About

Sebastián Mazzuca is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. He holds a PhD in Political Science and Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Academy for International and Area Studies. His research focuses on state formation, regime change, and economic development, with particular emphasis on Latin American politics and economy. Mazzuca has authored the book 'Latecomer State Formation: Political Geography and Capacity Failure in Latin America,' published by Yale University Press in 2021. He has also edited volumes on political economy and co-authored 'Middle-Quality Institutional Trap' with Gerardo Munck, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. His articles have appeared in prominent journals such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Democracy, among others.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Economics
• Development economics
• Political economy
• Mathematics
• Public administration
• Microeconomics
• Gender studies
• Economic growth
• Economic system

Selected publications

• Capacidad Estatal Subnacional y Bienestar Social en Argentina

  REVISTA SAAP · 2024-10-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Resumen: Las capacidades estatales tienen efectos sobre casi todos los indicadores del progreso humano: desarrollo y bienestar, ingresos per cpita, provisin de servicios, control de la violencia y hasta manejo de crisis.Este artculo analiza el impacto de las capacidades estatales provinciales sobre las enormes brechas en indicadores de bienestar social que existen al interior de los pases.El estudio propone una definicin y medicin de capacidad estatal provincial en Argentina, un pas con grandes asimetras regionales, y reporta estadsticas descriptivas y anlisis de correlaciones entre variables clave usando una base de datos indita.Los resultados indican que la mejora del bienestar social requiere estados subnacionales con alta capacidad

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Triumph of Trade-Led State Formation, 1845–75

  Yale University Press eBooks · 2021-05-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter recounts how the economic stimuli of the Pax Britannica boomed between 1845 and 1875, causing the first period of sustained export-led growth in Latin America. It refers to the rewards for trade-led state-formation and the opportunity costs of war that grew exponentially. It demonstrates tight coalitions between professional politicians in the city-port and economic elites in the export sector that became a widespread phenomenon. The chapter discusses investments in trade-led state-formation, which succeeded at political survival and profit maximization. It elaborates how the ruling coalitions succeeded at “periphery incorporation” but avoided “periphery transformation,” decoupling state-formation from state building.

  PublisherDOI

• Eight. Party-Driven State Formation in Mexico

  Yale University Press eBooks · 2021-05-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Port-Driven State Formation in Argentina

  Yale University Press eBooks · 2021-05-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter begins with an account of the Battle of Pavón on September 17, 1861, which founded the episode in Argentina's state-formation as the army of Buenos Aires clashed against the military forces of the Confederación. It talks about the four-month bargaining process between the leaders of Buenos Aires and the Confederación that resulted in the merger of the two states and the birth of Argentina. It also explains how the negotiations produced an irreversible change in the process of state-formation. The chapter emphasizes how the territory of Argentina would never again experiment with the loose confederations of minisovereignties that characterized the 1830s and 1840s or the duopoly Confederación versus Buenos Aires of the 1850s. It points out that the territory of the new state and the formula of territorial governance in Argentina has remained intact until today.

  PublisherDOI

• One. A Theory of Latecomer State Formation

  Yale University Press eBooks · 2021-05-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Party-Driven State Formation in Comparative Perspective

  Yale University Press eBooks · 2021-05-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter focuses on Colombia and Uruguay, which are the two final cases of party-driven state-formation in Latin America. It describes the competing partisan forces in Colombia and Uruguay as the crucible for supraregional loyalties that connect political elites from distant localities when other linkages were non-existent. It also refers to the two parties that dominated the emerging political arena in Colombia and Uruguay. The party loyalties in Colombia got structured around a Conservative-versus-Liberal cleavage, while in Uruguay the struggle was essentially between nearly identical liberal parties, Colorados versus Blancos. The chapter reviews the analysis of territory consolidation in Colombia and Uruguay, which confirms the insight that was crucial to understanding the process of state-formation in Mexico.

  PublisherDOI

• Lord-Driven State Formation

  Yale University Press eBooks · 2021-05-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter describes warlords as central political agents in the critical period of state-formation in Latin America, specifically in Venezuela, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Paraguay. It mentions the five caudillos who succeeded at state-formation that emerged in Latin America before 1850 and are considered a consequence of improvised methods of military mobilization against Iberian rule. It also explains how lords gained prominence in the diffusion of private armies as a consequence of the failure to form states by the first generation of postindependence rulers, such as Facundo Quiroga. The chapter compares state-making lords of Latin America to the western European warrior as state-formation agents. It clarifies how Latin American lords and western European warriors share the initial source of power that allowed them to launch their political careers, such as military capabilities.

  PublisherDOI

• The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2021 · 74 citations

  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Latin American states took dramatic steps toward greater inclusion during the late twentieth and early twenty-first Centuries. Bringing together an accomplished group of scholars, this volume examines this shift by introducing three dimensions of inclusion: official recognition of historically excluded groups, access to policymaking, and resource redistribution. Tracing the movement along these dimensions since the 1990s, the editors argue that the endurance of democratic politics, combined with longstanding social inequalities, create the impetus for inclusionary reforms. Diverse chapters explore how factors such as the role of partisanship and electoral clientelism, constitutional design, state capacity, social protest, populism, commodity rents, international diffusion, and historical legacies encouraged or inhibited inclusionary reform during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Featuring original empirical evidence and a strong theoretical framework, the book considers cross-national variation, delves into the surprising paradoxes of inclusion, and identifies the obstacles hindering further fundamental change.

  DOI

• Port-Driven State Formation in Brazil

  Yale University Press eBooks · 2021-05-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter highlights the most prominent outcome of state-formation in Brazil, which its founders fittingly called an empire. It considers Brazil as the fifth-largest country in the world and the largest contiguous territory in the Americas. It also mentions the great efforts of Rio de Janeiro to extinguish separation attempts from Pernambuco and Bahia in the Northeast and Rio Grande do Sul in the South during the intense wave of secessionism in the 1830s. The chapter discusses the extraordinary wealth created by the coffee boom and the carefully designed emergency plan by a triumvirate of political entrepreneurs that consolidated Brazil's territory. It explores the period in which Uruguay was a province of Brazil, which produced an archival gem that gives a clear sense of the magnitude of the success by Rio de Janeiro.

  PublisherDOI

• A Theory of Latecomer State Formation

  Yale University Press eBooks · 2021-05-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter examines the two processes of state-formation: territory consolidation and violence monopolization. It explains that territory consolidation refers to the process by which an emerging political center decides which regions to include within its jurisdiction and which to exclude. It also highlights the importance of state-formation in the capacity of territory consolidation, emphasizing it as the source of a modern country's political geography. The chapter considers “state building” as a new phrase for an old concept, which can be traced to Max Weber's original notion of bureaucratization and the transition from patrimonial rule to meritocratic administration. It cites Guillermo O'Donnell's work on Latin America, which argues that variations in state capacity across contemporary cases are as the variation experienced in the rise of modern western Europe.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ernesto Dal Bó

  19 shared

• Pablo Fuentes Hernández

  University of Bío-Bío

  18 shared

• James A. Robinson

  11 shared

• Gerardo L. Munck

  7 shared

• Simeon Nichter

  University of California, San Diego

  4 shared

• Diana Kapiszewski

  3 shared

• Jordan Gans‐Morse

  Northwestern University

  3 shared

• Thad Dunning

  2 shared

Education

• PhD, Political Science

  University of California Berkeley

  2012

• MA, Economics

  University of California Berkeley

  2008