Redes informales e instituciones democráticas en América Latina

This article proposes three types of relationship between procedural institutions based on fundamental rights and informal networks in Latin America: a relationship of integration that initially supports institutional objectives before debilitating them in the long run; a relationship of overlap that intervenes and parasitically feeds off procedural institutions; and a relationship of decoupling that involves procedural institutions’ displacement from the social spaces controlled by informal networks. Methodologically, we illustrate this argument with cases extracted from literature and reinterpreted in light of the conceptual proposals present in the article. The central conclusion is that informal networks generate a strong impetus towards action that contrasts with the type of the social order promoted by fundamental rights.