Topic Abstract Blood and Taxes: Cabinet of Simón Bolívar, 1825 Historical Crisis | Washington, D.C. | February 11-14, 2021 A Georgetown International Relations Association, Inc. Conference Dear Delegates and Advisors, Greetings from NAIMUN LVIII! The staff has been working hard to make the conference the most rewarding and educational experience yet, and we are excited to welcome you all to D.C. in February! This document is the topic abstract for Blood and Taxes: Cabinet of Simón Bolívar, 1825. It contains three key elements to allow you to prepare well in advance for the committee: topic descriptions, questions to consider, and research avenues. This abstract will give you a better understanding of the committee’s content and procedures, and it can act as a starting point for further research. We hope to be of assistance to you in your preparation for NAIMUN LVIII. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to contact the Secretary- General, Director-General, or your Under-Secretaries-General. You may also contact your dais directly at [email protected]. We look forward to welcoming you to the NAIMUN family! Best, Alexander Chen Sanjna Jain Secretary-General Director-General [email protected] [email protected] Mags Glass Tasha Januszewicz Under-Secretary-General, Under-Secretary-General, Historical Crisis Historical Crisis [email protected] [email protected] Topic Abstract | naimun.modelun.org | 2 What is a Crisis Committee? Crisis Committees are markedly different from both GAs and ECOSOCs. They tend to focus on specific issues, geographic areas, and historical periods. For example, the Court of Louis XIV, 1665 simulates the peak years of King Louis XIV in power, tackling issues from the international expansion of the French empire to developing domestic institutions. In essence, crisis committees have a narrower and more specific focus, while GAs and ECOSOCs focus on broad global concepts and issues. Crisis committees also have the distinguishing characteristic of portfolio powers, where delegates have and can use individual powers that are part of their bio in order to shape the “world” they interact in. Crisis committees also include crisis updates, which are unplanned “crises” that delegates must resolve through debate and directives. Last, crisis committees are the smallest of committees, usually with less than 30 delegates per committee. They tend to be faster-paced and more dynamic than assemblies with set topics. Adapted from “NAIMUN Delegate Training Guide” Topics Overview The primary goal of the committee is to take a deep dive into the history, politics, and objectives of statecraft in the nineteenth century. Students will be asked to balance the economic and developmental needs of a new country in the wake of violent upheaval whilst attempting to placate the needs of powerful and foreign actors in the para-colonial world. Guiding Questions 1. What is a nation? How can a plurality of varied groups be brought together under one flag? Where do colonial nations exist in the world order? 2. What aspects of Gran Colombia succeeded? What caused the super-state to fail? What could leaders and political figures have done to prevent it? 3. What types of members are in this committee and what role do they play in the execution of these topics? Cabinet of Simón Bolívar, 1825 | naimun.modelun.org | 3 Topic A: A House Built on Sand Nestled in the Andes Mountains and snaking through modern-day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama; Gran Colombia occupied many of the jewels of the Spanish Empire. Emerging from the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1822, the new state was birthed after a series of spasmodic conspiracies and an eventual march on Bogotá led by the criollo military officer Simón Bolívar.1 However, the romantic vision of a super- state in the north of the continent may have been only that. With the war on the empire continuing in the south, the weak alliances-of-opportunity has begun to fracture. Rumors of Venezuelan patriot fronts and Peruvian territorial claims over the port city of Guayaquil circulate through the streets of Cusco and Cali, all while rural citizens resent the imposition of cosmopolitan governors over their districts. Ecuador, underrepresented in the central government by wide margins, holds little command in the military, civil society, or the economic sphere when compared with their Colombian and Venezuelan counterparts, and demands greater visibility. More simply, separatist movements with few lasting links to the Gran Colombian project proliferated and grew in power after only months, demanding autonomy, or independence, from the presidential seat in Bogotá. With splintered economic groups, ethnic and racial classes, foreign provocateurs and loyalist Spaniards, indigenous groups, and patrimonial militants, this Cabinet will have to carefully balance the needs and demands of each faction all whilst maintaining a handle on leadership and stability. With rebellions against European control still raging in Peru, Chile, Central America, and Mexico, the appetite for violence and insurrection on the continent is ravenous,2 and members will need to prepare to face down new rivalries and survive as a new nation. Large swathes of territory remain held by caudillos— landowners with large holdings and followings—and warlords that threaten whatever unsteady order exists outside of the metropole. Beyond, with a relatively small military and fractionalized officer corps, the Cabinet’s members will need to work to unite the Armed Forces and work to reconcile the differences between liberalizing civil forces and more militant conservative factions. It falls to the Cabinet to find a place in the world for Gran Colombia and its citizens, for better or worse, and establish order across the backlands and frontiers. Questions to Consider for Further Research 1. To what extent is appeasement a solution? What methods and tools can be employed to solve civil friction? 2. How can Gran Colombia balance the incompatible—and often antithetical— demands of different factions? 3. What role can Gran Colombia play in the newly established continental order, given the power vacuum left by the Spanish departure? 1 Biography. 2019. Simón Bolívar. 23 July. Accessed June 2, 2020. https://www.biography.com/political-fig- ure/simon-bolivar. 2 Lockheart, James, and David Bushnell. 2019. “The Independence of Latin America.” June 4, Encyclo- pedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/place/Latin-America/The-independence-of-Lat- in-America Topic Abstract | naimun.modelun.org | 4 Topic B: Blood, Myth, and Taxes Since the early-modern era, states have been represented in nearly every aspect of a citizen’s life. The ability of a state to exert authority effectively can be a determinant in the success of a country and a deciding factor that economic opportunity, provision of public goods, protection of legal rights, and general safety are all built upon.3 Gran Colombia’s rise from the ashes of its wars of independence was that of a paper tiger, with a large, relatively prosperous population diffused across unforgiving terrain and united under a single banner in name alone. With shattered infrastructure, no communication net, and reliance on pre-existing colonial institutions to govern the ruins of the viceroyalty,4 one of the greatest challenges of the Cabinet will be the linkage of populated “islands” across the jungles, mountains, and plains,5 the creation of social nets and tax systems, and the pacification of the country’s backlands.6 In 1825, it was a far simpler and cheaper trip from Bogotá to Madrid than Bogotá to Cali; how can the Cabinet work to forge a state out of the smoldering ruins of Nueva Granada? Yet, what is a state without a nation? If the state is hardware through which a government oversees a country, then a nation represents the people who grant that state legitimacy. Gran Colombia’s populace stands as a volatile mix of Castilian elites and artisans, Mestizo miners and Basque traders, Corsican cocoa cultivators, Antillean longshoreman and indigenous Incan farmers;7 fractured groups with more in common across borders than with those in their own national boundaries. Few have any reason to pledge allegiance to Bolívar’s newly raised banner, and with no mythos to unite these factions, the Cabinet faces a wholly disinterested and often hostile base of the citizenry. Culture, myth, and history are crucial in the formation of the nation around the state,8 members of the Cabinet must find a means to design a uniting national identity to join the swathes of diverse populations within the country if they hope to keep it tethered under a single flag. 3 Soifer, Hillel David. 2015. State Building in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 2. https://www.google.com/books/edition/State_Building_in_Latin_Ameri- ca/6kuqCQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0. 4 Keen, Benjamin, and Keith A. Haynes. 2009. A History of Latin America. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 235-236. https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_History_of_Latin_America/_ FVIOhdR9n8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=gran+colombia+history&pg=PA235&printsec=frontcover. 5 PBS. 22. Property: American Expansion -- U.S.A and Gran Colombia. 2012 May. Accessed June 2, 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/civilization-west-and-rest/killer-apps/property/map-american-expan- sion-u-s-a-and-gran-colombia/. 6 Centeno, Miguel Angel. 1997. “Blood and Debt: War and Taxation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.” American Journal of Sociology (The University of Chicago Press) 102 (6): 1565-1605, 1570-1. https:// www-jstor-org.proxy.library.georgetown.edu/stable/10.1086/231127?Search=yes&resultItemC- lick=true&searchText=blood&searchText=and&searchText=debt&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasic- Search%3FQuery%3Dblood%2Band%2Bdebt%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26am. 7 Lasso, Marixa. 2006. “Race War and Nation in Caribbean Gran Colombia, Cartagena, 1810 - 1832.” The American Historical Review 111 (2): 336-361.