How much better off would a united Gran Colombia be today?

As it says in the title: what would a surviving, modern day Gran Colombia look like? Would it be richer and more prosperous, would it still have governance and institutional problems like the successor states have (courruption, instability, coups, etc)?

Basically I'm interested in people's thoughts on this turning point in history and how things might have played out if had GC survived. Most nation states obtain benefits from scale so it would be interesting to see if the survival of the larger state would have produced advantages that could maybe even make GC a legitimate First World state, instead of a clutch of smaller middle-income states.
 
How is this unity maintained? Through actually reforming regional institutions, or through (like most OTL Latin American countries) through a mix of corruption and authoritarianism? This scenario needs more background.
 
well I'm not much of an expert, so I'm open to suggestions of how unity might work. The tricameral system needs to go probably, along with proper federalism that includes regional/state legislatures. Another useful aspect might be a very weak presidency, to encourage a more parliamentary tradition where elections rather than coups, become the established method for breaking political deadlock.

I would be interested to see how/if a genuine and robust Latin American democracy could emerge before 1900, with secession and regionalism only a minor problem and not an existential threat
 
well I'm not much of an expert, so I'm open to suggestions of how unity might work. The tricameral system needs to go probably, along with proper federalism that includes regional/state legislatures. Another useful aspect might be a very weak presidency, to encourage a more parliamentary tradition where elections rather than coups, become the established method for breaking political deadlock.

I would be interested to see how/if a genuine and robust Latin American democracy could emerge before 1900, with secession and regionalism only a minor problem and not an existential threat

Thanks. As you can see, I'm not very knowledgeable about Latin America.
 
well I'm not much of an expert, so I'm open to suggestions of how unity might work. The tricameral system needs to go probably, along with proper federalism that includes regional/state legislatures. Another useful aspect might be a very weak presidency, to encourage a more parliamentary tradition where elections rather than coups, become the established method for breaking political deadlock.

I would be interested to see how/if a genuine and robust Latin American democracy could emerge before 1900, with secession and regionalism only a minor problem and not an existential threat

Gran Colombia hadn't a tricameral system (they had Senate + House of representatives, like the US) - only Bolivia.

But the federal thing is right. In fact, there was a political controversy between Santander and Bolivar. Bolivar, on the political left, was under the umpression of the French revolution and was a partisan of a bonapartist republic - his supporters were known as centralists; his vice-president, Santander, wanted the rule of law more rights for local administrative divisions - his supporters were known as federalists. Maybe you might have Bolivar die early and Santander replacing him.
 
Thanks, must have gotten that Tricameralism part confused with other threads.

But an early Bolivar death seems like a good PoD, I agree with him dying on campaign sometime before 1826 through disease or wounds. This would leave Santander more time to mould the institutions of the state.

I still think a watered down presidency in favour of a Westminster-style cabinet government assembled from Parliament is a better long term system than French/American republicanism as, historically, this model hasn't really been successful for pretty much anyone other than the US: presidential systems are prone to coups when there is political deadlock.
 
Thanks, must have gotten that Tricameralism part confused with other threads.

But an early Bolivar death seems like a good PoD, I agree with him dying on campaign sometime before 1826 through disease or wounds. This would leave Santander more time to mould the institutions of the state.

I still think a watered down presidency in favour of a Westminster-style cabinet government assembled from Parliament is a better long term system than French/American republicanism as, historically, this model hasn't really been successful for pretty much anyone other than the US: presidential systems are prone to coups when there is political deadlock.

Why has the US been the exception though?
 
Why has the US been the exception though?

There has never been an unlawful overthrow of the elected government of the United States, nor any of its member states. During times where issues place great strain on the political system, the system has always found a way to resolve issues without a "system reset" via a coup. The same cannot be said for any Latin American republic that I know of. That process is handled in parliamentary democracy via an election and dissolution of the parliament, so coups are not really necessary, since the "reset" automatically occurs from within the political system.

In terms of why this is, I dont know but my guess is that the US is the exception, and that instability is inherrent to the model itself (Asian, African and European nations pre-WW2 were unstable with presidential systems). There is a really interesting article from the Atlantic that talks about presidentialism being a flawed system: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/our-fragile-constitution/403237/

Also, I am led to believe that "democracy" in South America was really more of a plutocracy/oligarchy compared to the US during the 19th century. That isn't to say there havent been attempts to privilege the wealthy in elections (voting on Tuesday without public holidays, for instance), but it was always more genuinely representative than sister republics.
 
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There has never been an unlawful overthrow of the elected government of the United States, nor any of its member states. During times where issues place great strain on the political system, the system has always found a way to resolve issues without a "system reset" via a coup. The same cannot be said for any Latin American republic that I know of. That process is handled in parliamentary democracy via an election and dissolution of the parliament, so coups are not really necessary, since the "reset" automatically occurs from within the political system.

In terms of why this is, I dont know but my guess is that the US is the exception, and that instability is inherrent to the model itself (Asian, African and European nations pre-WW2 were unstable with presidential systems). There is a really interesting article from the Atlantic that talks about presidentialism being a flawed system: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/our-fragile-constitution/403237/

Also, I am led to believe that "democracy" in South America was really more of a plutocracy/oligarchy compared to the US during the 19th century. That isn't to say there havent been attempts to privilege the wealthy in elections (voting on Tuesday without public holidays, for instance), but it was always more genuinely representative than sister republics.

That article makes some interesting points, but it does seem to ignore the function of Amendments as a way for the Legislature to establish new fundamental laws governing the land. AFAIK, most Latin American Constitutions do not go into that level of detail regarding congressional deadlock, or struggle between the Executive and Legislative branches, or any contingency procedures for failure of government (I remember doing a paper on the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, which began basically because the country has zero concept of impeachment or other legal mechanism to remove the President...oops). So while there is some instability inherent in Presidentialism, it's very much predicated IMO on the detail and foresight of how the Constitution itself is written and executed.

Also, while parliamentary systems don't seem as outwardly vulnerable to coup, I don't think the countries of Italy, Israel or the French Fourth Republic had much luck with that system remaining stable. Again, if the system is crafted individually as well as possible, it can undergo periods of no-confidence without a total failure of function, but like my above example it really boils down to the "devil in the details".
 

Deleted member 67076

As it says in the title: what would a surviving, modern day Gran Colombia look like? Would it be richer and more prosperous, would it still have governance and institutional problems like the successor states have (courruption, instability, coups, etc)?

Basically I'm interested in people's thoughts on this turning point in history and how things might have played out if had GC survived. Most nation states obtain benefits from scale so it would be interesting to see if the survival of the larger state would have produced advantages that could maybe even make GC a legitimate First World state, instead of a clutch of smaller middle-income states.

This really depends on the critical initial years when the state is built. If you manage to set a precedent for good governance and stability than one would see Colombia be vastly more stable, and in turn, more wealthy.

There are a number of institutional problems left over from the colonial period that can't be fixed overnight (barebones bureaucracy, low population, a class of powerful and spreadout landowners, a history of aristocratic rule and so forth) and subsequently will drag on the state.

However, if you start things out better- say the Congress of Cucuta decides to have a bicameral, federal system right off the bat (although preferably with a strong presidency to mollify the Bolivaristas). This means there's less strain on the central government to administer (relieving pressure on that barebones bureaucracy) which can in turn just focus its efforts on the war.

The War's another thing that needs to end as quickly as possible to get a brighter Colombia. Its simply too expensive- about 1/4 of the Gran Colombian GDP was spent financing the war- and after 1824, increasingly unpopular as debts and labor shortages mounted up. Following the better government establishment, Colombia needs to finish its war ASAP and demobilize.

How to finish the war as soon as possible, eludes me however.

But once these two things are done you remove much of the pressure for succession, and the state can spend the next decade rebuilding and restructuring.

Potentially, I could see a surviving Gran Colombia be in the G5, with an economy and population rivaling modern day Germany.
 
I don't see that a surviving Gran Colombia would have any better chances for success than its constituent pieces.

Not only does it have all the problems they have, it also has regional separatists and factionalism.

Could it have survived and done well? Sure. But so could the successor states. My gut feeling is that keeping the whole country together makes the problems worse, not better.

In addition, you've got the whole 'tropical diseases' problem weighing the nation down. Until you have drugs for malaria, vaccines for yellow fever, and modern sanitation, it's really hard for a wet tropical country to do well.
 
Why has the US been the exception though?

Mainly because the US military was too weak during previous periods of deadlock and is now supported to ridiculous levels by both parties as a sop to nationalism. Basically the American military now gets all the benefits of power without any of the drawbacks and their smart enough not to kill the goose that laid the golden egg
 
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