2017/11/27 by Tulia G. Falleti, Thea N. Riofrancos, Thea Riofrancos · 167 citations
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Citizen journalism #Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management #Democracy #Institution #Institutionalism #International Development and Aid #Latin Americans #Law #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Politics and Society in Latin America #Sociology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s004388711700020x
published in World Politics 70(1), 86-121 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2017/11/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Why and how do institutions strengthen? This article offers an explanation of institutional strength based on the study of participatory institutions. Combining the insights of historical institutionalism and participatory democracy literatures, the authors propose an endogenous theory of participation and argue that the strength of participatory institutions depends on the historic process of their creation and the subsequent political incorporation of the mobilized groups that bring them about. The authors comparatively study prior consultation in Bolivia and Ecuador since its inception in the 1990s. This institution is highly relevant in Latin America, particularly as countries in the region intensify the extraction of nonrenewable resources. The article shows that different paths of political incorporation of the groups mobilized for institutional adoption were consequential to the resulting institutional strength. The findings shed light on the tensions between participatory democracy and resource extraction in Latin America and have important implications for the study of participatory and political institutions worldwide.