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Long‐Run Development and the Legacy of Colonialism in Spanish AmericaAuthor(s): James MahoneySource: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 109, No. 1 (July 2003), pp. 50-106Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/378454 .

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50 AJS Volume 109 Number 1 (July 2003): 50–106

� 2003 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.0002-9602/2003/10901-0002$10.00

Long-Run Development and the Legacy ofColonialism in Spanish America1

James MahoneyBrown University

For more than a century, the countries of Spanish America havemaintained their level of development relative to one another. Thisarticle argues that this enduring regional hierarchy is a path-dependent legacy of Spanish colonialism. Those territories that con-stituted the centers of the Spanish colonial empire tended to becomethe region’s least developed countries; by contrast, those territoriesthat were peripheral to the Spanish empire tended to become themost developed countries. Using methods for assessing both cor-relational causation and necessary/sufficient causation, the articleexplores competing hypotheses to explain this inverse relationship.It finds that the density of the indigenous population and thestrength of liberal elites during the period from 1700 to 1850 werecritical factors linking colonial and postcolonial development.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Bolivia was among the least suc-cessful of the countries of Spanish America at achieving a high level ofsocial and economic development. By contrast, Uruguay was among themost socially and economically developed countries in the region. A hun-dred years later, at the beginning of the 21st century, little had changed.

1 This article is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (grant0093754). Previous versions were presented at the Consortium for Qualitative ResearchMethods, Cornell University, Harvard University, New York University, NorthwesternUniversity, and the University of Virginia. For comments and advice, I thank JohnCoatsworth, Susan Eckstein, Jose Itzigsohn, Aaron Katz, Matthew Lange, StevenLevitsky, Shannon O’Neil, Charles C. Ragin, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Kenneth Shad-len, Richard Snyder, Hillel Soifer, Michael J. White, and the AJS reviewers. I wouldespecially like to acknowledge the help of Matthias vom Hau, who led a team ofresearch assistants that included Madeline Otis and Robert Rapoport. Fig. 3 in thisarticle was prepared with the help of Geoffrey Surrette and Carrene W. Tracy. Directcorrespondence to James Mahoney, Department of Sociology, Maxcy Hall, BrownUniversity, Providence, Rhode Island. E-mail: [email protected]



Colonialism and Development

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Bolivia continued to be among the least developed countries, whereasUruguay continued to be one of the most developed countries.

Such intraregional stability in level of national development clasheswith the image scholars and policy makers often present of Spanish Amer-ica as an area marked by dramatic shifts in development prospects (e.g.,ECLAC 2002; Skidmore and Smith 2001, chap. 2; Thorp 1998, chap. 2).While it is true that the Spanish American countries show volatility withrespect to their annual growth rates, these countries have tended to main-tain their level of development relative to one another for more than acentury. The countries that were the most developed in the region a cen-tury ago still tend to be the most developed countries today; the countriesthat were then the least developed still tend to be the region’s least de-veloped countries. This continuity in development rankings is a strikingfact about Spanish America, but to this point it has received almost nosystematic attention from analysts of the region.

This article attempts to empirically substantiate and explain this strik-ing fact about long-run development in Spanish America. It begins bydrawing on existing quantitative data for economic and social develop-ment to illustrate the considerable extent to which the Spanish Americancountries have followed stable development hierarchies across the 20thcentury. The persistence of these hierarchies for at least a century stronglysuggests the relevance of ideas about path dependence to development inthe region. In addition, this stability over time raises questions about thehistorical causes that led particular countries to occupy enduring positionswithin regional hierarchies.

To identify these historical causes, the article builds on literature thatsuggests that the centers of European imperial activity often saw thecreation of institutions that subsequently impeded development. For ex-ample, scholars from diverse theoretical perspectives have long arguedthat the distorted bureaucratic structures left behind by British, French,and Belgian colonists can help explain developmental problems in tropicalAfrica (e.g., Bates 1981; Jackson and Rosberg 1982; Young 1994). Ex-tending these ideas to Latin America, I argue that those colonial territoriesthat constituted the economic, political, and social centers of the mid-17th-century Spanish colonial empire tended to become the region’s poor-est countries after independence; by contrast, backwater territories thatwere peripheral in the mid-17th century tended to become the region’swealthiest countries. I thus offer national-level support for Andre GunderFrank’s hypothesis about an inverse relationship between colonial wealthand postcolonial development in Latin America: “The poorer the regionwas as a colony, the richer and more developed it is today” (1972, p. 19).2

2 Frank’s hypothesis was intended to apply to all colonial regions. By contrast, I am



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The article also attempts to identify the intervening processes throughwhich colonialism affected long-run development. Competing hypothesesare tested using fuzzy-set analysis, a new methodology designed to locateprobabilistic necessary and sufficient causes (Ragin 2000). The article findsthat level of Spanish colonial influence is inversely related to social de-velopment because the presence of a dense indigenous population (whichoften characterized the more central colonial regions) was a “usually nec-essary condition” for unsuccessful social development, while the absenceof one was a “usually sufficient condition” for successful social develop-ment. In this sense, colonial systems of ethnic stratification appear to havehad dramatic long-term consequences for human welfare in the region.

Moreover, the article finds that colonialism is related to economic de-velopment because strong liberal factions tended to be found in the moremarginal territories of the empire, and these strong liberal factions werea usually necessary condition for successful economic development duringthe late colonial period. At the same time, the absence of strong liberalswas usually sufficient to ensure a low level of economic development.Hence, the emergence of a liberal-oriented bourgeoisie during the colonialperiod appears to have been critical to long-run economic success in theregion.

In developing these arguments, I focus on the 15 mainland territoriesof the Spanish colonial empire that later became nation-states of LatinAmerica: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, ElSalvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru,Uruguay, and Venezuela.3 This population represents a domain of com-parable cases for which one can hypothesize that a given causal factorwill have homogeneous effects across all units.

LONG-RUN DEVELOPMENT IN SPANISH AMERICA

Deep patterns of continuity have characterized national development tra-jectories in Spanish America for more than a century. If many observers

concerned with specifically Spanish America. In addition, whereas Frank’s hypothesiswas part of a broader theory of underdevelopment in Latin America, I am concernedonly with the specific hypothesis about level of colonialism and development, not thebroader theory.3 I exclude all Latin American countries that did not experience Spanish colonialism(i.e., Brazil, Haiti, and most islands of the Caribbean). Likewise, I exclude those coun-tries that had multiple colonial experiences or did not achieve independence alongwith the rest of Spanish America in the early 19th century (i.e., Cuba, the DominicanRepublic, and Puerto Rico). In addition, I exclude Panama, which was a neocolonyof the United States for much of the 20th century. For a more extended discussion ofcase selection, see Katz, vom Hau, and Mahoney (in press).




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have failed to notice this continuity, it is because one must look beyondannual fluctuations in growth rates to see the long-run pattern. Whensuch a perspective is adopted, it becomes apparent that the concept of“path dependence” is useful for understanding long-run development tra-jectories in the region.

Conceptualizing Path Dependence

Most arguments about path dependence entail at least three core claims(see Pierson 2000; Mahoney 2000). First, an initial set of causal forces—often distant historical occurrences—leads units (e.g., countries) to movein a particular direction. These historical causes are frequently understoodto represent “critical junctures” or “turning points” in developmental pro-cesses (Collier and Collier 1991; Abbott 1997). Second, once units beginto move in a particular direction, they realize “increasing returns” andcontinue to move in that same direction. Increasing returns are oftengenerated when large setup or fixed costs make it difficult for units tochange direction. With an increasing-returns process, two units at thesame location may initially move in slightly different directions and thissmall difference is reinforced over time such that the two units soonbecome situated far apart from one another.4 Third, units eventually sta-bilize around enduring equilibrium points. Once these equilibrium pointsare reached, the units may be subject to small fluctuations in their de-velopment trajectories, but their basic position is “locked in” (Arthur 1994).

When path-dependent processes are at work, explanations of differencesamong units that draw on the current attributes of those units will oftenbe inadequate. For example, consider a hypothetical region with threecountries that initially are not integrated into the global market (see fig.1). At time 1, country A is the most developed of the three nations, con-trolling 50% of the total regional GNP; country B is second most devel-oped, with 30% of the regional total; and country C is least developed,with only 20%. Subsequently, the countries enter the global market, butthey do so at different points in time, with large implications for theirfuture development. At time 2, country C is the first to enter the globalmarket. By virtue of this early start, the country’s share of regional GNPgrows from 20% to 40% from time 2 to time 3, while countries A and Bdecline to 40% and 20%, respectively. At time 3, country B also entersthe global market. As a result, the shares of both country C and countryB grow at the expense of country A from time 3 to time 4, reaching 50%and 30%, respectively. Finally, at time 4, country A enters the world

4 For a discussion of how this process works in politics, see Pierson (2000). For adiscussion of path-dependent patterns that are not self-reinforcing, see Mahoney (2000).




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Fig. 1.—Path dependence and economic development: a hypothetical example

market, but by this point it controls only 20% of regional GNP and islocked out of its former leading position. After time 4, the three countries’positions are stably reproduced.

This example is intended to illustrate how particular historical eventscan matter a great deal in a path-dependent sequence. Those units thatgain an initial advantage may realize positive feedback and move rapidlyinto a favorable position; those units that are laggards can just as easilyfall behind and become locked out of a leading position. Indeed, thisprocess can effectively reverse fortunes, transforming yesterday’s laggardsinto today’s leaders. Furthermore, the example illustrates the importanceof the distant past for explaining the present. If one examined only timeperiods 4–8 to explain why country C dominates the contemporary mar-ket, one would likely reach the erroneous conclusion that integration intothe global market is not part of the story. That is, because by time 4 allof the countries are integrated into the global market, this factor wouldbe considered constant across the cases and thus irrelevant to explainingthe variation of interest. Without a broad historical vantage point, theanalyst would be led to the mistaken finding that other differences explainthe relative GNP shares of the countries.




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Development Hierarchies

Reliable quantitative data on long-run economic, social, and political de-velopment in Spanish America are scarce, but those that we do havesuggest that ideas about path dependence are needed to make sense ofover-time trajectories. In particular, existing data reveal that stable de-velopment hierarchies have long characterized the Spanish Americancountries. This stability lends support to broader research that argues thatsignificant changes in relative levels of development are rare in the con-temporary world economy (e.g., Arrighi and Drangel 1986; Easterly et al.1993).

The most extensive long-run data set concerning economic developmentfor the region as a whole is Thorp’s (1998, p. 353) index of national GDPper capita by decade for the 1900–1990 period.5 As table 1 shows usingordinal comparisons, there has been stability in economic developmentrankings for the Spanish American countries across the entire 20th cen-tury. A simple way to illustrate this stability is to consider the Spearmanrank-order correlation coefficients generated when different decades arecompared. For example, the coefficient is .82 when 1900 and 1930 arecompared (7 observations); .85 for 1930 and 1960 (12 observations); and.94 for 1960 and 1990 (all 15 observations). When any two consecutivedecades or any two decades that contain data for all 15 countries arecompared, the coefficient is almost always above a .90 level. In fact, when1900 and 1990 are compared, the correlation is still .61 despite the presenceof only 7 observations skewed toward the more developed countries ofthe region. In short, these data strongly suggest that the countries thatwere wealthy at the beginning of the century tended to be the samecountries that were wealthy throughout the century, while the countriesthat were poor tended to remain poor.

The one country that significantly shifted relative to the others is Ven-ezuela, whose GDP per capita increased substantially after 1920 whenthe oil industry was consolidated. Certain Central American countriesalso appear to have performed better in the early 20th century than inthe mid and late 20th century, although these findings are likely the prod-uct of measurement error (i.e., Guatemala in 1940)6 and the influence offoreign-controlled banana companies (i.e., Honduras in 1920 and 1930).7

5 These data are similar to those compiled by Maddison (1989, p. 35, and 1991, p. 6)and Bulmer-Thomas (1994, p. 444), with the partial exception of Mexico, which appearsless wealthy in the early 20th century in the Maddison and Bulmer-Thomas indexes.6 In the Bulmer-Thomas (1987, p. 312) index, from which Thorp derived the three-year average GDP data for Guatemala, the 1939–42 period is a significant outlier.7 During the 1920–30 period, foreign-owned banana companies controlled nearly allexports from Honduras.




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TABLE 1Ranking of Countries by GDP per Capita, 1900–1990 (1 p Highest)

Country

Year

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

Argentina . . . . . 1 1 1 1 2 3 3 2 2 3Bolivia . . . . . . . . 12 15 14 13 13Chile . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 3 2 4 4 4 5 5 5Colombia . . . . . . 4 5 9 9 10 8 8 8 8 7Costa Rica . . . . 4 5 7 6 7 6 6 6Ecuador . . . . . . . 7 7 12 12 14 13 13 13 10 10El Salvador . . . 10 11 12 11 11 11 12 12Guatemala . . . . 5 8 5 9 9 10 11 11Honduras . . . . . 6 7 11 14 14 15 15 14Mexico . . . . . . . . 3 3 2 4 6 5 5 4 3 4Nicaragua . . . . . 8 10 13 15 12 9 14 15Paraguay . . . . . . 8 10 10 12 9 9Peru . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4 7 6 9 7 6 7 7 8Uruguay . . . . . . . 1 2 2 3 4 2Venezuela . . . . . 5 6 11 3 3 1 1 1 1 1

Note.—Data from Thorp (1998, p. 353). Thorp’s GDP per capita figures are based on three-yearaverages in U.S. dollars at 1970 prices. Given that data are missing for several countries in the early20th century, please note that numerical rankings for each period should be viewed in relationship tothe total number of countries for which there is data. For example, although Ecuador receives a rankingof “7” in 1900 and 1910, it is the poorest country for which there is any data during these decades.

Most countries (i.e., Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador,El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay) exhibit little move-ment vis-a-vis one another.

If economic development is measured continuously and viewed overtime, the basic pattern of stable rankings is still visible. Figure 2 illustratesthis point by considering national real GDP per capita as a ratio of theregional average real GDP per capita for the 1950–92 period.8 Countriesdo not dramatically shift positions, but there is some over-time movement,which reflects differences in annual growth rates. Given this, it is worthasking to what extent such discontinuities represent something more thanthe fluctuations one might expect due to measurement error or nonsys-tematic drift. The data for South America in the top half of figure 2 showthat five countries—Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, and Bolivia—have consistently performed at or below the regional average for SpanishAmerica. These countries do not appear to have altered their regional

8 This figure was constructed using data from the Penn World Table (Summers et al.1994), which is often regarded as the best source for measuring national economicdevelopment since 1950.




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Fig. 2.—Comparative levels of real GDP per capita, 1950–92; data from Summers et al.(1994); three-year averages.




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rankings to any significant degree since the 1950s.9 The four wealthiesteconomies of South America—Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, andChile—show more movement, with a general trend downward vis-a-visthe regional average, though Chile and Uruguay eventually climb vis-a-vis this average. It is difficult to know if these changes reflect a systematicprocess or temporary vacillations. For example, Argentina moves down-ward only a small amount until the last data points, and the downshiftin Venezuela is probably a product of fluctuations in the internationalprice of petroleum. Likewise, the dip in the 1970s for Chile reflects thepolitical polarization of that era, not a permanent shift in economicperformance.10

The data for Mexico and Central America in the lower half of figure2 more strongly suggest systematic changes. Most notably, Mexico steadilyimproved its relative position within Spanish America after midcentury,probably as a consequence of the Mexican Revolution (Knight 1986, pp.517–27). Although Costa Rica also shows progress, pulling away from theother Central American countries, more reliable data suggest that CostaRica was well ahead of its Central American neighbors as far back asthe early 20th century (see Bulmer-Thomas 1987, p. 312). Nicaragua hasdeclined since the 1970s, which is likely the result of revolutionary andcounterrevolutionary violence. These data thus suggest that an event suchas a social revolution may significantly and permanently alter (positivelyor negatively) national development trajectories in Spanish America.

The overall evidence supports neither the “convergence thesis” of neo-classical/modernization theory (Solow 1956; Cass 1965; see also Barro1991; Baumol, Nelson, and Wolff 1994) nor the “divergence thesis” pro-posed by some dependency theorists (e.g., Amin 1982).11 Rather a com-

9 This is especially true when one considers alternative data for the most recent periodthat show relatively poor economic performance for Colombia and Ecuador. See WorldBank (various years).10 In fact, World Bank (various years) estimates of GNP per capita show a substantialupswing for all of the Southern Cone countries during this period. With these alter-native data, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay distance themselves from (not convergewith) the rest of the region in the second half of the 20th century. Given the differencesacross data sets, one must be cautious not to read too much into the apparent cross-national fluctuations in level of development found in any given data set.11 Neoclassical and modernization theorists hypothesize economic convergence amongnations due to diminishing returns to capital as well as technological diffusion andcapital flows from wealthy countries to poor countries. Some dependency theoristshypothesize divergence based on declining terms of trade and the deleterious effectsof foreign capital investment in the poor countries. The 15 countries here provide onlya weak test of these hypotheses, given that they do not contain the full variation oneconomic development found in the world economy. One would expect a sample ofcountries truncated on the dependent variable such as this to underestimate the im-portance of trends that operate across the entire world economy. More generally on




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parison of decadal gini coefficients measuring regional levels of inequalityamong the nations shows the absence of any change over time.12 In sum,we have no reason to believe that the various factors that affect growthrates (see Levine and Renelt 1992) systematically vary across the richerand poorer countries of the region in a way that allows one group toconsistently gain relative to the other.

Existing information on long-run levels of social development evenmore clearly illustrates the existence of a stable hierarchy. Table 2 presentsordinal rankings over time for literacy, a commonly used measure of socialdevelopment. Again, the positioning of countries in these rankings is quitestable, with perhaps only Venezuela moving to any significant degree. Infact, the bivariate Spearman correlation for any two decades is neverlower than .74; for most decades it is above .90. Moreover, strikinglysimilar rankings appear when countries are assessed according to lifeexpectancy, another major indicator of social development (see table 2).In short, even more than economic development, social development rank-ings are not subject to periodic fluctuations.13

Although the ordering of countries for social development indicators issimilar to the ordering of countries for economic development, some casesshow different relative positions in regional rankings for social as opposedto economic development. For example, Paraguay and Costa Rica performbetter in the arena of social development than in the arena of economicdevelopment, while Mexico and Venezuela perform worse in the arena ofsocial development. In this sense, although the positioning over time ofcountries has been stable with respect to both economic and social de-velopment, it is useful to distinguish between the two kinds ofdevelopment.

A quite different measure of overall national development is the levelof political democracy. The existing evidence on Latin America suggeststhat countries with more socioeconomic development tend to have hadmore experience with political democracy during the 20th century (Main-waring 1999). However, the Spanish American countries have not falleninto a stable hierarchy when political democracy is measured quantita-

the debate between convergence and divergence theorists, see Romer (1986) and Kor-zeniewicz and Moran (1997).12 Using Thorp’s (1998) GDP per capita data for the 15 countries, I generated thefollowing regional gini coefficients by decade: .28 (1950), .29 (1960), .28 (1970), .28(1980), and .29 (1990).13 However, unlike economic development, the countries have substantially convergedin absolute terms for literacy and life expectancy. Such convergence is partly drivenby the fact that these indicators have a ceiling beyond which countries cannot advance.In addition, broader cross-national evidence suggests that absolute convergence is morecommon for social development than economic development (see Ingram [1994]).




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TABLE 2Ranking of Countries by Social Development Indicators, 1900–1990 (1 p

Highest)

Country

Year

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

Literacy rate:Argentina . . . . . 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 2Bolivia . . . . . . . . 13 13 14 13 14 14 14 13 11 11Chile . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3 3 3 4 4 3 3 4 4Colombia . . . . . . 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6.5Costa Rica . . . . 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 4 3 3Ecuador . . . . . . . 6 7 7 7 7 8 7 9 9 8El Salvador . . . 10 12 13 14 12 11 11 12 12 12Guatemala . . . . 14 14 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15Honduras . . . . . 8 8 11.5 12 13 12 13 14 14 14Mexico . . . . . . . . 11 9 9 10 8 7 8 8 8 9Nicaragua . . . . . 8 8 11 13 12 11 13 13Paraguay . . . . . . 7 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 6.5Peru . . . . . . . . . . . 12 11 10 9 9 9 10 10 10 10Uruguay . . . . . . . 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1Venezuela . . . . . 9 10 11.5 11 10 10 9 7 7 5

Life expectancy:Argentina . . . . . 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2.5 2.5 3.5Bolivia . . . . . . . . 4 6.5 6 8 10 10.5 15 15 15 15Chile . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 6 4.5 6 4.5 6 5 4 2Colombia . . . . . . 3 5 4.5 6 4.5 6 7 8 7.5Costa Rica . . . . 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 2.5 1 1Ecuador . . . . . . . 7 9 9 9 9El Salvador . . . 10 10 9 10 10 14 12Guatemala . . . . 7 8 9 12 13 14 13.5 14 13 14Honduras . . . . . 6.5 10 12.5 13.5 13 11 10Mexico . . . . . . . . 5.5 6.5 3 6.5 4 7 6 7 6.5 5.5Nicaragua . . . . . 10 11 12 12.5 12 11.5 11 12Paraguay . . . . . . 5.5 5 4 3 3 7 8 7 6.5 7.5Peru . . . . . . . . . . . 8 10.5 11 11.5 11 12Uruguay . . . . . . . 1 1 2.5 3.5Venezuela . . . . . 6 9 6 3 4 4 5 5.5

Note.—Data from Thorp (1998, pp. 354, 356).

tively across time. As the data in table 3 show, many countries havedramatically shifted over time with respect to their relative level of de-mocracy during the past century (though some have been stable, such asCosta Rica).14 For example, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay have

14 The instability of democracy over time is apparent regardless of the particular indexused. For example, the same result appears for the over time political data sets inBanks (1971), Freedom House (2000), and Johnson (1977).




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TABLE 3Ranking of Countries by Level of Democracy, 1900–1990 (1 p Highest)

Country

Year

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

Argentina . . . . . 6 7 5.5 7 7 13.5 7.5 12.5 11 6Bolivia . . . . . . . . 4.5 4.5 5.5 5.5 9 9 9.5 12.5 11 6Chile . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3 3.5 9.5 4.5 5.5 6 5 11 10Colombia . . . . . . 7 9.5 10 4 2 9 3.5 4 4 6Costa Rica . . . . 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1.5Ecuador . . . . . . . 11.5 9.5 10 9.5 9 4 7.5 6 2.5 3El Salvador . . . 11.5 13.5 14 14 13.5 13.5 11 8 8.5Guatemala . . . . 8 13.5 7 5.5 13.5 2.5 13.5 7 11 13.5Honduras . . . . . 2 2 2 2 9 9 9.5 9 6.5 12Mexico . . . . . . . . 15 13.5 10 12 13.5 13.5 13.5 12.5 6.5 15Nicaragua . . . . . 11.5 9.5 10 9.5 13.5 13.5 13.5 12.5 11 13.5Paraguay . . . . . . 11.5 9.5 10 9.5 6 9 13.5 12.5 11 11Peru . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 4.5 14 14 3 2.5 5 12.5 5 8.5Uruguay . . . . . . . 11.5 6 3.5 3 4.5 5.5 2 3 11 1.5Venezuela . . . . . 11.5 13.5 14 14 11 9 3.5 2 2.5 4

Note.—Data are from Jaggers and Gurr (1996). Rankings are derived from three-year average scoresfor level of democracy.

ranged from highly democratic to highly authoritarian vis-a-vis the re-gional average. In this sense, ideas about lock-in via path dependence donot appear to apply to political development, at least for many of theregion’s countries, using a quantitative measure of democracy for the last100 years.15

When compared to social and economic development, political devel-opment is less susceptible to lock-in because the initial costs of trans-forming political systems are less extensive than the initial costs of trans-forming the economy and social service sectors. Rapid social and economicdevelopment demands setup costs, such as the installation of effectiveschooling systems and competitive economic industries, which are ex-tremely hard to achieve in the short run. By contrast, rapid improvementin political development can take place if authoritarian countries are ableto hold free and fair elections, respect civil liberties and rights, and allowelected officials the capacity to govern. Though these political changesare not easily achieved, many countries in Spanish America have managed

15 However, if a qualitative measure of political development is used to assess typesof national regimes, many of the region’s countries do exhibit significant stability formany years or even decades. Hence, if one seeks to explain variations in nationalpolitical regime outcomes over significant periods of time for a subset of SpanishAmerican countries, the concept of path dependence is quite applicable. See Collierand Collier (1991); Mahoney (2001).




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to accomplish them, often in relatively short periods of time. Thus, thereare good theoretical reasons rooted in the literature on path dependencefor explaining why countries are more susceptible to lock-in for social andeconomic development than for political development.

Once we acknowledge the stability of social and economic developmentrankings across very long periods of time, it seems clear that a centralpuzzle facing students of Spanish America should be to understand how,why, and when these enduring hierarchies were established. Indeed, thesequestions are arguably among the most important in the entire field, giventhat the majority of the variation in contemporary levels of socioeconomicperformance appears to have been produced by remote historical causes.Yet, to this point at least, analysts have not attempted to locate thosehistorical factors that set into motion path-dependent processes of de-velopment in Spanish America.

COLONIALISM IN SPANISH AMERICA

Many scholars have written about the colonial legacy in Latin America.Regional specialists have argued that underdevelopment throughout thearea can be traced to colonial patterns of economic dependence (e.g.,Frank 1967; Furtado 1976; Stein and Stein 1970), Hispanic culture (e.g.,Dealy 1968; Johnson 1964; Morse 1964; Wiarda 1974), and inefficientmarkets and economic arrangements (e.g., Bernecker and Tobler 1993; cf.Haber 1997). Others have explored the persistence of colonial institutionssuch as hacienda agriculture and the Catholic Church in one or morecountries or subnational regions (e.g., Adelman 1999a). Analysts also havecarried out impressive research contrasting colonial economies (e.g., Coats-worth 1993, 1998), and some have examined the endurance of metropolis-satellite relations between city and countryside since colonial times (e.g.,Frank 1967). However, none of these analysts actually documents en-during regional development hierarchies for social and economic devel-opment in the region; nor do any of them systematically show how specificdifferences in the nature of colonialism can explain why countries occupyparticular positions in these regional hierarchies.

Temporal and Spatial Considerations

The Spanish colonial empire was an evolving system that spanned morethan three centuries. The dynamic and extended nature of Spanish co-lonialism raises basic methodological challenges for any scholar who seeksto assess its long-run consequences. For one thing, Spanish influence inany given location varied over time; for example, areas of central Mexico




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that were still relatively open frontiers in 1540 became extensively colo-nized a century later. As a result, it is impossible to speak of a singleSpanish empire present across the entire colonial period. Moreover, theSpanish did not organize the region into territorial units that perfectlycorrespond with the modern countries of Latin America. Rather, the co-lonial system featured complex and changing political divisions amongviceroyalties, audiencias, and various forms of local government (see Wil-gus 1941, pp. 156–59). One might therefore question the utility of ex-amining the effects of colonialism on political units that did not actuallyexist during the colonial epoch.

In response to these challenges, I pursue the following strategy. First,to address the evolving nature of Spanish colonialism, I focus on Spanishcolonialism during a single period, specifically the mid-17th centuryaround 1650. This period is appropriate because it roughly correspondswith the consolidation of Spanish colonialism, occurring after the conquestand settlement era of the 16th century but before the massive sale ofadministrative positions in the late 17th century and the Bourbon reformsand the gradual decline of the empire in the 18th century. By the mid-17th century, Spanish institutions were sufficiently developed to allow usto hypothesize plausibly that colonialism critically influenced future de-velopment throughout the region.

Second, although the political boundaries of the empire at this time donot precisely overlap with the modern countries of Spanish America,significant data from the colonial period can be gathered for the territoriesthat would later become the region’s modern nation-states. For example,records concerning colonial trade, population, bullion production, type ofadministrative center, and budgets and salaries can be obtained for mostof the territories that later became modern countries (see Herring 1955;Wilgus 1941; Bourne 1964; Morse 1971; Cunningham 1971; Walton 1810;Lynch 1958). Furthermore, monographs and historical works on the co-lonial period routinely discuss and provide data concerning these terri-tories. Ultimately, of course, the real question is whether viewing theSpanish colonial system in light of the region’s future countries is helpfulfor explaining development trajectories. The evidence below suggests thatit is.

The Spanish Colonial Empire, circa 1650

In the mid-17th century, the colonial system was divided into two vice-royalties: New Spain (which encompassed the nations of modern Mexicoand Central America, as well as portions of the United States and Ven-ezuela) and Peru (which encompassed Panama and all the Spanish pos-sessions in South America except for part of Venezuela). Each viceroyalty




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was further divided into a series of audiencias, which represented thecentral political districts of the empire. Within each audiencia, major citiesthat often correspond to the capitals of modern Spanish America couldbe found (see fig. 3).

Before exploring variations within this system, it is useful to sketch abroad picture of its overall organization.16 Top administrative positionswithin the viceroyalties and audiencias were controlled by professionallytrained and educated Spanish men, individuals who usually returned toSpain after their service was completed. These officers were responsiblefor general administration, tax collection, public works, defense, and sup-port of the Catholic Church. Lesser offices were often put up for sale bythe Spanish crown, allowing individuals born in the New World to gainaccess to local government. Much of the Spanish population was con-centrated in Mexico City and Lima; other important cities included Gua-temala, Quito, Cuzco, and La Plata.

The colonial economy was dominated by mineral wealth, especiallysilver mining in Peru, Upper Peru (Bolivia), and Mexico around citiessuch as Huancavelica, Potosı, and Zacatecas.17 By the mid-17th century,wage labor had mostly replaced the earlier forced labor systems (i.e., theencomienda, repartimiento, and mita systems), but they were still some-times practiced and outright slavery could still be found in certain regions(e.g., among laborers in the mines of modern Colombia). To feed the urbanpopulations of colonial Spanish America, large agricultural and livestocksettlements were present, which sometimes brought more isolated areasinto contact with the urban capitals. These agrarian estates did not usuallyrely on slave or directly forced labor, but debt peonage was commonlyemployed to keep workers in residence.

By the mid-1600s, the indigenous population was starting to recoverfrom the horrific demographic decline that accompanied Spanish settle-ment. This population had stabilized or was growing in central Mexico,Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, though instability or declines char-acterized other areas, such as Yucatan in Mexico and much of Peru andCentral America. As for emigration from Spain, the central areas of Mex-ico, Peru, and Bolivia continued to receive the largest numbers of Spanishnewcomers, but these numbers had substantially declined from the earliersettlement period.

16 Among others, this account draws on the following sources for basic historical details:Burkholder and Johnson (1998); Haring (1947); Hoberman and Socolow (1986 and1996); Lockhart and Schwartz (1983); McAlister (1984).17 Although by the late 17th century the mines of Potosı had declined significantly, thistrend was compensated for by the steady growth of the Mexican mines, which even-tually came to dominate the mineral economy.




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Fig. 3.—Map of Spanish America, circa 1650. Sources: Burkholder and Johnson (1998,p. 82); Lombardi, Lombardi, and Stoner (1983, pp. 28–29), and Sanchez-Albornoz (1974, p.81).

The Catholic Church occupied an extremely powerful position in societythrough its control over rural and urban real estate, its ability to dispenseloans, and its involvement in most social and cultural activities. Alongwith wealthy clerics, the colonial elite included merchants, miners, plant-ers, ranchers, and bureaucrats. Merchants were often the wealthiest in-dividuals, enjoying protection from competition under the Spanish mo-nopoly trade system and controlling the consulados (merchant guilds) that




66

dominated the import-export business. Hacienda owners in fact were oftendependent on the merchants (and the church) for loans and short-termcapital. At the same time, many elite families or individuals combineddifferent occupations. For example, merchants might supplement theirtrading with high-ranking positions in colonial bureaucracies and controlover urban real estate. Finally, of course, beneath the colonial elite stoodvarious middle-sector groups (artisans, retail merchants, government bu-reaucrats, and town clergy) and the lower and underclasses of colonialsociety. Among these vast lower sectors, we find the indigenous com-munities of colonial society, a population relegated to social marginalityby a Spanish stratification system that legitimated itself on the basis ofracial identity. Also included in these lower sectors are marginal urbanitesranging from soldiers and sailors to peddlers, vendors, and beggars.

Degrees and Types of Colonialism

Within this system, territories were not of equal importance to Spain.Some regions with an abundance of precious metals and a settled indig-enous population, such as Mexico and Peru, were clearly center areas ofSpanish colonialism; other regions lacking these conditions, such as CostaRica and Uruguay, were clearly marginal to that system. By evaluatingthese differences, it is possible to arrange the modern countries of SpanishAmerica according to the extent to which Spanish economic, political,and social institutions were installed by the time colonialism had beenconsolidated in the mid-17th century.

The only previous effort to carry out such a ranking is the work ofPalmer (1977, 1980), who developed an ordinal scale of level of “colonialpenetration” for the Latin American countries. Palmer’s findings draw ona great deal of quantitative data, including information about population,bullion production, trade, church revenues, and settlement patterns. Whilehis methodology for aggregating different indicators into overall countryrankings can be questioned,18 his scale is currently the only index of levelof colonial influence for the region as a whole. When viewed in light ofthe 15 countries considered here, his data yield the following ranking forlevel of Spanish colonial penetration (1 p most): Mexico (1), Peru (2),Guatemala (3), Bolivia (4.5), Colombia (4.5), El Salvador (6), Ecuador (7),Honduras (8), Nicaragua (9), Chile (10), Argentina (11), Venezuela (12),Costa Rica (13), Paraguay (14), Uruguay (15).

18 In particular, one might question Palmer’s assumption that each of his 12 dimensionscarry equal weight and can be summed into an overall country score. The constructionof a better quantitative index of level of colonial influence for Spanish America wouldbe a valuable contribution.




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Palmer’s scale provides an initial basis for assessing the relationshipbetween Spanish colonialism and long-run development. As table 4 il-lustrates, there is a fairly strong inverse correlation between level of co-lonial penetration and level of social development across the 20th century.In other words, those areas of the Spanish empire that were most colonizedtended to emerge as the region’s least socially developed countries; thosebackwater areas that were least colonized tended to become the mostsocially developed.

The correlation for colonial penetration and economic development isalso consistently negative, but two outliers—Mexico and Paraguay—reduce its strength. First, Mexico is the most heavily colonized countryin Palmer’s index, but it performs well on economic development (thoughnot on social development), thereby violating the inverse relationship. Theability of Mexico to achieve a relatively high level of economic perform-ance appears to be a product of the Mexican Revolution (especially thereforms of Lazaro Cardenas) and the proximity of its northern states(where most industry is concentrated) to markets in the United States.Second, while Paraguay is nearly the least colonized country in Palmer’sindex, it performs poorly on economic development (though much betteron social development), thereby also violating the inverse relationship.Evidence suggests that Paraguay was characterized by a high level ofeconomic development before the War of the Triple Alliance (1864–70)—with Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay—destroyed its state-led econ-omy and nearly eliminated the territory as a sovereign nation. Given thatspecific case evidence allows us to reinterpret Mexico and Paraguay asmore supportive of the inverse correlation than the initial data suggest,it is important to note that Venezuela could be reinterpreted as less sup-portive of the inverse correlation than implied by the numbers. In par-ticular, in the absence of oil, this marginal colony might have become anonly slightly above average country for economic development. Even so,however, the adjustments made in light of case evidence generally wouldincrease the overall strength of the inverse correlation between colonialpenetration and economic development.

A qualitative assessment of different types of colonial territories allowsus to see how the inverse correlation between colonial penetration andsocioeconomic development is actually driven by and can be reduced tologically necessary and sufficient causal relationships. A bird’s-eye viewof the empire as a whole in 1650 suggests that the modern countries ofSpanish America occupied three basic positions: colonial centers, colonialsemiperipheries, and colonial peripheries.19 Table 5 arranges the countriesaccording to this qualitative typology (see app. A for historical sources).

19 These different types of Spanish colonial regions are not intended to correspond with




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TABLE 4Spearman Correlation Coefficients for Colonial Penetration and

Development Indicators

Development

Year

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

Economic . . . �.38(.11)

�.41(.08)

�.31(.13)

�.29(.15)

�.29(.15)

�.33(.11)

�.40(.07)

Social . . . . . . . �.72(.01)

�.67(.01)

�.64(.01)

�.64(.01)

�.59(.01)

�.55(.02)

�.60(.01)

�.56(.02)

�.63(.01)

�.66(.01)

Political . . . . . �.04(.45)

�.29(.15)

�.37(.09)

�.28(.16)

�.34(.11)

�.06(.41)

�.39(.08)

�.40(.07)

.11(.35)

�.48(.04)

Note.—Level of significance is listed in parentheses (one-tailed tests). Economic development is mea-sured as GDP per capita using Thorp’s (1998, p. 353) index. Social development is measured as %population that is literate using Thorp’s (1998, p. 354) data. Political development is measured as levelof democracy using three-year averages from the Polity III data set (Jaggers and Gurr 1996).

In 1650, the two undisputed centers of the colonial empire were theAudiencia of Mexico and the Audiencia of Lima (roughly modern Mexicoand Peru; see fig. 3 above). These territories contained the capitals of theViceroyalty of New Spain and the Viceroyalty of Peru, and they mobilizedfar more Spanish colonial activity than could be found anywhere else inthe region. The viceroys of the empire could be found here, residing inmagisterial homes in Mexico City and Lima. They were surrounded bythe empire’s other most high-ranking bureaucrats, also men who claimedpure Spanish descent. Along with colonial administrators in Mexico andPeru, one could find the grandest of the colonial churches and cathedrals,complete with bishops and archbishops who led a network of wealthyclergy deeply involved in landholding and finance. Here one can alsolocate the large haciendas of colonial Spanish America, which occupiedmuch of central and northern Mexico and highland Peru and whose own-ers dominated local government. In these areas and in the mineral-producing districts, a substantial indigenous population was present, con-stituting a majority of the population. In part through this indigenouslabor force, Mexico and to a lesser extent Peru produced large volumesof basic foodstuffs as well as products such as cochineal (in Mexico) andcoastal sugar (in Peru) that could be exported along with bullion to theSpanish mainland. When all this production is taken into consideration,the colonial centers accounted for a majority of what might be called thegross colonial product of the mid-17th century.

Wallerstein’s (1974) understanding of positions in the global capitalist economy, thoughthe labels are parallel. Rather, my usage is closer to what Lockhart and Schwartz(1983) call center, transitional, and fringe territories in the colonial system (see theirmaps on pp. 254–55, 337). See also Daniels and Kennedy (2002) on the use of theconcepts “center” and “periphery” for colonialism in the Americas.




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TABLE 5Types of Spanish Colonial Territories, circa 1650

Colonial Type Country

Colonial centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mexico, PeruColonial semiperipheries . . . Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, GuatemalaColonial peripheries . . . . . . . . Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salva-

dor, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay,Uruguay, Venezuela

The semiperipheries correspond to the modern nations of Guatemala(which in 1650 could be found in the Audiencia of Guatemala), Colombia(Audiencia of Santa Fe de Bogota), Ecuador (Audiencia of Quito), andBolivia (Audiencia of Charcas). In the mid-17th century, these regionscontained nearly all of the Spanish American cities outside of Mexico andPeru with a population of significantly more than 1,000 (Sanchez-Albornoz1974, p. 81). The semiperipheries were usually linked to the colonial cen-ters through the powerful merchants of Mexico City and Lima, who im-ported locally produced goods from the semiperipheries, and the treasurybureaucrats, who collected remittances from the semiperipheries on behalfof the crown. When compared to the centers, the semiperipheries weresecondary political and social units. They lacked in equivalent numbershigh-ranking bureaucrats and officials with a direct link to the crown aswell as the Spanish cultural life that had developed in the wealthy sectionsof Mexico City and Lima. Furthermore, actors ranging from hacendadosin the countryside to urban merchants in the cities to elite clerics in thecathedrals were less prominent in the semiperipheries. Nevertheless, eco-nomically speaking, the semiperipheries were dynamic in the mid-17thcentury, with successful activities such as textile production in the woolmills of Ecuador and mineral extraction and sugar production in Colom-bia. What is now Bolivia was, in fact, one of the most important partsof the Spanish American economy during this era, producing a sizableportion of colonial mineral exports and concentrating thousands of in-digenous workers around the mines of Potosı, La Plata, and Cochabamba.The only exception to this trend appears to be semiperipheral Guatemala,which experienced an economic depression in the mid-17th century.

Most territories were full-blown peripheries, defined by their lack ofsignificant Spanish colonial activity and their marginality within the em-pire. Although both center and semiperiphery colonies contained regionsthat were isolated frontiers, the whole of the peripheral backwaters wasunimportant to the Spanish for political administration, economic pro-duction, and sociocultural life.

In this peripheral group, we find most of contemporary Central Amer-




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ica, which, outside of modern Guatemala, was extremely isolated oncethe cacao industry evaporated in the 16th century. Costa Rica was oneof the most isolated regions in the entire empire, containing only a tinySpanish population even in the fertile Central Valley region. Honduraswas also extremely marginal after the mining industry around Tegucigalpacollapsed in the late 16th century. A slightly larger Spanish populationcould be found in Nicaragua and El Salvador, with the former countrycontaining a reasonably active religious community centered in Granadaand the latter country already producing in modest quantities the bluedye indigo. Nevertheless, from a comparative perspective, Nicaragua andEl Salvador were also depressed backwaters of very little importance tothe Spanish empire.

Also included in the periphery are the Southern Cone of South Americaand the modern nations of Paraguay and Venezuela. In the Southern Cone,Chile was a remote Spanish land, connected to the empire mainly throughthe production of olives, grapes, and cereals for consumption in UpperPeru. In 1650, Argentina was a vast open territory, with Buenos Airesstill an ignored and practically deserted port city outside of contrabandtrade. Only the northwestern section of Argentina around San Miguel deTucuman was connected to the economy of Peru, helping to provide ce-reals to feed the Peruvian mining populations. Likewise, what is nowUruguay was virtually unsettled by the Spanish, with Montevideo notemerging as an important city until well into the 18th century. In Para-guay, where the Jesuits established mission villages for the local Guaranıpopulation, the export economy was driven by yerba mate (used to makea tea-like beverage), but its production was insufficient for Paraguay toavoid isolation in the empire. Finally, Venezuela lacked the gold depositsthat were present in its neighbor Colombia, and it contained an inhos-pitable indigenous population, making this area another candidate for theleast colonized Spanish territory in 1650.

Using this qualitative distinction among colonial centers, semiperiph-eries, and peripheries, we can reinterpret the linear correlation betweencolonialism and development in terms of logically necessary and sufficientrelationships. First, the status of center or semiperiphery appears to havebeen almost sufficient to prevent a high level of socioeconomic develop-ment during the 20th century. That is, those countries that were eithercenters or semiperipheries nearly universally failed to achieve a high re-gional ranking in the postindependence period. This is especially true forsocial development, since Bolivia, Guatemala, and Peru were among theregion’s worst performers in the areas of literacy, education, and lifeexpectancy during the 20th century. Ecuador, Mexico, and Colombia per-formed somewhat better on social development indicators but never morethan slightly above the regional average and often well below. With re-




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spect to economic development, all of the centers and semiperipheriesobtained at best average levels of development, with the exception ofMexico, which did manage to perform well in terms of economic devel-opment after 1940. Below I suggest that different features of colonialismmay have driven social versus economic development in the former centersand semiperipheries.

Second, it follows that a peripheral status during the colonial periodwas an almost necessary but not sufficient condition for a high level ofsocioeconomic development. The most successful 20th-century developersin the region were peripheries during the colonial period (i.e., Argentina,Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Venezuela), even though several formerperipheries did not achieve a high development ranking (i.e., El Salvador,Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay). In this sense, colonial peripheralstatus appears to have enabled but not guaranteed successful futuredevelopment.

These logical relationships underlie and drive the inverse correlationbetween level of colonial influence and level of development. Specifically,the correlation is a product of the almost uniformly average or poorperformance of colonial centers and semiperipheries and of the fact thatperipheral status was an almost necessary condition for a high level ofdevelopment. The findings also raise some important unanswered ques-tions. For example, why did the colonial centers and semiperipheries de-cline to average or worse performers? Why did some—but not all—colonial peripheries become successful developers? More generally,through what process did some countries get ahead and other countriesfall behind? To answer these questions, it is necessary to consider theintervening variables that mediate the relationship between colonialismand long-run development.

CAUSAL LINKS BETWEEN COLONIALISM AND LONG-RUNDEVELOPMENT

To explain the connection between colonialism and modern developmenthierarchies, two steps need to be taken. First, we need to understand whyand exactly when a regionwide reversal occurred. Addressing this issuerequires identifying structural factors that affected the entire colonial em-pire during a specific period, prompting the wealthy territories to declineand the marginal territories to develop. Second, we must formulate andtest hypotheses to explain why some countries fared better than others inthis process of reversal. Relevant hypotheses will consider factors thatwere found in varying degrees across the different colonial territoriesduring the key period of reversal. Less useful are hypotheses that point




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to factors constant throughout the entire empire or factors that came intobeing after the countries had already reversed themselves.

Reversal of Fortunes, 1700–1850

The great reversal in Spanish American history occurred alongside thegradual weakening of colonial controls and restrictions and the enhancedparticipation of the colonies in intraregional and international trade. Thesechanges—taking place during the 1700–1850 period—were closely linkedto the expansion of global capitalism and geopolitical power shifts in theEuropean states system.20

The beginnings of reversal can be traced to a series of Bourbon rulerswho introduced reforms into the colonies to improve commercial relations,increase production, and enhance administrative control. These reformswere in part a reaction to Spain’s increasingly precarious position in theEuropean states system and its difficulty protecting the empire in the faceof challenges from rising European powers. With the War of the SpanishSuccession (1700–13), Bourbon monarch Philip V granted ally Englandsome access to trade in the New World, thereby at least temporarilybreaking Spain’s monopoly over colonial trade. In the first half of the18th century, technological advances enabled Spain to dramatically in-crease the volume of colonial trade. New trade opportunities and shippingroutes brought economic growth to previously marginal areas, includingmodern Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and parts of Central Amer-ica. By the end of this century, the Spanish Crown introduced free tradewithin most parts of the empire, and it greatly reduced tariffs and feesobstructing trade between the colonies and the Spanish mainland. From1782 to 1796, colonial imports to Spain increased tenfold, and exportsfrom Spain to the colonies increased fourfold (Fisher 1998, pp. 460–61).As a result, “the population and economies of the once-stagnant peripheralcolonies in Spanish America grew rapidly. . . . The economic expansionof the periphery during the last hundred years of the empire equaled therapid growth experienced during the early stages of the mining boom inPeru and New Spain” (Burkholder and Johnson 1998, p. 285; see alsoHalperın Donghi 1993, pp. 86, 122; Johnson and Socolow 2002, pp. 60–61,70–74; Lockhart and Schwartz 1983, pp. 336–42). In addition to economicchanges, the political organization of the empire was substantially mod-

20 For an overview of Spanish America’s place in the international system during thisperiod, see Weaver (2000, chap. 2). Good discussions of the Bourbon reaction to theseinternational changes and the consequences of the Bourbon reform for Spanish Americacan be found in Brading (1987), Burkholder and Chandler (1977), Halperın Donghi(1985, pp. 17–74), Lynch (1986, chap. 1), and Walker (1979).




73

ified with the introduction of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1739) andthe Viceroyalty of Rıo de la Plata (1776).21 This transformation also en-hanced the position of previously isolated regions at the expense of NewSpain and Peru.

With increased opportunities for commercialization and trade, severalformerly marginal territories became important economic regions. Mer-chants established ties to isolated Venezuela in the early 1700s, and theregion soon began to export cacao to Mexico and then Spain in largequantities; cattle and tobacco also became important exports. By the late1700s, Caracas was a major port city, and Venezuela had achieved sig-nificant administrative power within the new Viceroyalty of New Gra-nada. The Rıo de la Plata region of modern Argentina, Uruguay, andParaguay also gained stature. When the port of Buenos Aires was openedfor direct trade, the city was destined to become a major Atlantic link inthe New World, especially once it gained access to Bolivian silver exportsas Upper Peru was moved to the Viceroyalty of Rıo de la Plata. Moreover,Argentina was able to realize its agricultural and grazing potential, wit-nessing huge increases in the production and export of wheat, wine, andespecially products derived from the livestock industry. A similar storycould be told for Uruguay and its port city Montevideo, which rose rapidlyafter its founding in 1724. Even landlocked Paraguay saw advancementwhen the expulsion of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1767 enhancedyerba production and reforms freed markets for receiving the tea in Chile,Peru, and Brazil.

Not all territories experienced unprecedented success in the last centuryof Spanish colonial rule. The rise of Venezuela in part came at the expenseof Colombia, which failed to find a major market for its diverse agri-cultural products and which ceased to be the centerpiece of northern tradedespite its gold deposits. Ecuador and its profitable wool economy declinedrapidly once Spain opened the Peruvian market to foreign textiles in the18th century. Likewise, as the Viceroyalty of Rıo de la Plata grew, itreduced the importance of semiperipheral Bolivia (now incorporated intothe Rıo de la Plata), which had previously relied on connections to thePeruvian economy to achieve status and power in the empire. In fact, bythe time the colonial system went into full-blown crisis in the early 19thcentury, Peru itself had fallen far from its former position as the jewel ofthe empire. It was less productive in absolute and per capita terms thanwere former peripheries such as Argentina and Uruguay (Coatsworth

21 The Viceroyalty of Rıo de la Plata encompassed roughly modern Argentina, Bolivia,Paraguay, and Uruguay. The Viceroyalty of New Granada encompassed roughly mod-ern Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. Thus, the Viceroyalty of Peru was essentiallyreduced to the territory of modern Peru and Chile.




74

1998), though to the Spanish it was still the second most important ter-ritory (after Mexico) by virtue of its mining revenues and its concentrationof people and political authority.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Mexico was by far the wealthiestand most populous region of the empire. However, with the coming ofindependence, this territory began a descent that lasted well into the mid-19th century. The postindependence period from 1821 to 1850 was actuallya regionwide depression, but the economic costs were greatest in themining centers of Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, where silver production wentinto a sharp downturn. In fact, Mexico’s real GDP has been estimatedto be higher in 1820 than in 1870 (Maddison 1989, p. 30; see also Coats-worth 1993, p. 21, and 1998, p. 26). On the other hand, some countriesimproved their relative position during the depression that followed in-dependence. For example, Costa Rica, which had been prohibited fromtrade during the colonial period, was able immediately to begin coffeeproduction when independence came, realizing significant coffee exportsin the first half of the 19th century, decades before its neighbors to thenorth in Central America. Likewise, Paraguay continued to grow in thepostindependence period, at least until the War of the Triple Alliance,when the country saw the death of most of its adult male population.

To sum up, by about 1850 the countries of Spanish America had moreor less achieved their positions within what would prove to be stabledevelopment hierarchies. These hierarchies are inversely correlated withthe extent of colonial influence because the centers and semiperipheriestended to stagnate between 1700 and 1850, while several peripheralregions achieved substantial modernization during this period. Such areversal was possible because this period saw the introduction of liber-alizing reforms into the colonial empire along with the insertion of theempire’s economies into the international market and the eventual emer-gence of independent nations not necessarily tied to Spanish trading net-works. Yet, questions remain about what specific factors enabled somecountries—and not others—to take advantage of the new opportunitiesduring this critical historical epoch.

Fuzzy-Set Methods

In this analysis, fuzzy-set methods are used to test hypotheses about theintervening variables that operated during the 1700–1850 period and con-nected colonialism to long-run development patterns. Fuzzy-set methodsare logical tools for making inferences about necessary and sufficientcauses, including causes that are probabilistically necessary (e.g., “usuallynecessary”) and probabilistically sufficient (e.g., “usually sufficient”; see




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Ragin 2000).22 When an individual causal factor (or a combination offactors, in the case of sufficient causation) is tested as necessary and/orsufficient for an outcome, the hypothesis under consideration assumesthat the causal factor (or combination) will exert its effect independentof all other factors. Controlling for other factors therefore is not necessary,since the hypothesis under investigation can be treated as bivariate innature (Seawright 2002, p. 181).23 Hence, hypotheses tested with fuzzy-set methods do not face a degrees-of-freedom problem equivalent to thatof standard multivariate statistical analysis. Rather, because bivariatetests are appropriate, researchers using fuzzy-set methods often canachieve standard levels of statistical confidence with a relatively smallnumber of cases.

With fuzzy-set methods, all causal factors and outcomes are measuredacross cases as fuzzy sets; that is, cases are scored inclusively from 0 to1 based on their degree of membership in causal and outcome categories.Some cases will be “full” instances of a category and thus receive a scoreof “1,” even if these cases would have different scores on an interval scale.For example, with respect to the category of “economically developedcountry” in 20th-century Spanish America, both Argentina and Uruguayare full members, and thus both receive the same score of “1,” despite thefact that these countries have different levels of economic developmenton an interval scale (e.g., GDP per capita). Other countries receive scoresbased on the extent to which they overlap with the category “economicallydeveloped country.” For example, a country (say, Costa Rica) that is “moreor less in” this category will receive a score only somewhat less than one(e.g., .67), while a country (say, Peru) that is “more or less out” of thecategory will receive a score closer to zero (e.g., .33). In this study, I usea seven-value fuzzy-set coding system: 1.00, .83, .67, .50, .33, .17, and0.00.

Fuzzy-set methods evaluate necessary and sufficient causation by com-paring the membership scores of a causal factor to the membership scoresof an outcome across cases. When a necessary condition is present, scoreson the causal factor will be greater than or equal to scores on the outcomefor all cases. By contrast, when a causal factor (or combination of factors)is sufficient, scores on the cause will be less than or equal to scores on

22 Hypotheses about necessary and sufficient causes are commonplace in the socialsciences (for 150 examples from major studies, see Goertz [2003]). However, the meth-odological issues surrounding the study of these kinds of causes are very poorly un-derstood. For excellent contributions from statistical analysts, see Dion (1998) andGoertz and Starr (2003).23 Strictly speaking, however, the hypothesis may not be bivariate, given that fuzzy-set methods can be used to assess combinations of causal factors that are understoodas jointly sufficient for an outcome.




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the outcome for all cases (see Ragin 2000). Of course, veristic explanationis often an unrealistic standard, given that measurement error alone en-sures that some cases will likely violate the strict standard of “fully nec-essary” or “fully sufficient” causation. As a result, it is helpful to adopt abenchmark at which a given factor can be considered probabilisticallynecessary or probabilistically sufficient.

In this analysis, I test causal factors and their combinations as “usuallynecessary” and “usually sufficient” conditions, a test that requires that acausal factor or combination be necessary or sufficient above a .65 bench-mark (see Ragin 2000). Thus, I seek to identify factors that are necessaryor sufficient for outcomes more than 65% of the time. As for statisticalsignificance, I assess whether the observed proportion is greater than the.65 benchmark against the null hypothesis that the observed proportionis the same as or less than the .65 benchmark. I set the significance levelat .10, a reasonable mark given the small number of cases, and I use abinomial probability formula to calculate levels of significance. To com-pute findings, I rely on the FS/QCA software package (Ragin and Drass2002).24

Fuzzy-Set Outcomes and Causal Factors

Four outcomes are analyzed here: economically developed country, eco-nomically underdeveloped country, socially developed country, and so-cially underdeveloped country. Each of these outcomes is measured withrespect to the domain of Spanish America; for example, “economicallydeveloped country” is evaluated within the context of the region, not inlight of all the countries in the world. In table 6, the Spanish Americancountries are coded across each of these outcomes for the 1900–1990 periodaccording to their set membership. To arrive at specific scores, I reliedsignificantly on the ordinal rankings found in tables 1 and 2 for economicand social development as well as the interval data that underlies theserankings.25

24 For a more detailed discussion of the procedures and data underlying this fuzzy-setanalysis, see Katz, vom Hau, and Mahoney (in press). This article also includes anextended discussion of the advantages of fuzzy-set analysis relative to regression anal-ysis for the hypotheses considered here.25 In addition to GDP data, I examined data on automobiles and telephones per capitaduring the 20th century and the general literature on economic development in theregion. I arrived at the following ranking of countries for economic development duringthe overall 1900–1990 period, from highest to lowest: Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay,Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ec-uador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Honduras. I generated the following ranking of coun-tries for social development during the 1900–1990 period from highest to lowest: Uru-guay, Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador,




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TABLE 6Fuzzy-Set Scores for Outcomes, 1900–1990

CountryEconomically

DevelopedEconomically

UnderdevelopedSocially

DevelopedSocially

Underdeveloped

Argentina . . . . . 1.00 .00 1.00 .00Bolivia . . . . . . . . .00 1.00 .00 1.00Chile . . . . . . . . . . . .83 .17 .83 .17Colombia . . . . . . .50 .50 .50 .50Costa Rica . . . . .67 .33 1.00 .00Ecuador . . . . . . . .17 .83 .33 .67El Salvador . . . .17 .83 .17 .83Guatemala . . . . .17 .83 .00 1.00Honduras . . . . . .00 1.00 .17 1.00Mexico . . . . . . . . .83 .17 .33 .67Nicaragua . . . . . .00 1.00 .17 .83Paraguay . . . . . . .17 .83 .50 .50Peru . . . . . . . . . . . .33 .67 .17 .83Uruguay . . . . . . . 1.00 .00 1.00 .00Venezuela . . . . . 1.00 .00 .50 .50

Note.—Data are coded 1.00 p fully in; .83 p mostly but not fully in; .67 p more or less in; .50 pcrossover: neither in nor out; .33 p more or less out; .17 p mostly but not fully out; .00 p fully out.

I test several potential causal factors present during the 1700–1850period as necessary or sufficient conditions. Table 7 provides a summaryof these causal factors and their fuzzy-set scores for the Spanish Americancountries. The historical sources and coding procedures used to arrive atthe scores are discussed in appendixes B, C, and D. In what follows, Ibriefly introduce each factor and the reasoning behind its inclusion here.

First, I consider whether the density of the indigenous population (seeapp. B for measures) is the critical link between colonialism and devel-opment. It is well known that the Spanish often settled areas where asubstantial indigenous population was located and then further concen-trated this population to secure a labor force. Those territories with adense indigenous population were more likely to feature racial and ethnicexclusion and, as a result, may have encountered more obstacles to de-velopment during the key 1700–1850 period. For example, a dense in-digenous population may have produced a poor climate for market in-vestment because legal rights and protections were systematically deniedto large sectors of the population. The failure to protect civil and propertyrights for broad cross-sections of society can stifle entrepreneurial activityand undermine economic development (Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robin-

Peru, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, and Guatemala. This ranking wasderived in part by averaging the literacy and life expectancy rankings from table 2. Ialso drew heavily on conventional understandings of social development employed byexperts of the region.




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TABLE 7Fuzzy-Set Scores for Causal Factors

Country

DenseIndigenousPopulation

Labor-IntensiveEstates

Mineral/TropicalExports

StrongLiberals

StrongConservatives

Argentina . . . . . .17 .17 .33 1.00 .50Bolivia . . . . . . . . 1.00 .83 1.00 .17 .67Chile . . . . . . . . . . . .33 .83 1.00 .83 .50Colombia . . . . . . .67 .50 1.00 .83 .83Costa Rica . . . . .00 .00 .83 .67 .00Ecuador . . . . . . . 1.00 1.00 .50 .33 .67El Salvador . . . .83 .67 1.00 .83 .50Guatemala . . . . 1.00 .83 1.00 .67 1.00Honduras . . . . . .67 .17 .50 .33 .17Mexico . . . . . . . . 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00Nicaragua . . . . . .83 .33 .33 .67 .67Paraguay . . . . . . .50 .50 1.00 .33 .67Peru . . . . . . . . . . . 1.00 1.00 1.00 .33 1.00Uruguay . . . . . . . .00 .00 .17 1.00 .00Venezuela . . . . . .50 .33 .33 1.00 .33

Note.—Data are coded 1.00 p fully in; .83 p mostly but not fully in; .67 p more or less in; .50 pcrossover: neither in nor out; .33 p more or less out; .17 p mostly but not fully out; .00 p fully out.Data were obtained from sources listed in app. B, C, and D.

son 2001; North and Weingast 1989). Likewise, a dense indigenous pop-ulation may have been associated with an exclusionary political elite thatwas unwilling to invest resources in social development, such as broad-based education initiatives or improvements in rural sanitation. By con-trast, countries that lacked a dense indigenous population may have beencharacterized by the relative absence of an entrenched elite class thatinhibited free enterprise and market activity (see Baldwin 1956; Goodrich1964–65; Garcıa 1993 on “new countries”). Similarly, these countries mayhave featured fewer ethnic divisions and greater cooperation across di-verse economic strata, conditions conducive to the creation of social cap-ital and development. To test these ideas, I explore whether “dense in-digenous population” and the negation of this condition (i.e., “not denseindigenous population”) are probabilistically necessary or sufficient for theoutcomes considered here.26

Second, the agrarian structures that were established by the Spanishmay have varied across the more central territories and the more pe-

26 In fuzzy-set analysis, the membership of a case in a negation category is calculatedby subtracting its membership in the unnegated category from 1. For example, sinceEl Salvador receives a .83 score in the category “dense indigenous population,” itsscore in the category “not dense indigenous population” is .17 (i.e., ). See1 � .83 p .17Ragin (2000, pp. 172–73) for a discussion.




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ripheral territories, and these variations may in turn have affected long-run development in the region. In general, historians of Spanish Americasuggest that large-scale, labor-intensive estates have negative implicationsfor development (though revisionist histories point out that these estatesare not always outside of the market economy).27 In Spanish America,large estates typically relied on a class of poor resident and nonresidentworkers, which may have undercut local demand for manufactured prod-ucts and made it unprofitable to invest in modern sectors of the economy.Indeed, wealthy individuals may have invested in haciendas primarily asa form of consumption to maintain elite social status, not as a profit-generating enterprise. As for social development, the asymmetrical patron-client relations that characterize these estates might work against in-vestment in education and health for broad segments of society. Likewise,societies with significant labor-intensive estates may have higher levels ofeconomic inequality, which might stand in the way of successful socialdevelopment. Hence, I assess cases based on their fuzzy-set membershipin the category “significant labor-intensive estates,” exploring whethermembership in this category and its negation is probabilistically necessaryand/or sufficient for the four outcomes explored here (see app. C).

Another plausible hypothesis focuses on the export products of theSpanish American economies. Some scholars suggest that ecological con-ditions varied across the Spanish territories, with important implicationsfor the degree to which a profitable export product could be establishedduring the 1700–1850 period (cf. Engerman and Sokoloff 2002).28 Forexample, in Furtado’s (1976, pp. 47–49) classic formulation, long-run de-velopment is shaped by the extent of temperate agriculture (e.g., cereals),tropical agriculture (e.g., coffee), and mineral products (e.g., silver) in theexport sectors of Spanish America. Tropical agriculture and mineral ex-ports are understood as offering especially poor returns in the globalcapitalist economy and inhibiting investment in more dynamic domesticsectors, thereby fostering underdevelopment. Thus, following Furtado,

27 See Morner (1973) for an overview of the early historiography on haciendas. Forthe revisionist position, see Miller (1995). I am persuaded by traditional argumentsthat view hacienda agriculture as, on balance, an obstacle to economic development(e.g., Lockhart [1969]; Florescano [1975]; Brading [1977]). For discussions of the neg-ative effects of labor-intensive estates on political development in Latin America, seeHuber and Safford (1995).28 This hypothesis has some similarities to the “geography hypothesis” common inmainstream economics. The geography hypothesis attributes economic performance togeographic, climatic, or ecological features. For example, Sachs (2001) argues thatdevelopment is inversely related to proximity to the equator. One problem with thegeography hypothesis is that it cannot easily explain reversals in development trajec-tories, such as the one that occurred in Spanish America from 1700 to 1850. For adiscussion, see Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2002).




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one may hypothesize that membership in the category “significant mineralexports” or in the category “significant tropical export agriculture” was anecessary and/or sufficient condition for underdevelopment, whereas theabsence of membership in these categories was necessary and/or sufficientfor successful development (again see app. C).29

Two final hypotheses examine the class foundation and ideological ori-entation of elite actors. Beginning in the mid-18th century, a cleavageappeared within the colonial elite between more liberal factions and moreconservative factions. Liberals initially were represented by those “creolepatriots” (Brading 1991) who began to question the legitimacy of Spanishrule in the Americas. Eventually, by the late 18th century, full-blownliberal movements that advocated free trade and markets, a separationof church and state, and an expanded state role in promoting developmentcould be found in the region. Whereas liberals tended to be socially ex-cluded from the Spanish colonial elite, conservatives drew their mem-bership from this group. This wealthy conservative elite embraced anideology built around support for state regulation of the market, specialprivileges for the Catholic Church, and local autonomy for landlords.

In this analysis, I hypothesize that the presence of “strong liberals” wasprobabilistically necessary and/or sufficient for social and economic de-velopment, whereas the presence of “strong conservatives” was proba-bilistically necessary and/or sufficient for the absence of such development(see app. D). These hypotheses are grounded in the fact that liberals andtheir movements opposed many conservative and colonial institutions thatinterfered with the market and stood in the way of social and economicadvancement, including merchant guilds, monopolistic trading structures,and privileges for entrenched economic actors such as the church (Hal-perın Donghi 1993; Knight 2001, p. 159). Liberals were more likely to belocated in the periphery, precisely because elites in these areas were mar-ginalized in the colonial system and stood to benefit from expanded tradeopportunities. By contrast, since conservatives were often representativesof the most powerful colonial elite, they were especially likely to be con-centrated in the colonial centers and semiperipheries. Given that the re-gionwide reversal occurred during the incorporation of the empire intothe capitalist world economy, one would expect that center areas lackingan incipient export bourgeoisie would be less capable of seizing the newmarket opportunities (cf. Brenner 1977; Stern 1988).

29 In assessing this hypothesis, I explore the combination of two causal factors—sig-nificant mineral exports or significant tropical export agriculture. For a discussion ofthe use of the logical “or” with fuzzy sets, see Ragin (2000, pp. 174–76). As for temperateagriculture, this kind of export production was rare in Spanish America during the1700–1850 period. In addition, it was neither probabilistically necessary nor sufficientwhen tested as an individual cause in a fuzzy-set test.




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Several other hypotheses that at first glance seem compelling are calledinto question once we realize that they refer to processes outside of the1700–1850 period. For example, large-scale migration from West Euro-pean countries might initially be considered an obvious explanation ofdevelopment in countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. How-ever, the vast majority of this migration took place during the period afterthe mid-19th century (see Gould 1979; Klein 1983; Moya 1998), by whichtime the Southern Cone was already the most developed part of the region(Halperın Donghi 1993, pp. 86–87; Johnson and Socolow 2002). In fact,during the 18th century, the European population in the New World wasoverwhelmingly concentrated in the colonial centers. In this sense, mi-gration from Europe appears to be a consequence—not a cause—of suc-cessful development. Similarly, one might at first suspect that warfareduring the independence period was heaviest in the former colonial centersand lightest in the former colonial peripheries, thereby explaining thereversal of fortunes. However, even assuming that this generalization istrue, it fails to explain why several peripheries were already quite de-veloped by the time of the independence period, whereas the semi-peripheries and centers already had substantially declined. Again, theproblem is that the causal factor begins to operate after the outcome tobe explained has already been largely established. Still other seeminglyplausible causal factors—such as relative dependence on Spain versusEngland for trade before independence—do not clearly vary across theregion in a way that can explain future development outcomes (see Fisher1985; 1998).30

It is no doubt possible to formulate additional hypotheses to explainthe linkage between colonialism and long-run development. In addition,the precise scoring of the causal factors that are included here could bequestioned in light of new or alternative evidence. Nevertheless, the find-ings that follow draw on a manageable set of highly plausible causalfactors whose scores are firmly grounded in a substantial body of liter-ature. As such, this analysis represents one important step—not the finalword—toward understanding the relationship between colonialism anddevelopment in Spanish America.

30 Little is known about British trade (mostly illegal) with Spanish America in the 18thcentury (but see Pearce 2001). Nevertheless, it is clear that ports such as Veracruz inMexico were very active in non-Spanish trade (Fisher 1985). At the same time, thetremendous growth of previously peripheral ports such as Rıo de la Plata and Venezuelawas strongly linked to increased trade with Spain.




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Fuzzy-Set Tests and Findings

Tables 8 and 9 report the results of the fuzzy-set tests for necessary andsufficient conditions respectively. The coefficients show that the extent ofthe indigenous population mediated the relationship between Spanishcolonialism and social development. A dense indigenous population wasa usually necessary condition for social underdevelopment; likewise, theabsence of a dense indigenous population was a usually sufficient con-dition for social development. Hence, the consistently poor performanceof the colonial centers and semiperipheries vis-a-vis social developmentwas made possible because these territories concentrated a large indige-nous population. For example, countries such as Bolivia, Guatemala, andPeru probably would not have been locked into poor performance in theareas of education, literacy, and health in the absence of their large in-digenous populations and elite attitudes toward these populations. Bycontrast, peripheries such as Argentina, Costa Rica, and Uruguay lackeda dense indigenous population and thereby usually could not experiencesocial underdevelopment of the type that characterized the more ethnicallystratified societies. In fact, when the indigenous population was sparse,as it sometimes was in the peripheries, this was usually enough to producesuccessful social development.

With respect to economic development and underdevelopment, neithera dense indigenous population nor its absence is probabilistically necessaryor sufficient. Ethnic divisions therefore usually were not enough to inhibitthe investment and entrepreneurial activity necessary for economic de-velopment in Spanish America. Rather, even the two countries with thelargest indigenous populations managed to achieve almost average (Peru)or slightly better (Mexico) levels of economic development in the 20thcentury. This raises the more general possibility that an early history ofintense racial stratification has negative consequences for long-run socialdevelopment that are not felt in the realm of long-run economic devel-opment. Superficially, this hypothesis is supported by the United States,Brazil, and South Africa, each of which has achieved a high level ofregional economic development without similar gains in social develop-ment (Marx 1998).

In light of these results, one might ask about the extent to which levelsof indigenous population were temporally antecedent to Spanish coloni-alism. In particular, one might argue that precolonial levels of indigenouspopulation (see esp. Denevan 1992) drove subsequent levels of Spanishcolonial influence, such that any bivariate correlation between colonialismand social development is spurious. However, it is important to recallthat the hypothesis tested here does not refer to a linear correlation, butrather to a logically necessary and sufficient relationship that cannot be




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TABLE 8Results of Fuzzy-Set Test: Necessary Conditions

Causal Factor

Proportion of Cases

Cause ≥Economically

DevelopedCountry

Cause ≥Economically

UnderdevelopedCountry

Cause ≥Socially

DevelopedCountry

Cause ≥Socially


Dense indigenous popula-tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 .67 (.58) .69 (.50) .92 (.04)†

∼Dense indigenous popula-tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 .17 .54 .25

Labor-intensive estates . . . . . .67 (.58) .50 .69 (.50) .50∼Labor-intensive estates . . . .50 .25 .62 .33Mineral or tropical ex-

ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 (.35) .75 (.35) .69 (.50) .67 (.58)∼Mineral or tropical ex-

ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .08 .00 .31 .08Strong liberals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.00 (.06)† .42 .85 (.11) .42∼Strong liberals . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 .25 .53 .25Strong conservatives . . . . . . . .58 .42 .62 .58∼Strong conservatives . . . . . .42 .17 .54 .17

Note.—The level of significance for all proportions 1 .65 is listed in parentheses. The tilde (∼) representsthe negation of a given causal factor.

† P ≤ .10.

“explained away” by controlling for other factors. Of course, if tested ina fuzzy-set analysis, the presence of a dense indigenous population beforethe colonial period also would likely show up as probabilistically necessaryfor social development. Yet these precolonial population levels could nothave exerted their causal effects without the occurrence of Spanish co-lonialism (see Mahoney and vom Hau 2003). In this sense, one cannotunderstand theoretically and substantively how precolonial populationsizes affected long-run social development without analyzing the colonialperiod itself.

With respect to economic development, a strong liberal faction was ausually necessary condition for membership in the category of economi-cally developed country, while the absence of such a faction was a usuallysufficient condition for membership in the category of economically un-derdeveloped country. This finding helps explain why center and semi-peripheral regions sometimes fared a little better with respect to economicdevelopment than they did to social development. Center and semipe-ripheral regions such as Mexico and Colombia saw the emergence ofreasonably strong liberal factions, providing an essential condition forsome economic development even in a context where a large indigenouspopulation was present. This essential condition also was fully present in




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TABLE 9Results of Fuzzy-Set Test: Sufficient Conditions

Causal Factor

Proportion of Cases

Cause ≤Economically

DevelopedCountry

Cause ≤Economically


Cause ≤Socially

DevelopedCountry

Cause ≤Socially


Dense indigenous popula-tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 .38 .31 .54

∼Dense indigenous popula-tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 .50 .90 (.07)† .60

Labor-intensive estates . . . . . .31 .54 .46 .62∼Labor-intensive estates . . . .46 .62 .46 .62Mineral or tropical ex-

ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 .27 .27 .33∼Mineral or tropical ex-

ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 .57 .43 .43Strong liberals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 .53 .40 .53∼Strong liberals . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 1.00 (.01)† .36 .82 (.14)Strong conservatives . . . . . . . .23 .46 .31 .54∼Strong conservatives . . . . . .42 .58 .58 .58

Note.—The level of significance for all proportions 1 .65 is listed in parentheses. The tilde (∼) representsthe negation of a given causal factor. Combinations of causal factors that pass significance tests are notreported here (see text for a discussion).

† P ≤ .10.

the most successful economic developers of the periphery, specifically Ar-gentina, Uruguay, and Venezuela. By contrast, strong liberals were usuallymore or less absent in those parts of the region that were not economicallysuccessful, their absence likely blocking development in Bolivia, Ecuador,Honduras, and Paraguay.

Given that liberals were often market-oriented townspeople in the latecolonial and early independence periods, the finding about strong liberalsand economic development lends support to the notion that an incipientbourgeoisie was the force behind economic development in Spanish Amer-ica. More specifically (and with apologies to Barrington Moore [1967]), itsupports the following probabilistic proposition for Spanish America: “noincipient colonial bourgeoisie, no economic development.” Countries thatlacked a strong liberal faction during the 18th and early 19th centurieswere usually locked out of future economic development. The reverseproposition about conservatives, however, is not supported by the data.In particular, the causal factor “strong conservative faction” is neitherprobabilistically necessary nor probabilistically sufficient for any of theoutcomes considered here. This conclusion lends support to revisionisthistories that suggest conservatives were not always the obstacles to de-




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velopment that subsequent liberal historians made them out to be (e.g.,Gudmundson and Lindo-Fuentes 1995).

Two other causal factors—labor-intensive estates and mineral/tropicalagricultural production—are also not individually significant in the test,either as probabilistic necessary or probabilistic sufficient conditions.Thus, even though the Spanish may have established large-scale haci-endas in the centers and semiperipheries, these estates did not usuallyguarantee or usually enable social and economic underdevelopment.Rather, some countries that did not feature extensive labor-intensive es-tates before 1850, such as Honduras and Nicaragua, still ended up ashighly underdeveloped countries, even as other countries with extensivelabor-intensive estates, such as Chile, developed considerably before 1850.Similarly, although several unsuccessful developers featured minerals ortropical agriculture, so did some successful cases, such as Chile and CostaRica. In fact, about half of all countries in Spanish America could beconsidered significant tropical and mineral exporters before 1850. As aresult, neither minerals nor tropical agriculture appear to have drivenSpanish American countries toward underdevelopment.

Finally, the test explored whether any combination of causal factorsmight be probabilistically sufficient for the outcomes. Two such combi-nations were identified, both of which were usually sufficient for mem-bership in the category socially underdeveloped country: (1) a denseindigenous population combined with the absence of significant labor-intensive estates, and (2) a dense indigenous population combined withthe absence of strong liberal factions. Although these combinations aredifficult to interpret, they do suggest that under certain circumstances thepresence of a dense indigenous population may have been usually nec-essary and sufficient for social underdevelopment. It is interesting to notethat places where a relatively dense indigenous population was combinedwith the relative absence of labor-intensive estates, as in Honduras andNicaragua, were usually ensured social underdevelopment.

CONCLUSION

In a path-dependent pattern, distant historical events set countries onlong-run trajectories of development. The initial positioning of countriesonto these development trajectories may entail a reversal of previoustrends, perhaps transforming yesterday’s successful developers into to-day’s unsuccessful developers and vice versa. Once these trajectories areestablished, however, they may prove remarkably stable over long periodsof time.

In this article, I have argued that long-run economic and social de-




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velopment in Spanish America followed a path-dependent pattern. Formore than a century, fairly stable economic and social development hi-erarchies have characterized the countries of the region. Those countriesthat were the regional leaders in economic or social performance a hun-dred years ago tend to be the regional leaders today; those countries thatwere then the regional laggards tend to still be the regional laggards.

The roots of path-dependent development in Spanish America, I haveargued, are found as far back as the colonial period, and specifically withthe differing ways in which Spanish settlers occupied and establishedinstitutions in the territories that make up the modern nation-states ofthe region. Frank (1972, p. 19) hypothesized three decades ago that themost important territories in the colonial system tended to become theleast developed regions of modern Spanish America, while those territoriesthat were peripheral in the colonial empire tended to become the mostdeveloped regions. Using existing data on levels of “colonial penetration”for the region’s nation-states, this article has provided an empirical testand confirmation of his proposition. The test indicated that colonial in-fluence is indeed negatively correlated with social development and to asomewhat lesser degree with economic development across the 20thcentury.

At the height of the colonial empire in the mid-17th century, one mightnot have expected that marginal territories such as modern Argentina,Uruguay, and Costa Rica would become the region’s most developedcountries. More likely, one would have thought that more prosperous areassuch as modern Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador would remain the wealthiestregions. Yet, during the period from roughly 1700–1850, the region sawa great reversal, one in which the wealthy centers were transformed intoaverage and unsuccessful developers and some of the colonial peripheriesbecame the region’s development leaders. This period corresponds withthe emergence of industrial capitalism in Western Europe and the rise ofnew challenges to Spanish authority in the European states system. Inan effort to protect its colonial possessions and bolster its regional position,the Spanish crown implemented a series of liberalizing reforms in theNew World. Especially with the removal of restrictions on trade and theweakening of colonial monopolies, it became possible for marginal ter-ritories to experience economic growth. These reforms also left the em-pire’s more central regions less protected and more exposed to the un-certainties of the market. In these ways, liberalizing colonial reformsenacted beginning in the 1700s made a regionwide reversal possible, aprocess that appears to have completed itself by the mid-19th century.

Not all territories were able to take advantage of the possibilities pro-vided by the Spanish reforms, however. Those territories that lacked astrong liberal political faction to actually seize market opportunities usu-




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ally failed to achieve significant economic growth and became the region’smore economically underdeveloped countries. For example, in specificallythe colonial centers and semiperipheries, strong liberals were generallyless present, and thus these territories usually did no better than averagevis-a-vis economic development. The peripheral regions were hardly guar-anteed economic success themselves. Strong liberal factions could be foundin full expression in territories such as Argentina and Uruguay, placesthat did achieve economic prosperity. But powerful liberals did not de-velop in other peripheries such as Honduras and Nicaragua, places des-tined to remain economic backwaters.

The ability of countries to move toward social development dependedvery much on the density of the indigenous population. The absence ofa dense indigenous population was, in fact, usually sufficient for successfulsocial development; likewise, only countries with a dense indigenous pop-ulation usually experienced unsuccessful social development. This findingsuggests that the ethnic stratification systems introduced during the co-lonial period had enormous implications for the quality of life in the region.In areas with a dense indigenous population, political elites chose to sys-tematically exclude broad spectrums of society from basic entitlements ofcitizenship. By contrast, in territories without a dense indigenous popu-lation, political elites were more willing to build nations that encompassedall individuals as citizens.

The various arguments developed in this article are but one step in thedifficult task of explaining long-run development trajectories in SpanishAmerica. My approach has been to treat the modern nation-state as theunit of investigation and to work backward to earlier periods when theregion was not organized into those units. Obviously, other scholars mightbegin with subnational territories that were prominent during the colonialperiod and work forward to explore whether there is any relationshipbetween these subnational colonial units and future development. Like-wise, while my concern has been with colonialism and long-run devel-opment in Spanish America, other analysts might ask similar questionsabout British, French, or Portuguese colonialism in regions such as Africa,Asia, Brazil, and the Caribbean.31 Such analyses would be especially usefulif the units studied fall into stable development hierarchies in the post-colonial period. If they do not, the concept of path dependence may be

31 Different findings likely would emerge from such studies, given that the orientationof the colonizing nation influences the effects of colonialism. For example, whereasthe Spanish tended to colonize most extensively highly developed and populous pre-colonial areas, the British tended to favor sparsely populated regions. And whereasthe Spanish centers were disadvantaged by colonialism, evidence suggests that thecenters of British colonialism fared better than the peripheral British colonies (seeLange 2003).




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less applicable, and colonialism may not have had the long-term conse-quences that it did in Spanish America.

Finally, it is worth emphasizing that the conclusions of this article applyto relative levels of development within Spanish America, not to rates orabsolute levels of development for the region. For example, the persistenceof the path-dependent hierarchies identified here has no implications fordevelopment in the region as a whole; the Spanish American region couldexperience either strong or weak performance in the future. Nevertheless,the article does suggest that countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Gua-temala will find it nearly impossible to catch up to countries such asArgentina, Costa Rica, and Uruguay any time soon. Indeed, an abruptreordering of the countries likely would require a new critical juncturedriven by basic changes in the international states system and globaleconomy no less significant than those that led Spanish Bourbon monarchsto implement liberalizing reforms in the 18th century. In the absence ofsuch basic changes, we can expect the development hierarchies of theregion to persist well into the future.

APPENDIX A

Historical Sources for Classifying Territories as Center, Semiperiphery, orPeriphery

The literature on colonialism in Spanish America is vast, and it cannotbe summarized in an article-length form (see Safford [1992] and Johnsonand Socolow [1992] for overviews). In table A1, I provide a citation foronly the major historical sources that I consulted when coding countriesas center, semiperiphery, or periphery circa 1650. To facilitate replicationby other scholars, a specific reference to page numbers or chapters is givenwhen applicable.

There are several excellent overviews of the colonial system that providedata and analysis from which one can make inferences about the extentof Spanish influence in what became the modern countries of the region.Among the best of these works are Andrien 1985, 2001; Burkholder andJohnson 1998; Gibson 1966; and Lockhart and Schwartz 1983.

APPENDIX B

Methods and Sources for Indigenous Population Scores

To score cases for the category “dense indigenous population,” I reliedpartly on table B1, which presents three measures for the period around1800: the absolute number of indigenous persons, indigenous persons per100 square kilometers, and indigenous persons as a percentage of the total




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TABLE A1Literature by Territory

Country Published Sources

Argentina . . . . . . . . Adelman (1999b), p. 20; Brown (1979), p. 2 and chap. 1; Corradi(1985), pp. 9–10; Randall (1977b), chap. 1; Rock (1987), pp. 14–38

Bolivia . . . . . . . . . . . Klein (1982a), pp. 37–63; Klein (1982b); Larson (1998), esp. chap. 2Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barbier (1980), p. 20; Bauer (1975), chap. 1; Collier and Sater

(1996), pp. 3–4; Halperın Donghi (1993), p. 15; Loveman (1988),chap. 3

Colombia . . . . . . . . Bushnell (1993), pp. 11–24; Colmenares (1978); McFarlane (1993),pp. 16–26

Costa Rica . . . . . . Fonseca Corrales (1993), pp. 137–49; MacLeod (1973); Melendez(1982); Palma Murga (1993); Payne Iglesias (1992); Vega Car-ballo 1986, pp. 19–27; Webre (1993)

Ecuador . . . . . . . . . Andrien (1995), intro. and chap. 1; Minchom (1994), esp. pp. 64–68; Phelan (1967); Vargas (1957)

El Salvador . . . . . Fonseca Corrales (1993), pp. 137–49; MacLeod (1973); PalmaMurga (1993); Webre (1993)

Guatemala . . . . . . Fonseca Corrales (1993), pp. 137–49; MacLeod (1973); PalmaMurga (1993); Webre (1993)

Honduras . . . . . . . . Fonseca Corrales (1993), pp. 137–49; MacLeod (1973); Marinas(1983), pp. 197–232; Newson (1986), esp. part IV; Palma Murga(1993); Webre (1993)

Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . Boyer (1977); Carrasco (1976), p. 286; Israel (1975); Meyer andSherman (1987), part 3

Nicaragua . . . . . . . Fonseca Corrales (1993), pp. 137–49; Levy (1965), chap. 1; Mac-Leod (1973); Palma Murga (1993); Webre (1993)

Paraguay . . . . . . . . Garavaglia (1983), p. 393; Roett and Sacks (1991), pp. 3, 16–21;White (1978), chap. 1; Williams (1979), chap. 1

Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrien (1985); Dobyns and Doughty (1976), chap. 4; Klaren(2000), chap. 3; Klein (1998), chap. 3

Uruguay . . . . . . . . . Acevedo (1933), chaps. 2, 5–6; Buzzetti (1969), pp. 12–16; Fitzgib-bon (1966), pp. 3–7

Venezuela . . . . . . . Ewell (1984), pp. 2–4; Hellinger (1991), pp. 16–17; Lombardi(1982), pp. 72–85; Moron (1964), chap. 4

population. If the rankings across these three measures are added togetherfor each country, the following ordinal hierarchy from most dense to least



90

TABLE B1Density of the Indigenous Population, circa 1800

Country

Indigenous Population

SourcesAbsolute SizeRanking

(1phighest) Area DensityRanking

(1phighest) Relative SizeRanking

(1phighest)

Argentina . . . . . 42 12 1.5 14 7.4 13 Comadran Ruiz 1969, p. 80 (1776estimate)

Bolivia . . . . . . . . 474 3 43.1 8 53.1 4 Klein 1993, p. 8 (estimate for 1780s)Chile . . . . . . . . . . . 43 11 5.7 12 9.8 12 Carmagnani 1967, pp. 185–90Colombia . . . . . . 137 6 12.0 9 17.1 10 Lynch 1986, p. 229 (1778 estimate). See

also McFarlane 1993, pp. 32, 34, 353Costa Rica . . . . .9 14 1.8 13 1.5 14.5 Kramer, Lovell, and Lutz 1993, p. 81 (es-

timate listed as “less than 1,000?”)Ecuador . . . . . . . 291 4 102.5 4 66.3 1 Andrien 1995, p. 113 (late colonial period

estimate)El Salvador . . . 84 8 400.0 1 37.8 8 Baron Castro 1942, p. 273Guatemala . . . . 265 5 243.1 2 52.3 5 Kramer, Lovell, and Lutz 1993, p. 81

(1821 estimate)



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Honduras . . . . . 63 9 56.3 7 46.7 7 Kramer, Lovell, and Lutz 1993, p. 81Mexico . . . . . . . . 3,676 1 187.4 3 60.0 3 Meyer and Sherman 1987, p. 212; see also

Van Young 2001, pp. 46–47,and Rosenblat 1954, p. 36

Nicaragua . . . . . 83 7 63.8 5 52.2 6 Kramer, Lovell, and Lutz 1993, p. 81Paraguay . . . . . . 32 13 7.9 10 29.6 9 Garavaglia, 1983, p. 186, but see Men-

doza 1969, p. 14Peru . . . . . . . . . . . 759 2 59.0 6 61.3 2 Gootenberg 1991, p. 140Uruguay . . . . . . . .6 15 .3 15 1.5 14.5 Rosenblat 1954, p. 36 (1825 estimate)Venezuela . . . . . 56 10 6.1 11 13.1 11 Lombardi 1976, p. 132

Note.—Sources for total population data: Andrien 1995, pp. 36–37 (Ecuador); Garavaglia 1983, p. 201 (Paraguay); Gootenberg 1991, p. 140 (Peru); Lattesand Lattes 1974, p. 23 (Argentina); Lombardi 1976, p. 132 (Venezuela); McFarlane 1993, pp. 32, 353 (Colombia); Meyer and Sherman 1987, p. 218 (Mexico);Woodward 1991, p. 8 (Honduras). All other population figures are from Palmer 1977, p. 383. Source for surface area data: World Bank 2000. Figures under“absolute size” represent thousands of indigenous persons; “area density” refers to the number of indigenous persons per 100 square kilometers; “relativesize” reports the number of indigenous persons for each 100 persons in total population.




92

dense is generated (the sum of the scores is listed in parentheses):

1. Mexico (7)2. Ecuador (9)3. Peru (10)4. Guatemala (12)5. Bolivia (15)6. El Salvador (17)7. Nicaragua (18)8. Honduras (24)9. Colombia (25)

10. Paraguay (32)11. Venezuela (32)12. Chile (35)13. Argentina (39)14. Costa Rica (41.5)15. Uruguay (44.5)

To help determine meaningful cutoff points for the fuzzy-set scores, Iconsulted the work of historians and country experts, who routinely makequalitative observations about the density of the indigenous population(see table B2 for specific citations).

TABLE B2Historical Discussions of Density of Indigenous Population


Argentina . . . . . . . . . Goodrich (1964–65), p. 71; Rock (1987), p. 39Bolivia . . . . . . . . . . . . Grieshaber (1977), chaps. 2–3; Klein (1982a), chaps. 2–3; Klein (1993), p. 8Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bauer (1975), p. 14; Collier (1967), p. 5; Loveman (1988), p. 70; Lynch

(1986), pp. 128–29Colombia . . . . . . . . . Colmenares (1978), pp. 77–104; McFarlane (1993), pp. 31–38Costa Rica . . . . . . . . Kramer, Lovell, and Lutz (1993), pp. 78–89; Palma Murga (1993), pp. 227–

29; Payne Iglesias (1992), pp. 16, 49Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . Andrien (1995), pp. 20, 34–44, 112–16; Minchom (1994), pp. 117–44; Phelan

(1967), pp. 64–65; Tyrer (1976), pp. 46–78El Salvador . . . . . . . Kramer, Lovell, and Lutz (1993), pp. 78–89; Lauria-Santiago (1999), p. 31;

Palma Murga (1993), p. 227Guatemala . . . . . . . . Kramer, Lovell, and Lutz (1993), pp. 78–89; Lutz (1994), pp. 165–66; Palma

Murga (1993), pp. 226, 228–29Honduras . . . . . . . . . Kramer, Lovell, and Lutz (1993), pp. 78–89; Newson (1986), esp. chap. 16;

Palma Murga (1993), p. 227Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . Calvo (1994); Gerhard (1972), pp. 22–28; Knight (1992), pp. 118–19Nicaragua . . . . . . . . . Kramer, Lovell, and Lutz (1993), pp. 78–89; Levy (1965), chap. 4; Palma

Murga (1993), p. 227Paraguay . . . . . . . . . . Roett and Sacks (1991), p. 17Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrien (2001); Gootenberg (1991); Klaren (2000); van den Berghe and Pri-

mov (1977), chap. 3Uruguay . . . . . . . . . . Acevedo (1933), pp. 13–14; Goodrich (1964–65), p. 71; Lopez Alves (1996), p.

116, and (2000), p. 56Venezuela . . . . . . . . . Brito Figueroa (1966), pp. 141–61




93

APPENDIX C

Methods and Sources for Scores Related to the Economy

The scoring of cases for the categories “significant labor intensive estates,”“significant tropical export agriculture,” and “significant mineral exports”was based on secondary sources that report on the economies of theSpanish American countries for the late colonial and early independenceperiods. Table C1 offers a stylized summary of some of this evidence.Obviously, the economies of the countries evolved over time. The fuzzy-set scores in table 7 above reflect dominant economic characteristics ratherthan ephemeral trends. The major sources used for coding cases are listedin table C2.

TABLE C1Notes on the Organization of Spanish American Economies, 1700–1850

Country Economies

Argentina . . . . . . . . Cattle economy dominates in the interior. Large estates are pre-sent, but not labor-intensive. Merchant economy dominates nearBuenos Aires, including especially the export of Peruvian silverand locally produced ranching products.

Bolivia . . . . . . . . . . . Silver output from Potosı remains the engine of the economythroughout 18th century (collapses in 19th century). Hinterlandfeatures haciendas that supply food and labor for mining sector.Use of dependent peasant/indigenous labor is common.

Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . Minerals from the north are the most profitable export by early19th century. In the Central Valley, wheat-based export economygradually replaces pastoral economy. Large-scale, labor-intensiveestates are common.

Colombia . . . . . . . . Gold mining in the west drives the export economy (slave labor).Diverse agriculture (e.g., sugar, livestock, wheat, tobacco) gearedtoward subsistence and regionalized markets is characteristic ofthe east. Larger estates often have trouble securing adequatelabor.

Costa Rica . . . . . . Coffee dominates export economy after 1820; estates are organizedprimarily as small farms. Before this time, the economy lacks asignificant export crop. Large, labor-intensive estates are rare.

Ecuador . . . . . . . . . Labor-intensive textile economy declines rapidly after 1700. Largeestates oriented toward the local market are common, often em-ploying resident laborers. Cacao, tobacco, and sugar plantations(labor-intensive) are located in the coastal region.

El Salvador . . . . . Indigo production dominates the export economy. Indigo encour-ages the proliferation of large haciendas, sometimes using forcedlabor. Small and medium-sized estates are also common.

Guatemala . . . . . . Before 1800, the economy is characterized by modest levels of in-digo, tobacco, and sugar production. After 1800, cochineal domi-nates the economy. Haciendas using forced labor drafts are pre-sent throughout most of this period.

Honduras . . . . . . . . Modest quantities of silver and gold are produced intermittentlyduring late colonial period. Agricultural sector features primarilyranching and livestock products. Labor-intensive estates arerare.




94

TABLE C1 (Continued)

Country Economies

Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . Silver production from Guanajuato, Zacatecas, and Real de Ca-torce dominates export economy. Agriculture is diversified (e.g.,wheat, cochineal, ranching, and sugar) with heterogeneous land-holding patterns. Haciendas are common in many regions andusually labor intensive.

Nicaragua . . . . . . . Economy lacks a major export product despite livestock industry.Limited quantities of precious metals, timber, tobacco, and ca-cao also are produced. Labor-intensive estates are relativelyrare.

Paraguay . . . . . . . . Yerba mate dominates the economy. The tea is cultivated in a la-bor-intensive form on Jesuit plantations before 1767 and onmore northern estates after 1767. Tobacco is also produced forexport, often on family farms.

Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silver-dominated economy experiences revival from 1730–1800,spirals downward in 1820s. Traditional hacienda economy pro-duces diverse products (e.g., wool, livestock, sugar, and wheat)using dependent indigenous labor force.

Uruguay . . . . . . . . . Countryside is dominated by cattle industry. Large estates arecommon by late 18th century, but not labor intensive. Merchanteconomy characterizes the urban area around Montevideo.

Venezuela . . . . . . . Cacao is leading export crop; tobacco, cattle, cotton, indigo, andeventually coffee are also exported. Slave labor is featured onplantations, and large haciendas drawing on forced indigenouslabor and rural peonage appear to be quite common.

TABLE C2Sources for Coding Causal Factors Related to Economy


Argentina . . . . . . . . Adelman (1999b), chap. 2; Brown (1979); Garavaglia (1985); Good-rich (1964–65), p. 71; Randall (1977b), chap. 1; Rock (1987), pp.45–49, 54–59; Socolow (1991), esp. pp. 1–11

Bolivia . . . . . . . . . . . Grieshaber (1977), chap. 3; Klein (1982a), chap. 3; Klein (1993);Larson (1998), chaps. 3–9; Tandeter (1993)

Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barbier (1980), pp. 19–24; Bauer (1975), pp. 12–21; Collier and Sa-ter (1996), pp. 9–17; Galdames (1941), pp. 107–9; Loveman(1988); Valenzuela (2001)

Colombia . . . . . . . . Brungardt (1990); Lynch (1986), pp. 228–31; McFarlane (1993),esp. chaps. 2–3; McGreevey (1971), chaps. 2–3; Twinam (1982),esp. chap. 1

Costa Rica . . . . . . Fonseca (1983); Gudmundson (1986); Molina Jimenez (1991), part1; Payne Iglesias (1992)

Ecuador . . . . . . . . . Andrien (1995); Tyrer (1976), chap. 8; Vargas (1957), parts 3–5El Salvador . . . . . Browning (1971), chap. 3; Lauria-Santiago (1999), chap. 2Guatemala . . . . . . McCreery (1994), chaps. 1–3; Woodward (1985)Honduras . . . . . . . . Guevara-Escudero (1983), chap. 1; Marinas (1983), pp. 31, 65–77;

Newson (1986), chaps. 8, 9, 12Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . Brading (1971); Garner and Stefanou (1993), esp. chap. 2; Randall

(1977a), pp. 99–151; Van Young (1986), esp. pp. 74–81Nicaragua . . . . . . . Lanuza (1983); Levy (1965), chaps. 3, 8; Radell (1969)




95

TABLE C2 (Continued)


Paraguay . . . . . . . . Brown (1979), pp. 14–16; Garavaglia (1983); Rock (1987), p. 54;Whigham (1991); White (1978), esp. chap. 1

Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Klaren (2000), pp. 99–101, 139–43Uruguay . . . . . . . . . Acevedo (1933), esp. chaps. 6–7; Buzzetti (1969), chaps. 1–3; Gara-

vaglia 1985Venezuela . . . . . . . Arcila Farias (1946), esp. chap. 9; Brito Figueroa (1966), pp. 101–5;

Lynch (1986), pp. 190–92, 228

APPENDIX D

Methods and Sources for Scores Concerning Liberals and Conservatives

In scoring the strength of liberal and conservative factions, I consultedliterature that views the region in light of a liberal-conservative cleavage(see table D1). In comparing cases, I considered the social, political, andeconomic prominence of those merchant guilds, landlords, and bureau-crats that represented the core of conservative factions. Likewise, I com-pared those free-market merchants, urban professionals, and intellectualsthat made up the core of liberal movements. In many cases, liberalismdid not appear on the historical scene until the end of the 18th century.Before this time, political factions (often creole merchants and profes-sionals) that opposed colonial restrictions and regulations represented in-cipient liberals.

TABLE D1Sources for Coding the Strength of Liberals and Conservatives


Argentina . . . . . . . . Halperın Donghi (1988), pp. 99–101, 106; Lockhart (1999), pp.174–77; Rock (1987), pp. 44–45, 61; Socolow (1978), esp. chaps.1, 6; Whigham (1991), pp. 45–50

Bolivia . . . . . . . . . . . Langer (1989), pp. 16–22; Lynch (1986), pp. 280–90Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barbier (1972), pp. 421–22; Barbier (1980), pp. 37–41, 44–48;

Bauer (1975), pp. 17–18; Lynch (1986), pp. 129–35Colombia . . . . . . . . Bushnell (1993), pp. 25–27; Lynch (1986), chap. 7; McFarlane

(1993), pp. 164–84, 238–45; Safford (1988), pp. 36–40, 59; Saf-ford (1991), pp. 19, 23; Smith (1965)

Costa Rica . . . . . . Gudmundson and Lindo-Fuentes (1995); Mahoney (2001), chaps.3–4; Rodrıguez (1978); Wortman (1982)

Ecuador . . . . . . . . . Andrien (1995), esp. chaps. 7–8El Salvador . . . . . Gudmundson and Lindo-Fuentes (1995); Mahoney (2001), chaps.

3–4; Rodrıguez (1978); Wortman (1982)Guatemala . . . . . . Gudmundson and Lindo-Fuentes (1995); Mahoney (2001), chaps.

3–4; Rodrıguez (1978); Woodward (1965); Wortman (1982)




96

TABLE D1 (Continued)


Honduras . . . . . . . . Gudmundson and Lindo-Fuentes (1995); Mahoney (2001), chaps.3–4; Marinas (1983), pp. 251–61; Rodrıguez (1978); Wortman(1982)

Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . Brading (1971), pp. 20–25, 104–14, 208–18; Di Tella (1996), esp.chap. 2; Guardino and Walker (1992), pp. 33–36; Hamnett(1986), pp. 13–23; Stevens (1991), esp. chaps. 3, 6, 8

Nicaragua . . . . . . . Gudmundson and Lindo-Fuentes (1995); Mahoney (2001), chaps.3–4; Rodrıguez (1978); Wortman (1982)

Paraguay . . . . . . . . Lewis (1993), pp. 16–19; Roett and Sacks (1991), pp. 21–29;Whigham (1991), pp. 14–19

Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gootenberg (1988); Gootenberg (1989), p. 9 and chaps. 2–3; Goo-tenberg (1996), pp. 154–57; Guardino and Walker (1992), pp. 29–32; Lynch (1986), pp. 159–60

Uruguay . . . . . . . . . Lopez Alves (1996), pp. 112–13; Pendle (1957), chaps. 3–4Venezuela . . . . . . . Arcila Farias (1946), pp. 361–68; Brito Figueroa (1966), pp. 101–

21; Lynch (1986), pp. 15–16, 190–227

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