Political legitimacy and economic development: The role of agriculture in Costa Rica

This article argues that rapid agricultural growth, the benefits of which are broadly diffused, promotes structural change and economic development via a process which has, for the most part, gone unrecognized. Specifically, broad-based agricultural growth produces legitimacy for the political elite and this allows them to restructure the coalition upon which they depend. Thus, the influence on policy of the agrarian and/or merchant based elites can be reduced while that of manufacturing and export manufacturing based elites increased. Government policy can then be successfully reoriented to promote growth in manufacturing via structural change. The experience of Costa Rica is used to illustrate these ideas.