Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America

Abstract

What happens when informal institutions interact, as they often do, with several formal institutions? [...]as Susan Stokes' chapter on accountability in Argentina, the effectiveness of formal institutions may also depend on the presence (or absence) of certain informal institutions. [...]Informal Institutions and Democracy is rich in empirical material and in provoking theoretical questions. [...]of this book, scholars will need to pay much attention to informal institutions in accounting for all kinds of political phenomena in consolidated democracies as much as transitional systems and even non-democratic regimes, in national as well as subnational and local processes.

Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America, edited by Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

Political scientists have long been aware of the role informal institutions play in determining political outcomes. However, attempts to deal with them in a systematic, theoretical way are rather uncommon. In this sense, Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America, which seeks to do exactly this through a series of methodologically diverse studies of various types of informal political institutions throughout Latin America, is a long overdue contribution to the field.

The discussion in Informal Institutions and Democracy is structured around the relationship between informal and formal institutions. The editors make this point explicitly when defining informal institutions as 'socially shared rules, usually unwritten, that are created, communicated and enforced outside officially sanctioned channels'. The typology they derive from it - and that almost all contributors use classifies informal institutions as complementary, substitutive, accommodating or competing according to whether they interact with effective or ineffective formal institutions and to whether they produce outcomes that converge or diverge from the formal institutions' expected results.

This approach is very effective in pointing out that not all informal institutions are equal, neither in their nature nor in their effects, and allows the contributors to explore the impressive variety these institutions display. However, the focus on formal institutions in a book on informal institutions raises more questions than it answers.

Foremost among them is how to distinguish between formal and informal institutions. As Donna Lee Van Cott notes in her chapter on indigenous law and institutions, constant interaction between formal and informal institutions can alter the shape of both to a point where it is difficult to distinguish between the two. Additionally, what appear as informal institutions to one (dominant) sector of the population might appear as formal to another - indigenous law being again a case in point.

Furthermore, Daniel Brinks argues that, even for informal institutions, enforcement and sanctioning - critical elements in distinguishing institutions from simple behavioural patterns - depend heavily on state agents and procedures: for instance, while police action might be subverting formal institutions, it nevertheless relies on official channels for its effectiveness. This is also true for many other informal institutions, from Ecuadorian ghost coalitions to legislative pork-barrel politics in Brazil to electoral insurance in Chile.

Other questions emerge from Peter Siavelis and John Carey's pieces on various aspects of coalition politics in Chile. First, to what extent are informal institutions dependent on formal institutions? This is certainly the case of complementary and accommodating informal institutions, but what about the other types? What happens when informal institutions interact, as they often do, with several formal institutions? Moreover, as Susan Stokes' chapter on accountability in Argentina, the effectiveness of formal institutions may also depend on the presence (or absence) of certain informal institutions.

A second question, which the contributors answer in divergent ways, is whether informal institutions are more vulnerable to changes in the social environment than formal institutions. Some authors point out to the deep historical roots certain institutions, such as clientelistic politics in Honduras, have and the wide flexibility they display in weathering changing social conditions. Others, however, illustrate how informal institutions - some, as the Mexican dedazo, having lasted several decades - suddenly collapse in the wake of regime change.

A final question that emerges from Informal Institutions and Democracy is what does the study of informal institutions tell us about institutions in general? In the long-standing debate on the origins of institutions, we find contributions to both sides: on the one hand, some informal institutions, such as the rules governing the Chilean governing coalition, appear to have been consciously created by a group of rational actors, whereas others, such as indigenous law, emerge from constant, but not necessarily deliberate, accommodation between the actors involved.

Informal Institutions and Democracy also calls a critical feature of institutions into question. If at least some informal institutions are liable to sudden collapse and others are flexible enough to transform themselves beyond recognition, how do these institutions fulfil their consecrated role of being social depositories of historical experience? Are these differences related to institution type? If so, in what way?

In conclusion, Informal Institutions and Democracy is rich in empirical material and in provoking theoretical questions. As a result of this book, scholars will need to pay much attention to informal institutions in accounting for all kinds of political phenomena in consolidated democracies as much as transitional systems and even non-democratic regimes, in national as well as subnational and local processes.

Much remains to be done. As this review shows, Informal Institutions and Democracy raises more questions than it answers - including some significant paradoxes. Nevertheless, the ground is set for further theoretical elaboration. This, in itself, is no mean achievement.