The Culture of Non Complying With Rules (The Case of Latin America)

Noncompliance of rules in Latin America is a pervasive and complex phenomenon involving a number of factors. There are diverse disciplinary perspectives regarding this phenomenon. Each places particular emphasis on a specific factor. Three of these visions are analyzed here: a strategic perspective that focuses on self-interest; a political vision based on the perception of illegitimacy, and finally a cultural view that attempts to show how a belief in higher values can provide incentives for noncompliance of norms. Although none of these perspectives can completely explain the phenomenon of noncompliance, they all shed light on some of its basic aspects. More specifically, the talk focuses on the analysis six non-complying characters, as well as the contexts in which they act, and the remedies needed to counteract their practices.

Mauricio García Villegas holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and an honorary doctorate from the École Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay (France). He was a professor at the Institute of Political Studies and International Relations (IEPRI) at the National University of Colombia; he is currently a researcher at Dejusticia and a columnist for the newspaper El Espectador. He is an affiliate professor at the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin (USA) and at the Institute of Political Studies at the University of Grenoble (France). His recent books include: The Symbolic Effectiveness of Law (2014), The Order of Freedom (2017); The Powers of Law (2018); Nearby Virtues (2019), The Land of Sad Emotions (2020), The Old Unease of the New World (2023), and Before Losing One’s Mind (Random House, 2026).