While some countries succeed and others fail to build capable states, many developing countries exhibit uneven patterns of state power within their territory. Territorial pockets where the state exercises authority and provides public goods, coexist with pockets of low state presence and scarce public goods. The origin of heterogeneity in state capacity in the territory remains a puzzle in our understanding of state formation in contexts where external wars cannot explain state building processes. We know that state building in Latin American states was not war-led which explains their endemic weakness compared to European strong states: How can we understand their capacity building process? What did lead state building in the region, and how can we explain systematically the origin of internal unevenness in state capacity?
To answer these questions, I focus on the differences between the conditions and resources that were available to European and post-colonial states during early state building. I identify land availability as a core factor to explain the abundance of wars in Europe and the scarcity in other regions, particularly, Latin America. Land abundance relates to the advent of weak states in Latin America and uneven state building within borders through two mechanisms: the distribution of land by the state and how landed elites used that land. While land distribution strengthens the power of the landed elites, land use shapes the incentives of the state and the elites. In the case of the state to expand its power, and for the elites to demand, cooperate, or resist the expansion.
I study the Colombian post-colonial state in the nineteenth century during Latin American countries integration into the world market. I use novel data on subnational state capabilities, agricultural production, and public goods to evaluate empirically the relation between patterns of land use and state building. Data were hand collected in historical documents and historical archives in Colombia. The analysis presents evidence that land use shapes the incentives of landed elites and the state for investments in state building at the central and local level.
The thesis illuminates the connections between invariant geographical conditions and variable colonial institutional legacies on the initial uses of land that originate different political economies at the local level. It also contributes to the literature of state building documenting the historical origin of state unevenness within countries as well as the conditions under which commodities booms result in the expansion of state capabilities. Additionally, it unpacks the notion of landed elites by distinguishing between export and domestically oriented elites, as well as state building processes across core capabilities and service provision.