The Long Process of Development

Jerry F. Hough is the James B. Duke Professor of Political Science at Duke University. He has taught at Duke since 1973. He has previously taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and he has served as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Hough received his PhD from Harvard University in 1961. His research has focused on the Soviet Union, the democratization of Russia and America, and nation building in the United States. He is the author of How the Soviet Union Is Governed; Soviet Leadership in Transition; The Struggle for the Third World; Soviet Debate and American Options; Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-1991; The Logic of Economic Reform in Russia; and Changing Party Coalitions: The Mystery of the Red State-Blue State Alignment. Robin Grier earned her PhD from George Mason University in 1995. She was an Assistant Professor of Economics at Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City before joining the University of Oklahoma in 1999. She became an Associate Professor of Economics in 2004 and a Professor in 2010. Grier's research has been published in the Journal of Development Economics, the Journal of Law and Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Review of Development Economics, the Journal of Development Studies, Economic Inquiry, Public Choice, the Southern Economic Journal, Kyklos, Economía Mexicana, El Trimestre Económico, and Rationality and Society. Her area of specialization is the political economy of development in Latin America and Mexico.

• 1. Introduction; 2. The collective-action difficulties of creating an effective state; 3. The pre-state of England and Spain: the importance of man-made geography; 4. The early state in England and Spain; 5. The minimally effective state; 6. The truly effective state; 7. English and Spanish colonial policies; 8. The English colonies; 9. Colonial Mexico; 10. The collective-action problems of the formation of the United States; 11. The collective-action problems of the formation of Mexico; 12. The implications for development theory.

'To better to understand today's developing world, Hough and Grier turn to history. Argument after argument, point after point, they demonstrate the benefits of doing so. This study adds to the legacy of North, Olson, Acemoglu and Robinson, all of whom have turned to the study of political history in an effort to comprehend the economics of development.' Robert Bates, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, Harvard University