Institutions and Development: The Role of Elites and Frontier-Type Social Regulations in Rural Colombia

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the limitations and opportunities for endogenous development in the underdeveloped region of the rural Department of Casanare in Colombia. The region is rich in natural resources, but entrapped in its role of commodity provider for the country's central markets and is deeply affected by social and political exclusion. The paper argues that the key to sustainable local development lies in the domain of governance and institutions, where the latter represents both the background conditions and the instruments of the former. Institutional change itself requires governance mechanisms, which mediate tension, resistance and fracture arising in the local community. The institutional environment of Casanare is a peripheral space of migration and clashes of elites, where populations that are excluded from the centre compete for opportunities and resources. This permanent state of confrontation generates conflicts and frequent changes in institutional forms and rules, so that uncertainty represents a defining character of the local system. The paper comments on the historical roots of these modes of regulation, analyses the key role of elites and describes the social habits and informal rules which drive economic behaviour in the traditional farming sectors.