Political scientists agree that 'institutions matter', but we still know little about when and why or how we would know. Drawing on experiences from Latin America, this volume offers a new conceptual and theoretical framework for understanding when institutions are strong or weak and how different types of weakness matter.

Rather than an unintended by-product of poor state capacity, weak political and legal institutions are often weak by design.

'Kudos to Brinks, Levitsky, and Murillo for this impressive volume. They have produced an agenda-setting book, including leading scholars, that significantly advances our conceptual, theoretical, and empirical understanding of institutional fragility in Latin America. The volume challenges the idea that weak institutions are an accident. To explain variations in institutional significance, stability, enforcement, and compliance, the book examines the coalitional bases, strategic causes, and political uses of a wide range of institutions and cases. This volume is a must read for comparative scholars interested in institutions, in general, and Latin American politics, in particular.' Deborah J. Yashar, Princeton University