In comparative-historical analysis, countries are always different places before critical junctures set them on divergent pathways. By comparing the legacies of politicized ethnic diversity for the construction of state infrastructural power in Latin America and Southeast Asia, we elaborate the methodological and substantive importance of these “critical antecedents.” The critical antecedent in each region was the inheritance at independence of a sharp indigenous cleavage. This indigenous inheritance shaped threat perceptions and state-society coalitions in both regions in similarly powerful path-dependent ways—yet in intriguingly divergent directions. A salient indigenous cleavage hindered but did not preclude state building in nineteenth-century Peru, while fostering but not predestining state building in post–World War II Malaysia. Divergent levels of postcolonial state infrastructural power thus exhibit deep if indirect foundations in the identity cleavages inherited from preindependence eras. This cross-region comparative exploration highlights the analytical leverage gained from systematically incorporating preexisting cross-case differences into critical juncture accounts.

中文翻译：

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土著遗产：拉丁美洲和东南亚的关键前因和国家建设

在比较历史分析中，在关键时刻将它们置于不同的道路之前，国家总是处于不同的位置。通过比较政治化种族多样性对拉丁美洲和东南亚国家基础设施权力建设的影响，我们阐述了这些“关键前因”的方法论和实质性重要性。每个地区的关键前因是在独立时继承了尖锐的本土分裂。这种本土遗产以同样强大的路径依赖方式塑造了这两个地区的威胁感知和国家社会联盟——但方向却截然不同。一个显着的本土分裂阻碍了但并未排除 19 世纪秘鲁的国家建设，同时促进但不注定二战后马来西亚的国家建设。因此，后殖民国家基础设施权力的不同水平在继承自独立前时代的身份分裂中表现出深厚的间接基础。这种跨区域比较探索突出了将预先存在的跨案例差异系统地纳入关键时刻账户所获得的分析杠杆。