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Informal Customary Institutions, Collective Action, and Submunicipal Public Goods Provision in Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2021

Mart E. Trasberg Open the ORCID record for Mart E. Trasberg [Opens in a new window]
Mart E. Trasberg*
Affiliation:
Mart E. Trasberg is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA. trasbem@wfu.edu.
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Abstract

This article explores the role of informal customary institutions (usos y costumbres) in local public goods provision in Mexico. It argues that the presence of informal customary institutions offers submunicipal village communities considerable advantages in local distributive politics. Hamlet communities with dense customary institutions have higher collective action capacity to organize their citizens for small-scale protests in municipal centers, which grants them access to more social infrastructure projects controlled by municipal politicians. This article therefore suggests a novel theoretical mechanism through which customary institutions affect development outcomes: collective contentious action. The study tests the main empirical implications of this theory, drawing on an original survey of submunicipal community presidents in the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala and qualitative interviews.

Keywords

Customary institutionsprotestslocal developmentMexico
Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 63 , Special Issue 3: The Grassroots Right in Latin America , August 2021 , pp. 146 - 170
Copyright
© The Author 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the University of Miami

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Footnotes

Conflicts of interest: Mart Trasberg declares none.

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