A State Serving Private Interests: Bolivia, Aniceto Arce and the Huanchaca Company Railway (1878–1892)

This article examines the complex interaction between the Bolivian state and the private sector in the process of building the railway between the Huanchaca mining district and Antofagasta, from its projection in 1878 to the start of operations in 1892. During this period, a broad consensus regarding the importance of railway infrastructure as a crucial element for progress was confronted with the goernment’s inefficiency in this area and with growing criticism of Aniceto Arce, promoter of the project and larger shareholder of the Huanchaca Company of Bolivia. Questioned for his closeness to prominent public figures in Chile before and during the War of the Pacific, the assumptions about the true objectives of the railway revealed the tight alliance between economic interests and political power in Bolivia, in the face of a weakened institutional framework due to the lack of a state project.