The Resilience of Misguided Expeditions

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An expedition of 800 soldiers faced immense challenges in South America, with only 170 surviving due to drowning, disease, hunger, and conflicts with indigenous people. Their misconceptions about the geography of the continent hindered their journey, as they believed they could traverse it like an island. Upon reaching Bogota, they encountered a formidable force of indigenous warriors, led by the most powerful chief in a confederation of chieftains. Despite the potential to overcome the Spanish forces, the indigenous confederation did not crush the invaders, leaving this historical outcome an enduring mystery, in stark contrast to the more contested confrontations in Mexico and Peru.

One common feature of complex systems is sensitive dependence on initial conditions: a small change in how systems begin evolving can lead to large differences in their later behavior. In the social sphere, this is a way of saying that history matters. But it can be hard to quantify how much certain specific historical events have affected contemporary conditions, because the number of variables is so large and their impacts are so interdependent. Political economist Jean-Paul Faguet and collaborators have examined one case where we can closely measure the impact today of events from centuries ago: how Colombian communities are still affected by 16th-century encomienda, a colonial forced-labor institution. We talk about this and other examples of the legacy of history.

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Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/08/26/287-jean-paul-faguet-on-institutions-and-the-legacy-of-history/

Jean-Paul Faguet received a Ph.D. in Political Economy and an M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics, and an Master of Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He is currently Professor of the Political Economy of Development at LSE. He serves as the Chair of the Decentralization Task Force for the Initiative for Policy Dialogue. Among his awards are the W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize for best political science book.