Joshua Simon
PhD Candidate, degree expected May 2012
Subfields: Political Theory, American Political Development, Comparative
Politics
Research and Teaching Interests: American Political Thought and Political Development, Latin American Political Thought and Political Development, Comparative Political Theory, Imperialism, Constitutionalism.
Dissertation Title: “The Ideology of Creole Revolution: Empire and
Independence in the Americas”
Committee: Bruce Ackerman (chair), Anthony Pagden, Paulina Ochoa-Espejo,
Karuna Mantena.
Abstract:
My dissertation provides a comparative account of the political thought of the revolutions that, between 1776 and 1826, emancipated most of the Western Hemisphere from European imperial rule. It demonstrates that the intellectual leaders of independence movements from Boston to Buenos Aires converged in several respects, focusing on the justifications given for a break with Europe, constitutions proposed for new states, and the programs of territorial expansion adopted post-independence. It argues that these convergences reflect the common social position of these movements’ leaders: the American Revolutions were formed and led by Creoles, the European-descended, but American-born social and political upper class of the colonies. It suggests that the contradictory nature of the Creoles’ social position within the European American empires, simultaneously an upper class within their colonies but marginalized vis-à-vis their metropolitan counterparts within the empires as a whole, can explain certain distinctive contradictions within the political thought, or ideology, of Creole revolutionaries.
After developing a general theoretical and historical framework for treating the ideology of the Creole Revolutions, the dissertation provides case studies of three important and paradigmatic Creole revolutionaries: Alexander Hamilton of the United States, Símon Bolívar of Andean South America, and Lucas Alamán of Mexico. These case studies are used not only to demonstrate contentions made about the nature and causes of convergence between the revolutionary ideologies of the Americas, but to show how local circumstances in each case produced distinctive commitments and proposals.
Finally, the three case studies set up a concluding comparison of the legacies of the Creole Revolutions throughout the Americas, allowing me to pose questions about the divergent political and economic development of independent North and Latin America, and the relation of American and Latin American political thought to both contemporary European revolutions and later Asian and African anti-colonial movements.
Please feel free to contact me for draft chapters and teaching materials.
Campus address: Department
of Political Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520
Email: joshua.simon@yale.edu
C.V.
Personal Web Page: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~jds88/Joshua_Simon/Home.html
