‘The Institutional Origins of State Infrastructural Power: Historical Evidence from Latin America’

Abstract:

Variation in the ability of Latin American states to exercise control over society and territory displays significant long-term continuities. This suggests that the roots of the divergence between strong and weak states in the region lie in historical rather than contemporary factors; that the roots of contemporary state crisis can be found in the nineteenth century. This paper argues that institutions of local rule played a primary role in determining the outcomes of the efforts of state leaders to develop the power of their states, and thus explain why state strength varies . Specifically, when state leaders delegated local and regional administration to local elites, their efforts to increase state power foundered. On the other hand, where they deployed bureaucrats to the provinces, their efforts were more successful. Historical evidence from Peru and Chile about the development of military capacity and public primary education supports the power of the institutional explanation against alternatives such as war and ethnic diversity.

The paper also identifies the origins of variation in administrative institutions in the contingent choices made by state leaders in response to the perceived threats of indigenous revolt. Finally, I suggest a potential mechanism of reproduction by which the initial divergence between strong and weak states has remained consistent over time.

Hillel SoiferLecturer, Department of Politics

Princeton Universityhsoifer [at] princeton [dot] edu

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The Pinochet regime in Chile implemented perhaps the most effective repression in the

history of South America. Far more efficiently than other military regimes, it compiled

lists of those identified as enemies, and located, arrested, tortured, and killed them. Those

who heard their names read over the radio in the days after Pinochet’s 1973 coup turned

themselves in to the authorities, knowing that there was no escape.1 In short, the Pinochet

regime successfully mobilized the coercive and administrative capacity of the Chilean

state in a strikingly short period of time to effectively control civil society.

The Peruvian state of the 1980s provides a stark contrast to the Chilean case. It

failed to repress the Shining Path insurgency, which quickly established control over a

large portion of the national territory. In response to the absence of state coercive power

in the Peruvian highlands, local communities began to defend themselves in peasant

patrols called rondas campesinas.2 Armed with ancient firearms, residents of small

communities patrolled their villages and field to ward off guerrillas. The state merely

provided legal legitimacy, ceremonial recognition, and a few guns to these self-defense

patrols, thus accepting a societal solution to Shining Path’s threat to the existence of the

Peruvian state. In so doing, it failed to undertake even its most central function – the

provision of security – in a large swath of Peru’s national territory. Rondas campesinas

operated in over half of Peru’s departments.

These brief anecdotes demonstrate the striking variation in state capacity in

contemporary Latin America. But the bulk of recent scholarship on the developing world

1 Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela A Nation of Enemies: Chile Under Pinochet (Norton, 1981) and Thomas C. Wright and Rody Oñate Flight from Chile: Voices of Exile (University of New Mexico Press, 1998).2 On Shining Path, see Steve Stern, ed. Shining and Other Paths (Duke University Press, 1998) and Cynthia McClintock Revolutionary Movements in Latin America: El Salvador’s FMLN and Peru’s Shining Path (US Institute of Peace, 1998). On the rondas campesinas see Orin Starn Nightwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes (Duke University Press, 1998) and Philip Mauceri State Under Siege: State Development and Policymaking in Peru (Westview Press, 1996).

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has ignored this variation in the ability of state to effectively exercise coercive force

across its territory – and thus to implement a range of other policies.3 In much of the

developing world, governments fail to exercise the Weberian monopoly of force which

characterizes developed states. Since the process of war and bureaucratic development

that characterized European states did not unfold in Africa or Latin America, we should

not be surprised that post-colonial states are weaker than their European counterparts.4

But how did divergence within the post-colonial world come about? This paper proposes

a new explanation for this variation, by tracing the sources of the divergent strength of

two Latin American states, Peru and Chile.

Why choose Peru and Chile to study state strength? Holding the regional context

constant controls for patterns of colonial rule and economic integration, and provides a

common historical and cultural background across country cases.5 Thus, some potential

explanations for divergence in state strength can be ruled out because they are similar

across cases with divergent outcomes. The cases vary on other factors which could

potentially account for the divergence in state strength. But examination of the historical

3 Two recent exceptions are Fernando López-Alves State Formation and Democracy in Latin America 1810-1900 (Duke University Press, 2000) and Dan Slater Ordering Power: Contentious Politics, State Building, and Authoritarian Durability in Southeast Asia (Ph.D. Dissertation, Emory University, 2005). While López-Alves focuses on the centralization of state power and attendant regime outcomes, I focus on the ‘outward’ face of the state: the extent of its authority over society. Like this article, Slater highlights the perceived threat of rural mobilization in shaping institutional choice.4 Jeffrey Herbst States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control (Princeton University Press, 2000) and Miguel Centeno Blood and Debt: War and the Nation State in Latin America (Penn State University Press, 2002).5 Although James Mahoney argues (in ‘Long-Run Development and the Legacy of Spanish Colonialism in Spanish America’ American Journal of Sociology vol. 109 #1 (2003) pp.51-106) that the varied economic and social development across Latin America derives from the varied intensity of Spanish colonial rule, this argument cannot be extended to political development. The first several decades of the republican era saw a struggle by state leaders to re-assert the control over society and territory erased in the independence conflicts. This involved the construction of new political institutions and new sources of legitimacy, wiping away the political (as opposed to the social and economic) legacies of colonial rule. Tulio Halperín Donghi, in The Aftermath of Revolution in Latin America (Harper and Row, 1973), and López-Alves (See Footnote 3)

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record of state development reveals that none of these differences caused the divergent

outcomes. Instead, I propose a new account of the sources of state strength focused on the

institutions of local rule.

State ‘strength’ and ‘weakness’ are general terms which capture many dimensions

of the state’s power. power, defined by Michael Mann as the ability of the state to

exercise effective control of society and territory, captures the extent to which state

leaders and their agents can reach across society and territory to create compliance.6 This

aspect of the state’s strength has been shown to be central to the study of a variety of

central questions in political science, including insurgency and civil war, economic

development, the origins of political institutions, and democracy.7 States with lower

infrastructural power are likely to be characterized by what Guillermo O’Donnell has

called ‘brown areas’ or regions where the state does not effectively exercise authority.8

The Peruvian anecdote that opened this paper is a clear example of the weakness of the

state.9 The Chilean state, on the other hand, eerily mirrored Mann’s description of life

6 Michael Mann ‘The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms, and Results’ European Journal of Sociology vol. 25 #2 (1984) pp.185-213.7 On insurgency, see James Fearon and David Laitin ‘Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War’ American Political Science Review vol. 97 #1 (2003) pp.91-106 and Jeff Goodwin No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements 1945-1991 (Cambridge University Press, 2001). On civil war, see Stathis Kalyvas The Logic Of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2006). On democracy, see Guillermo O’Donnell ‘On the State, Democratization, and Some Conceptual Problems: A Latin American View with some Glances at Post-Communist Countries’ World Development vol. 21 #8 (1993) pp.1355-69. The impact of effective enforcement of property rights on economic development is explored in Douglass C. North Structure and Change in Economic History (Norton, 1981). The role of infrastructural power in the development of political institutions is explored by Daniel Ziblatt Structuring the State (Princeton University Press, 2006). Hillel Soifer and Matthias vom Hau provide a review of these literatures which identifies the centrality of infrastructural power in the introduction to a forthcoming special issue of Studies in Comparative International Development focused on Mann’s concept of infrastructural power.8 See footnote 7.9 The uneven reach of the Peruvian state is also noted by Deborah Yashar Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Post-liberal Challenge (Cambridge University Press, 2005).

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under an infrastructurally powerful repressive state.10 Infrastructural power can be seen in

the reach of the state through society and territory in terms of the three fundamental

dimensions of state power: coercion, extraction, and regulation.11 The argument presented

in this article is illustrated with evidence about military and educational development

drawn from a broader database of the development over time of the state’s infrastructural

power in Chile and Peru, two countries selected because they vary sharply on this

outcome.12

Part I considers some alternative explanations and sets out a new argument about

the sources of state strength in institutions of local rule, as well as the empirical strategy

to be used in the remainder of the paper. Part II tests two of these possible explanations

against the historical record of the development of conscription and primary education in

Chile and Peru, showing that their proposed causal mechanisms cannot explain the

observed patterns. Instead, the evidence better fits a new explanation centered on the

institutions of local rule. Part III shifts from the effects of these institutions to their

origins. I show that the origins of distinct institutions of local rule derive from the

perceived threat of indigenous revolt, ideological factors, and the nature of political

coalitions. The paper concludes by raising the issue of the persistence of state power

10 Mann (See footnote 6) wrote that “If there were a Red Queen, we should all quail at her words – from Alaska to Florida, from the Shetlands to Cornwall, there is no hiding place from the infrastructural reach of the modern state.” (p.189) This omnipresence (and omnipotence) of the state quite accurately describes the terror that Chileans faced under the Pinochet regime.11 These three aspects of the state were distinguished by Charles Tilly ‘Reflections on the History of European State Making’ in Charles Tilly, ed. The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), p.50. Ziblatt (2006) applies a similar framework. (see footnote 7, p.86).12 In the broader database on which this paper draws, the spread of coercive power is assessed by examining the size and territorial spread of police and military units and available evidence on banditry, insurgency, and challenges to the state’s monopoly of force. The reach of extractive institutions is measured by the types of taxes imposed, the assessment and collection mechanisms, and the extent of collections. Regulatory power is measured by the spread of public primary education, and by the expansion of state oversight over the classroom through curriculum standardization, teacher training, and school inspection. [CITATION REDACTED FOR ANONYMITY]

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outcomes over time by suggesting an explanation for why strong states remain strong

while weak states fail to close the gap on their neighbors.

Before proceeding with this agenda, an examination of variation across Latin American

states is necessary for the task of developing a set of plausible explanations to be

examined in more detail. Figures One and Two below present data on two simple proxies

for the state’s ability to penetrate society and territory. Railroad density and literacy

represent crude measures of the territorial reach of the state, and of its ability to penetrate

society and to implement policies. The density of railroads (presented in Figure One)

facilitates the territorial reach of the state by enabling the penetration of state agents and

troops as far as the network reaches. As Jeffrey Herbst has argued about roads, railroads

allow the state to “broadcast power.”13 Literacy (shown in Figure Two) proxies for the

ability of the state to educate its population and thus inculcate national values and create

a national community.14

Trends in literacy and railroad development for eleven major Latin American

countries show that already by the early 20th century, countries can essentially be divided

into two groups. On both indicators, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay are the clear leaders,

while other countries lag far behind.15 The gaps between leaders and laggards which

emerge before 1900 have remained salient ever since. For this reason, present-day factors

can not entirely account for contemporary cross-national differences in state power.

13 See footnote 4, pp. 84-87.14 Eugen Weber Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France 1870-1914 (Stanford University Press, 1976).15 Mexico joins the leaders in terms of railroad density.

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Instead, we must explain why some states became stronger than others before 1900, as

well as why strong states have remained strong and weak states weak over the succeeding

century. This paper explains the initial gap in state power. In the conclusion, however, I

briefly sketch some reasons for its continued salience.

INSERT FIGURES ONE AND TWO HERE

I. Explaining Cross-National Variation in State Power

Most explanations of state power emphasize the structural factors which underlie the

decision by state leaders to extend their control over society and territory. Against these

structural accounts, I propose a new type of explanation for state development which

rests on the institutions of local rule created by state leaders as they seek to extend their

reach. To show that this new explanation better accounts for the variation across Latin

America, I rely on a variety of analytical strategies: control via case selection, and

examination of the historical record for evidence linking cause to effect.

To begin, several potential explanations can be eliminated because the cases

investigated in this study control for them. There is no variation in these proposed

explanatory factors across the cases despite variation in the outcome of state power.

Thus, despite their potential relevance, these factors – resource dependence and

geographic costs – cannot account for the divergent state development outcomes in Chile

and Peru.

Scholars argue that states will develop less control over society – and in particular

less extractive power – when a commodity boom dominates the national economy. States

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rich in natural resources can easily extract revenues from one sector of the economy.

They are thus reluctant to incur the costly task of extending the reach of the state.16 Peru’s

19th century guano boom drove up government revenues by 700% between 1850 and

1870 without requiring any extension whatsoever of the state’s reach.17 A similar

experience took place in Chile, where nitrate duties caused government revenues to

double between 1886 and 1890, and dominated the Chilean economy for the next several

decades.18 Thus the similar experience of resource booms in the two countries – their

parallel patterns of economic development – cannot explain the divergence in state

power.

A second factor often cited to explain variation in state power is political

geography.19 Given constant levels of expected benefits, state leaders will be less likely to

extend their reach where geography creates greater challenges. But leaders in both Peru

and Chile faced imposing geographic costs, since both countries include large swaths of

territory inaccesible from the national capital and other urban centers.

To reach these areas, both states faced significant and costly challenges. The railroads

built over the Andes from Lima to the mining areas of the Sierra Central were at the time

the most expensive in world history on a per-kilometer basis, and the railroad bridges

built over the massive rivers of Chile’s southern frontier were among the most ambitious

16 Terry Lynn Karl The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States (University of California Press, 1997) and Kiren Aziz Chaudhry The Price of Wealth: Economies and Institutions in the Middle East (Cornell University Press, 1997).17 Carlos Contreras and Marcos Cueto El Aprendizaje del Capitalismo: Estudios de Historia Económica y Social del Perú Republicano (Lima: IEP, 1999) p.10518 Michael Monteón argues that the nitrate boom created a rentier state in Chile. See his Chile in the Nitrate Era: The Evolution of Economic Dependence 1880-1930 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1982). The guano and nitrate booms are compared in Rory Miller and Robert Greenhill ‘The Fertilizer Commodity Chains: Guano and Nitrate 1840-1930’ in Steven Topik, Carlos Marichal and Zephyr Frank, eds. From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy (Duke University Press, 2006) pp.228-270.19 See Jeffrey Herbst (footnote 4).

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engineering projects undertaken in the western hemisphere in the 19th century.20 Thus like

explanations based on resource booms, those based on geographic factors cannot account

for the variation between Chile and Peru.21

Two other alternative explanations – war and ethnic diversity – are tested against

the historical record, employing the methodology of process tracing, which considers

evidence of the causal mechanisms linking proposed cause to effect. Using process

tracing to discard alternative explanations is particularly powerful because these

alternatives are assessed precisely in the context where they are most expected to hold.

Disproving alternative explanations in cases where they are expected to hold confronts

them on their strongest ground, biasing the investigation in their favor. Because Chile

was more successful in war, and is more ethnically homogeneous than Peru, we might

expect that these factors underlie its more effective state. The historical evidence

examined in Part II, however, shows that this was not the case; that the causes of the

stronger Chilean state, and of state weakness in Peru, do not lie in these structural factors.

Rather than explaining state development with reference to structural factors, I argue that

that outcomes of the efforts of state leaders to assert their control over society and

territory depend on the institutions of local rule they established in this effort. Here I

20 On the cost of Peruvian railroads, see Paul Gootenberg Imagining Development: Economic Ideas in Peru’s Fictional Prosperity of Guano 1840-1880 (University of California Press, 1993) pp. 108-111. On Chilean railroads, see Ian Thomson and Dietrich Angerstein Historia del Ferrocarril en Chile (Santiago: DIBAM, 2000).21 Unlike the similar challenges posed by geography in Chile and Peru, Colombian state leaders ruled the only South American country without a primary urban center. This drove regional competition on relatively equal grounds rather than the center-periphery dynamic in other cases. This geographic factor may underlie the distinct pattern of state development in Colombia, where national leaders never sought to extend the reach of the state until the 20th century. Thus, while geographic factors can not explain the difference in state power between Peru and Chile, they remain relevant for explaining the complete range of Latin American variation.

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develop in schematic form the causal mechanisms underlying this new institutional

explanation, which are tested against the historical record in Part II.

To implement state policies, including state development efforts, leaders must

establish institutions of local rule throughout the national territory. They depend on local

and regional representatives as they seek to extend the reach of the state. But the choice

of representatives is crucial. Where state leaders rely on local elites – on delegated rule –

I argue that their efforts are more likely to founder. Conversely, where state agents are

deployed from the capital to the communities in which they served – where deployed rule

was implemented, state leaders should be more able to assert their authority.

The two kinds of local representatives of the state – deployed bureaucrats and

local elites – face distinct incentives, which derive from their relationships with local

communities and the central state.22 These incentives shape their willingness to pursue the

policies sought by state leaders. Under deployed rule, state agents owe their job, and

therefore their principal source of income, to the government. This gives the central state

leverage to induce their cooperation with the efforts to expand the reach of the state. On

the other hand, local elites serving as agents in the state bureaucracy generate most of

their income from landholdings or other aspects of their status in the local community

and not their state salaries, making them less responsive to central state pressures. Thus

the proportion of their income derived from government positions shapes the likelihood

of cooperation by local state agents.

22 Thomas Ertman Birth of the Leviathan (Cambridge University Press, 1997) and David Waldner State Building and Late Development (Cornell University Press, 1999) show that distinct forms of bureaucratic organization shape state power outcomes via the mechanism of professionalization. In contrast, my argument rests on how institutions shape the incentives of state agents independent of their level of professionalism.

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The second type of incentive is perhaps more important. State agents from outside

the community – those operating under deployed rule – depend on the effectiveness of

the state infrastructure at their disposal for power within the community. This induces

them to extend and deepen that infrastructure. Local elites who serve as state agents

under delegated rule, on the other hand, depend less on the reach of the national state.

They rely mainly on traditional authority and private power to pursue their goals. Thus

they have a much weaker interest in the expanded reach of the state.

These stylized facts about the two forms of rule create an incentive structure

which shapes the participation of local state agents in the assertion of state power in their

communities. Under deployed rule, the collaboration of local representatives in extending

the reach of the state is much more likely than under delegated rule. For this reason, the

choice of local state institutions plays a crucial role in shaping the success and failure of

state development efforts. The primacy of this institutional explanation is supported, as

the subsequent section shows, by the historical record of state development in Chile and

Peru.

II. Historical Evidence

While the Chilean state developed a system of deployed rule by the 1840s as it sought to

extend its reach over the national territory, Peruvian leaders delegated administrative

positions to local elites as they undertook the same effort.23 This paper contends that this

institutional factor is crucial in accounting for the Chilean state’s strength and the

23 No organized records of administrative appointments exist in either country, but primary and secondary evidence supports the finding that local and regional elites populated the Peruvian bureaucracy while Chilean bureaucrats were not drawn from the population of elites. Officials ranging from subprefects to school inspectors were delegated to local elites in Peru, while in Chile these administrators were deployed from the capital.

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Peruvian state’s weakness by century’s end. But the countries also diverge in terms of the

indigenous share of the population and their experience with war. To arbitrate between

these alternatives, I turn to the historical record of state development in the two cases.

First, I examine the effects of war in Chile and Peru. Drawing observable

implications from scholarship linking war to state development, I examine the historical

record of the two countries. Finding that patterns of interstate conflict cannot explain the

divergent development of their states, I show instead that the more successful military

development of the Chilean state (operationalized in terms of its ability to conscript) can

be traced to the institutions of local administration it adopted. In Peru, conscription

efforts faltered due to reliance on delegated rule. Thus, I argue that while stronger states

can more effectively make war, state strength is rooted in institutions of local rule.

Second, I investigate a moment of institutional change in educational

administration in Peru. The move from delegated to deployed administration of education

around 1900 provides a test of the effect of institutions of local rule. I find that

institutional change sharply transformed educational development, suggesting that the

weakness of this aspect of the Peruvian state cannot be explained, as others have

suggested, by elite preferences determined by ethnic diversity. Instead, I argue that the

institutions of local rule mediate the extent to which elite preferences can influence

educational development; institutions rather than demographic factors are central to the

success and failure of state development efforts.

A. Local Institutions, Conscription, and Military Development

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The European experience of state development was driven by a ‘bellic’ cycle. States

strengthened in the context of war as they mobilized troops and raised taxes, and because

conflict created national unity which facilitated societal collaboration with these state

undertakings. War is thus a crucible in which strong states are forged.24 Miguel Centeno

argues that this cycle did not emerge in Latin America because wars in the region were

not large enough to drive the bureaucratic and fiscal expansion of state development.25

Absent the need to mobilize vast resources for combat, state leaders have not established

effective control over Latin American society and territory. The small wars of Latin

America, he argues, have left only blood and debt as their legacies. But the sharp contrast

in military fortune between Chile and Peru suggests that war might underlie the distinct

state development outcomes. The two countries fought two wars against one another, and

in both cases Chile inflicted defeats on the Peruvian army. Could Chile’s victory have

created a strong state in that country? And did defeat underlie Peruvian state weakness?

To address these questions, I trace the mechanisms by which war might cause

state development. First, I show that the first war between the two countries (1836-9) did

not create a strong state in the Chilean victor: this war neither involved military and fiscal

development, nor fostered national unity. Second, I show that the distinct forms of rule

adopted in the two countries shaped their states’ divergent ability to conscript in the

interwar period. The relative success of Chilean conscription, and its failure in Peru,

shaped the outcome of the second War of the Pacific (1879-83) in which Chile soundly

24 The literature tracing state strength to international conflict includes Tilly (1975) (See footnote 11), Thomas Ertman (See footnote 22) Michael Mann The Sources of Social Power Volume 2: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States 1760-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 1993) and Charles Tilly Coercion, Capital and European States Ad 990-1992 (Blackwell Publishers, 1992).25 See footnote 4.

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defeated the forces of Peru and Bolivia. Institutions of local rule thus made the Chilean

state, which was then able to make war more effectively than its Peruvian counterpart.

Several characteristics of the Chilean victory in the war with the Peru-Bolivian

Confederation (1836-9) show that it could not have built a strong Chilean state. First,

Chile’s improbable victory was not due to a superior military –it came after Chilean

troops were forced to sue for peace on two occasions, and resulted from a “risky cavalry

charge” undertaken when Chilean troops “faced the choice of surrendering” once again.26

Second, the nine months required to raise each of Chile’s two forces reflect the difficulty

of mobilizing even these small forces, as major delays were caused, for example, by the

challenge of providing shoes and guns to conscripts.27 Third, forces were cut sharply after

victory, falling below pre-war levels in 1840. Military equipment and ships were sold at

auction. Thus the war had no lasting effects on Chilean military development.28

It also failed to stimulate extractive power. Treasury records show that the war

was fought without resort to extraordinary revenues, while salaries continued to be paid

and state activities such as public building construction continued during the conflict.29

Indeed, state revenues stagnated during wartime, and only two percent of state revenues

in 1840 were generated from internal taxation.30 The failure of the conflict to drive

extractive power is exemplified by the catastro real estate tax. New rolls of liable

26 Simon Collier and William F. Sater A History of Chile, 1808-1994 (Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp.67-8.27 Robert N. Burr By Reason or Force: Chile and the Balancing of Power in South America, 1830-1905 (University of California Press, 1965), p.47.28 Arturo Valenzuela Political Brokers in Chile: Local Government in a Centralized Polity (Duke University Press, 1977) p.180.29 Memoria del Ministro de Hacienda 1839, p.1630 Data from Markos J. Mamalakis The Growth and Structure of the Chilean Economy: From Independence to Allende (Yale University Press, 1976) Volume Six.

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landowners were authorized in 1836 as hostilities began, but these were not completed by

war’s end.31

Despite victory, the war failed to generate national unity in Chile. Opposition to

the conflict was so widespread that the government declared a state of siege one month

after it began, allowing the government to exile political opponents, which remained in

effect throughout the war. A decree ordered that exiles returning without permission were

to be shot within twenty four hours.32 A series of conspiracies against the government

culminated in the assassination of its most prominent leader, General Portales, in June

1837. Although Portales became a mythical figure several decades later, even his death

failed to create national unity.33

Thus, victory failed to create a strong state in Chile. The war did not have a

lasting effect on military development, it had not effect on taxation, and there was no

‘rally around the flag’ effect of national unity. The emergence of a strong Chilean state

over the mid 19th century must have its roots elsewhere. Instead of war, the historical

record suggests that successful state development in Chile resulted from reliance on

deployed rule. This can be seen in the development of effective conscription and a

unified military over subsequent decades, compared to their absence in Peru.

Divergent forms of local administration shape the ability of states to conscript

because deployed and delegated officials are differentially likely to collaborate with

conscription efforts. Conscription – particularly in its more coercive forms as practiced

throughout Latin America – inflicts costs at the local level by causing discontent among

new recruits and their families, while generating a public good of security at the national

31 Memoria del Ministro de Hacienda (See footnote 29), and ibid), p.213.32 Simon Collier Chile: The Making of a Republic 1830-1865 (Cambridge University Press) p.6533 Collier and Sater, p.66. (See footnote 26)

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level. Therefore, the willingness of state agents to participate in conscription reflects their

responsiveness to local and national interests. Delegated rule, because it increases the

salience of local interests, diluted state efforts at conscription and military development

in Peru. On the other hand, deployed rule facilitated effective conscription in Chile.

Conscription is a fundamental demonstration of state power over society.34 It also

has a second-order effect on the state’s power since the army serves as a ‘school for the

fatherland’ in which soldiers are inculcated with national values.35 Thus, conscription is

central element of state building. The effective statebuilding of the interwar years

allowed Chile, despite its smaller population and resource base, to build and army that

could defeat Peru and Bolivia in the second War of the Pacific (1879-1883). On the other

hand, the efforts of Peruvian state leaders to build an effective army in that country were

hampered because conscription (like many aspects of state administration) was delegated

to local elites. The weakness of the Peruvian state – highlighted by its failure in this war

against Chile – was a result of its reliance on delegated rule.

Conscription Under Deployed Rule: Chile

In the early years after independence, and during the first war with Peru, Chile relied on

conscription by force.36 By the 1840s, however, the army was populated with a

combination of volunteers and those sentenced to military service by local judicial

officials. Although judicial conscription engendered significant resistance, Chilean state

agents were willing to overcome this opposition. Their willingness to enforce judicial

34 Margaret Levi Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism (Cambridge University Press, 1997)35 Eugen Weber (1976) (See footnote 14).36 Recruitment by force was banned in both 1826 and 1832, suggesting that it survived despite legal changes. Estado Mayor General del Ejercito (1981) Historia del Ejercito de Chile (Santiago) vol. 3, pp.174-7 (abbreviated below as HEC)

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conscription was driven by the fact that they relied on the military to maintain order in

the regions in which they served, and to keep themselves in power: each provincial

intendant commanded the forces in his region.37 Lacking ties in the local community,

Chilean state agents relied on the army for security. This encouraged collaboration with

conscription requirements mandated from the capital. Local authorities were willing to

designate young (predominantly poor) men for service, and the army no longer had to fill

its ranks by forcible conscription.38

Because local state agents oversaw conscription in Chile, it took place with a

veneer of legality which legitimized and routinized military service. This quasi-voluntary,

compliance with military service both reflected the greater ability of the state to penetrate

local society and improved its military effectiveness.39 The greater cohesion of the

Chilean military can be seen in the low levels of desertion from its army. For example,

during the second War of the Pacific, only 103 of a force of nearly four thousand soldiers

involved in a year-long campaign in the Peruvian highlands deserted.40 The only

significant wave of desertion from the Chilean army after 1840 took place during the

Civil War of 1891, in which troops in President Balmaceda’s army were recruited by

force in a departure from standard Chilean practice.41

Since soldiers were selected for service by local authorities and not recruited

directly by military units, units mixed soldiers from across the country. This helped to

create a unified and national army. Beginning in 1862, the army began the practice of

37 ibid., vol.4 p.16 38 Frederick Nunn The Military in Chilean History: Essays on Civil-Military Relations, 1810-1973 (University of New Mexico Press, 1976)39 Levi (1997) (See footnote 34)40 HEC vol.6 pp.295-6 (See footnote 36)41 ibid., vol.7, pp.128ff

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rotating units through the country, which severed any remaining connection between a

particular unit and a ‘home region.’ In these ways, the willingness of local state agents to

bear the costs of conscription allowed the Chilean state to build a unified army. The

effective conscription apparatus developed in the inter-war years underlay the state’s

ability to mobilize a massive army when hostilities once again broke out, and thus to win

the second War of the Pacific.

Conscription Under Delegated Rule: Peru

For most of the 19th century, conscription in Peru was overseen by local elites appointed

as subprefects. These officials gained nothing from conscription, while it inflicted several

kinds of costs on them. It created a national army that posed a threat to their local power,

and removed economically vital Indian labor from their estates. In addition, since they

were able to draw on their connections and local power to raise private security forces,

local officials in Peru did not rely exclusively on the national army to protect them

against threats to their power. Finally, conscription was an unpopular imposition on the

population. In one instance, “following the recruitment of nearly ten soldiers in Cuzco, an

anonymous group raided and laid waste to the house of the subprefect responsible for the

measure.”42 As a result of these incentives, local officials in Peru often shirked the

conscription duties assigned to them and ignored regulations governing military

recruitment. For example, not a single provincial leader complied with the military

service law of 1872, which set a quota of recruits for each province based on population.

42 Ulrich Muecke Political Culture in Nineteenth Century Peru: The Rise of the Partido Civil (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004) p.175.

18

Because local officials were reluctant to participate in conscription, military units

had to fill their own ranks from the populations of the regions in which they were

located.43 Conscription by military units operated by force and extra-legally, and thus it

lacked the legitimacy of the legal recruitment of soldiers in Chile. It also led to a

concentration of recruiting in the heavily indigenous southern highlands region of Peru,

which saw “systematic annual recruitment drives, during which the army scoured the

countryside of the altiplano from one end to another.”44 Due to their recruitment by force

and by “notoriously cruel methods”, Peruvian conscripts were not loyal to their army.45

Desertion by these impressed soldiers was consistently high, even during the transport of

troops to the front in the second war with Chile.46 Officers were occupied just as much

with policing new recruits for desertion as with battlefield training.

Forceful recruitment by individual units also limited the army’s role in nation

building. Unlike the regional heterogeneity of Chilean army units, the Peruvian army was

not a place where recruits came into contact with a cross-section of the nation. Instead

they encountered their fellow poor from the province where the unit was most recently

based. For example, the Dos de Mayo regiment in 1878 recruited 343 soldiers – a sizable

percentage of its ranks - from the single department of Ayacucho, where it was deployed

to put down a revolt.47 Thus, the reluctance of local state agents to participate in

conscription affected many aspects of the Peruvian army. Impressed troops were more

43 See for example Memoria del Ministro del Estado, Guerra, y Marina 1845, p.4.44 Nils Jacobsen Mirages of Transition: The Peruvian Altiplano 1780-1940 (University of California Press, 1993) pp.132-3.45 Cecilia Méndez The Plebeian Republic: the Huanta Rebellion and the Making of the Peruvian State 1820-1850 (Duke University Press, 2005) p.243.46 Contreras and Cueto 1999 p.137. (See footnote 17)47 Memoria que presenta el Ministro del Estado en el Despacho de Gobierno, Policía y Obras Públicas al Congreso 1878, p.77.

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likely to desert, more poorly trained, and less nationally representative than they were in

Chile. The Peruvian army was much further from the ideal of a ‘nation under arms’, had

many more discipline problems, and was less effective on the battlefield than its Chilean

counterpart.

When war broke out in 1879, pitting Peru (and Bolivia) against Chile, mobilization

efforts began. Chile was able to triple its force in six months (and increase its army size

ten-fold to over forty thousand) in eighteen months after hostilities began. Peru, on the

other hand, despite having the largest population of the three combatants, was able to

raise the smallest army (only seven thousand troops) for the first engagements of the

war.48 After the defeat of this first force, Peru struggled to organize a second army to

defend its capital. Despite the decreed mobilization of every male aged 16 to 60, Lima

was defended by a “poorly equipped and led 19,000 man improvised militia” – a force no

larger than that mobilized for wars Peru fought in the first decades after independence.49

As a result of its defeat, Peru lost substantial territory including the nitrate fields which

underlay Chile’s economic boom in subsequent decades.

If we believed that war made the Chilean state stronger than the Peruvian state,

we would have to trace the growth of state power to the effects of war. War would have

to lead to increased army size, increased extractive capacity, and increased national unity.

But as described above, the first war between Chile and Peru had none of these effects in

Chile despite its victory. And the outcome of the second war, in which Chile also

48 Data on the sizes of the armies of both countries during this war are assembled from the Historia del Ejército Chileno (see footnote 36)and the Peruvian Memorias del Ministerio de Guerra from various years. 49 Peter Klarén Peru: Society and Nationhood in the Andes (Oxford University Press, 2000) p.189. Comparative data on the forces mobilized for Peru’s various wars from Carlos Dellepiane Historia Militar del Perú (Lima: Imprenta del Ministerio de Guerra, 1943)

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emerged victorious, reflected and reinforced a pre-existing gap in the power of the two

states rather than creating that gap. While the Chilean state could mobilize thousands of

trained troops and deliver them to the battlefield, Peruvian army leaders had to rely on

less effective methods of conscription, and were unable to mobilize a sizable army in the

war. To attribute Chilean state strength to its victory in this war ignores the fact that the

seeds of its victory were sown over the preceding decades in the development of effective

legal conscription. To attribute Peruvian state weakness to its defeat in this war is to

ignore the ineffective state-building of the preceding decades, which prevented the largest

country in the conflict from raising an effective fighting force. Thus, war is not the root

of Chilean state strength and Peruvian state weakness. The strength of the two states

underlay their ability to make war, but institutions of local rule, rather than war, was the

source of the initial variation in infrastructural power between the Chilean and Peruvian

states.

B. Peruvian Educational Development: Institutions or Social Preferences?

At first glance, it would be reasonable to attribute the variation in state strength in Latin

America to variation in ethnic diversity. As reflected in Figures One and Two above,

countries with large indigenous populations, such as Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, have

weaker states than their neighbors.50 This finding is consonant with a current of research

that explores the effects of ethnic diversity on governance. Alesina and his colleagues

found in a study of cities in the United States that as ethnic heterogeneity increases, the

proportion of government spending devoted to public goods (including education)

50 As discussed in detail below, Mexico is an exception to this pattern.

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declines.51 The mechanisms by which this effect is produced remain contested. Alesina et.

al. suggest two possibilities: variation in preferences about public good provision across

ethnic groups, and the possibility that each group’s utility derived from the public goods

declines as other groups use them. Mariscal and Sokoloff, arguing in a similar vein, find

that economic inequality shapes public good provision by limiting suffrage to those

disinclined to promote redistribution. Thus, they find that economic inequality and

suffrage restrictions underlie variation in educational development in the Americas. 52

Thus we see a range of ways in which the striking social inequalities of Latin American

countries with large indigenous populations might account for the weakness of their

states. But can these arguments about how diversity and inequality shape preferences

explain why Peruvian education failed to develop in the 19th century?53 This section

compares the evidence for a preference-based explanation for the failure of educational

development in Peru with evidence for an institutional explanation, and finds that the

latter better fits the historical record.54

Many Peruvian elites believed, as preference-based arguments would predict, that

the indigenous population could not be educated or effectively integrated into a ‘modern’

Peru. For example, Alejandro Deustua wrote that the indigenous “lacked all culture, and

had no notion of nationality.” He wondered what effect education could have on those

51 Alberto Alesina, Reza Baqir, and William Easterly ‘Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions’ Quarterly Journal of Economics vol.114 #4 (November 1999) pp.1243-1284.52 Elisa Mariscal and Kenneth L. Sokoloff ‘Schooling, Suffrage, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Americas 1800-1945’ in Political Institutions and Economic Growth in Latin America ed. by Stephen Haber (Hoover Institution Press, 2000) pp.159-218. Although much of this article focuses on economic inequality and political access, the authors repeatedly refer to ‘homogeneity’ in ethnic terms.53 Social capital represents a distinct mechanism by which diversity affects public good provision. See Robert D. Putnam ‘E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the 21st Century’ Scandinavian Political Studies vol.30 #2 (June 2007) pp.137-174.54 A similar argument to that made in this section can be found in Daniel Ziblatt ‘Why Some Cities Provide More Public Goods than Others: Infrastructural Power, Preferences, and the Provision of Public Goods in German Cities in 1900’ (unpublished manuscript, Harvard University, 2007)

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who, to him, “were not yet people, did not know how to live like people, and had not

managed to differentiate themselves from the animals.”55 In his view, the focus of

education should be on the middle and upper class citizens of Lima. Similar views were

prominently expressed, for example in the pages of El Comercio, and in congressional

debates.56 This evidence from Peru, along with the cross-national evidence of a negative

correlation between the indigenous composition of the population and the provision of

education in the Americas, might satisfy us about the origins of this aspect of state

weakness.57

However, elite preferences about educational development only matter if elites

have control over educational policy. This control can emerge at two points in the process

of policymaking. First, at the level of policy formation, these preferences may inform the

choices made by education bureaucrats. In other words, the policy choices of state

bureaucrats may not be autonomous from social actors. If elite preferences affect policy

by this channel, we should see evidence that policymakers choose not to expand the reach

of the educational apparatus of the state. Second, elites may be able to affect policies in

the implementation stage. At this second stage, the extent to which elites can act on their

preferences for limiting the spread of education is shaped by the institutional framework

of educational administration. When the institutions of local rule place local and regional

elites in the position of implementing educational policy, they can act on their

preferences and limit the spread of education to rural areas and to lower classes. But

55 Alejandro Deustua ‘El Problema Pedagógica Nacional’ (1904), reprinted in Carmen Montero, ed. La Escuela Rural: Variaciones sobre un Tema (Lima: FAO, 1990) pp.85-7. 56 Muecke 2004, p.181. (See footnote 42)57 Mariscal and Sokoloff (2000) (See footnote 52)

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when education is administered by bureaucrats deployed from the capital, local and

regional elites are excluded from decisions about this aspect of state development.

Thus, the content of elite preferences is not sufficient to explain outcomes of

educational development. To convincingly attribute outcomes to elite preferences,

evidence must be provided about the policy choices made by high-level bureaucrats, and

about the institutions of local administration – the two channels by which preferences can

shape policy. When this type of evidence is collected, it becomes clear that patterns of

educational development in Peru cannot be explained by elite preference alone. Instead,

institutions structure the influence of local elites over educational administration: while

delegated rule allows local elites to act on their preferences and dilute efforts to develop

education, deployed rule cuts them out of policymaking and allows educational

development to override their opposition. This section demonstrates the importance of

forms of local rule in mediating the effect of elite preferences on the outcome of

educational development. Thus, it supports the overall argument that institutional factors

are central to explaining the emergence of variation in state development in Latin

America.

Change over time in institutional structure provides a propitious context for

testing the effects of those institutions. In the case of educational development, Peru saw

a change from delegated to deployed rule during the first two decades of the twentieth

century, even as many elites continued to speak in favor of limiting educational

development. An examination of educational development before and after this change

controls for other factors across the two periods and bolsters the claim that institutions of

local rule shape the success of state efforts to assert control over society and territory.

24

Even as many Peruvian elites continued to hold the views described above,

national education officials came by about 1900 to believe in the value of increasing

educational provision. For example, the Minister of Education, Jorge Polar, wrote in 1905

that “happily, it has been proven that there is no uneducable race – certainly not ours,

even in the most remote parts of the country.”58 This belief was part of a general sense

that significant change was necessary for recovery from the chaos of the preceding

decade. Nicolas de Piérola, Civilista party leader and president of Peru beginning in

1895, led a broad coalition which came to power with this intent in mind. The preceding

Cáceres administration had increased administrative reliance on delegated rule, which

contributed to economic collapse and massive social conflict in rural areas.59 The degree

of turmoil in the country highlighted the inability of a state reliant on delegated rule to

fulfill basic state functions. Chastened by the experience of the preceding decade, the

Civilista governments of the period 1895-1919 turned away from delegation and began to

deploy state representatives to the national periphery. The move away from delegated to

deployed rule was particularly striking in the realm of education, where it produced

markedly increased state power, as shown below, as well as a backlash from local elites

which limited the extent of state development despite the institutional change.

The failure of state development in earlier decades, combined with the devastation

of the War of the Pacific (1879-1883), left the interior of Peru without schools. The

Civilista governments of the post-1895 period prioritized education as a crucial

component of their efforts to bring ‘progress’ and ‘development’ to the country by

58 Memoria del Ministerio de Justicia, Instrucción Pública, Beneficiencia, y Culto (Henceforth cited as MIP) (1905, p.xxxviii)59 Florencia Mallon The Defense of Community in Peru’s Central Highlands: Peasant Struggle and Capitalist Transition 1860-1940 (Princeton University Press, 1983)

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extending “the presence of the state to the length and breadth of its rural society.”60 The

first steps taken by Piérola were a series of national education inspections ordered in

1897 and 1898. For the first time, inspectors were deployed from Lima to the provinces.

The difference from earlier inspections was dramatic: inspectors began to file reports that

highlighted the shortcomings of the education system and criticized the actions of local

government in the realm of education. Most strikingly for the central government,

inspectors noted that many communities lacked schools altogether: for example, the

inspector found that children in the border town of Desaguadero crossed into Bolivia to

attend school there.61 A commission on school hygiene, formed in 1899, also delivered

stark findings, describing the conditions in rural schools as not only ‘unhealthy’ but

‘homicidal.’62 The complete disarray of schooling, revealed in these overwhelmingly

negative reports, led the national government to take control of educational development.

As a prelude to a major effort at educational development, Piérola’s government

undertook an educational census in 1902, the first assessment of education at a national

level since the 1876 census.63 Despite some resistance from local officials, over 90% of

the population and 75% of the national territory were covered by this census.64 The

results showed no progress in education since 1876. In response, the Piérola government

and its successors undertook massive efforts to expand education. From 1897 to 1920, the

number of primary schools in the country nearly quadrupled from 852 to 3,338.65 60 Contreras and Cueto 2004, p.218. (See footnote 17)61 This anecdote appears in the MIP 1898, p.424. The general claims in this paragraph about the content of this new wave of inspectors’ reports is based on a comparison of the reports appearing in all 29 available annual ministerial Memorias over the period 1864-1919, as well as various reports of regional officials from the same time period.62 The report of this commission appears in the MIP 1900.63 The full education census document is available in the Archivo General de la Nación, Fondo Ministerio de Hacienda, Document Number H-6-0375.64 Ibid and Carlos Contreras El Aprendizaje del Capitalismo (Lima: IEP, 2004) p.243.65 The figures which appear here are collected from various annual ministerial reports.

26

Education doubled as well, reaching over one hundred twenty thousand. This growth far

outpaced the growth of population, and was truly national, as schools per capita increased

throughout the country, unlike earlier periods where school construction was focused in

Lima.

The Pardo government (1904-9) continued the process of educational

development by focusing on the content of textbooks. A contest opened on May 9, 1905

to write a reader for primary school students which would be ‘truly Peruvian’, and by

1907 over one hundred fifty thousand copies of the winner were printed and distributed.66

In all, the education ministry distributed over twenty two books per thousand residents

natiowide in 1908, and implemented a curriculum designed to inclucate students with

knowledge of Peruvian geography and history (including the Inca heritage, the colonial

period, the independence conflict, and the republican era) as well as moral, physical, and

military education. Moral education was designed to transmit the “principal duties” of

man to students: cleanliness, work, temperance, school attendance, honor, honesty,

courage, savings, payment of taxes, electoral duties, and military service.67 These efforts

to use schooling to unify the population under the national banner represented a direct

response to the chaos of the 1880s and early 1890s, and were seen as the means to the

“civilization of the indigenous and by that route their incorporation into the Peruvian

nation.”68

The Civilista governments were pioneers in the deployment of education officials

from Lima to the nation’s interior. The effects of this new policy were dramatic in terms

66 MIP 1905, pp.xlvi, 877-8, 904ff, MIP 1906, xxxii, MIP 1907, 644-967 MIP 1902, 670-1, MIP 1905, 905-6.68 1901 statement by Pedro Cisneros, president of the Supreme Court of the Department of Ancash, cited in Carlos Contreras Maestros, Mistis y Campesinso en el Perú rural del siglo XX (Lima: IEP) p.9

27

of increased education provision and state oversight. Local elites, however, remained

hostile to educational development. But the shift to deployed rule eliminated the

opportunity they had to dilute its implementation. Instead, their hostility revealed itself in

active resistance to education officials deployed to their communities, which at times

turned violent.69 A more sweeping limitation of educational development turned on the

fact that “despite its increased authority and reach, the central government nevertheless

continued to rely on the regional power of the gamonales [rural elites] to keep order in

the provinces.”70 With increased rural unrest after 1915, national governments developed

closer ties with local elites, and ceded much more ground on education. This can be seen

in the disappearance of systematic inspection reports from the archives of the Ministry of

Education after this time, and in the return of annual ministerial reports to their old focus

on policy design rather than the shortcomings of implementation. Despite this retreat, the

Civilista governments’ shift to deployed rule underlay a dramatic increase in the state’s

provision of education, oversight of its quality, and control of its content. Thus, the form

of rule shaped both the gains and the limitations in educational development during the

Aristocratic Republic (1895-1919) in Peru. Despite the fact that elite preferences did not

change during this period, their influence varied with the institutional design of local

administration. While delegated rule allowed elites to dilute educational development, the

deployed rule implemented during this period limited their ability to do so and allowed

the central state to substantially increase this aspect of the state’s power.

III. From Institutional Effects to Institutional Origins

69 See for example Jacobsen 1993, p.211 (See footnote 44)70 Klarén 2000, p.218 (See footnote 49)

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Institutions only play an independent causal role if they are not simply reflections of

underlying structural conditions. Thus, the question of institutional origins must be

addressed as part of an explanation of institutional effects. In this case, the choice of

deployed or delegated rule was influenced by underlying societal conditions, but not

determined by them. Where leaders confronted a large indigenous population – or, more

precisely, the perceived threat of an indigenous revolt – they chose institutions of local

rule based on a distinct decision calculus. Thus the perceived threat of indigenous revolt

acted as what Slater and Simmons call a critical antecedent: a factor which predisposes

the outcome of a critical juncture without determining it.71

Where there was no threat of indigenous revolt, leaders saw no benefit to

choosing delegated rule, and chose deployed rule in order to maximize the spread of their

authority. But where the threat of indigenous revolt was high, state leaders saw

advantages to both deployed and delegated rule. Although delegated rule implied a lower

risk of rural unrest by maintaining traditional social hierarchies, deployed rule would

allow them to maximize the spread of their authority. In this context, the choice was less

clear. A brief comparison of Mexico and Peru, where leaders confronted similar

structural conditions but made different choices, demonstrates the dynamics of this

institutional choice.

The 19th century in both Mexico and Peru was characterized by high levels of

indigenous unrest. Both countries saw significant revolts by indigenous communities as

colonial authority waned. The independence struggles in both countries were as much

domestic conflict between political elites and indigenous forces as between colonial and

71 Dan Slater and Erica Simmons ‘Informative Regress: Critical Antecedents in Comparative Historical Analysis’ (Paper presented at APSA 2007, Chicago IL)

29

Spanish imperial forces. In Peru, this struggle represented a continuation of the Tupac

Amaru revolt of 1780, which swept the indigenous highlands of the country for several

decades. As republican rule was consolidated in both countries, indigenous revolts

continued. The Caste War of the Yucatan in the 1840s made the threat of national

destabilization salient in Mexico as well.72 In Peru, this fear led elites to engage in careful

observation of popular participation in festivals in Cuzco because authorities “worried

about the lower class’ cultural autonomy and its subversive potential.”73 Upsurges of

protest from below seemed to emerge whenever gaps opened in the stability of the

national state. Most dramatically, the War of the Pacific in Peru (1879-83) sparked

indigenous revolt in the Central Highlands against the occupying Chilean troops and

regional and national Peruvian elites who cooperated with them.74

But beyond actual revolt, the threat of revolt was crucial in shaping the thinking

of state elites. It was the memory of earlier revolts that made national elites constantly

wary of the threat of future upheaval.75 The salience of the threat of unrest from below

dampened conflict between rival camps of elites, which emerged again when “social

subversion” was no longer an imminent danger.76 Only when they faced international

threat were state leaders willing to call on the lower classes to join their struggles, as

72 Friedrich Katz ‘The Liberal Republic and the Porfiriato 1867-1910’ in Leslie Bethell, ed. Mexico Since Independence (Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.49-124.73 Charles Walker Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780-1840 (Duke University Press, 1999) p.17074 The motivations of indigenous communities in these revolts have been the subject of extensive debate among Peruvian historians. Nevertheless, among their effects was to raise the fear of indigenous unrest among state leaders after the reconsolidation of the state in the 1890s. This increased fear, as discussed above, underlay the move from delegated to deployed rule in Peru in the early 20th century.75 John Lynch The Spanish-American Revolutions 1808-1826 (Norton, 1986) p.171, and Heraclio Bonilla and Karen Spalding ‘La independencia en el Perú: Las palabras y los hechos’ in Heraclio Bonilla Metáfora y realidad de la Independencia en el Perú (Lima: IEP) p.67-8. 76 Jean Bazant ‘Mexico from Independence to 1867’ in Bethell, ed. Mexico Since Independence (Cambridge University Press, 1991)., p.27

30

Mexican leaders did in their war against France and a sector of Peruvian leaders did in

the War of the Pacific.77

Despite the similar perceived fear of revolt, state leaders in Mexico and Peru

established different institutions of local rule. But while delegated rule emerged in Peru,

19th century Mexican leaders deployed state administrators to the provinces and thus

undercut the power of regional elites.78 The fact that similar structural conditions led to

sharply divergent institutional choice highlights the need to understand the choice in

terms of tradeoffs constructed by structural factors rather than as an outcome determined

by them. State leaders in Mexico and Peru faced a tradeoff between effective

implementation of their policies, and the possibility of unrest as they sought to expand

the reach of the state while confronting the threat of revolt. Relying on traditional

regional elites to implement policies would buttress against revolt, but dilute the

implementation of policies designed to increase state power. Mexican and Peruvian

leaders weighed these factors differently as a result of ideological and institutional

factors, and therefore made distinct choices about the institutions of local rule.

Mexican Liberals, in power in the mid-19th century, were particularly radical.

Unlike their Peruvian counterparts (or indeed, any other Latin American contemporaries)

Mexican liberals leveraged the power of the state to drastically transform their society.

The Liberal Reforms of the 1850s included sweeping anti-clerical laws in Latin America,

77 Local elites, unlike national leaders, were often willing to mobilize indigenous populations when they saw fit. Cecilia Méndez The Plebeian Republic: The Huanta Rebellion and the Making of the Peruvian State, 1820-1850 (Duke University Press, 2005), especially pp.60-1.78 The latter part of the rule of Porfirio Díaz in Mexico was an exception to the pattern of deployed rule, which characterized the Liberal period of mid-century, the early Porfiriato, and the post-revolutionary party dictatorship.

31

and an opening for attacks on the communal landholding of indigenous communities.79 In

implementing these reforms, Liberal leaders weakened regional caudillos, which allowed

major unrest to erupt in many parts of the country. Peruvian leaders were more moderate,

which allowed allowed a compromise with regional elites. Thus, the varied nature of

Liberal ideology partially explains why divergent forms of rule were established in the

two countries.

The character of electoral patronage in the two countries was also relevant. Party

leaders in both countries relied on regional elites to deliver votes from the provinces to a

party organization centered in the capital. Regional elites delivered votes in exchange for

patronage, but the nature of patronage varied. While Peruvian elites delivered votes in

exchange for positions in the regional bureaucracy, Mexican elites sought elected office

at the national level in return for their votes. Peruvian leaders needed delegated rule to

gain the support of regional elites, while Mexican leaders could build political coalitions

through a distinct pattern of patronage.80 In the short run, the choice of deployed rule

prompted major upheaval in Mexico. In the longer run, however, it underlay the

establishment of a powerful state.

Similar structural conditions produced distinct state development outcomes in

Mexico and Peru, which align with distinct institutional choices. Similar institutional

choices (in very different structural contexts) in Mexico and Chile produced similarly

powerful states, which reinforces the paramount causal role of institutions. Where

deployed rule was used as state leaders sought to extend their reach, strong states

emerged. Weak states emerged where state leaders sought to extend their reach while

79 Charles A. Hale The Transformation of Liberalism in late Nineteenth Century Mexico (Princeton University Press, 1989)80 Muecke 2004 (See footnote 42)

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relying on delegated rule, as in Peru, and where state leaders did not seek to extend their

reach, as in Colombia.81

IV. From Origins to Long-Term Trends

This paper has shown that divergent forms of local administration in Chile and Peru

determined the success and failure of efforts by 19th century state leaders to assert control

over society and territory. As a result the Chilean state was by 1900 much stronger than

its Peruvian counterpart. This initial divergence has been sustained over time: as the

anecdotes at the beginning of this paper showed, the Chilean state has remained strong

while the Peruvian state is weak. I conclude with a suggestion of the mechanisms of

reproduction which, resulting from the initial variation, keep outcomes ‘locked in’ over

time.82

An examination of patterns of social conflict in twentieth century Latin America

reveals two distinct modes of state-society relations, which have emerged as a result of

earlier state development outcomes. Past levels of state infrastructural power shape the

extent to which societal actors rely on the state in conflict and contestation. Where the

state has successfully asserted its power, as in Chile, societal actors rely on it, and the

state continues to accrue more power as it is called on to intervene in a wide range of

conflict. But where state development failed, as in Peru, societal actors develop

81 Thus, I identify two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for the emergence of strong states: (1) an explicit project of state development, which is (2) administered through deployed rule. Where either of these conditions is absent, state weakness results. In Peru, condition (1) is present, but condition (2) is absent. In Colombia, both are absent, while both are present in Chile and Mexico.82 James Mahoney The Legacies of Liberalism: Path Dependence and Political Regimes in Central America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) and Paul Pierson Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Political Analysis (Princeton University Press, 2004), Chapter One.

33

independent strategies of improving their conditions rather than drawing the state into

their communities.

These patterns can be seen by comparing the strategies of contention in arenas of

social conflict such as housing crises engendered by rural-urban migration, rural land

conflict, and security provision. Across all these issue areas, societal actors from across

the socio-economic spectrum in Chile sought the expanded reach of state institutions far

more often than their Peruvian counterparts, who were more likely to resolve conflicts

without relying on the state. A striking example of this was the formation of rondas

campesinas as a means by which Peruvian peasants resisted the Shining Path insurgency

in the absence of the state. This outcome, often attributed to contemporary ineffective

governance, should instead be traced to the historical failure of the Peruvian state’s

efforts to extend its reach through the national territory. The success of the analogous

effort of state development in Chile, on the other hand, was reinforced over time by

societal actors who saw a powerful state as a means to achieve their ends. This created

the powerful state that allowed the Pinochet government to sow terror after the 1973 coup

in that country.

Beginning by showing that the contemporary variation in Latin American state strength

has historical roots, this paper has tied the origins of that divergence to the design of

institutions of local rule. Thus broader theories of institutional emergence and change are

relevant to the study of state power. Existing explanations for state strength too often

focus on structural conditions such as war and ethnic diversity. As the comparison of

Peru and Chile in this paper has shown, variation in state power is determined by the

34

institutional choices made in response to these structural conditions. Explanations of

institutional choice and institutional effects, central to the institutional turn in

comparative politics, will thus be of great utility as the study of state strength and

weakness continues to unfold.

The study of state development, in turn, can also inform contemporary debates in

comparative politics. The institutional turn in comparative politics is premised on an

unspoken assumption that the state can implement its chosen policies. Formal institutions

shape expectations, strategies, and actions only where state power reaches. Recognizing

the varied power of states forces scholars to move beyond the assumption that states can

enforce policies to investigating the effects of policies where the reach of the state is

limited. But despite recent scholarly attention to failed and collapsed states, the many

intermediate cases where the reach of the state is limited and uneven remain

understudied. A focus on these intermediate cases can shed light on both the origins and

the effects of state development and state collapse.

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