C HAPTER 12 : T HE V ICIOUS C IRCLE
This chapter heavily relies on our theoretical and
empirical research on institutional persistence, particularly
Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2005b) and Acemoglu
and Robinson (2008a). Heath (1972) and Kelley and Klein
(1980) made a seminal application of the iron law of
oligarchy to the 1952 Bolivian Revolution.
The quote from the British parliamentary papers is
reproduced from p. 15 of House of Commons (1904). The
early political history of postindependence Sierra Leone is
well told in Cartwright (1970). Though interpretations differ
as to why Siaka Stevens pulled up the railway line, the
salient one is that he did this to isolate Mendeland. In this
we follow Abraham and Sesay (1993), p. 120; Richards
(1996), pp. 42–43; and Davies (2007), pp. 684–85. Reno
(1995, 2003) are the best treatments of Stevens’s regime.
The data on the agricultural marketing boards comes from
Davies (2007). On the murder of Sam Bangura by
defenestration, see Reno (1995), pp. 137–41. Jackson
(2004), p. 63, and Keen (2005), p. 17, discuss the
acronyms ISU and SSD.
Bates (1981) is the seminal analysis of how marketing
boards
destroyed
agricultural
productivity
in
postindependence Africa, see Goldstein and Udry (2009)
on how political connections to chiefs determine property
rights to land in Ghana.
On the relation between politicians in 1993 and the
conquistadors, see Dosal (1995), chap. 1, and Casaús
Arzú (2007). Our discussion of the policies of the
Consulado de Comercio follows Woodward (1966). The
quote from President Barrios is from McCreery (1994), pp.
187–88. Our discussion of the regime of Jorge Ubico
follows Grieb (1979).
Our discussion of the underdevelopment of the U.S.
South follows Acemoglu and Robinson (2008b). See
Wright (1978) on the pre–Civil War development of the
slave economy, and Bateman and Weiss (1981) on the
dearth of industry. Fogel and Engerman (1974) give a
different and controversial interpretation. Wright (1986) and
Ransom and Sutch (2001) give overviews of the extent to