local autonomy and aspirations for union. The resulting dynamics of confrontation and collaboration will be examined from two angles. On the one hand, the scales of government - national, provincial, local - will be examined, in order to explore the differentiated concretion (or not) of the exercise of public powers and the issues at stake, as well as the relationships between these different scales and their interactions. On the other hand, there is the question of the division of powers, often linked to that of levels of government, between powers and authorities that define themselves according to conflicts of competence, but also according to the need to collaborate with their peers and/or competitors.