This article analyzes the evolution of state capacity in Peru during the recent commodity boom. Peru’s economic growth happened in a context in which inclusive democratic institutions were at play for the longest period ever registered in the country and at a time when political elites decided to invest considerable resources in developing state capacity (not the prototypical predatory elites usually identified in the literature). This case illustrates how boom-led economic growth can lead to the (unilateral) institutional strengthening of a weak state. However, (net) state capacity continues to be low in Peru. The causal mechanism that yields such continuity differs from those entertained in classic path-dependent explanations of state capacity in Latin America. The article identifies a novel mechanism that helped reproduce the Peruvian path intertemporally. This relational mechanism suggests that state capacity remains low because of the relatively enhanced capacities of state challengers to locally fend off and contest an otherwise much stronger state apparatus. The article argues, on that basis, the need to employ a relational analysis that gauges net state strength with respect to the power acquired by relevant non-state actors who might challenge state authority across different local arenas. Classic conceptualizations of state capacity are indeed relational, but conventional applications are predominantly unilateral and, thus, misleading. Unilateral notions of state capacity are those that focus on either state efforts and investments to assert state capacity or, alternatively, on the presence of challenges that curtail the levels of actually observed state capacity.

Though there are many existing measures of state capacity, few capture its sub-national territorial variation in a reliable and valid way. This article proposes a novel, survey-based, measurement strategy for state capacity that is tailored to address this limitation of existing measures, and apply it to contemporary Latin America. We describe cross-national variation in state capacity based on data produced by our measure, engage in a series of validation exercises to show that it taps this concept rather than related elements of the political context, and map variation in sub-national stateness in Latin America. The article closes with an agenda for future research applying our measurement strategy to assess sub-national variation in stateness, in Latin America and beyond.

This brief article is designed to highlight an unfortunate discrepancy in the field of Latin American political economy. The field’s raison d’être has never been more compelling. Latin American societies have simultaneously been experiencing profound transformations—including democratic consolidation, demographic transition, and the growth of identity politics—and a palpable sense of déjà vu animated by the recovery of commodity prices and the return of populism. In a nutshell, the region is undergoing a deep economic transformation, which takes place in the context of unprecedented levels of political participation.

The Sistema de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental (Environmental Impact Assessment System—SEIA) evaluates all projects potentially harmful to human health and the environment in Chile. Since its establishment, many projects approved by the SEIA have been contested by organized communities, especially in the energy sector. The question guiding our research is whether socio-environmental conflicts affect the evaluation times and the approval rates of projects under assessment. Using a novel database comprising all energy projects assessed by the SEIA, we analyzed 380 energy projects that entered the SEIA review process between 2012 and 2017 and matched these projects with protest events. Using linear and logit regression, we find no association between the occurrence of protests aimed at specific projects and the probability of project approval. We do, however, find that projects associated with the occurrence of protest events experience significantly longer review times. To assess the robustness of this finding, we compare two run-of-river plants proposed in Mapuche territory in Chile’s La Araucanía region. We discuss the broader implications of these findings for sustainable environmental decision making.