The Design of Failure: Institutional Architecture and the Collapse of the Argentine State

Abstract

A structural analysis of how institutional design — not political will, not individual failure, not corruption as exception — produces the systematic collapse of state capacity in Argentina. The argument is that the Argentine state fails according to its architecture: incentive structures, decision loops, and escalation paths that make deterioration the expected outcome rather than the deviation. The analysis identifies the mechanisms by which systems built to appear functional can sustain decades of operational failure without triggering structural correction.