Fiscal Expenditures at the Margins of the Empire: the role of the Royal Treasury in the economic performance (Buenos Aires, XVIIth century): A Social Network Analysis approximation

Abstract

To examine the mercantile dimension of fiscal expenditures is one way to inquire into the scope that royal resources spending had as boosters of the Hispanic-American economies during the Old Regime. In this sense, its possible impact on the local economic performance is another expression of the participation of Hispanic-American actors in the Royal Treasury’s interests, and confirms that the accumulation of local oligarchies intermediated the fiscal circulation of the regional surpluses captured by the royal treasuries. Therefore, the incidence of the royal resources spending on the local economy can be interpreted as a correlate of the negotiation that took part in the fiscal arena of the Empire.We therefore propose an approximation to the knowledge about the incidence that the expenditures of the Real Caja had on the local economic activity, analyzing the variations that exerted on the performance of the actors through the modifications in their respective betweenness centrality.This approach proposes, therefore, to address the relationship between the fiscal expenditure and local mercantile economy at the margins of the Spanish empire during the 17th century, appealing to basic indicators of Social Network Analysis. In this sense, we use an inductive analysis model based on the actual interaction between social actors, empirically observed.

El presente volumen de la colección HisMundI: Redes y relaciones Europa-América tiene como objetivo presentar al público especializado y al general, investigaciones centradas en la utilización del paradigma relacional. Su propósito ha sido el de adentrarnos en la propia construcción de estas investigaciones realzando así el objeto y su problemática. Hemos querido, de este modo, concentrar esfuerzos en la discusión de la aplicabilidad de esta matriz teórico-analítica para repensar las interrelaciones al interior de los grupos sociales complejos en la Modernidad. Más que un simple manual o recetario, se ofrece al posible lector un abanico variopinto de abordajes concretos, y reflexiones sobre una diversidad de problemas y temporalidades, abarcando el espacio Atlántico y sus estrechas conexiones.