CAREER: Long-Run Development and the Legacy of Spanish Colonialism in Latin America

这个CAREER研究项目探讨了西班牙殖民主义与拉丁美洲长期发展之间的关系。该项目符合比较历史研究的传统。比较历史分析在解决国家发展的广泛问题方面得到了很好的研究，其中宏观过程和时间序列是解释的核心。来自15个拉丁美洲国家的历史数据将用于调查18世纪西班牙殖民渗透与20世纪经济、社会和政治发展水平之间有趣的负相关关系。墨西哥、秘鲁、玻利维亚、危地马拉等西班牙殖民帝国在殖民时期渗透最严重的地区，被认为是20世纪拉丁美洲最不发达的国家。相比之下，那些西班牙人渗透最少的地区，如阿根廷、乌拉圭、智利和哥斯达黎加，被认为在20世纪成为拉丁美洲最发达的国家。这种关系将通过使用现有的定量数据来源来衡量拉丁美洲不同国家的殖民渗透水平和发展水平来检验。殖民渗透的衡量标准包括贸易、人口、金条生产、预算和工资等方面的统计数据。衡量发展的指标包括人均国内生产总值、婴儿死亡率、出生时预期寿命和民主等方面的统计数据。还将完成对后期殖民拉丁美洲的史学的广泛阅读。该提案的教育部分包括为学生提供研究助理的研究机会；创建导师项目，将本科生与研究生联系起来；开发一门关于“殖民遗产”的新研讨会课程，并将该项目的部分内容纳入目前关于方法论和发展的课程。

James Mahoney00093754This CAREER research project explores the relationship between Spanish colonialism and long-run development in Latin American. The project falls with the comparative-historical research tradition. Comparative-historical analysis is particularly well studied for addressing broad questions of national development in which macro processes and temporal sequences are central to the explanation. Historical data from 15 Latin American countries will be used to investigate the intriguing negative correlation between Spanish colonial penetration in the eighteenth century and levels of economic, social, and political development in the twentieth century. Those regions of the Spanish colonial empire that were the most heavily penetrated during the colonial period, such as Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Guatemala are hypothesized to have emerged as the least developed countries of Latin American in the 20th century. In contrast, those regions that were the least penetrated by the Spanish, such as Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Costa Rica, are hypothesized t have become the most developed countries of Latin American during the 20th century. This relationship will be testing by using existing quantitative data sources to measure level of colonial penetration and level of development for the different countries of Latin America. Measures of colonial penetration include statistics on trade, population, bullion production, budgets and salary. Measures of development include statistics on gross domestic product per capita, infant mortality rate, life expectancy at birth, and democracy. Extensive readings on the historiography of late colonial Latin America will also be completed. The education component of the proposal consists of providing research opportunities for students as research assistants; creating a mentor program which links undergraduate with graduate students; and developing a new seminar course on "Colonial Legacies" and integrating sections of the project into a current course on methodology and development.