Cardona
MPSA 2004
3
threats to which the regime was susceptible, we can explore the nature of the trade-off
between forestalling coup and foreclosing revolution.
The plan of the paper is as follows: I will begin by briefly situating the question of
the institutional design of the public forces in historical context, framing the dilemmas of
constitutional governance that all Latin American republics faced after independence. I
will then go on to explore a key dimension of the concept “public forces,” highlighting
the inclusion of national and subnational police in a discussion of what are largely viewed
in the literature as military dynamics. This discussion will focus on the impacts of
centralization vs. decentralization of command within the public forces. To illustrate the
interplay of these two elements—constitutional governance and public forces—I will use
the case of Colombia to generate a narrative of political development that privileges the
design of the public forces as a key variable impacting regime stability during the period
1930-1958.
Dilemmas of Constitutional Governance
Why is the issue of institutional design with respect to the public forces important
in republican Latin America? My argument is that this process responds to a fundamental
dilemma of governance that all Latin American republics faced after independence: how
can societies ensure stable rules of the game for the alternation of power within a
constitutional framework? The institutional design of the public forces is a solution to a
problem facing each of these societies.
Solutions to these types of macro-level problems tend to have a somewhat open-
ended nature. That is, the solutions may generate new problems, by creating new actors
Convention