Political Institutions and the Policymaking Process in Latin America

Abstract

The systematic study of how institutional rules and political practices influence the capacity of Latin American governments to adopt public policies is of relatively recent vintage. For decades, the fleeting and unstable democratic experiences in the region obfuscated the role of politics in the policymaking process. Policy analysis was more often than not motivated by the question of what governments should do rather what governments could do. With the restoration of democracy in Latin America in the 1980s, the view that a given set of “optimal policies” should or could be implemented against all political odds became untenable. In the ensuing decade, as the economic reforms inspired by the “Washington Consensus” swept the region, a growing concern with the timing, sequencing, and implementation of public policies materialized among both scholars and policymakers. This approach, however, proved insufficient to fully understand the political feasibility, but also the actual process by which public policies are discussed, approved, and implemented in the region. In the 2000s, a comprehensive, soul-searching research agenda about the politics of policies was launched by the leading development organizations, most notably, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). Since then, a voluminous literature studying how different constitutional structures, legislative institutions, electoral rules, bureaucracies, partisan organizations, and Interest Groups influence public policies in Latin America has emerged. The following bibliography identifies some general topics, as well as several sources to consult within each topic, for those readers interested in how politics shape policies in Latin America