EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

                ABSTRACTS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY
                     (c) 2006 EH.Net
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Name:  Alejandra Irigoin
Email:  irigoin at tcnj.edu
Institution:

Co-author:  Regina Grafe (Northwestern University, formerly of 
Nuffield College, Oxford)

Title:  Bargaining for Absolutism: a Spanish path to nation-state and empire building

Internet Address of abstracted work: http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/Economics/History/Paper65/Grafe65.pdf

By mail:
Regina Grafe
WCAS Department of History
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL 60208 USA

Language:  English

Abstract:
New-institutional economics has used the history of Spain and her 
empire as a yardstick to measure the superior efficiency of 
Anglo-Saxon institutions. This paper argues that the comparison 
departs from a misleading characterisation of Spanish rule, namely 
that is was centralising and extractive in the metropolis and 
overseas. Historians of Spain have long emphasized that her system of 
governance was highly negotiated. Our analysis of the workings of the 
peninsular and colonial fiscal systems confirms this. Revenues were 
not extracted to Madrid but instead widely re-distributed across 
regions with a great degree of local autonomy in managing and 
allocating inter-regional transfers of revenues. The crown barely 
controlled them; but it acted as the ultimate arbiter in the 
distribution of the fiscal burden across colonial regions and 
economic sectors. This flexible set-up helps explaining the lack of 
challenges from within during 300 years of imperial rule. Yet, we 
argue that the system was ill-suited to withstand the external shock 
inflicted by Napoleon's abduction of the Spanish king in 1808, which 
led to protracted conflict over revenues and resources among 
constituent parts of the empire. Fiscal and economic crises hampered 
the search for a legitimate replacement ruler opening a sequel of 
constitutional failures, political instability and poor economic 
performance in both, Spain and in Spanish America, throughout the 
nineteenth century.


Bibliography: Irigoin, Alejandra and Regina Graffe, "Bargaining for 
Absolutism: a Spanish path to nation-state and empire building." 
University of Oxford Discussion Papers in Economic and Social 
History, # 65 November 2006. Forthcoming in Hispanic American 
Historical Review.

Subject:  I
Geographical Area:  0
Country/Region:  Spain and Colonial Spanish America
Time Period:  6

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