Blackwell Reference Online

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In 1879, war broke out, pitting Chile against the alliance of Bolivia and Peru. Bolivia's weak central government had done little to prepare for the conflict, and suffered a decisive defeat. The outcome was the loss of Bolivia's sea-coast, a national humiliation that would leave the country landlocked and provide material for revanchist agitation up to the present day. The war opened a breach in the Bolivian elite, which divided into supporters of a peace accord with Chile, grouped around the “Conservative” ideologue Mariano Baptista, and opponents of the accord, who began to call themselves “Liberals.” With the temporary ascendancy of the Conservatives, the postwar period came to be known as the rule of the “Conservative oligarchy.” While both parties took for granted that elections were a matter for the small “white” minority to decide (as unlettered Indians did not have the vote), they took on some of the ideological coloration common in Latin America at the time, with the Conservatives presenting themselves as defenders of traditional Catholic values, and the Liberals putting themselves forward as partisans of progress and modernity. Whereas Bolivian politics had been largely “personalist” until this time, without clear or stable political party demarcations, it now polarized sharply into Conservative and Liberal camps. This polarization became increasingly violent, as disputed ... log in or subscribe to read full text