Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America

Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America Book Review: Miguel Angel Centeno. Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America. Penn State University Press 2002. Centenos book begins with the mystery of absence of interstate war-what he calls limited war-in Latin America, and then goes into the genealogy of state development in South America and the role of war on that continent. His historically contextualized analysis of warfare takes up the imbricated factors of class structure, organizational power, and international restraints in Latin America. He characterizes the Latin American states institutional and administrative capacity as not well developed as a result of divisions among dominant class structures, foreign power influence and control, which in turn have contributed to the states relatively peaceful history. He succinctly argues that they have been relatively peaceful because they dont have sophisticated political institutions to manage wars -the no States-no Wars argument.[1] Centeno contends that the lack of strong state institutions and limited state capacity accounts for these states inability to create autonomy and finance these wars through internal revenue; rather, this created dependency on foreign government loans that in turn weakened local capacity to create autonomy and thwarted the establishment of strong central institutions.[2] Foreign loan dependency created the conditions for the weakening of the possibility of creating strong central institutions that resulted in limited state capacity and the associated limited scale of war.[3] According to Centeno, limited war[4] do[es] not require the political or military mobilization of the society except (and not always) in the euphoric initial moments.[5] Foreign intervention based on trade interests also limited the scale of Latin American wars.[6] Centeno substantiates his argument with assessments of the capacity of Latin American governments to collect taxes, raise troops, and establish effective bureaucracies. Equally important is his argument about the ability of governments to galvanize nationalism, an ethos that creates a coherent concept of nation.[7] Based on comparative insight derived from North Atlantic nations, he argues that compared to Latin American states, these nations have more capacity to mobilize millions of troops to fight, financed through internally raised revenue from taxes.[8] I believe Centenos work is important as it provides a thorough analysis and critique of state-building theory based on empirical study. His work invests more attention in the Latin America region and makes a country-specific study to understand the particularities and nuances of generic state-building theory. His work draws attention to institutional analysis of states. As he writes, [This] magnificent display of institutional failure deserves further attention.[9] Centeno argues that Latin America has fought limited wars and further inquires into the meaning of this in an attempt to better understand the relationship between war and state-making. His work opens the door for deconstructing conventional nation-building theory, which is largely based on a Eurocentric account of war. Grounded in a set of empirical data and rigorous analysis, Centenos critical work illustrates how war contributed to the weakening of institutions, paying due attention to the fiscal aspect of the state, and shows how war in Latin America ruined institutions and resulted in more entrenched internal divisions.[10] He discusses the institutional capacity of the state as a central theme to explain and critique the regional history and political development, and he examines wars impact, how it has shaped state-society relationships, national identity and fiscal development. Centeno repeatedly emphasizes the fact that states in Latin America did not develop the kind of institutional strength of their Western European counterparts. The author is puzzled by the process and experience and consequences of war in Latin America and how this relates to states institutional strength and capacity to undertake war in a way that has shaped their creation. Based on multiple cases, Centenos historical development of each case and the experience of war illustrates the exigencies, contextual factors, and relational dimensions that all must be taken into account in order to determine, understand and explain variations and commonalties across the continent. This theoretical approach and these methodological insights are critical to assessing the development of the state based on European history and experience while complementing the theoretical discussion of the development of the state on both levelscapturing country-specific variations and theorizing or bringing in theoretical explanations for differences and commonalities. Understanding and explaining regional and country-specific variations using comparative methods provides relevant details to critically engage conventional state-building theory. Through this work, I learned that understanding variations and contextualizing analysis case by case is an important approach. The author uses the prism of war-state development bellicist model[11] as an important theoretical framework to problematize and further explain the nuances and regional and country-specific conditions and factors that alter and critique Eurocentric generalizations of the causal relationship between war and state development. Indeed, Centeno uses the counterfactual realties of Latin America to successfully refute the European model of state-building theory that suggests that wars created modern states and enhanced their institutions, creating the capacity for states to exploit resources, monopolize violence and make more wars. In fact, he successfully illustrates how (limited) wars in Latin America destroyed institutions and thwarted nation-state building. Here, he introduces internal factors such as class structure, internal elite divisions and the enduring impact of postcolonial chaos, noting how all contributed, along with the international factors related to how trade interest played out and to debt/loan dependence. An important lesson we can draw from this book is that the experience of war in Latin America, its role and influence on state creation (both the types and kinds of state formation) are distinct here, different from the significant role war played in the development of some European states. No doubt more cases from Latin America and elsewhere would further refute, contextualize, deconstruct and critique the conventional presuppositions, assumptions and models of state-building theory. The complex historical realties of states problematize and create an elaborated space for other factors, beyond war, providing complementary explanations related to creation of the state. Centenos central message is that the link between war and state-building is contingent on historical specificities and case-specific factors. However, his work does not help us to understand how strong states could develop without wars. The logic in Centenos theory and argument is important as it highlights important elements in appraising the link between war-making and state-making as understood in conventional theories, putting the focus on certain contingent factors-history, domestic socio-economic and political structures, and international politics. [1] Centeno, M. A. (2002). Blood and debt: War and the nation-state in Latin America. Penn State Press.p 26 [2] Ibid p 28 and Chapter 3 [3] Ibid [4] Ibid p 20-26 [5] Ibid p 21 [6] Ibid p 26 and 72-73 [7] Ibid p. 23, 7 and Chapter 4 and 5 [8] Ibid p 108- 109 191 and Chapter 5 [9] Ibid p 17 [10]ÂÂ   Ibid p 142 -145, 14, 6-7 and Chapter 3 [11] Ibid p. 19 and 266 What Makes a Teacher Effective? What Makes a Teacher Effective? What do you think it means to be an effective teacher? An effective teacher utilises aspects of their background, professional knowledge and personality to boost students academic growth (Whitton, Barker, Nodworthy, Sinclair, Phil, 2004). The favourable characteristics that follow an effective teacher are their high confidence, optimism and knowledge of the content. Effective teachers are confident in their knowledge, skills and their ability to guide students as well as feeling secure about their status as master of their subject. As well as having confidence in themselves, teachers must have confidence in their students, and believe that they will learn (Killen, 2013). The teacher should have strong beliefs that even the most complicated concept can be explained in such a way that students find it easy to learn. The teachers deeper understanding of the content should provide a means that makes it easy for them as teachers to alter known concepts to suit the students, making it easier for students to consume (Killen, 2013). Teaching is more than just presenting content, our Australian curriculum displays content that students must intake and how their academic level should be judged e.g. Tests and exams. A starting point for an effective teacher is to understand that learning is based on understanding the concept of the content, and the means of an effective teacher is to motivate learners from a state of not understanding to deeper understanding (Killen, 2013). Teachers must be able to create an environment where learners can understand the content presented. Specific techniques that are used to effectively create this environment involve the transformation of the content to something that is easier to understand, motivating learners and engaging them in learning tasks and the teachers adaptability to different students and different learning styles (Killen, 2013). Interactions with students gives teachers the chance to know what is happening around the class room so teachers have a chance to manipulat e their teaching style to best suit the students (Whitton et al., 2016). Why do teachers need to purposely plan for learning? Planning is an important technique teachers use to amplify student achievement as well as teacher satisfaction, the best teachers are able to organise and deliver the best learning experience through thoughtful planning. Overall planning put into class rooms should meet the curriculum requirements and learning needs, to further extend student academic achievement and make the learning experience worthwhile (Whitton et al., 2016). In order for students to meet the learning goals set out by the curriculum, teachers must understand the importance of effective planning. An effective plan helps students to learn purposefully with more efficiency as time is always a constraint in a class room, a developed plan also helps the teacher to clarify what goals are set for students and a step by step process on how to achieve those goals (Killen, 2013). An in-depth plan can boost the teachers confidence as it mirrors to the teacher that they understand the content the students want to learn, the increase in confidence will propel the overall teaching effectiveness. Purposely planning for learning is a must if a teacher is to grow in the art of teaching as it develops the teachers capability for effective teaching and gives a mean to reflect on their planning and effectiveness (Killen, 2013). A plan for learning needs to be effective in order to ensure the learning procedure is productive. Teaching can be simplified into a learning cycle: Planning, implementing then evaluating. Planning requires thorough knowledge of the students in the class their age, gender, interests, learning styles, academic talents and social / emotional states all come into effect when identifying the most effective techniques to be highlighted in the plan (Whitton et al., 2016). Knowledge and understanding of the curriculum must also be taken into account when setting up the plan so learning outcomes can be met. With an active and comprehensive plan the implementing of the actual teaching shows more effectiveness, evaluation of the lesson taught will provide feedback to the teacher on if the content and process was suitable for the students (Whitton et al., 2016). The purpose of the lesson taught must be clear so that students know why each lesson is important, simultaneously the lesson should al so be used by the teacher as means to guide their planning (Killen, 2013) How can effective teachers best engage students in learning? Engaging students in learning is just as important as teaching the students. In order for learners to take in the content being taught they must be focused on the objective and have a clear understanding as to why theyre being taught this. Various strategies are used together by teachers to best engage students to learn. Lesson introductions are one of the major components to involve learners and have them drawn into the learning experience, a lesson introduction should spark the students interests and have them feel connected to the learning environment (Whitton et al., 2016). Just as we discussed in the tutorial in week 3 examples to get the class interested in learning are setting up display materials, objects that students can touch and build understanding through a hands-on experience (e.g. cutting fruit into pieces when examining fractions) or reading a childrens book as audio-visual resource. The introductions should always be related to the topic and spark interests (Whitton et al., 2016). Just as lesson introductions lesson closures should also be given high amounts of attention. The lesson closure must also be relevant and involve the learners to make them aware that the lesson is over. Recapping what occurred, having groups display their work or discuss amongst themselves are good closures that give the teacher an idea if learning outcomes were met during the lesson (Whitton et al., 2016). Therere are many teaching and learning strategies, all the strategies can be broken down into 4 planning components: content, process, products and environment. The content is what is taught, process is how the content is taught, products are the teachers themselves that guide and help students (Whitton et al., 2016). Discovery learning is a strategy used that challenges students understanding and their thinking skills, this strategy of learning focuses on the students, expecting them to develop a solution and a method to the solution (Whitton et al., 2016). Discovery lessons require hands-on research activities to best engage the students. The advantages of discovery learning are that students are involved in the process of learning, the actives used in this type of learning are more meaningful and students acquire their own research and reflective skills (Westwood Peter, 2008). Why is developing positive communication skills important for effective teachers? The idea of enforcing positive communication skills upon teachers to further present in the classroom serve a clear purpose, an effective teacher will use their communication skills to create a rich and positive learning environment. Specific teaching strategies, skills and attitudes impact the learning environment as a whole and in turn these characteristics of the teacher can be manipulated and adjusted and then presented with strong communication skills to the students in order to gage their interests and create a healthy, productive classroom (Whitton et al., 2016). In an educational setting the relationship the teacher has with the students has a significant impact on the communication that occurs between teacher and student (Howell, 2014). If a teacher builds a positive relationship with their students there is a direct influence on the type of communication they will engage in, positive relationships opens a positive environment and negative relationships will generate a negat ive environment (Howell, 2014). An effective teacher will aim to promote a positive learning environment through means of displaying approachability and showing assertiveness in their communication. Assertiveness is categorised as communication style as well as aggressiveness and passivity (Howell, 2014). A good teacher will avoid aggressive and passive styles in communicating as they foster a negative learning environment but should focus on being assertive. The assertive teacher will display the capabilities to be an effective active listener; non-judgemental; able to express himself with honesty; respect others values; able to check on others feelings, all while being proactive, flexible, trustworthy and confident (Howell, 2014). All these highlighted qualities make the teacher approachable, if a student finds a teacher approachable theyre more likely to confide with the teacher and should they have a problem in the future they will feel encouraged to come to the teacher to share their concerns and feelings (Whi tton et al., 2016). By advocating positive relationships and communication, through assertiveness and approachability teachers promote a healthy and positive classroom environment for effective learning (Whitton et al., 2016 Howell,2014). References Whitton, D., Sinclair, C., Barker K., Nosworthy, M., Humphries, J., Sinclair, C. (2016)Learning for teaching: Teaching for learning. VIC, Australia: Cengage Killen, R. (2013). Effective teaching strategies: Lessons from research and practice. South Melbourne, Australia: Cengage Learning Australia. Retrieved from http://CURTIN.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1696408 Westwood, P. (2008). What teachers need to know about. VIC, Australia: ACER Press. Retrieved from http://search.informit.com.au.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=569324157817332;res=IELHSS Howell, J. (2014). Teaching and learning: Building effective pedagogies. South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/lib/curtin/detail.action?docID=4191370