The Ayutla (1854) and San Nicolas (1852) Agreements and the Liberal Constitutions. Origins of Coactive State Power in Mexico and Argentina

One of the main historical problems in the construction of modern States in Latin America was the creation of a form of coactive power under the strict and exlusive control o constitutional authorities. This paper analyzes how this process began in Mexico and Argentina with the actions undertaken during the preliminary agreements of Ayutla (1854) and San Nicolas (1852) and the debate of constituent assemblies. These two case studies were chosen because, according to recent studies on the nineteenth- century political transition process, the same process of territorial fragmentation of control over coactive means had a very different evolution in the two countries, regarding the ability to consolidate the State's coactive power and to use it as an instrument to strengthen a new constitutional order. This work tries to understand the historical and cultural causes of the differences