The Making of Mexico: The Political Economy of Conquest and Independence

How the Mexican state came to be? How were its borders and political subdivisions established? I provide a brief historical overview of Mexico’s governance structures throughout its first three hundred years. I focus on its two main junctures: its origins after the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica in the 1518–1535 period, which required a careful but steady incorporation of indigenous communities into a Spanish state; and the global conflicts that led to Mexico’s secession from the larger Hispanic community in 1808–1821, by which the empire imploded after failed governmental reforms that aimed toward centralization. I follow a framework that emphasizes the co-evolution of institutions that foster trade, exchange, and markets and institutions that limit conflict and predation. In tandem, they produce different stable political equilibriums.