Why Nations Fail

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

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Ransom and Sutch (2001) give overviews of the extent to
which the southern economy after 1865 really changed.
Congressman George Washington Julian is quoted in
Wiener (1978), p. 6. The same book contains the analysis
of the persistence of the southern landed elite after the Civil
War. Naidu (2009) examines the impact of the introduction
of poll taxes and literacy tests in the 1890s in southern
states. The quotation from W.E.B. Du Bois is in his book
Du Bois (1903), p. 88. Clause 256 of the Alabama
constitution 
can 
be 
found 
at
www.legislature.state.al.us/CodeOfAlabama/Constitution/
1901/CA-245806.htm
.
Alston and Ferrie (1999) discuss how southern
politicians blocked federal legislation they thought would
disrupt the South’s economy. Woodward (1955) gives a
seminal overview of the creation of Jim Crow.
Overviews of the Ethiopian revolution are provided in
Halliday and Molyneux (1981). On the Emperor’s cushions,
see Kapuściński (1983). The quotes from Dawit Wolde
Giorgis are from Dawit Wolde Giorgis (1989), pp. 49 and
48, respectively.

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