The question of why Costa Rica became a democracy in 1949, especially after the quite deadly 1948 civil war, has been subject to lengthy discussion among foreign and Costa Rican historians and political scientists. A wide variety of arguments have been put forward. Traditionally, scholars (Monge, 1966; Aguilar, 1984; Albertazzi, 1987) have asserted that the stability of Costa Rican democracy was the inevitable outcome of a racially homogeneous and relatively egalitarian society. While a coffee-grower elite eventually emerged, the country still had an atypical experience during the colonial period, as the absence of a large number of natives and a lack of mineral resources made the country unattractive for extensive Spanish settlement. In comparison to other parts of the Spanish Empire, Costa Rica was poorer and less populated, which, according to this view, served as the roots of an egalitarian society that proved to be an ideal foundation for democracy. This explanation, however, is not entirely convincing. As Lehoucq argues, the relationship between egalitarian societies and democratization is not automatic if it is not accompanied by institutional reforms (1996).