In the third chapter we describe the takeoff of commercial banking in Latin America from midcentury onwards, as witnessed by the establishment of almost 100 joint-stock banks in the more dynamic economies of the region between 1850 and 1873. The creation of banks was especially notable in cities and ports of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Peru, Mexico and Uruguay, developments that have not previously been analyzed from a comparative perspective. Our text argues that the dynamics of export economies (from the early 1850s) as well as the entry of foreign direct investments (from the 1860s) generated demand for the creation of new types of financial enterprise that spurred early capitalism in Latin America. A striking feature was the growing prominence of large banks that had connections with public administrations, such as the Banco do Brasil (1853), which became a pillar of finance for the imperial government, and the Banco de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (1854), a commercial bank that operated in Argentina as a key agency for the government and for ranchers and merchants. Finally, attention is turned to the Banco Español de la Habana, which became the main financial support for the Spanish colonial administration in Cuba during the Ten Years’ War (1868–1878).

In the sixth chapter we underline the extensive enthusiasm for the creation of national banks in the 1870s and 1880s. A first hypothesis concerns the increasingly close relationship between states and banking systems, emphasizing the growing financial requirements of nation-building. A crucial factor was the ascent of a series of political and/or military leaders in the 1880s in Latin America who promoted banks to contribute to more integrated state-building projects. Banks and railroads went hand in hand in this new export age and provided a formidable impetus to economic development in the late nineteenth century. This was clearly an age when capitalism was coming of age in many countries, large and small. Despite some similarities, the relations between large banks and governments in Latin America took different paths in each nation. For instance, the Banco do Brasil (1853) and the Banco Nacional de México (1884) were both large private firms, although each assumed a central role within the public administration and managed financial operations for the private sector and for governments. In contrast, the Banco Nacional de Argentina (1872) was more of a public entity. A final section analyzes the acute banking and financial panics in the 1890s in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

The political independence of the Latin American nations did not usher in modern capitalism since economic stagnation and the repressed nature of financial markets were evident from the 1820s and 1830s in most countries. This chapter focuses on the role of credit and finance during the first half of the nineteenth century in the new states. Liberal constitutions and laws were put in place but did not produce the desired economic results since fiscal reforms did not prove successful. Attention is directed to the experience of the earliest banking entities. We begin with Brazil, where a first bank in Latin America began to operate in 1808, followed by a brief summary of history of the first commercial bank in Argentina and of an early investment bank in Mexico. Nonetheless, the collapse of imperial rule, the wars of independence and extensive civil conflicts created persistent fiscal and monetary difficulties. So much uncertainty affected decision-making by both economic and political actors, reducing the availability of credit, making it more expensive and risky. Political stability and institutional transparency were required to spur early capitalism but economic and political instability created many obstacles in postcolonial Latin America during the first half of the century.

The fifth chapter of this book reviews the earliest banking crises experienced by different Latin American countries. The impact of the financial crisis of 1857 in Havana and Rio de Janeiro represents a clear case of transmission of a crisis from center to periphery, and allow us to speak of international financial contagion. On the other hand, the panic of 1864 in Rio de Janeiro was a notable example of financial imbalance with domestic roots. In the mid 1870s another cluster of financial crises ricocheted across Latin America. In those years, a series of bank panics occurred in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Peru, accompanied by local stock market panics, currency crises and the abandonment of convertibility schemes. The most catastrophic financial debacle was that of Peru, where a dramatic debt default coincided with an exchange crisis and the collapse of the banking system in the years 1876–1879. The review of these early financial crises allows us to reflect on the diverse trajectories of Latin American banks and the possible causes of their relative fragility before the end of the century.

This chapter tests the book’s main argument and the three proposed mechanisms by analyzing the effectiveness of vote-buying schemes in Argentina, Colombia, and Turkey. To avoid repetition, I highlight one mechanism per country, using a critical-case approach. In Colombia’s 2022 elections, weak partisanship and an atomized party system imply that recipients might respond instrumentally to electoral gifts. Nevertheless, using a conjoint experiment, I show strong partisan response, thus highlighting the low bar for partisan affinity to disrupt machine politics. Competitive authoritarianism in Turkey should bias elections in the incumbent’s favor, but I show that local competition for the Kurdish vote and intensive campaigns in the 2015 elections caused the incumbent party to target many unbuyable voters and made the vote buying strategy to fail nationally. Finally, in Argentina the use of partisan ballots should increase recipient compliance. Employing observational data and a photo-based survey experiment from the 2021 elections, I instead show that recipients believe in ballot secrecy and vote their true preferences where prior local electoral competition was vibrant but comply by voting for the machine where it had been locally dominant. The findings from these three critical-case tests show the surprisingly weak conditions that can make vote buying ineffective and imply that my argument generalizes to other competitive systems rife with clientelism.

This chapter analyzes the patterns of antigypsyism suffered by Romani migrants from Europe at the port of Buenos Aires between 1900 and 1950. The control and expulsion of European Roma was a recurrent practice there and was conditioned by their ethnicity and the particular context of Argentine history. Since the nineteenth century, Argentine nationalists imagined creating an ideal nation that was white, healthy, safe and wealthy. As a result, people considered non-white, diseased, criminal and impoverished were racialized and rejected. Problematized populations included Indigenous people, Black Argentines as well as Romani people, who like other would-be immigrants encountered both official and unofficial desirability thresholds they had to breach in order to immigrate. The logic that distinctively problematized Romani ethnicity can be seen in immigration reports and data and suggests that antigypsyism colored the way authorities identified Roma (Gitanos), which then impacted their immigration experience.

This chapter of Persistent Citizens investigates the role of partisanship as an alternative or complementary explanation for variation in state-centric persistence and the "2ei" attitudes (i.e., entitlement, indignation, and self-efficacy). The authors analyze whether support for major political movements in each country – the Workers’ Party in Brazil and the Peronist movement in Argentina – affects citizens’ attitudes and behaviors toward the state. The findings reveal a significant contrast between the two cases. In Brazil, partisan identity has little to no explanatory power. In Argentina, in contrast, Peronist supporters show systematically different attitudes and a greater willingness to persist than non-supporters. Analysis of additional survey questions suggests that differences in attitudes among Peronist supporters are not the result of greater reliance on clientelism but instead reflect greater optimism about the state’s capacity to provide services. Despite this partisan effect in Argentina, the chapter concludes that the book’s core findings regarding the importance of 2ei remain robust in both countries.

This chapter focuses on the Milan Exposition of 1906, an event of major national and international significance. I consider the Exposition’s musical and more broadly cultural activities in relation to contemporary fascination with Argentina, which was increasingly framed as a ’second Italy’. Musical highlights at the Exposition included a celebrated revival of Verdi’s classic La traviata: the first Italian staging of Verdi’s opera in period costume, featuring a creative team famous for their performances in Latin America. I examine the musical and cultural displays at the exposition before exploring the relationship between the Milan exposition and the La Scala production. If the exposition sought to reflect a specifically Milanese idea of ‘global’ space, I argue, operatic productions could at times operate in strikingly similar ways. In the context of shifting power relations between Italy and Argentina, operatic staging can therefore be understood as a significant discursive site for negotiating transatlantic relations, as operatic production became a vehicle of urban renewal at the end of Italy’s operatic nineteenth century.

Building on the findings of Chapter 5 of Persistent Citizens, this chapter shifts focus to the origins of the three "2ei" attitudes (i.e., entitlement, indignation, and self-efficacy). The authors explore various factors that might explain why some individuals feel more entitled, indignant, and efficacious than others. Their analysis finds that domain-specific knowledge – knowledge of social rights – is a particularly strong predictor of these attitudes. The chapter provides evidence that knowledge of social rights is a more significant factor than socioeconomic status, prior experiences with the state, or general civic engagement. Path models show how knowledge of social rights plausibly affects 2ei, driving state-centric persistence.

Drawing on a series of sixteen focus groups with Brazilian and Argentine citizens from low-income groups in four cities, this chapter documents the challenges individuals face when trying to access public health and early childhood education benefits. The chapter provides a conceptual framework for classifying citizen responses to these challenges. It argues that while some citizens exit from seeking access to public services, an important response is what the authors call "state-centric persistence": the act of repeatedly and directly engaging with government offices or officials after an initial failed attempt. The focus group narratives illustrate that this form of persistence is often necessary for successful access and that it is distinct from other options like giving up or turning to private alternatives. The chapter also uses survey data to show widespread belief in the usefulness of state-centric persistence.

To the surprise of both academic and pundits, Javier Milei was elected president of Argentina at the end of 2023. However, there is very limited research about him and his ideas. Chapter 2 addresses this gap and demonstrates that Milei is a case of a far-right leader with populist radical components. The main elements of his discourse are: (a) the defense of a libertarian program of radical criticism of state intervention and strongly critical of the left’s distributive programs; (b) an anti-establishment performance of criticism of "la casta," as opposed to the "argentinos de bien," which is expressed both in the violence of his discourse and in corporal and aesthetic elements associated with anger against the political establishment; (c) a relatively new and opportunistic approach toward both morally conservative and "iron fist" positions regarding crime. Some elements typical of the European populist radical right are absent in Milei, such as anti-immigration positions. Others, such as climate skeptic positions, take a very secondary place in his appeal. In sum, Milei’s case fits the usual definition of far right but does not fully fit the definitions of extreme right or of the populist radical right.

The introductory chapter of Persistent Citizens lays out the core conceptual, theoretical, and empirical claims of the book. It begins by highlighting that expanded social policy commitments in countries like Brazil and Argentina do not always translate into consistent access to social programs for all eligible citizens. The authors introduce "state-centric persistence" as a key behavior that explains who ultimately receives benefits. The chapter then previews a psychological theory that explains persistence based on three attitudes: entitlement, indignation, and self-efficacy, collectively termed "2ei." The chapter reviews the scope conditions of the argument and outlines the empirical approach of the book, which involves original qualitative and quantitative research in Brazil and Argentina, focusing on health care and early childhood education. The chapter concludes by discussing the book’s contributions to literature on social policy access, claim making, and administrative burden.

This chapter provides a historical overview of social welfare provision in Brazil and Argentina. It details how both countries, in the early twentieth century, established welfare systems that were largely regressive and favored formal workers and privileged groups. The chapter then describes the social policy expansions that have occurred in recent decades, particularly since the countries’ transitions to democracy in the 1980s. While these reforms have expanded access to previously excluded populations, the chapter notes that uneven access persists despite these new commitments. It also summarizes the current state of public provision of health care, especially medication for chronic illness, and early childhood education in each country.

This chapter considers constructions of the Argentine operatic canon in the years immediately preceding the First World War, focusing on Mascagni’s Isabeau. Premiered at Buenos Aires’s Teatro Coliseo in June 1911, the reception of Isabeau outlined competing efforts by critics and managements to shape a specifically Italian-Argentine operatic canon: one that could stand in for local compositions while moving away from the conventions of Cavalleria and Pagliacci. These ambitions were also shaped by concerns over the integration of Italian immigrants, in spite of the enduring success of many Italian operas and critical scepticism that surrounded more recent premieres of Wagner and Strauss. From an Italian perspective, meanwhile, Isabeau’s foreign profile intersected with broader questions of citizenship, nationhood and affective belonging that played out within both political and musicological discussions during a period when dual citizenship was legally impossible. Ultimately, the nationalist drives at work during the 1910s influenced the operatic canons we still draw on today, I argue, affecting critical attitudes towards non-Italian and emigrant composers alike.

This chapter provides an empirical test of the psychological theory presented in Chapter 4 of Persistent Citizens. The authors use original survey data from Brazil and Argentina to analyze respondents’ willingness to persist in seeking public health care and early childhood education services. The results of the quantitative analysis demonstrate a statistically significant positive relationship between the three "2ei" attitudes – entitlement, indignation, and self-efficacy – and the likelihood of engaging in state-centric persistence. The chapter provides robust evidence supporting the book’s core theoretical claim that an individual’s attitudes are a crucial determinant of their actions toward the state. It explores and finds limited evidence for alternative explanations for persistence, such as socioeconomic factors. The chapter also shows that 2ei uniquely predicts state-centric persistence versus other types of behavior.