The Political Economy of the Colombian Presidential Election of 1897
HE potential contribution of the study of political economny to an understanding of nineteenth-century Spanish American politics is not widely recognized. The most influential contemporary work on the subject argues that Spanish American politics are personalist and clientelistic. Clientelists are of two main schools. One school, which might be called economic clientelists, conceives of Spanish American politics as a battle for spoils in closed, stratified societies where extra-political opportunities for economic and social mobility are severely circumscribed.' The questfor-spoils thesis of the economic clientelists proves most telling in explaining the motivations of middle and lower class participants in Spanish American politics. Placed in a conceptual framework sensitive to the long-term economic trends resulting from Latin America's integration into the world economy, the quest-for-spoils thesis complements the analysis of elite political economy as developed in this essay and forms an important component in any comprehensive explanation of nineteenth-century Spanish American instability. The other school of clientelists rejects socio-economic variables