Why read A Middle-Quality Institutional Trap?

Book cover of A Middle-Quality Institutional Trap: Democracy and State Capacity in Latin America

Book description

Latin America is currently caught in a middle-quality institutional trap, combining flawed democracies and low-to-medium capacity States. Yet, contrary to conventional wisdom, the sequence of development - Latin America has democratized before building capable States - does not explain the region's quandary. States can make democracy, but so too can…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Middle-Quality Institutional Trap as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Joe Foweraker

Author

This is an original, close-focus, and fully comparative account of the democratic politics of Latin America that demonstrates beyond any doubt that no analysis of its democracies can succeed without equal attention to the processes of State formation in the region. I do not say that I find its analytical approach well founded in every respect or that I agree with all of its conclusions, but it’s an argument that poses and wrestles with the difficult questions and engages with a wide range of theoretical and empirical inquiry into order to do so.

From Joe's list on democracy in Latin America.