LLILAS Faculty Book Talk: The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America

Co-editors Daniel M. Brinks (University of Texas at Austin), Steven Levitsky (Harvard University), and María Victoria Murillo (Columbia University) will discuss their recent publication, The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America (Cambridge). The event will be livestreamed on https://facebook.com/UTLLILAS/. All event times listed are CDT.

Analysts and policymakers often decry the failure of institutions to accomplish their stated purpose. Bringing together leading scholars of Latin American politics, this volume helps us understand why. The volume offers a conceptual and theoretical framework for studying weak institutions. It introduces different dimensions of institutional weakness and explores the origins and consequences of that weakness. Drawing on recent research on constitutional and electoral reform, executive-legislative relations, property rights, environmental and labor regulation, indigenous rights, squatters and street vendors, and anti-domestic violence laws in Latin America, the volume's chapters show us that politicians often design institutions that they cannot or do not want to enforce or comply with. Challenging existing theories of institutional design, the volume helps us understand the logic that drives the creation of weak institutions, as well as the conditions under which they may be transformed into institutions that matter.

For more information, contact Paloma Díaz. To RSVP and receive updates via Facebook, visit Politics of Institutional Weakness.

Sponsored by the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University; The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies; and LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections at The University of Texas at Austin.