Differences between 1870s and 1930s fueled by export boom in Latin America
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Latin America in the 1930s was a place of emerging democracies, of nations struggling to find their cultural and political identity. These Latin American nations had slowly begun to seek alternatives to the mainly agrarian and raw-materials export economy that had afforded them the means to begin a modernization process and that had become ingrained in the cultural consciousness of its people. Attempts to revitalize the economies of these nations are seen as governments tried to diversify into industrial production (for example, in the case of Argentina's efforts to build a comprehensive railroad and its government subsidized Mercedes Benz auto factory, etc)
Despite some incursions into the industrialized arena, the main domain of Western Europe and the U.S., these nations could not become self sufficient in that area; they remained basically agrarian and dependent on European and North American "civilized" and industrialized goods.
Politically, the region observed the rise of liberalism as the model to follow in trying to create a coherent political, social and economic system. The political struggle and chaos of the 1870s somewhat evolved into a more contemporary type of democracy, with most nations adopting a centralized type of government, although with few and marked exceptions, such as Mxico, which after trying everything (including a monarchy) adopted a federal system, similar to the one of the United States. In general terms, corruption and a local form of absolutism in the form of consecutive re-elections and unilateralism, eventually eroded the public's confidence in liberal thinking at the end of the period being studied. Where the 1870s were filled with regional caudillos that exerted power at the local level, further distancing the different regions from the central government, the 1930s begin with Latin America trying to adopt a more centralized form of government, and giving both greater power and responsibilities to the central government.
Culturally, the 1930s were a time of extremisms and contrasts...