The growth of institutional capacity in the developing world has become a central theme in twenty-first-century social science. Many studies have shown that pub

This book examines how Latin American countries and Spain tried to build modern and efficient state institutions for more than a century - without much success.

Neoliberalism is often studied as a political ideology, a government program, and even as a pattern of cultural identities. However, less attention is paid to t

What role does war play in political development? Our understanding of the rise of the nation-state is based heavily on the Western European experience of war.

Independence and Nation-Building in Latin America: Race and Identity in the Crucible of War reconceptualizes the history of the break-up of colonial empires in