Formal and Informal Institutions: A Legal-Institutional Analysis Applied to Social Programs and Gender Quotas in Latin America

Abstract

This article sketches a legal-institutional approach and uses it to examine two problems of Latin American democracies: underrepresentation of women in parliaments and political patronage in the distribution of social programs. First, the article identifies two different types of informal institutions – key in institutional analysis – and their core characteristics. Second, the article studies how informal institutions have affected the efficacy and effectiveness of the legal norms issued to promote gender quotas in par-liamentary elections and in what way these have, however, progressed in recent years. Third, it is shown how an adequate design of “Conditional Cash Transfer” distribution programs initially managed to neutralize informal institutions such as clientelism and petty corruption, directly impacting Latin American democracies. Finally, the article proposes some ideas on the relevance of good legislative design and its potential effect in neutralizing undesirable or dysfunctional informal institutions.