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Elite Competition and State Capacity Development: Theory and Evidence from Post-Revolutionary Mexico

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  • GARFIAS, FRANCISCO

Abstract

International wars and interstate rivalry have been at the center of our understanding of the origin and expansion of state capacity. This article describes an alternative path to the development of state capacity rooted in domestic political conflict. Under conditions of intra-elite conflict, political rulers seize upon the temporary weakness of their rivals, expropriate their assets, and consolidate authority. Because this political consolidation increases rulers’ chances of surviving an economic elite’s challenge, it enhances their incentives to develop state capacity. These ideas are evaluated in post-revolutionary Mexico, where commodity price shocks induced by the Great Depression affected the local economic elite differentially. Negative shocks lead to increased asset expropriation and substantially higher investments in state capacity, which persist to the present.

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  • Garfias, Francisco, 2018. "Elite Competition and State Capacity Development: Theory and Evidence from Post-Revolutionary Mexico," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 339-357, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:112:y:2018:i:02:p:339-357_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Cornelius Christian, 2019. "The Political and Economic Role of Elites in Persecution: Evidence from Witchcraft Trials in Early Modern Scotland," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 10(2).
    2. Leopoldo Fergusson & Horacio Larreguy & Juan Felipe Riaño, 2022. "Political Competition and State Capacity: Evidence from a Land Allocation Program in Mexico," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(648), pages 2815-2834.
    3. Monroy-Gómez-Franco, Luis, 2023. "The importance of positional mobility for regional comparisons," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 322-333.
    4. Goldstein, Daniel A. N., 2022. "Reversals of State Capacity: Norms and Political Disruption," OSF Preprints ypshr, Center for Open Science.
    5. Victoria Paniagua & Jan P. Vogler, 2022. "Economic elites and the constitutional design of sharing political power," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 25-52, March.
    6. Dasgupta, Aditya & Kapur, Devesh, 2021. "The Political Economy of Bureaucratic Overload: Evidence from Rural Development Officials in India," SocArXiv 2qvwb, Center for Open Science.
    7. Monroy-Gómez-Franco, Luis Angel, 2022. "Regional comparisons of intergenerational social mobility: the importance of positional mobility," SocArXiv zgfvk, Center for Open Science.
    8. Hector Galindo‐Silva, 2020. "External threats, political turnover, and fiscal capacity," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 430-462, November.
    9. Benjamin Broman, 2023. "Indirect rule and mass threat: Two paths to direct rule," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 35(3), pages 232-256, July.
    10. Paniagua, Victoria & Vogler, Jan P., 2022. "Economic elites and the constitutional design of sharing political power," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110926, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

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