Dominguez, Jorge I.Holland, Alisha Caroline2014-06-072014-06-062014Holland, Alisha Caroline. 2014. Forbearance as Redistribution: Enforcement Politics in Urban Latin America. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University.http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:11648http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:12274631Why 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, I highlight the understudied political costs of enforcement. Governments choose not to enforce state laws and regulations that the poor tend to violate, a behavior that I call forbearance, when it is in their electoral interest.en-USPolitical ScienceEnforcementForbearanceInformal sectorRedistributionStreet vendingWelfare stateThesis or Dissertation2016-06-04