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Variation in InstitutionalStrengthSteven Levitsky1 and Mara Victoria Murillo21Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, Cambridge,Massachusetts 02138; email: [email protected] of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027;email: [email protected]
Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2009. 12:11533
The Annual Review of Political Science is online atpolisci.annualreviews.org
This articles doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.091106.121756
Copyright c 2009 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved
1094-2939/09/0615-0115$20.00
Key Wordspolitical institutions, institutional development, weak institutions,enforcement, stability, developing countries
AbstractComparative research on political institutions has begun to turn fromissues of formal institutional design to issues of institutional strength.Rather than assuming a tight fit between formal rules and politicalbehavior, these studies examine how variation in the stability and/orenforcement of formal rules shapes actors expectations and behav-ior. This article explores the emerging research agenda on institutionalstrength. It disaggregates the concept of institutional strength into twodimensionsenforcement and stabilityand it argues that institutionsvary widely on both dimensions. The article then examines the sourcesof this variation and its implications for comparative research. It showshow recent research on weak institutions may be used to refine existingtheories of institutional effects, design, and development, which shouldbroaden the comparative scope of these theories. The conclusion exam-ines ways of developing comparative measures of institutional strength.
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INTRODUCTIONThe institutionalist turn in comparative pol-itics focused considerable attention on issuesof formal institutional design. Given the ex-tent of democratization across the globe dur-ing the last part of the twentieth century, thisfocus was not surprising. The proliferation ofnew constitutions, electoral systems, constitu-tional courts, central banks, and other institu-tions created an unprecedented opportunity forscholars to study the causes and consequencesof institutional design. Moreover, the spread ofdemocracy meant that constitutional arrange-ments in the developing and postcommunistworlds increasingly resembled those in the ad-vanced industrialized countries, which seem-ingly presented scholars with an opportunityto test existing theoriesnearly all of whichwere based on studies of the United States andWestern Europeon a new set of cases.
More recently, however, research on polit-ical institutions in the developing world hasturned to another, heretofore understudied, di-mension: institutional strength. Debates aboutconstitutional design during the 1990s oftentook for granted that the rules being de-signed would be enforced and minimally sta-ble. In effect, parchment rules (Carey 2000)were equated with institutions, implying thatthe rules that were written down on papereither reflected or generated shared expecta-tions about how others would behave. Althoughthese assumptions often hold up well in stud-ies of advanced democracies, where underlyingrule-making frameworks are stable and effectivestates ensure that most rules are regularly en-forced, they do not travel as well to the develop-ing world. An emerging body of research showsthat many formal institutions in Africa, LatinAmerica, Asia, and the former Soviet Unionare neither minimally stable nor regularly en-forced. In other words, instead of taking rootand generating shared behavioral expectations,formal rules are widely contested, routinely vi-olated, and frequently changed.
For example, as this article was being writ-ten, Bolivia and Ecuador were drafting new
constitutions aimed at refounding the repub-lic. Yet both countries had already written newconstitutions during the 1990s; in fact, eachhad written at least 16 different constitutionsabout one per decadesince independence. InArgentina, lifetime tenure security for SupremeCourt justices has been enshrined in the consti-tution since 1853. Nevertheless, virtually everyincoming government since the 1940s, includ-ing three of the first four presidents elected inthe post-1983 democratic era, packed the courtwith impunity (Helmke 2004). As Huntington(1968) argued four decades ago, a major prob-lem in much of the developing world is that in-stitutions of all types have consistently failed totake root. Such institutional weakness has far-reaching implications. In the absence of stableand effective rules of the game, both democ-racy and economic growth are difficult to sus-tain (ODonnell 1993, 1994; Spiller & Tommasi2007).
This article examines recent research on thecauses and consequences of institutional weak-ness, seeking to bring a large but disparatebody of work together into a more coherentresearch agenda. Recent studies of political in-stitutions in the developing and postcommu-nist world show that formal institutions varywidely along two dimensions: enforcement andstability. This variation has important theoret-ical implications. Where actors do not expectformal institutions to endure or be enforced,their behavior will differ, often markedly. Ex-isting theories about the design and effects offormal institutions may thus need to be refinedif they are to be usefully applied to cases of in-stitutional weakness. By treating institutionalstrength as a variable, rather than a taken-for-granted assumption, recent scholarship has be-gun to refine institutionalist theories in waysthat enhance their utility in contextssuch asmuch of the developing worldin which strongformal institutions are the exception, not therule.
The article is organized into three mainsections. The first section disaggregates theconcept of institutional strength into two
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dimensions, enforcement and stability. It thenshows how real-world institutions vary alongboth dimensions. The second section exam-ines some potential causes of variation in in-stitutional enforcement and stability. The thirdsection discusses the implications of variationin institutional strength for theory building incomparative politics.
THE CONCEPT OFINSTITUTIONAL STRENGTH:ENFORCEMENT AND STABILITYPolitical institutions may be defined as hu-manly devised rules and proceduresboth for-mal and informalthat constrain and enablepolitical behavior. Notwithstanding the impor-tance of informal rules and procedures (March& Olsen 1989, North 1990a, ODonnell 1996,Helmke & Levitsky 2006), this article focuseson formal or written rules, or what Carey(2000) calls parchment institutions. Follow-ing North (1990a, pp. 45), we distinguishbetween institutions (the rules of the game)and organizations (the players).
Institutional strength may be conceptual-ized along two dimensions: enforcement andstability. Enforcement is the degree to whichparchment rules are complied with in practice.Where all relevant actors in a given territoryroutinely comply with parchment rules or facea high risk of punishment, enforcement is high.1
By stability, we mean durability. Institutionsare stable to the degree that they survive notonly the passage of time but also changes in theconditionsi.e., underlying power and pref-erence distributionsunder which they wereinitially created and reproduced.2 Institutional
1We do not equate enforcement with compliance. Althoughenforcement raises the cost of noncompliance, actors oftencomply with rules for other reasons, including a perceptionof the rules fairness, ethical reciprocity in response to otherscompliance, ideological agreement, or sheer habit (Levi 1988,1997).2This conceptualization is rooted in the historical institu-tionalist tradition. Scholars from a rational choice traditiongenerally expect institutions to change in response to changes
Enforcement High Low
Highstrong formal institutions stable (but weakly enforced)
formal institutionsStability
Lowunstable (but enforced) formal institutions
weak formal institutions
Figure 1Two dimensions of institutional strength.
instability must be distinguished from normalinstitutional change. Because even the mostrobust rules evolve, one or more instances ofinstitutional change cannot necessarily be takenas an indicator of instability. Rather, institu-tional instability is best understood as a pat-tern in which, given a common environment(i.e., exogenous shocks, changes in power andpreference distributions), a particular institu-tional arrangement changes with greater fre-quency than other similarly designed ones.For example, if Bolivia and Ecuador have hadsix different constitutions since World WarII, whereas Mexico has had only one (de-spite considerable change in regime coalitions,power distributions, and elite preferences), thenthe Bolivian and Ecuadorian constitutions maybe considered less stable than the Mexicanone.
Enforcement and stability do not neces-sarily vary toget
