How to create a state
A long article talking about how a modern state is created, with much relevance to current "undeveloped" countries.
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-mexico-built-a-state
How Mexico built a state
Robin Grier
Building a state is not a matter of copying first world institutions. It is a tough process of deals and compromises. 19th century Mexico is a good example.
It turns out that though Spain ruled Mexico for 300 years, it really didn't create a state. Spain ran the silver mines and sent the silver to Spain, but New Spain was like the Middle Ages in Europe, largely autonomous aristocratic landowners (who were the descendants of the conquistadors, intermarried with the heirs of the indigenous aristocratic landowners they had dispossessed).
State development is difficult because it requires pushing in the right direction while constantly making win-win deals with existing power brokers at the temporary expense of the rule of law and impartial justice.
Very few people understand how difficult it was to build state capacity in the past. Others conclude that things like property rights, state capacity, and development happened easily, quickly, and automatically, and they can't figure out why developing countries are having so much trouble.
Mexico in the nineteenth century presents a dramatic example of this problem. Mexico suffered extreme political instability and strife in the nineteenth century. There were 800 revolts between 1821 and 1875. Between independence in 1821 and 1900, Mexico had 72 different chief executives, meaning that the average term was only a little more than one year long. Likewise, the country had 112 finance ministers between 1830 and 1863. In addition there were several invasions and secessionist movements.
There were four Mexican presidents in the years 1829, 1839, 1846, 1847, and 1853, while there were five in 1844 and 1855 and eight in 1833. Antonio López de Santa Anna, who was President of Mexico on ten separate occasions, was president four different times in a single year.
There was incremental progress through the 1800s, but the big change was made by the dictator Porfirio Diaz:
After decades of stagnation, federal revenues actually increased by five percent a year between 1895 and 1911, and this was the time when the Mexican economy began to grow. During Diaz’s tenure, manufacturing and oil production took off, banking became much more developed, and 17,000 miles of railroad tracks were laid, connecting all of Mexico’s largest cities.
Díaz was the first leader in independent Mexico to put a stop to the constant revolts. He was much more ruthless than previous governments. When the Fifth Corps of the Rural Police rebelled, Díaz had them fired from the force and executed the traitors.
The development lesson is depressing:
Overlooking the challenges involved in building state capacity benefits no one. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Douglass North argued in 2011 that the World Bank’s extensive efforts to transform developing countries into successful market economies have largely failed. Policies effective in developed nations can destabilize fragile states by threatening the security of their elites.
Porfirio Diaz reminds me of Henry VII of England, who won the War of the Roses by killing off the last close male heirs of the York side, then marrying the best-placed female heir of the York side. After becoming king, then then systematically limited the great aristocrats through taxes and forbidding them keeping private armies. Before Henry, great aristocrats were militarily autonomous, afterward, they had political but not military power. As the political scientists say, the state now had a monopoly on violence.
This reminds me of what I wrote about an assessment of the Dominican Republic that I once read:
It's more complicated and more interesting than just "they got independence and started doing better". I once read a fairly detailed history of the post-Native history of Hispaniola. There was a lot of instability. Seemingly there's a fairly natural cleavage line between Haiti and D.R.; sometimes one half dominates the other, sometimes they are separate. Both have lots of revolutions and bad interactions with external governments. ... The impression I got of the history of Hispaniola from 1500 to 1930 was like the early Middle Ages in Europe: Multiple small polities, constantly warring with each other, conquering each other, splitting into pieces, etc.
But ... after Trujillo, the history of D.R. starts to look like a poor but reasonably developed country, while Haiti's remains turbulent. Determining what that transition was would be an interesting study in economic development. I'm tempted to compare with the consolidation of the central government of England under Henry VII. That certainly didn't make England modern, or capitalistic, or non-corrupt, but it cemented a stable rule of law with a state that could determine and enforce the rules.
Reading the article about Mexico led me to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Republic#Trujillo_Era_(1930%E2%80%9361), which summarizes Trujillo:
There was considerable economic growth during Rafael Trujillo's long and iron-fisted regime, although a great deal of the wealth was taken by the dictator and other regime elements. There was progress in healthcare, education, and transportation, with the building of hospitals, clinics, schools, roads, and harbors. Trujillo also carried out an important housing construction program and instituted a pension plan. He finally negotiated an undisputed border with Haiti in 1935, and achieved the end of the 50-year customs agreement in 1941, instead of 1956. He made the country debt-free in 1947. This was accompanied by absolute repression and the copious use of murder, torture, and terrorist methods against the opposition. It has been estimated that Trujillo's tyrannical rule was responsible for the death of more than 50,000 Dominicans.
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-mexico-built-a-state
How Mexico built a state
Robin Grier
Building a state is not a matter of copying first world institutions. It is a tough process of deals and compromises. 19th century Mexico is a good example.
It turns out that though Spain ruled Mexico for 300 years, it really didn't create a state. Spain ran the silver mines and sent the silver to Spain, but New Spain was like the Middle Ages in Europe, largely autonomous aristocratic landowners (who were the descendants of the conquistadors, intermarried with the heirs of the indigenous aristocratic landowners they had dispossessed).
State development is difficult because it requires pushing in the right direction while constantly making win-win deals with existing power brokers at the temporary expense of the rule of law and impartial justice.
Very few people understand how difficult it was to build state capacity in the past. Others conclude that things like property rights, state capacity, and development happened easily, quickly, and automatically, and they can't figure out why developing countries are having so much trouble.
Mexico in the nineteenth century presents a dramatic example of this problem. Mexico suffered extreme political instability and strife in the nineteenth century. There were 800 revolts between 1821 and 1875. Between independence in 1821 and 1900, Mexico had 72 different chief executives, meaning that the average term was only a little more than one year long. Likewise, the country had 112 finance ministers between 1830 and 1863. In addition there were several invasions and secessionist movements.
There were four Mexican presidents in the years 1829, 1839, 1846, 1847, and 1853, while there were five in 1844 and 1855 and eight in 1833. Antonio López de Santa Anna, who was President of Mexico on ten separate occasions, was president four different times in a single year.
There was incremental progress through the 1800s, but the big change was made by the dictator Porfirio Diaz:
After decades of stagnation, federal revenues actually increased by five percent a year between 1895 and 1911, and this was the time when the Mexican economy began to grow. During Diaz’s tenure, manufacturing and oil production took off, banking became much more developed, and 17,000 miles of railroad tracks were laid, connecting all of Mexico’s largest cities.
Díaz was the first leader in independent Mexico to put a stop to the constant revolts. He was much more ruthless than previous governments. When the Fifth Corps of the Rural Police rebelled, Díaz had them fired from the force and executed the traitors.
The development lesson is depressing:
Overlooking the challenges involved in building state capacity benefits no one. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Douglass North argued in 2011 that the World Bank’s extensive efforts to transform developing countries into successful market economies have largely failed. Policies effective in developed nations can destabilize fragile states by threatening the security of their elites.
Porfirio Diaz reminds me of Henry VII of England, who won the War of the Roses by killing off the last close male heirs of the York side, then marrying the best-placed female heir of the York side. After becoming king, then then systematically limited the great aristocrats through taxes and forbidding them keeping private armies. Before Henry, great aristocrats were militarily autonomous, afterward, they had political but not military power. As the political scientists say, the state now had a monopoly on violence.
This reminds me of what I wrote about an assessment of the Dominican Republic that I once read:
It's more complicated and more interesting than just "they got independence and started doing better". I once read a fairly detailed history of the post-Native history of Hispaniola. There was a lot of instability. Seemingly there's a fairly natural cleavage line between Haiti and D.R.; sometimes one half dominates the other, sometimes they are separate. Both have lots of revolutions and bad interactions with external governments. ... The impression I got of the history of Hispaniola from 1500 to 1930 was like the early Middle Ages in Europe: Multiple small polities, constantly warring with each other, conquering each other, splitting into pieces, etc.
But ... after Trujillo, the history of D.R. starts to look like a poor but reasonably developed country, while Haiti's remains turbulent. Determining what that transition was would be an interesting study in economic development. I'm tempted to compare with the consolidation of the central government of England under Henry VII. That certainly didn't make England modern, or capitalistic, or non-corrupt, but it cemented a stable rule of law with a state that could determine and enforce the rules.
Reading the article about Mexico led me to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Republic#Trujillo_Era_(1930%E2%80%9361), which summarizes Trujillo:
There was considerable economic growth during Rafael Trujillo's long and iron-fisted regime, although a great deal of the wealth was taken by the dictator and other regime elements. There was progress in healthcare, education, and transportation, with the building of hospitals, clinics, schools, roads, and harbors. Trujillo also carried out an important housing construction program and instituted a pension plan. He finally negotiated an undisputed border with Haiti in 1935, and achieved the end of the 50-year customs agreement in 1941, instead of 1956. He made the country debt-free in 1947. This was accompanied by absolute repression and the copious use of murder, torture, and terrorist methods against the opposition. It has been estimated that Trujillo's tyrannical rule was responsible for the death of more than 50,000 Dominicans.