Arturo J. Cruz, Jr argues that political learning, trust-building, and institutional innovation by political elites broke Nicaragua's post-colonial cycle of anarchy and petty despotism, leaving in its place an increasingly inclusive oligarchic democracy that made possible state-led economic development for the next 30 years. Cruz looks at how subsequent economic development gave rise to new social groups and localist power centers that remained politically disparate, and in turn forged an outsiders' coalition to bring down the Republic.