This series is an opportunity for DPIR DPhils to present their work in progress and gather feedback.

Our first presenter this term is Javier Pérez Sandoval. Javier defended his dissertation in Michaelmas and is currently on the job market. His talk is titled “The Origins of Subnational Democracy.”

The project tackles the following question: What explains subnational democratic variation across Latin America? In other words, why is it that some provinces within countries are more democratic than others? I contend that economic development is at the core of the puzzle. More specifically, building on the work of Mahoney (2010) and Collier and Collier (1991), I articulate a two-step argument contending that, across the region, the subnational unevenness observed today was configured by territorially distinct development trajectories which were triggered during colonization and that, once set, conditioned the timing of local labour incorporation.

zoom.us/j/97023514597?pwd=c01kNms5b1JJQlR4c21zTitOOFhjZz09#success