Understanding Institutional Weakness: Power and Design in Latin American Institutions

This Element introduces the concept of institutional weakness, arguing that weakness or strength is a function of the extent to which an institution actually matters to social, economic or political outcomes. It then presents a typology of three forms of institutional weakness: insignificance, in which rules are complied with but do not affect the way actors behave
non-compliance, in which state elites either choose not to enforce the rules or fail to gain societal cooperation with them
and instability, in which the rules are changed at an unusually high rate. The Element then examines the sources of institutional weakness.