1. Cycle of Abundance and Institutional Pathways

This introductory chapter presents a theoretical proposal to explain the patterns of institutional state construction during the recent commodity boom in Peru. To do so, this chapter is organized into five sections. The first one describes the new cycle of economic development based on natural resources and the main conflicts/tensions that it has produced in Peru. The second section documents the significant institutional state change produced in the country during the boom thanks, we argue, to the abundance cycle. This section shows how some institutions have emerged to manage the (distribution of the) benefits of resource extraction, while other institutions have emerged to manage the (distribution of the) cost of resource extraction. These institutional developments have different timing, and some are considerably more contested than others. The third section introduces the research questions and literature that explain the relevance of resource abundance cycles for institutional state development. The fourth section, the main one of this chapter, presents the arguments developed in conjunction with our findings. We propose that three dimensions explain these different pathways of institutional development in resource-abundant Peru: (a) preceding power distribution of state and society actors, (b) historical repertoires (legacies) of state and society action, and (c) the entrepreneurship of actors embedded in transnational networks. This framework aims to provide a comparative road map for similar analysis in Latin American countries affected by the recent commodity boom. The final section describes the book’s methodology and organization.