How Predatory Informal Rules Outlast State Reform

Evidence from Postauthoritarian Guatemala

Bibliographic Data

ID3000585
AuthorsR A Schwartz (0000-0002-6188-4183, Otterbein University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume63
Issue1
Pages48-71
Publication date2021-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLatin American Politics and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1531-426X • E-ISSN: 1548-2456
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/lap.2020.32
OpenAlexW3117439896
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited39

The coexistence of predatory informal rules alongside formal democratic institutions is a defining, if pernicious, feature of Latin America's political landscape. How do such rules remain so resilient in the face of bureaucratic reforms? This article explicates the mechanisms underlying the persistence of such rules and challenges conventional explanations through process-tracing analysis in one arena: Guatemala's customs administration. During Guatemala's period of armed conflict and military rule, military intelligence officers introduced a powerful customs fraud scheme that endured for more than 20 years, despite state reforms. Its survival is best attributed to the ability of the distributional coalition underwriting the predatory rules to capture new political and economic spaces facilitated by political party and market reforms. This illustrates that distributional approaches to institutional change must attend to how those with a stake in the status quo may continue to uphold perverse institutional arrangements on the margins of state power

Bureaucracy · Centralized government · Clientelism · Democracy · Development economics · Economics · Latin Americans · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rule of law · Sociology · State formation · Status quo · Corruption and Economic Development · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Law · Political Conflict and Governance

Tools

Open DOI