Why do governments tolerate the violation of their own laws and regulations, and when do they enforce them? Conventional wisdom is that state weakness erodes enforcement, particularly in the developing world. In contrast, this book project, "Forbearance as Redistribution: The Politics of Informal Welfare in Latin America," highlights the understudied political costs of enforcement. Governments choose not to enforce laws and regulations, or forbearance, when it is in their electoral interest. This qualitative data collection includes three major types of materials, 1) a collection of newspaper articles, 2) a selection of interview transcripts, and 3) survey questionnaires and coded responses of bureaucrats.
Related publication: Holland, Alisha. 2017. Forbearance as Redistribution: The Politics of Informal Welfare in Latin America (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781316795613
