The Economic and Political History Podcast

• War and State Formation in Latin America | Luis Schenoni with Javier Mejia

  Interview with Luis Schenoni, author of 'Bringing War Back In. Victory, defeat, and the state in nineteenth-century Latin America'Since Charles Tilly’s claim that “war made the state,” scholars have viewed the bellicist account of state formation through a European lens. In Europe, war drove rulers to tax, conscript, and build bureaucracies, culminating in powerful states. Yet  Latin America's  wars were thought to be too infrequent and externally financed to foster state capacity. Bringing War Back In (Cambridge University Press, 2024) shows nineteenth-century Latin America faced more wars than Europe, which shaped state development, not through mobilization alone but via the long-term effect of war outcomes. Victorious states legitimized wartime institutions, consolidating state capacity, while defeated states suffered lasting decline. Leveraging statistics and archival evidence the book shows how international threats systematically triggered state building and how victors and losers were set into divergent paths that rigidified in a peaceful twentieth century. Because all Latin American states survived their wars, and experienced then a long-lasting peace in the twentieth century, this region allows for a complete understanding of bellicist theory that considers the post-war phase in the long run. Overall, the book offers a new and compelling explanation for the levels of state capacity (and development) that we see today both within Latin America and beyond.-------Javier Mejia is a Stanford University lecturer who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.Twitter (X): ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/JavierMejiaC⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/javier_mejia_c/⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/javier-mejia-cubillos/⁠⁠⁠Youtube: ⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/@javiermejia5309?si=LEy5CuqD83qVB8jd

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• Post-World War II Population Transfers | Volha Charnysh with Javier Mejia

  Interview with Volha Charnysh, author of 'Uprooted. How post-WWII Population Transfers Remade Europe' In Uprooted, Volha Charnysh offers a new perspective on the developmental impacts of mass displacement, emphasizing that integrating displaced populations can strengthen states and boost local economies. Focusing on post-WWII Poland and West Germany, Charnysh demonstrates how the disruption of social ties and the introduction of cultural diversity initially reduced social cohesion but simultaneously increased the demand for state-provided resources. This, in turn, helped build state capacity. Over time, regions with larger and more diverse migrant inflows experienced greater gains in entrepreneurship, education, and income. Through its rich analysis and compelling evidence, Uprooted challenges conventional views on the costs of forced displacement and diversity, while proposing a unique link between wars and state-building. ------- Javier Mejia is a lecturer at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine. Twitter (X): ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/JavierMejiaC⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/javier_mejia_c/⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/javier-mejia-cubillos/⁠⁠ Youtube: ⁠⁠https://youtube.com/@javiermejia5309?si=LEy5CuqD83qVB8jd

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• A 4000-year history of the West | Josephine Quinn with Javier Mejia

  Interview with Josephine Quinn, author of 'How the World Made the West: A 4000 Year History' In How the World Made the West, Josephine Quinn poses perhaps the most significant challenge ever to the “civilizational thinking” regarding the origins of Western culture—that is, the idea that civilizations arose separately and distinctly from one another. Rather, she locates the roots of the modern West in everything from the law codes of Babylon, Assyrian irrigation, and the Phoenician art of sail to Indian literature, Arabic scholarship, and the metalworking riders of the Steppe, to name just a few examples.According to Quinn, reducing the backstory of the modern West to a narrative that focuses on Greece and Rome impoverishes our view of the past. This understanding of history would have made no sense to the ancient Greeks and Romans themselves, who understood and discussed their own connections to and borrowings from others. They consistently presented their own culture as the result of contact and exchange. Quinn builds on the writings they left behind with rich analyses of other ancient literary sources like the epic of Gilgamesh, holy texts, and newly discovered records revealing details of everyday life. A work of breathtaking scholarship, How the World Made the West also draws on the material culture of the times in art and artifacts as well as findings from the latest scientific advances in carbon dating and human genetics to thoroughly debunk the myth of the modern West as a self-made miracle. ------- Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine. Twitter (X): ⁠https://twitter.com/JavierMejiaC⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/javier_mejia_c/⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/javier-mejia-cubillos/⁠ Youtube: ⁠https://youtube.com/@javiermejia5309?si=LEy5CuqD83qVB8jd

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• The Rise of Mass Education: Teaching us to Obey | Agustina Paglayan with Javier Mejia

  Interview with Agustina Paglayan, author of 'Raised to Obey: The Rise and Spread of Mass Education' Nearly every country today has universal primary education. But why did governments in the West decide to provide education to all children in the first place? In Raised to Obey, Agustina Paglayan offers an unsettling answer. The introduction of broadly accessible primary education was not mainly a response to industrialization, or fueled by democratic ideals, or even aimed at eradicating illiteracy or improving skills. It was motivated instead by elites’ fear of the masses—and the desire to turn the “savage,” “unruly,” and “morally flawed” children of the lower classes into well-behaved future citizens who would obey the state and its laws. ------- Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.

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• Empire & Sex: America's Global War on Prostitution | Eva Payne with Javier Mejia

  Interview with Eva Payne, author of 'Empire of Purity: The History of Americans' Global War on Prostitution' Between the 1870s and 1930s, American social reformers, working closely with the US government, transformed sexual vice into an international political and humanitarian concern. As these activists worked to eradicate prostitution and trafficking, they promoted sexual self-control for both men and women as a cornerstone of civilization and a basis of American exceptionalism. Empire of Purity traces the history of these efforts, showing how the policing and penalization of sexuality was used to justify American interventions around the world.Eva Payne describes how American reformers successfully pushed for international anti-trafficking agreements that mirrored US laws, calling for states to criminalize prostitution and restrict migration, and harming the very women they claimed to protect.  ---- Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.

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