The article maps a profound transformation in the nature of the state-as-law in Latin America since 1975. In 1975, states had legal orders with limited ambition
and limited autonomy from the ruler of the day. There were vast social, economic and political spaces left open to arbitrary decision making. Now these spaces have shrunk, and state order had become more formalized. We can now distinguish four models of state-as-law, depending on the density and autonomy of the state’s legal order: the original model (an estado político) survives in a very few states, and three new models have emerged, an estado social de derecho, an estado liberal de derecho, and an estado de derecho politizado.