Path-dependence of territorial representation, Ecuador 1830-2010

From the origins of the creation of the Ecuadorian State, the number of representatives that corresponds to the territories, provinces and/or cities has been a matter of discussion and confrontations that has found different constitutional solutions. Although universally the tendency has been to find a method that assign to each province a representation according to its population, the equal territorial representation from the origin has tended to generate a historical dependence that the different Constitutions had to incorporate. This article offers evidence of the changes and of the path-dependence that follows the allocation of seats from 1830 to the present. The article concludes that territories have a substantive representative weight accumulated throughout history that the population distribution criteria have not been able to mitigate.