ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a political economy approach. It also explores economic management as a critical component of state craft. The chapter focuses on macroeconomic policy in order to address issues of governance. It shows the sequencing of state–market formation. It explains the extent of economic non-interventionism. The chapter argues that states attempted to 'embed enterprise'. It also explains the growth of the international system during the period addressed, and the relative position of Latin America in the global order. The chapter describes the politics and economics of forging the oligarchic state. It shows that the flexibility of oligarchic arrangements, that is, ability to effect a transition from authoritarian to consensual order. Every country attracted immigrants but mass inter-continental free migration flowed overwhelmingly to the grasslands of southern South America. The advance of a primary export economy in most of Latin America signalled the consolidation of the neocolonial order in the final quarter of the nineteenth century.
